Belarus protests eclipse rally in defence of leader
The president of Belarus tried to put on a show of strength yesterday, holding a rally with tens of thousands of supporters and rejecting any possibility of repeating the vote that gave him a sixth term. But opponents countered with a far larger demonstration that attracted as many as 200,000 people.
Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled the former Soviet republic of 9.5 million since 1994, lashed out at the West and declared to his crowd that the country would “perish as a state” if the election were rerun.
About 50,000 people listened to Lukashenko in a square near the main government building in the capital of Minsk. But as he spoke, throngs of protesters streamed to their own rally about 2.5km away. It was the eighth straight day of antigovernment demonstrations.
During 26 years in office, Lukashenko has repressed opposition figures and independent news media. But this year, protesters fed up with the country’s falling living standards and Lukashenko’s dismissal of the pandemic have posed the biggest challenge to his rule.
The 65-year-old president claimed yesterday that Western powers were gathering military units in countries along Belarus’ western borders and denounced suggestions by some Western nations that Belarus should repeat the presidential vote, which opposition supporters say gave Lukashenko a victory only through massive fraud. Official results say he received 80 per cent of the vote.
“If we follow their lead [and rerun the election], we will perish as a state,” Lukashenko declared, a day after saying he and Russian President
Vladimir Putin had agreed that Russia would send unspecified security assistance to the former Soviet republic if Lukashenko asked for it.
Nato spokeswoman Oana Lungescu dismissed the president’s claim about troops gathering, tweeting that there is no Nato build-up in the region.
Thousands have been arrested at the post-election protests, which police tried to put down with clubs, rubber bullets and flash grenades. When many detainees were later released, they showed extensive bruises from police beatings.
Some protesters carried pictures of loved ones they said had been beaten so badly that they could not attend.
As Lukashenko spoke, throngs of opponents converged on a park about 2.5km. In the late afternoon, they streamed into the square vacated by Lukashenko supporters.
In contrast to the first days of protest when large contingents of police and special forces were deployed against protesters, police appeared to be all but absent when the opposition supporters entered the square.
The gathering ended peacefully about three hours later.
There were no official figures on crowd size, but some reports estimated it at about 200,000.
“The result of the election is on the streets and squares of Belarus today — it’s a sea of people who will never agree to live as before with Lukashenko,” said Feliks Zharikov, an engineer.
European Union foreign ministers have rejected the election results and have begun drawing up a list of officials in Belarus who could face sanctions.
If Lukashenko were to resume a harsh crackdown, the response from the West could be even stronger.
But calling on Russia for military help is also perilous. Although Russia and Belarus agreed in 1997 to a close union, Lukashenko frequently claims that his giant neighbour aims to absorb Belarus entirely.
Zimbabwe is embroiled in an economic and political crisis marked by human rights abuses, said the country’s Roman Catholic bishops in a pastoral letter read out at all Catholic churches, who were then criticised by the Government as “evil” and trying to promote genocide. Scores of people have been arrested and tortured and many are in hiding following an anti-government protest thwarted by security agents in July. President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government quickly responded accusing Archbishop Robert Christopher Ndlovu of leading “the Zimbabwe Catholic congregation into a Rwanda-type genocide”.