BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

14/10/2007

Street tensions high during EU-sponsored march in Belarus - Summary

Minsk - Tensions in the streets of the Belarusian capital Minsk were high on Sunday as a massive demonstration sponsored by the European Union came into contact with police. Turnout for the sanctioned march in favour of European values was high, with thousands of students and opposition organisation members participating in the event.

Political demonstrations generally are banned in Belarus, a former Soviet republic under the authoritarian control of President Aleksander Lukashenko.

Police were present in large numbers with riot control para- military units on standby. The demonstrators from the start of the march defied government orders to hold the rally in a residential district of Minsk outside the city centre.

Face-to-face confrontation came near the National Library, where a column of an estimated 2,000 marchers approached, but did not attempt to break through, a line of policemen blocking their path.

There had been no violence between demonstrators and police by mid-afternoon, but chances of potential conflict were increasing as more protestors converged on the city centre, despite police warnings any persons deviating from the allowed march route would be arrested.

More than 3,000 anti-Lukashenko activists were present somewhere in the Minsk centre by mid-afternoon, according to some eyewitnesses. Traffic along central streets of the Belarusian capital was practically paralysed, the Belapan news agency reported.

Aleksander Milinkevich, leader of the anti-Lukashenko Belarusian opposition, in a speech from the central Oktyabrskiy Square called on demonstrators to defy route limits laid down by Minsk authorities, and continue the march towards the Academy of Sciences building.

Both sides appeared to be waiting for the other to move to open violence, eyewitnesses said. Milinkevich called on the crowd "to march peacefully."

Milinkevich's appeal that demonstrators approach the building was a direct challenge to police, as Belarus' Academy of Sciences is in the heart of an administrative district containing a host of government buildings, near which any public gathering is punishable under Belarusian law.

Marchers carried banned red-and-white Belarusian national flags, and chanted anti-government slogans. A massive blue-and-white European Union banner headed up one of the columns moving through the city.

Police using loudspeakers repeatedly warned demonstrators that if they did not retreat to authorized march areas, force would be used against them.

The march originally had been planned jointly by the EU and the Belarusian government as a first step towards improving relations by getting Lukashenko to agree to a public demonstration in support of European values.

The demonstration in spite of its theoretical apolitical nature quickly became a focus for anti-Lukashenko activists, as public expressions of opposition to Lukashenko by even small groups is repressed by police.

Close to 500 opposition activists were arrested or otherwise placed under police control in the weeks leading up to the march, the Belapan news agency reported.

Source:

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/124044.html