BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

15/10/2007

Belarusian Young March towards Europe

// And the authorities decided not to scatter them

Belarusian capital hosted on Sunday the European March opposition rally of protest. Around 10,000 people marched through Minsk holding EU banners. Contrary to their custom, the authorities decided not to scatter the marchers. Kommersant's correspondent Vladimir Soloviev believes that Minsk hoped the Sunday rally's echo would reach Moscow.

Devildom

Although the opposition rally on Sunday was authorized, it remained under the threat of frustration till the very last moment. First, the weather was not good. Minsk had wet snow falling and cold wind blowing since Friday. The rally organizers were afraid that people would not come outdoors.

"Lucky devil," complained Igor Rynkevich, deputy chairman of the opposition Social-Democratic Party (Gramada), scringing in the cold. "Whenever we conceive anything against him [Alexander Lukashenka.-Kommersant], some kind of devilry starts happening."

Yet, the oppositionists' main enemy was information blockade, and not weather. A few days before the march, all opposition websites stopped opening. Vigilant public utilities employees nipped any attempts at agitating citizens by leaflets. The only discovered blue sticker summoning to march through the city on October 14 was hanging on the office door of Alexander Milinkevich, leader of the For Freedom movement and former presidential candidate.

"There aren't many leaflets of yours in the city," I said to Milinkevich's press secretary Oles Lagvints.

"But we do stick them. We stick them every night," Lagvints assured me one day before the march. "But you see, yard-keepers don't get their bonuses if our leaflets are found in their yards."

"Will you be sticking them tonight? Can I go with you?"

Oles nodded, pressed his finger to his lips, and silently wrote on a piece of paper: "3:30 a.m. near Minsk hotel. Blue Volkswagen Golf", and then he tore the paper.

Late on Saturday night, two activists of the For Freedom movement picked me up from the hotel. We drove from the city center to Krasny Bor bedroom district, and went around houses putting onto the doors EU-emblazoned blue stickers with the rally's time and place - October Square, 2 p.m., October 14.

"You see, there's no public politics in Belarus," explained a young man who asked to call him Zmitser. "So, we act this way: secret agitation, marches, rallies. Sure, cops can grab us, but we don't care anymore. They've turned us into complete hell-raisers."

We pasted on a thousand stickers by 6 a.m. on Sunday, but the house doors were wonderfully clean again already by noon.

Other unbelievable events happened on the eve of the European March as well. One by one, the rally organizers got arrested for one and the same violation: abusive language in public places. According to police reports, young members of all opposition organizations started swearing, as if they had agreed in advance, throughout the country: in Gomel, Grodno, Brest, Elsk, Minsk. They were arrested for 5, 7 or 10 days.

Oppositionists were arrested even if they behaved decently. For instance, when the police arrested For Freedom activist Sergei Partsyukevich in Vitebsk, the young man sealed up his mouth with tape, so as not to get charged with using obscene language. However, he then received charges that his car was wanted, and was arrested anyway. Policemen came to Alexander Otroshchenkov, member of the Jeans for Freedom organization, claiming there was a dead body in his apartment. When he opened the door, the police officers rushed to his computers and began searching for the information linked to the European March. The dead body was not found, but the young man got arrested for 10 days.

Werewolf in Files

The sky suddenly cleared up on Sunday morning. By 1 p.m., people began gathering on Minsk's central October Square. They decided to disregard the city authorities' demand that the opposition should start marching far from the center on the square in front of the Sciences Academy and end the march on Bangalore Square. Several thousands of people came to October Square at the appointed time. Young people were handing out blue ribbons and EU-emblazoned baseball caps to passers-by. Activists of the Young Front student organization pulled the EU flags and the prohibited white-red-white national banners onto fishing rods. When the flags sailed up above the square, a sound-equipped MAZ truck arrived, with a policeman inside, droning monotonously:

"Citizens, the rally on October Square is prohibited! Please scatter! Physical force and special means will be applied to those who disobey! You will be held criminally liable!"

In response to the truck, the crowd roared in concert:

"Radzima, freedom! Off with Luka-monster! (Radzima means 'motherland' in Belarusian).

The crowd was louder than the truck. A thin old woman in a pink coat came up to the truck and lifted her face up, trying to outroar the policeman:

"Who told you it's a rally here? It's Sunday, and people came out for a walk."

