BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

09/10/2007

Milinkevich: Belarus authorities lose interest in dialogue

By CTK

Prague, Oct 8 (CTK) - The state power in Belarus has definitively lost interest in dialogue with its own citizens and has embarked on the path of the toughest reprisals, Alyaksandr Milinkevich, the main opposition leader in Belarus, told CTK Monday.

Milinkevich, a former opposition candidate for Belarussian president who is attending in Prague the annual 2000 Forum conference, said the Belarussian opposition was now preparing a demonstration called a European march that will take place in Minsk this Sunday.

"According to Belarus's Constitution, we have the right for a calm demonstration in any part of the city and we will certainly come to the main square. The tougher the authorities' intervention will be, the smaller will be a chance for them to re-gain influence in society," Milinkevich said.

By the Sunday march, the Belarussian opposition wants to manifest their country's belonging to Europe and the Belarussian people's wish to integrate into European structures, he said.

According to former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright, it is a terrible tragedy that the people of Belarus still do not have such possibilities as the people from the neighbouring east European countries.

"It is extremely sad. People there want something different but they are prevented from having it," Albright told CTK Monday.

She said she personally had never met Belarussian president Alexandr Lukashenko.

"We really had nothing to do with him, we really were aware that he does not have a good influence," she said.

Milinkevich pointed out that the Belarussian opposition was not seeking the revolutionary ousting of Lukashenko's regime but goes along the path of evolution.

Albright said, however, that changes could come sooner than it could seem.

"It is true that when something starts happening things could change quicker than people expect. It is also true that Lukashenko's power is quite firm and that Russians do not want any changes," Albright said.

At a discussion with students today Milinkevich who lost the contest over the presidential post in the 2006 rigged elections, said that the authoritarian President Lukashenko would not dare to organise any just elections in the near future.

"The state power is aware that it would lose the genuine elections with candidates' equal access to the media and real counting of votes. It has started being afraid," he told CTK.

Source:

http://www.praguemonitor.com/en/186/czech_politics/13083/