BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

03/04/2006

Belarus leader lost in the blue

Jeremy Page, Moscow

IT seemed like a simple question: just where was the President of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko?

But on the eve of his planned visit to Moscow, no one could answer. And in the absence of official information, rumours swirled that "Europe's last dictator" was in hiding, suffering from depression.

Mr Lukashenko has been seen just once since the day after he won a third term in an election condemned as a farce.

His inauguration ceremony, it was announced last night, will be held on Saturday, but there is still no explanation for why it was postponed.

There is also uncertainty over whether he will attend a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin overnight to mark the 10th anniversary of the loose union between Russia and Belarus.

The Kremlin could not confirm if he was coming. The Russian Foreign Ministry referred all questions to the Kremlin. There was no comment from the Belarusian Foreign Ministry and Presidential Administration, or from Belarusian embassies in Moscow and London. One senior Western diplomat said he believed Mr Lukashenko was suffering from depression brought on by the stress of the election and subsequent protests.

"I think he's unable to console himself and so he's not being allowed out," the diplomat said. "His advisers don't know what to do."

Mr Lukashenko says he has protected Belarus's 10million people from the chaos that followed the collapse of communism by resurrecting Soviet-style economic and political controls.

But critics say he is a paranoid megalomaniac with a violent temper who has prevented vital economic reforms and brutally silenced all critics.

The main opposition leader, Aleksandr Milinkevich, said he believed Mr Lukashenko was shocked at the scale of the protests after the election.

Western governments have refused visas for Mr Lukashenko and are supporting the opposition leaders.

Mr Milinkevich is in Vienna for discussions with the Austrian Government, which holds the rotating European Union presidency.

He then goes to Strasbourg to visit the European Parliament, before meeting EU foreign ministers for talks in Luxembourg next week.

Belarusian state television showed Mr Lukashenko chairing a meeting on March 28, at which he ordered officials to take down his portrait from their office walls.

"The political battles are over," he said. "The country has peace and order like it had before, despite some disturbances the police settled quickly and efficiently."

But he looked strained, and the meeting appeared to have taken place at his country residence, not in Minsk.

The Times

Source:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18703327%255E2703,00.html

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