BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

09/04/2006

In face of opposition, leader maintains grip on Belarus

BY SEBASTIAN SMITH

Special to Newsday

MINSK, Belarus - Alexander Lukashenko celebrated his inauguration yesterday to a third five-year term as president by yanking the iron curtain even tighter around his Soviet-style country.

No foreign head of state was invited to the Palace of the Republic to see the man dubbed "batka," or "father," by supporters take the oath three weeks after winning 83 percent of a vote the opposition and the West say was rigged.

But the former Soviet farm manager - expected to face a European Union-imposed travel ban next week because of the election - appeared to revel in his isolation. "Belarus has a strong immunity system. Your clumsy attempt to import the revolution virus has had an opposite effect," he said, accusing the West of importing "technologies of destruction, total chaos, poverty and moral degradation."

His boasts are not all empty. He appears to have nipped in the bud the opposition's dream of overturning the election in an uprising similar to those against entrenched post-Soviet governments in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan in the past 2 1/2 years.

Added to the poor showing by openly pro-Western politicians during recent elections in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Ukraine, the Belarus vote on March 19 marks a turning point in the once seemingly unstoppable tide of change across the former Soviet Union. It's little surprise that Russia, China and Cuba are among the rare countries to congratulate Lukashenko.

The opposition, led by soft-spoken physicist Alexander Milinkevich, boldly fought an impossible battle. About 900 activists were jailed during and after the election campaign, in which Lukashenko, 51, appeared every day on state-controlled television. His opponents were allowed a total of one hour's airtime. Protesters defied warnings - such as Lukashenko's promise to "break the neck [of unrest] like a duckling's" - and peacefully protested the vote.

The opposition received enormous moral backing from the West, with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe blasting the election as "severely flawed" and both the United States and European Union announcing sanctions against Lukashenko's entourage.

But Lukashenko is no pushover. Overlooked in Western capitals is his popularity with a good portion of the population, many approving of his stubborn adherence to Soviet values.

Even Milinkevich agrees that Lukashenko would get "around 40 percent" in a free and honest election. That is partly because Belarus has a growing, if unspectacular, economy based on Soviet-style central planning and hugely subsidized imports of Russian energy supplies. Crime is low - typical in a police state - pensions are paid regularly and there are none of the anarchic clashes among businesses or even military chiefs seen in many other parts of the former Soviet empire, not least in Russia.

Just as important is the state's near-total grip on information. Opposition newspapers have to be printed abroad and hand-delivered. The state television monopoly broadcasts daily praise of Lukashenko, while variously referring to the opposition as Western agents and homosexuals.

This clearly has had an effect. Surveying the young protesters in Minsk after the election, Vladimir Mironyenko, 70, parroted the official message that democracy brings chaos. "These protesters are traitors. They'd sell their own mother," he said. "They just don't see the good in their own country."

Lukashenko can count on a security apparatus, headed by an internal security force proud to retain its Soviet name - the KGB, or the Committee for State Security.

Students and state workers face punishment if they are caught at rallies, and many of those arrested after the election say they were beaten and humiliated in detention. Several prominent figures who may have fallen out with the regime, including an interior minister, a businessman and a journalist, have disappeared or been found murdered in unexplained circumstances.

Western organizations promise not to forget Belarus. The European Union is backing nonstate-controlled radio broadcasts from neighboring Poland and the Baltic states, and Milinkevich says plans are underway for a satellite TV channel. The U.S. Congress has budgeted $24 million over the next two years "to promote democracy in Belarus."

But Western scope for action is limited. "It is not excluded that Belarus could end up even further in the orbit of Russia and in confrontation with the West," independent analyst Oleg Manayev said.

The key probably lies with Belarus' sponsor, Russia. The announcement last week that gas subsidies are to be cut back could spell difficult times for "batka" - and possibly even greater Russian control over the ex-Soviet republic.

Source:

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wobela094696246apr09,0,6312270.story?coll=ny-worldnews-print