28 March 2024, Thursday, 16:04
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Voice from… the abyss

107
Voice from… the abyss

As long as Andrei Sannikov, Dzimitry Bandarenka and the other political prisoners remain in jail it is impossible to believe a single word that President Lukashenka says about dialogue

Quite recently in an article entitled “Dialogue with the Abyss” I said that for a long time, and without noticeable result, the Belarusian opposition has been proposing to the government a dialogue in order to save the country from the catastrophic crisis it is undergoing internally and from its isolation abroad.

And now the latest news is that suddenly Alexander Lukashenka himself is talking about dialogue. He said: “Our strength lies in our unity, and the future of Belarus must be decided not on the public squares or behind barricades; but through dialogue and normal human contact”.

Furthermore, he added: “As head of state I propose to all healthy-minded and patriotic people of any and all political persuasion to sit around the table, to stare each other in the eye and realistically take account of who is who and what can be done for the effective improvement of the situation in the country, rather than stamp their feet and take to the streets.”

“Stare each other in the eye”? What a wonderful statement after everything the government has done and continues to do to its potential partners (if the statement has any logic at all, of course) after the mass repression following the December 19 elections.

As Nietzsche put it: “stare long enough into the abyss, and the abyss stares back into you.”

At the last moment, other dictators (most recently Colonel Gaddafi) have talked of dialogue with the opposition. Were they really interested?

Commenting on Lukashenka’s remarks about dialogue, one of Great Britain’s leading political analysts – Robin Shepherd – Director of International Affairs at the Henry Jackson Society in London told Charter 97 the following:

“As long as Andrei Sannikov, Dzimitry Bandarenka and the other political prisoners remain in jail it is impossible to believe a single word that President Lukashenka says about dialogue”.

The Henry Jackson society is one of Britain and Europe’s most highly regarded political institutes with significant support from parliamentarians in Britain, the European Union and the United States.

Mr. Shepherd added: “All repression in Belarus must immediately stop so that Belarusian society can finally return to normality, both domestically and in terms of its relations with the outside world. It is vital to us that the political prisoners are not only instantly released but that all charges, of every description, are dropped. In other words, their release must be totally unconditional.”

(This is a slightly amended and shortened version of a piece which appeared in the original in Russian)

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