Yauhen Afnahel: “Boycott is the only adequate response to the regime policy”

The dialogue with authorities is impossible while the national leaders are behind bars.

Recently a group of Belarusian politicians and civil activists have proclaimed a manifest with the main idea of non-violent opposition to the illegitimate government and active civil resistance to any state institutions.

“Radio Svaboda” has interviewed Yauhen Afnahel, a coordinator of civil campaign “European Belarus”.

Who are there originators of the manifest? Is that just an idea of several people or more than that?

That is more than a few people idea as the boycott concept appeared in Belarusian society almost immediately after the events of December 19. Because all the people who voted for alternative candidates were outraged by the violent government-orchestrated crackdown following the peaceful demonstration against election tampering .And I think that is the only adequate reaction to the policy implemented by the government. I wouldn’t call it our idea; it is rather a response to general public mood.

Did you cooperate with other opponents of the regime while creating the manifest?

Our main point is that it is both immoral and illegal to cooperate with the regime which broke every law possible while real national leaders and people who supported them during the election are in custody. That’s why we dismiss any idea of a dialogue with authorities while national leaders and oppositional activists are imprisoned. But we also realize that there are several politicians who are very unlikely to support the manifest as they’d rather collaborate with the authorities.

Do you think it’s possible for the opponents of Belarusian authorities to dwell upon a joint strategy and carry out concerted common action?

First of all, we have to ask ourselves who are the opponents of the regime. You can oppose the authorities in mere words, but in practice take steps benefitting the regime. You can claim yourself to be in opposition but at the same time to appeal to the international community to cooperate with the regime. I don’t consider such people and such politicians to be opponents of the authorities. I am sure that the real opponents of Lukashenko are capable to get united by the boycott strategy.

And, secondly, it’s not even a strategy yet, but a suggestion, and with this manifest we appeal to everybody who cares about the future of our country and who supported the opposition during the election and stepped out to the Square in protest, encouraging them to discuss the strategy and make their own suggestions, to criticize and so on. And after the public discussion a real strategy might be worked out with much more people involved.

Various observers point that it’s hard to find examples of efficient boycott campaigns in the country’s modern history. Do the boycott supporters have a more or less clear vision how to involve into the boycott campaign a law-abiding philistine Belarusian?

I strongly object to the statement that Belarus never had effective boycott campaigns. Let’s recall the parliamentary election of 2000 when after the closure of election centers even the government-controlled media announced that in major cities people hadn’t showed up to vote; the election failed. Then in a few hours the votes were manipulated and the election was pronounced legitimate. That means that the opposition goal at that time was to make the West recognize the election as invalid and the boycott campaign actually worked, the goal was reached.

Another example worth mentioning is the latest parliament election. Unfortunately then a common oppositional strategy failed to be worked out. Some segments of the opposition took part in the election, some not. But it was evident before the election that if all the opposition members running for the office had withdrawn their candidacies , the election would have failed at the half of the election centers and we would have been able to demonstrate to the rest of the world that there is no real election process in Belarus. That’s why I think that, first of all, the boycott campaigns already worked in Belarus, sometimes partially, sometimes to the full extent and not even once. Secondly, our goal was to involve as many people as possible into the campaign. And such passive resistance which doesn’t require everybody to step out to the streets or carry out any other activity might unite many more of those who support the oppositional movement and contempt the authorities. And in my opinion, most of the citizens fall into that overwhelming category.