Internal Troops to Fulfil Any Order By Dictator :: Charter'97 :: News

The regulations of the law which are applied only after introduction of a martial law or state of emergency, are implemented in Belarus since this week. In order to prevent an “orange”, “cornflower blue” or other revolution, at suggestion of the Presidential administration, the Law “On Interior Ministry Troops of Belarus” has been amended. The soldiers of the internal security troops are used for disbanding demonstrations and other mass protest actions. According to the new regulations the soldiers have a right to use special equipment, military equipment, and weapons by instructions of the president. This norm in fact cancels the notion of a “criminal order” (unobeyable order), according to which servicepersons can refuse, for instance, to shoot at civilians or knock them down with tanks and armoured troop carriers.

When the new amended law “On Interior Ministry Troops of Belarus” was published, even policemen were shocked. After each article, in which the cases of special equipment use, military equipment and weapons use were stipulated, a little postscript was added: “and in other cases determined by the President of Belarus”. It is not stated in the law at all, in which situations and in what way the president will determine these “other cases”.

“Other cases” determined by the president, are neutralizing the article 24 of the Law “On Police”, by which internal troops soldiers could be governed while protecting public order. This article is known among the policemen under the wording “criminal order” and reads: “When receiving orders or instructions of commanders or officials which conflict with the law, policeman must be governed by the law”. In other words, if somebody orders policemen or internal security troops’ soldiers to shoot at unarmed civilians, for instance, demonstrators, they must refuse to follow this order, as it contradicts the law. This concerned also the orders of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, president of Belarus Alyaksandar Lukashenka. After adoption of the amendments to the Law “On Interior Ministry Troops of Belarus” every order or instruction of the head of state relating use of special equipment, military equipment and weapons is automatically receiving the force of the law, and the internal troops soldiers would not have any grounds to refuse to obey the order.

The Administration of the president which had been preparing the amendments, most likely, feared the reaction of the nation to the flagrant violation of the right for life, and amendments were introduced in an order of the highest secrecy. And the law itself was passed at the last session of the lower chamber of the parliament last autumn, when the country was occupied with discussing the results of the referendum.

Shock – It Is According to Our Custom

The new version of the Law on internal troops cannot be overemphasized. If before that the internal troops were serving to the nation, and the president was an acting Supreme Commander-in-Chief, whose orders were not to be obeyed by internal troops when they executed police functions, in case when the orders contradicted the law, now everything has changed. Everybody was horrified by the amended law, including the internal security troops. In the directorate general of the Internal Troops of the Internal Ministry of Belarus an officer, who presented himself as one of the creators of the law, having heard that we are interested by the abovementioned amendments, changed his tune and said:

- My kindly advice to you is not to touch upon these amendments and even not to mention them. You should understand that it is not our initiative, but the Administration of the president’s. That is why you should not write about them in the newspaper “Vo slavu Rodiny”. It would be better for you.

- But it is the “Belorusskaya Delovaya Gazeta”…

- What?!

After a short, but a tense pause he continued:

- I am not going to give any comments.

- Maybe somebody else could comment on that?

- I assure you that no representatives of the internal troops would talk on this topic.

And indeed, at the press service of the internal security troops, we had been waiting for the approval for a whole day. After that we were told with reference to the directorate general of the Internal Troops of the Internal Ministry of Belarus, that the comments are to be done by competent authorities, and they won’t busy themselves with that.