Lukashenka is a nuisance and needs to be put out of his people's misery.
Regards, Ivan
Posted on 03/26/2006 1:00:09 AM PST by MadIvan
THOUSANDS of Belarussians defied a show of force by the country's hard-line government yesterday, protesting in streets swarming with riot police in a rally that ended with violent scenes.
Black-clad riot police clubbed demonstrators with truncheons and shields as demonstrators gathered in a park to denounce President Alexander Lukashenko after a disputed election returned him to power.
Tensions ran high as the marchers confronted rows of police who blocked off the central Oktyabrskaya Square where opposition leaders had called for a rally.
Police in full riot gear arrived by the busload to push the crowds back in a bid to end a week of unprecedented demonstrations in the tightly controlled former Soviet republic as protesters shouted "Shame!" and "Long live Belarus!"
The number of demonstrators at a major intersection near the square quickly swelled from a few hundred to some 3,000.
Percussion grenades were also launched into the crowd but government officials later denied the explosions were set off by the police.
More than 100 people were arrested during the day, according to the human rights group Vasnya.
After gathering on the other side of the sprawling square with a crowd of about the same size, opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich led supporters to a nearby park and the group grew to 7,000 people.
"The authorities can only confront the striving of the people for change with persecution and violence," Milinkevich told the crowd. Demonstrators held flowers, waved the red-and-white historic flag of the opposition and shouted "We are not afraid!"
"The people have come out today, they have come out in the face of truncheons, in the face of arrests," Milinkevich said. "The more the authorities conduct repression, the closer they bring themselves to their end."
Announcing "the creation of a Movement for the Liberation of Belarus", Milinkevich praised the protesters but acknowledged that their numbers are not enough to defeat Lukashenko's government.
"We can be proud of what we have already done: fear is vanquished," he said. "But today there are not 200,000 or 500,000 of us coming out into the square. If there were, they [the authorities] would run away from the country. We are starting work against dictatorship, and this work will sooner or later bear its fruit."
The violent scenes came a day after police stormed a tent camp in Oktyabrskaya Square that had been the focus of round-the-clock protests over last Sunday's election, in which Lukashenko won a new five-year term by a landslide in a vote denounced as a farce by the opposition and criticised in the West as undemocratic.
Milinkevich, who officially received about 6% of the vote and wants a new election without the participation of Lukashenko, had been calling all week for a major demonstration yesterday, marking the anniversary of Belarus's first independence declaration in 1918.
"I am tired of being afraid, and the fear is leaving me," said Yelena Sokolovskaya, 44, an accountant, at the park rally. She said the government's claims that the economy is thriving are "a lie - Milinkevich speaks the truth".
Following a call from Alexander Kozulin, another opposition candidate, hundreds of protesters later marched towards the jail where some of the hundreds arrested during the demonstrations earlier in the week were being held. It was later claimed that Kozulin, who was arrested during the protests, was beaten by police.
The EU and the US have said they will impose sanctions on Lukashenko, who they say has turned Belarus into Europe's last dictatorship since his first election in 1994.
Lukashenka is a nuisance and needs to be put out of his people's misery.
Regards, Ivan
Ping!
Very true. I pray for these freedom loving people.
BUMP!
Good heavens! If you're going to steal an election, don't leave your opponent with 6% of the vote! You can't even call this deceit because deceit has at least some degree of plausibility.
Bump for freedom in Belarus. They had some great aerial skiers at Torino too.
She said the government's claims that the economy is thriving are "a lie - Milinkevich speaks the truth".
It's a near-certainty that when any government has to tell the people that "the economy is thriving," then the economy must not be thriving. People know when the economy is thriving; they don't have to be told.
I think those poll results tell you two things: 1) Some Americans feel insecure economically largely because of all the negative spin, slant, and information selection bias put on the economic news by the MSM, and 2) the methodology used in the MSM polls is slanted and biased in favor of negative responses about our economic health. There are a thousand ways to use bias in the methodology of a poll to get the answers the pollsters want to see.
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