BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

03/07/2005

Belarus has friends, will repel foes-Lukashenko

MINSK, July 3 (Reuters) Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, denounced in the West as a dictator, said today his ex-Soviet state had many friends and vowed to repel any foe who dared impinge on its sovereignty.

Lukashenko marked independence day, the anniversary of Minsk's World War Two liberation by the Red Army, by meeting veterans in Victory Square. Belarus's disparate opposition staged a small protest, with police detaining eight activists.

''Belarus is a peace-loving country able to withstand any interference in its internal affairs, no matter how sophisticated the means used,'' Lukashenko told the gathering.

''Belarus has constructive contacts with anyone who views us with good intentions. We have many friends throughout the world.'' Lukashenko, eligible to run for a third term next year after winning a referendum to change the constitution, established July 3 as the national holiday in the mid-1990s.

It remains popular in a country which lost a quarter of its population in more than three years of Nazi occupation.

Lukashenko has tightened control over his country of 10 million and dismissed any notion by Western analysts it might be the next theatre for social upheaval after mass protests helped unseat governments in ex-Soviet Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.

The United States denounces Belarus as Europe's last dictatorship and, along with the European Union, has tried to isolate Lukashenko, accusing him of stifiling opponents and the press and resorting to electoral fraud.

Russian rights advocates now criticise his record and Russian President Vladimir Putin has turned cool to Lukashenko's notion of creating a ''union state'' between the two neighbours.

Interviewed on the eve of the holiday, Lukashenko restated his pledge to put down any attempt to foment discontent.

''There are no grounds here for revolution,'' he told Russia's TvTs television. ''And as there are no foundations here, this 'core' of opposition is being nurtured in Poland, in the Baltic states, in Ukraine and also in Russia.'' ''I will defend (my) authority here. I have nothing to fear, I will not flee my country. The opposition knows this and that's why there will be no revolutions here.'' Police detained the protesters after a few dozen activists issued leaflets denouncing a presidential decree renaming Minsk streets which bore the name of a popular Soviet-era liberal leader and a mediaeval academic linked to liberal causes.

Fewer activists in Belarus's liberal and nationalist opposition appear willing to defy police bans against demonstrations. And seven decades of Soviet rule largely crushed any of the national sentiment that played a major role in the protests that shook other ex-Soviet states.

Source:

http://www.deepikaglobal.com/ENG4_sub.asp?ccode=ENG4&newscode=109741


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