Riot police, activists clash in Belarus protests

[struggle4progress]

Updated Sat. Mar. 25 2006 11:51 PM ET

Associated Press

MINSK, Belarus — Black-clad riot police clubbed demonstrators as government opponents marched Saturday in defiance of a show of force by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko that has drawn U.S. and European Union sanctions.

A week into protests set off by the disputed election that handed Lukashenko a third term, opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich told a crowd of thousands that momentum is growing to bring democracy to Belarus. <snip>

But Milinkevich also urged a monthlong recess in protests, apparently hoping to calm tensions and gain time to build opposition forces, which have fallen far short of the huge outpourings that peacefully overturned governments in Ukraine and Georgia. <snip>

Milinkevich called for the next rally to take place April 26, the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster, which sent radiation over Belarus. Many people are unhappy over Lukashenko's moves to repopulate evacuated areas of the contamination zone. <snip>

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060325/belarus_protest_060326/20060325?hub=World

[cal04]

1. Belarus Divided, Doubtful After Clashes

(snip)
Police kept a close watch Sunday on the square that was the center of an unprecedented week of protests,
determined to prevent the opposition from renewing demonstrations against Belarus' authoritarian president. The protests that culminated Saturday in a clash with riot police left the opposition daunted but determined to try to press ahead. Many Belarusians now are confronting an array of unanswered questions: It is unclear how much support the opposition really has, how much dissent authorities will tolerate or what effect a stream of denunciations from the West will have. The EU called on its European partners to join in protesting against Saturday's violence and the detention of Alexander Kozulin, an opposition leader who instigated a march to a jail where detained opposition supporters are being held.



(snip)
Austria, which holds the rotating EU presidency, said the 25-nation bloc ``urges the international partners of the EU, and in particular Belarus' other neighbors, to follow the same approach toward Belarus,'' in an apparent reference to Russia. The EU statement was the latest in a series from the United States and Europe denouncing the March 19 elections that gave President Alexander Lukashenko a third term. Lukashenko despises the West and criticism from there fuels his contentions that the West is out to overthrow him. The Belarusian Foreign Ministry said the statements ``are on the border of an anti-Belarusian hysteria.'' Everyone seems to have a strong opinion on last week's events, and the population is split.

``One must fight fear, because fear is the authorities' strongest weapon,'' said Alexei, a 20-year-old student unwilling to give his last name because students who back the opposition are often expelled. But in Dmitry Kursky's view, the demonstrators were irresponsible and goaded by money he believes they received from the West. ``All the opposition is doing is spending the (money) they got from the West. Once they spend the first $100,000, they will pocket the rest,'' the 23-year-old said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5712695,00.html

[icymist]

2. (UPDATE) Court jails Belarus protesters as new rallies loom

By Dmitry Solovyov
Mon Mar 27, 4:42 PM ET

MINSK (Reuters) - Belarussian courts on Monday jailed for up to 15 days more than 150 mostly young protesters detained when police broke up rallies against a presidential election judged unfair by the West.

The European Union, at loggerheads with Minsk over a poll it considers rigged, urged the protesters' release while a diplomat from Poland, a neighbor with particularly difficult ties with the ex-Soviet state, was barred from entering Belarus.

State television accused the diplomat, Poland's consul in the western city of Grodno, of smuggling publications denigrating Belarus and meeting "radical" opposition figures.

(more)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/belarus_dc

Russia: OSCE stirs Belarus tension

MOSCOW, Russia (AP) -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on Friday of instigating tensions during the parliamentary election campaign in Belarus, Russian news agencies reported.

It was the first official comment from Moscow after riot police stormed into a square occupied by protesters in the Belarusian capital, detaining some 200 and bringing to an end an unprecedented, around-the-clock rally against authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.

But it was far from the first Russian criticism of the trans-Atlantic group's vote monitoring activities.

(more)
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/03/24/belarus.russia.ap/index.html?section=cnn_latest

Belarus opposition's leader invited to Oslo
The head of the opposition in Belarus, Aleksandr Milinkevitsj, has been invited to Oslo for talks with Norway's foreign minister. Norway has denounced the results of the weekend election that gave a huge victory to the man known as the last dictator in Europe.

http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1258126.ece

[Doctor_J]

3. Too bad we didn't have the energy to make ourselves heard

in November 2000. Or 2002. Or 2004. The whole world would be better off. Maybe they don't get Tweety in Belarussia.