There were more and more flags. People streamed onto the square from all directions. Alexander Milinkevich appeared among the marchers at 2 p.m. sharp, and announced:

"Fellow Belarussians! Let's march all together along the sidewalk to the Sciences Academy."

The crowd aligned. Stretching a blue banner which read "Belarus to Europe", people marched along Independence Avenue, chanting the slogan "Belarus to Europe, dictatorship to hell!" Journalists and photographers ran along the march, as well as civilian-guised men with palm-sized video cameras in one hand, and radio sets in the other. Patrol cars were driving nearby, with two road police officers, major stars on epaulettes, inside each car. Through their loud-hailers, they warned the marchers against moving onto the traffic-way.

Law-abiding Alexander Milinkevich echoed:

"Let's cross the street carefully, on green light only."

Then, the sidewalk became too narrow for the growing crowd.

"Onto the avenue!" shouted a guy in Young Front arm band.

Chanting "We believe, we can, we shall overcome", part of the crowd rushed onto the road. The police tried in vain to squeeze the marchers back onto the sidewalk. The march then split into 2 files. One, headed by Young Front activists, stubbornly walked in the avenue's middle. Another, led by Milinkevich and OGP leader Anatoly Lebedko, obediently moved along the sidewalk.

Those who followed Milinkevich stopped by the Sciences Academy. Sound equipment, installed there in advance, waited for them on the building's steps. Those who walked along the road moved on, to the National Library.

"Free citizens of Belarus!" began Milinkevich. "We are a peaceful rally! We offered to the authorities to march together with us! They say they are for the European way, but it doesn't go further than declarations. We will gather for marches like that as many times as needed! Dictatorship should disappear!"

The crowd buzzed approvingly, and Milinkevich stepped away from the microphone, so as to give interview to a Ukrainian TV company.

"I'm against revolution, I'm for evolution," the former presidential candidate said into the camera.

Letting the For Freedom leader finish speaking, a police-uniform-clad man approached him.

"Alexander Vladimirovich, there are your people blocking the road over there," the policeman addressed the oppositionist politely, pointing at a group of Young Front activists waiving flags on the road.

"No, my people are here," Milinkevich got somewhat upset. "Take those as provocateurs."

President's Transformation

The rally of evolutionary oppositionists by the Sciences Academy was over in about 40 minutes. Those whom Milinkevich called provocateurs kept rushing about the streets on the way to the National Library for half an hour more, shouting anti-president slogans. Left without leaders, the young people did not know what to do. People with flags climbed onto parked cars and shouted about "Luka-monster". When just a few hundreds of them were left, the riot police arrived. The servicemen got ready for a fight, but at this very moment there appeared a procession of embassy cars with flags of the U.S., Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Sweden, France, and Germany. There was no Russian-flagged car among them. The riot police hesitated, but chose not to attack the young protesters in full view of the diplomats. So, the youth's mischief remained unpunished.

The authorities behaved tactfully throughout the rally, letting the marchers do something which they would have never allowed them to do before. The reason of that tolerance might be due to a sudden transformation which President Alexander Lukashenka underwent on the march's eve. He talked to 70 Russian journalists on Friday, after a week of showing Belarusian national economy achievements to the reporters. During the press conference, Lukashenka toughly criticized the Russian authorities and Vladimir Putin personally - for the first time ever. Lukashenka reproached Moscow for energy arm-twisting, and said unexpectedly that he is alarmed by "the trend of Putin's personality cult formation in Russia".

"I'm distressed for Russia, hoping it will not roll back to the Soviet times, when everyone jumped up, shouted "Long live the Communist Party!" and "Hurray!". When I saw the extracts of the United Russia party's last congress, I began having these apprehensions," said Lukashenka. "I will not comment on the fact that Vladimir Putin headed the United Russia, because I don't know why he did it. However, I am against all kinds of secret schemes, and I stand for open policy," the Belarusian president added.

Perhaps, by letting the opposition hold its European March on Sunday, Lukashenka showed to Moscow how open he can be, at the same time showing that such openness will not be good for Russia.

Vladimir Soloviev

Source:

http://www.kommersant.com/p814998/r_527/Authorities_let_EU-flagged_opposition_march_through_Minsk/

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