Home Europe Belarus frees protesters as workers turn on Lukashenko

Belarus frees protesters as workers turn on Lukashenko

by editor

MINSK — Belarusian authorities began releasing hundreds of people imprisoned for protesting Sunday’s presidential election in a change of tactics for the authoritarian government of President Alexander Lukashenko.

The Interior Ministry said Friday that more than 2,000 people had been released; many of them told of being beaten and tortured in prison.

Hours earlier, Interior Minister Yuri Karayev said: “I take responsibility and apologize for the injuries of random people at the protests.”

It’s a sign that Lukashenko’s earlier effort to quell the protests by the use of brute force hasn’t worked. Instead, the scale of the protests has grown and they now encompass the country’s working classes, posing a significant danger to the regime.

More protests are planned over the weekend, while one of those killed by police in Minsk will be buried on Saturday.

“We have always said that we have to defend our election using only legal, non-violent means, but the authorities have turned the public’s peaceful protests into a bloodbath” — Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, lead opposition candidate

Lead opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who fled to Lithuania after the election, issued a statement calling for “peaceful mass assemblies” on Saturday and Sunday. That’s a significant change from a video made before she was allowed to leave Belarus saying that people should follow the law and stay home.

“We have always said that we have to defend our election using only legal, non-violent means, but the authorities have turned the public’s peaceful protests into a bloodbath. The situation is critical,” she said on Friday, praising the growing wave of strikes and adding: “Let’s defend our election together.”

Strike wave

On Thursday morning, hundreds of employees at BELAZ, one of the world’s leading producers of mining trucks based in the town of Zhodino, 60 kilometers from Minsk, downed tools and demanded a stop to the violence and a fair recount of Sunday’s votes.

Within hours, they were joined by workers at some of the country’s largest companies.

A huge crowd of employees at Minsk-based truckmaker MAZ chanted: “Leave!” Workers at state-controlled fertilizer producer Grodno Azot took to the streets on Thursday evening demanding an end to the crackdown. Dozens of employees of the state rail monopoly marched in downtown Minsk with placards saying: “Belarusian railways against violence.”

By Friday, the size and number of industrial strikes continued to grow.

“These are the people who were the bastion of the regime,” said Andrei Kazakevich, director of the Political Sphere think tank. “These are the people Lukashenko was most afraid of.”

He said workers had become politicized because many were personally affected by the violence of recent days.

“Workers’ protests are a very serious threat to the authorities. This doesn’t mean that the regime cannot survive, but they definitely pose a very large challenge,” said Kazakevich.

For now, employees of Belarus’ factories are mostly refraining from full-on strikes, limiting themselves to short protest breaks. But the sight of workers demonstrating is adding to the sense that Lukashenko’s grip on power is weakening.

Belarusian presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya leads a campaign rally in the town of Maladzechna on July 31, 2020 | Sergei Gapon/AFP via Getty Images

Lukashenko responded to the strike threats by warning workers that they could lose their pay and jobs, and that their companies would be hurt by foreign competitors.

“There are attempts to inflame workers,” he told reporters and officials, adding: “Everyone is fighting for these markets. If we stop, we will never be able to promote our manufacturing industry. Never! We will be pushed into this mire. People should come to understand it: If you want to go on strike — do it; If you want to work — go ahead.”

Massive turnout

While the first days of protests against the election — in which Lukashenko claimed an 80 percent victory against 10 percent for Tikhanovskaya — were greeted with brutal violence from paramilitary police, the response to protests on Thursday night was more restrained.

“We have belief, hope and love. After 26 years of sleeping, we have awoken” — Anna, a 39-year-old architect

The scale of the protests overwhelmed the riot police and army as streets and squares in cities and towns across the country filled with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators.

It was easier for them to organize after authorities switched the internet back on after three days of near-total blockage. Many people, even those with little interest in politics, took to the streets after reading that nearly 7,000 people had been detained in the course of a few days, hundreds had been injured and two were confirmed dead.

The streets of Minsk and other cities were lined with protesting women, who police seem more reluctant to assault. They formed human chains and held white flowers and ribbons to protest the crackdown. They were joined by actors, artists, teachers, metro workers and museum employees. Groups of doctors stood outside hospitals in their white coats, holding placards saying: “Stop the violence.”

Employees from Minsk’s high-tech hubs also protested.

Anna, a 39-year-old architect, stood on one of Minsk’s main avenues on Thursday evening holding up a home-made banner saying: “Belarus has awoken from a coma.”

“Just yesterday we didn’t know that we would need to go out to barricades and defend our rights in this way,” she said. “But we have belief, hope and love. After 26 years of sleeping, we have awoken. That’s what I want to say with my placard. We have suffered 26 years of dictatorship, rule by a single person, but after he started shooting at our friends, our children and our husbands, no one is going to accept that anymore.”

Ekaterina, 42, stood alongside her holding up a piece of cardboard with the hand-written inscription: “Stop genocide. Stop Lukashenko.”

She said Lukashenko’s long rule has made it impossible for people to exert their civil rights. “We have had 26 years of our lives taken away, and when people went out to demonstrate peacefully with flashlights in their hands, they started getting shot at. I am here because I don’t want my child or my husband to be shot at. I don’t want to be shot at. We have a right to vote. We are people, not cattle.”

While the bulk of the security forces still appear to be loyal to Lukashenko, there are growing numbers of videos being posted on social media of soldiers and policemen stripping off their uniforms and throwing them in the trash.

Journalists from state-owned media outlets have also started to resign.

Ivan, 51, said people “are getting braver by the minute. I hope they never lose this courage, and that Lukashenko leaves [the presidency] of his own accord.” The IT specialist added he hadn’t expected the authorities to react in such a brutal fashion.

“Obviously, their plan was to hide their violence by turning off the internet, by cutting off communication. They hoped that people wouldn’t know about the victims. But it didn’t work. People knew what was going on. They saw the terrible recordings,” he said. “And that’s what gets people really angry.”

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