Lukashenkp threatens to take "harsh and adequate" measures against attempts to destabilize Belarus :: Charter'97 :: News

There will be "harsh and adequate" actions on the part of the state and society against any attempts to destabilize the situation in the country, Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko said in his April 19 address to the national legislature and the Belarusians.

According to him, the Belarusian government is not a "pawn on a chessboard."

"We are flatly opposed to a scenario of a democratic change of political elites unwanted by the West," he said. "Color revolutions in fact are no revolutions but open brigandage under the disguise of democracy." "Belarus exhausted the limit of such revolutions as far back as last century," he said.

"We`ll be implementing our programs despite any pressure from outside," he stressed. He pointed out that the current government could be prevented from fulfilling these tasks by the Belarusian people only, not by "bandits or revolutionaries, including those of the imported kind."

"No money will be able to work in Belarus to overthrow the current govrnment," Mr. Lukashenko said. "Let this be heard by those who currently bring this money in sacks and trunks through embassies."

He noted that the Belarusian authorities "are aware of almost everything and if they keep silent, this does not mean they do not know."

Mr. Lukashenko stressed that "we`ll show up quacks in the eyes of the Belarusian people." As he said, officers of the Polish embassy operate in the western part of Belarus, including through the Roman Catholic Church, planning what they will do in 2006, and Ukraine is setting up camps to throw revolutionaries into Belarus. "We have long been aware that you will instigate the population in order to destaiblize," he said.

He suggested that other countries should "calm" and "see what the country is living by and should better do something good for this country and these people."

He cited the ambassadors of Armenia, Russia and Turkmenistan, "their loyalty to Belarus and love for the country," as an example. He expressed conviction that the "Belarusians are living in an absolutely different world."

"History teaches us that they [revolutions] can bring nothing but the destruction of the state, a collapse of the economy, protracted social conflicts abnd people`s sufferrings, because this brigandage has been imposed from outside and paid for by those who do no care about the people, those who care about the satisfaction of their personal imperial ambitions and the seizure of new markets."

He stressed that money spent on revolutions would have to be worked out "by the people, not those who receive it."

"Maybe, someone does not like our independence, but we`ll never waive or sell it."