No violence in Belarus election protests :: Charter'97 :: News

There was no violence as feared in Minsk on Sunday night (19 March) when 15,000 to 20,000 people protested against president Alexander Lukashenko in October Square.

EU flags and armbands saying "Belarus in Europe" were on display among Belarusian and Ukrainian flags as demonstrators chanted "shame!" and "freedom!" at a giant TV screen showing over 80 percent support for Mr Lukashenko in state-sponsored exit polls.

The formal vote result is due Monday, with opposition candidate Alexander Millinkevich officially expected to gain just 3 percent of the vote despite independent estimates he has 30 percent support in the country.

Secret service agents and uniformed police watched the crowd yelling approval as Mr Millinkevich called for a "free Belarus!" at around 22:00 Minsk time.

"This is the birth of freedom and democracy," a young Ukrainian demonstrator shouted in the middle of a freak blizzard and minus seven degree temperatures in the Belarusian capital.

Russian president Vladimir Putin reportedly telephoned Mr Lukashenko over the weekend warning him to avoid bloodshed, Bratislava-based NGO Pontis reports.

An eastern European OSCE election monitor and member of parliament indicated "The secret service decide when there is to be a revolution, like the Orange Revolution [in Ukraine], and they take their orders from the big powers."

But Sunday’s events have a long way to go before the Belarus political situation changes for good, the OSCE contact added, "This is not a mass protest like in Ukraine. Most people still believe in Lukashenko, that’s a fact. It will take ten, twenty years."

What`s next?

"This is something, but what’s next," 60-year old Belarusian academic Viktor asked, with NGOs and EU diplomats stationed in Minsk worried the Belrusian opposition will face a stiff backlash after world TV crews leave on Monday and Ukrainian elections on 26 March begin to dominate media coverage of the region.

"We want just one thing from the EU – economic sanctions," NGO activist Natalia told EUobserver earlier on Sunday afternoon. "People will come on the streets when they feel they have nothing to eat…We understand that only if people are killed on the streets, the EU will do something."

"Nine out of ten of Belarus’ main trade partners are EU countries. When Europe says it does not have a mechanism to put pressure on dictatorship, this is false," NGO activist Nikolai indicated. "Belarus is just a territory that exists between the right and left of the gas tube."

Belarusian gas pipelines carry some 20 percent of Russian gas imports to the EU, while the Netherlands is a European transshipment hub for Belarusian petrol made from cheap Russian oil.

Irina Krasovskaya, the wife of a missing pro-democracy Belarusian businessman, told EUobserver that Mr Lukashenko should face an international criminal tribunal, while an EU visa ban on seven Belarusian politicians should be extended to many more and cover their families as
well.

More than 450 people were arrested in the run-up to the Sunday vote, with state-owned phone company Velkom sending threatening text messages and top government officials warning protestors on TV they could be shot as terrorists.

"Even when you [world media] are here, he tries to threaten everybody. Can you imagine what will happen when you are gone? That’s when we will need international solidarity," Ms Krasovskaya, who met US president George Bush on February 27, said.