Veteran politician Mechyslaw Hryb turns 75

Veteran politician Mechyslaw Hryb who chaired Belarus’ parliament in the early 1990s celebrated his 75th birthday on September 28.

Mechyslaw Hryb Born in a village in what is now the Dzyatlava district, Hrodna region, Mr. Hryb graduated from a firefighter school in Lviv, now Ukraine, and Belarusian State University before joining the police. He retired from the police in the rank of lieutenant general.

Mr. Hryb was a member of the Supreme Soviet between 1990 and 1996 and chaired the legislature for two years. He is now the secretary general of the Hramada Belarusian Social Democratic Party.

When reached by BelaPAN, Mr. Hryb said that he was not planning to quit the opposition party but acknowledged that he had grown tired of politics. “One gets tired both morally and physically after a span of almost 20 years that involved not very successful work and few victories,” he said.

Mr. Hryb urged opposition forces to unite. “We have been speaking about a union of Social Democratic parties for so many years, everyone appears to say ‘yes,’ but everyone wants the people to rally around him, not others,” he stressed.

He suggested that opposition activists should have more contacts with the public. “The government is doing its utmost to bar opposition representatives from communicating with the public normally, we have no access to state media,” he said.

Mr. Hryb said that he wanted Belarus to be a free and democratic country not involved in any military blocs. “I would like Belarus not to be involved in any disputes, not to wage war against any other country. I am against all military blocs, they have not done any good to us throughout our history,” he said.