BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

19/04/2006

Belarus opposition undid revolution

Earlier this month, the opposition in Belarus unveiled a new strategy. "We are switching from the wonderful romantic sentiments of a brave minority to everyday educational and informational efforts involving tens of thousands of freedom volunteers," said opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich in a statement. Unfortunately, this shift in strategy may be too little, too late.

Belarus' opposition missed a golden opportunity after last month's presidential elections, if not to force the regime of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to its knees, then at least to force a second round of voting. Civil society and youth groups there had had months, even years, to plan for this moment, as well as playbooks handed to them by their pals in Ukraine, Georgia, and Serbia.

But the opposition was too disorganized and too focused on what Milinkevich calls "romantic sentiments" and symbolic gestures, like lighting candles and wearing blue denim, instead of mobilizing more people, particularly adults, to take to the streets in protest. In the end, numbers matter more than gestures.

Sure, the opposition was up against a number of hurdles, including a lack of access to state-run airwaves, imminent threats of arrest, and a populace anemic after 12 years of dictatorship. Not to mention that many of its leaders were either behind bars or hiding abroad. And unlike Ukraine, these groups could not rely on domestic oligarchs for their funding, and most Western civil society groups had been booted out years ago, making financing tricky to navigate. But the opposition, particularly on the night of the March 19 elections, made a number of avoidable mistakes.

Around 8 p.m., responding to fliers and text messages posted by activists, thousands flocked to October Square- declared a no-go zone by the authorities-to hear opposition candidate Alexander Milinkevich address the masses. The trouble was that though he said all the right things, no one could hear him. The opposition did not think to bring an adequate sound system or generator to power it, just an inaudible bullhorn.

Also absent from the square were tents, which emerged as a poignant symbol of Ukraine's Orange Revolution in 2004, when tent cities sprouted along Kyiv's main thoroughfare, symbolizing the protesters' willingness to camp out for weeks. Subzero temperatures and a biting wind in Minsk, more so than the threat posed by riot police, sent demonstrators home early. No plan was in place to keep protesters cozy or to supply blankets, thermoses of hot tea, or, most importantly, the tents themselves until the next day. By then it was too late.

Then, as the night wore on and the crowd thinned, a decision was hastily made to march a few blocks to Victory Square to lay carnations at a monument. This was a nice gesture symbolically, but not exactly tantamount to storming the Bastille or standing in front of a tank on Tiananmen Square. Only a few hundred bothered to march.

Next, came the opposition's most disastrous decision: to postpone the protests until the following night. This killed any chance of reaching critical mass. Momentum was lost, as the next night's crowd dwindled to only half of what it had been the previous night. By midweek, most of the foreign media had skipped town. Motorists passing by no longer honked in support. Even protesters' chants of "Long live Belarus!" had lost their oomph.

Then there was the opposition's odd rallying symbol: blue denim. Opposition leaders, trying to replicate recent revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia, were groping for a symbol, a color, a flower-anything to attract foreign media attention to their cause. They found such a symbol last year after a young Belarusian protester, his flags confiscated by police, held up a swatch of denim. Also, denim during Soviet times was evocative of the West. So, whenever Milinkevich appeared in public, he draped himself in a blue scarf to promote the spirit of what he hoped would become the "denim revolution."

But the symbol failed and always felt a bit forced, like a marketing gimmick conjured up by Western NGOs. Not to mention, it was generic, the equivalent of Russian protesters donning fur hats or French rioters - berets. And while throngs of Ukrainians bedecked in bright orange might make for nice media coverage, protesters clad in blue jeans resemble just that: protesters clad in blue jeans.

Looking back, the opposition may have squandered its brief chance to bring reform to Belarus. They had the world's undivided attention, but in the end, they were disorganized, improvising as they went along, instead of having a strategic plan in place. In the end, greater numbers were needed, not just pithy slogans, colorful flags, or gimmicky symbols to rally around, like denim.

Perhaps a repeat of a velvet revolution was never in the cards. But without an organized opposition, Belarus will never find out.

Lionel Beehner was in Belarus on a German Marshall Fund Journalism Fellowship. He is a staff writer with the Council on Foreign Relations' website.

Source:

http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/oped/24302/