BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

February 13, 2006

Belarusian domino teeters

As Europe's last dictator heads to the polls, there are grave fears of bloodshed if, as expected, he wins a rigged vote, writes Mark Franchetti in Minsk

SITTING in his campaign headquarters, a rundown flat in a Soviet-era tower block, Alexander Milinkevich seems an unlikely choice to take on Europe's last dictator.

He vowed that people would take to the streets if, as widely expected, President Alexander Lukashenko rigs the vote in an attempt to cling on after 12 years in power.

His defiance has raised the prospect of clashes between the police and opposition supporters in this impoverished nation of 10million sandwiched between Russia and Poland. Lukashenko, 51, a moustachioed former collective farm boss, warned: "If there are any provocations, we'll give them such a going-over they won't know what's hit them."

"The elections won't be free and fair," said Milinkevich, 58, whose 25-year academic career came to an abrupt end in 2001 when he was sacked because of his links with the opposition.

"We are not in favour of a revolution but I have no doubts that people will take to the streets to protest peacefully when the results are announced. We know Lukashenko is capable of ordering the police to shoot at demonstrators, but more and more people are tired of living in fear. We want democratic elections."

Following the success of non-violent uprisings in Georgia and Ukraine which replaced pro-Russian regimes with more Western-minded leaders, the US and Europe have openly supported Milinkevich's bid.

Both Washington and the European Union have imposed travel bans on Lukashenko and his closest aides. On a recent trip to Brussels and Berlin, Milinkevich met German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission.

The Kremlin has shunned him even though President Vladimir Putin is known to dislike the erratic Lukashenko, who championed Saddam Hussein in Iraq and once described US congressmen as "dumb asses".

As battle lines are drawn in the build-up to the vote on March 19, both Russia and the West are increasingly alarmed at the risk of bloodshed.

After suffering years of police harassment, beatings and arrests, opposition youth movements have forged close contacts with those who helped to spark events in Georgia and Ukraine.

"We have studied the revolutions in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine. I even took part in the demonstrations in Kiev," said one leader of Zubr, a 2000-strong youth movement that has had hundreds of activists detained since its founding four years ago.

"Everything is much harder here because this is a truly totalitarian regime and there is real fear. What's crucial is to have a lot of protesters come out as soon as the results are announced. If that happens then it will become a wave too big for the police to attack." Both Milinkevich and the Zubr activist said disgruntled police officers had secretly told them that they would join the street protests if they swelled into a mass demonstration.

Lukashenko has turned his country into a virtual Soviet-era theme park, where criticising the President can lead to a lengthy jail term. He was barred under the constitution from running for a third term but overcame that hurdle in 2004 by holding a referendum, widely believed to have been rigged as well as being illegal, to change the rules. Small crowds of opponents who took to the streets were brutally dispersed by club-wielding police.

Surrounded by a handful of aides taking turns to work on the only two laptops available, Milinkevich conceded that trying to unseat Lukashenko by democratic means was both dangerous and all but impossible. Most of the President's political rivals have either been jailed or have vanished and are feared dead.

Minsk, a city of large avenues kept spotless by an army of street cleaners, is one of the most heavily policed places in the world.

The President's secret police, who have retained their Soviet-era acronym of KGB, are extremely powerful. Critics of the regime are followed and their telephones tapped. Handing out leaflets in support of the opposition is enough to warrant arrest.

"I understand perfectly well that something could happen to me," said Milinkevich. "I could get arrested or something worse could happen, but we can't go on living in fear. We have to confront it. The more we are, the bigger the chances of success."

All television and radio stations are state-owned, as is more than 80 per cent of the economy. While even Lukashenko's most trivial pronouncements are reported on the evening news bulletins, Milinkevich will be allowed to air his views in only two 30-minute television slots after campaigning starts later this month.

As a result many voters, even in Minsk, have never heard of him and are barely aware of the opposition. An independent poll last month nevertheless put his share of the vote at 24 per cent and rising fast, against 54 per cent for Lukashenko. In the capital he was said to be leading the President by 41 per cent to 38 per cent. Under the constitution, the election will go to a second round if nobody wins at least half the votes in the first.

Two other candidates are running. Sergei Gaidukevich, a close ally of Lukashenko, is said by opponents to have been asked to put his name forward to give the vote a semblance of legitimacy. The fourth, Alexander Kozulin, is the former rector of the state university.

In a sign of his apparent concern at the growing popularity of Milinkevich, Lukashenko had ordered the elections to be brought forward by four months. He also had a law passed allowing him to order the police to shoot at demonstrators.

European leaders have warned that if the elections are not free and fair, sanctions will be imposed on Belarus, which was described by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as one of six "outposts of tyranny" -- alongside Iran, North Korea, Burma, Cuba and Zimbabwe.

Lukashenko has warned foreign diplomats against trying to interfere. "The embassies should know that they can be out of here at 24 hours' notice and no one will help them," he said recently.

The Sunday Times

Source:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18126704%255E2703,00.html

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