Zmitser Bandarenka: Situation for other political prisoners is very dangerous today

Now attempts are being made to “crack up” many of them probably.

It has been stated in an interview to charter97.org by the coordinator of “European Belarus” civil campaign Zmitser Bandarenka, who was released on April 15 after a year and a half of imprisonment.

- Zmitser, you were the only one sentenced to deprivation of liberty under “a less severe” article of the Criminal Code for the events of December 19. What is the reason of such selective approach?

- I think that the charter97.org editor Natallya Radzina, as a prisoner of “Amerikanka” prison, was a witness that the authorities started a dialogue there, though a mock one. First KGB officers simply did not understand who we were and with whom they were dealing with. The governor of jail confessed to me in about a month that he thought of me as a member of Statkevich’s team first. But in a few months KGB officers started to perceive us, political prisoners, more realistically, as well as the ideas we had been trying to get across to them. We cease to be phantoms for them. I could be wrong, by representatives of the KGB have realized in fact, how sad the consequences of the case related to December 19 events hyped up by them would be for our country, and tried to escalate down the situation. After the blast in the metro everything changed, and then screws-tightening started in the country.

- Exactly at that period many political prisoners gave evidence about tortures in the KGB prison. How they treated you?

- Rather harshly for the first two month, but it seems to me that many secret service officers were brought down to earth by the resolution of the European Parliament on tortures in Belarus. After that “masks” disappeared, and some kind of rule of law prevailed.

- While in prison, you developed serious health problems, you underwent surgery several times. Has it been caused by the incarceration conditions?

- I have been a member of opposition for 15 years for today, and it means prison terms from time to time, being beaten up, constant stress. All that has a negative impact on health. It may be said that we, oppositionists, are “soldiers” in time of peace, who are fighting for freedom and independence of Belarus. And it is for reason that the military have a right to retire on a pension at the age of 45, as a human body has a tendency to wear off. It is one thing when young people are imprisoned, and it is a completely different case when people in their 50ies or 60ies find themselves in prison. It is natural that all their diseases are aggravated.

- The denial to release a severely ill man looked like a special operation aimed at extermination.

- They certainly had probe for sore spots of every prisoner. And they try to press these sore spots.

- How did you manage to write such bright letters amid those awful conditions? Many of them were published by charter97.org.

- You probably mean my letters to wife and daughter. Just a thought, a recollection about my family filled me with joy. In general, I have survived everything thanks to my wife to a great extent. In my letters I tried to express my emotions and adoration of her somehow. Thanks to the letters I managed to preserve myself, as it was a conversation with the people who are close to you, and we lacked normal communication catastrophically.

- Would you change anything if you could?

- I had time to think it over, and I believe that it was simply impossible to do something in a different way.

- But to you mind, is it worthwhile to take part in the elections under Lukashenka and with Lukashenka’s participation?

- I think that elections are out of question as long as there is Yarmoshyna. In the penal colony I sometimes had a chance to watch TV and reports about election campaigns in France, Poland and the US, and I must say: it is a bliss – to have free election! Today the Belarusian government states that modernization is necessary, understanding by that just receiving loans and industrial technologies. But nowadays a technological breakthrough in any country of the world is guaranteed only by free people. To my mind, Belarus primarily needs advanced social technologies, and an inherent part of them are free elections and a skill to take into account the interests of political rivals who represent different strata of the society.

- What should be done by all of us for the release of the rest of the political prisoners?

- The situation for our colleagues remaining behind the bars is very dangerous today. Attempts are made to simply “crack them up”: Zmitser Dashkevich has spent more than a month in an isolation ward, Mikalai Dzyadok was suddenly transferred into another colony, no letters or phone calls have been received from Euduard Lobau for a few weeks. Statkevich and Autukhovich are kept in the conditions of a closed prison. However the today’s situation is presented as liberalization to the world. Lukashenka had enough courage and common sense to release Sannikov and me for the Easter. It is the greatest holiday for every Christian. And all political prisoners should be released in this Easter time. It would give hope to people in Belarus and worldwide that positive changes in the country are possible.

I do not feel myself a free person of a free country. As before, I am a hostage. And all my thoughts today are reflections of a hostage, for whom incarceration conditions have been changed suddenly.