Walesa says Internet will let Belarus follow Tunisia

Belarussians will use new technologies to follow the Tunisian example and oust Belarus strongman Alexander Lukashenko, anti-communist veteran Lech Walesa said Friday.

"We live in the era of the Internet, mobile telephones and satellite TV. In Tunisia, people communicated freely over the Internet and president Ben Ali ended up having to flee".

"Sooner or later, we'll see the same thing happen in Belarus," Walesa, an ardent Internet enthusiast, whose Solidarity trade union brought down communism, in Poland in 1989, told AFP.

"Lukashenko can lock up people in prison, but he isn't able to stop the struggle for freedom and democracy because we live in an era where technology serves people," said Walesa, who won the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize.