Zmitser Bandarenka: Experience of Lukashenka being used against Russian opposition

Zmitser Bandaranka, a coordinator of the civil campaign European Belarus, gave an interview to charter97.org. He commented on the sentence to Russian opposition activist Konstantin Lebedev delivered by the Moscow city court in the so called “Bolotnaya Square case”.

“The totalitarian model, which was tested and optimised in Belarus, is now actively being used in Russia. The people, who seized power there, understand that the greatest danger comes from mass rallies of people protesting against usurpation of power and election frauds. Criminal cases against democratic activists and opposition leaders, including Alexei Navalny and Sergey Udaltsov, are an instrument to scare people on the analogy with the Belarusian practice.

I think repression against dissidents in Russia will go on, because the country's authorities have things to lose. They are rich people owing billions of dollars and firms, which they took away from their rivals and privatised. They will struggle both for their property and power,” Zmitser Bandarenka said.

The politician thinks the crackdown in Russia has increased because western countries were ignoring the dictatorship in Belarus.

“The current situation in Russia is caused by ignoring the Belarusian problem for a long time on the international level. In Yeltsin's time, western consultants proposed that Belarus should become part of 'democratic' Russia. We see today that time was wasted and the disease is spreading. The statements about opening a Russian military base in Belarus means that the union of revanchists in the post-Soviet area are hatching aggressive plans in relation to their neighbours, first of all the Baltic States and Poland. This threat should not be underestimated or ignored. A similar policy in the 1930s led to serious international catastrophes.”