Industrial action began on Friday, with thousands of workers downing tools in state-owned factories
The Belarus opposition has called for a general strike from Monday, after tens of thousands of protesters gathered in the capital Minsk for the biggest rally in recent history, a further sign that the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko is fast losing support.
The opposition call for a strike follows industrial action on Friday,by thousands of workers at state-controlled factories, a traditional support base for Lukashenko.
Striking workers walked out of vehicle factories, oil refineries and fabric and fertiliser manufacturers, spurred on by the level of police violence against protesters in the week since election results gave Lukashenko 80% of the vote.
The authoritarian ruler on Sunday rejected calls to step down in a defiant speech, and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said Moscow stood ready to provide help in accordance with a collective military pact if necessary.
But Putin has stopped short of offering support or an endorsement of Lukashenko, who is facing the gravest crisis of his career. It is likely that Moscow will wait and see whether Lukashenko can survive the next weeks or even days, as protests and labour strikes grow and pressure mounts on him to leave office.
Crowds of protesters estimated at 100,000 marched through the streets of the capital to the central Independence Square on Sunday in what Belarusian independent news site Tut.by called “the largest in the history of independent Belarus”.
Columns of demonstrators raised victory signs and held flowers and balloons as a sea of protesters gathered in Independence Square, the focus of peaceful demonstrations in recent days.
“Now we’re changing history,” said 26-year-old Yekaterina Gorbina, a content manager. “Blood was spilled and the people will never forget that.”
Darya Kukhta, 39, a mother of six, said: “We believe that a new Belarus is beginning. I’m very happy to be seeing this with my own eyes.”
Demonstrators held placards with slogans such as “You can’t wash off the blood” and “Lukashenko must answer for the torture and dead.”
Other major towns and cities in the ex-Soviet country of 9 million also saw large rallies, local media reported.
Popular opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya had called for a weekend of protests after leaving for neighbouring Lithuania following the disputed election.
In another sign of Lukashenko’s weakening grasp, the Belarusian ambassador to Slovakia, Igor Leshchenya, became the first serving diplomat to back the protesters.
“I stand in solidarity with those who came out on the streets of Belarusian cities with peaceful marches so that their voice could be heard,” he said in a video released on Sunday. He said one of his daughter’s classmates had been badly beaten by police, and compared the events of the past week with the actions of Joseph Stalin’s NKVD, the secret police that tortured and executed hundreds of thousands of people in the 1930s.
At the rally on Sunday afternoon, the opposition politician Maria Kolesnikova called on the security forces, diplomats and state television workers to join the protests. “This is your last chance. Fight your fear like all of us did. We were all scared, but we fought our fear. Join us and we will support you.”
In the past week, more and more Belarusians have taken to the streets to condemn Lukashenko’s disputed victory and a subsequent violent crackdown by riot police and abuse of detainees.
Unusually, tightly controlled state television news aired a short item on the “alternative protest” in Minsk, while not showing anti-Lukashenko slogans.
Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus for 26 years, is facing an unprecedented challenge to his leadership. The 65-year-old strongman held a rare campaign-style rally on Independence Square before the opposition protest.
He told flag-waving supporters: “I called you here not to defend me ... but for the first time in a quarter-century, to defend your country and its independence.”
State television reported 65,000 people attended the rally, though other reports suggest several thousand were there.
“The elections were valid,” Lukashenko said in a sometimes emotional speech. “We won’t give away the country.”
With pressure growing from the street and abroad after EU leaders agreed to draw up a list of targets for a new round of sanctions, Lukashenko has reached out to Russia, Belarus’s closest ally.
The Kremlin said that in a call with Lukashenko, Putin had expressed Russia’s “readiness to provide the needed assistance” including “if necessary” through the CSTO military alliance between six ex-Soviet states.
RT Kremlin-funded television reported that this was in the case of “outside military threats”.
A violent police crackdown on protesters has seen more than 6,700 people arrested, hundreds wounded and two deaths.
Tikhanovskaya has announced the creation of a Coordination Council to ensure a transfer of power, asking foreign governments to “help us in organising a dialogue with Belarusian authorities”.
She has said she will organise new elections if Lukashenko steps down.
Source: theguardian.com, Shaun Walker, August 17, 2020
Belarusian opposition politician Tsikhanouskaya says she is ready to lead nation
MINSK (Reuters) - Belarusian opposition politician Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said on Monday she was ready to lead Belarus and called for the creation of a legal mechanism to ensure that a new fair presidential election could be held.
Speaking in a video address from Lithuania, she also urged security and law enforcement officers to switch sides from President Alexander Lukashenko’s government, saying their past behaviour would be forgiven if they did so now.
Her video was released a day after Belarusians chanting “Step down!” filled the centre of the capital Minsk in the biggest protest so far against what they said was the fraudulent re-election a week ago of longtime president Lukashenko.
“I am ready to take responsibility and act as a national leader during this period,” Tsikhanouskaya said, saying it was essential to make the most of the momentum generated by a week of protests.
The former English teacher has become one of the leading opposition figures against Lukashenko, who is struggling to contain a wave of mass protests and strikes that pose the biggest challenge to his 26-year rule of the country.
She fled abroad last week, saying she had done so for the safety of her children, but quickly began releasing new videos calling for anti-government protests to continue.
The unrest has spread to sections of society normally seen as loyal to the president, as workers from large state factories staged walkouts and some police, journalists from state media, and a sitting ambassador came out in support of the protesters.
Opponents of Lukashenko say he rigged the Aug. 9 presidential election to secure a sixth term in power. He denies losing, citing official results that gave him just over 80% of the vote.
The Kremlin said on Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had told Lukashenko Moscow was ready to assist Belarus in accordance with a collective military pact if necessary and that external pressure was being applied to the country.
It did not say where from.
Russia is watching closely as Belarus hosts pipelines that carry Russian energy exports to the West and is viewed by Moscow as a buffer zone against NATO.
Source: Reuters, Staff, August 17, 2020
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