A sort of Belarusians have passed a year Take to the street The stolen election of Alexander Lukashenko, who challenged the authoritarian leader, was the biggest crisis in his 27 years in power and the most tragic year in the country’s modern history.
In an interview, opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya (Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya) sent a painful message of contempt, and she detailed the losses to the people last year. 35,000 people in prison, Hundreds of tortureThousands of people were forced to flee the country or escape Lukashenko’s repression.
“People are in a state of ecstasy,” Qihanusskaya recalled the mood of Belarus a year ago. More than 100,000 people protested“We also want to: see how many people we have, the regime cannot continue to be in power. Maybe we are not ready for this level of cruelty.”
A year later, the opposition was besieged and the government detained more than 600 people Political prisoners at home And hunt down its critics in exile, scrambling to use MiG-29 Intercept Ryanair’s flight In May, she tried to tie a Belarusian sprinter to a plane at the Olympics because she called her coach “negligence.” When Lukashenko tried to maintain his rule through fear, Qihanusskaya called these desperate behaviors.
“Last year, he became more cruel and harsh because he understood that he had lost the face of a powerful leader,” she said of Lukashenko, who became president in 1994. “Yes, he is in power. But it is because of violence. Not because of respect, not because of love… He cannot force people to love him.”
Tsikhanouskaya, who was forced to leave the country last year, is based in Vilnius, Lithuania, where she focused on gaining international support for the Belarusian opposition and imposing tougher sanctions on Lukashenko.In the past month, she traveled to Washington to meet Joe Biden, and to London to meet Meet Boris Johnson.
Diplomacy has achieved results. Later on Monday, the United States is expected to announce new sanctions against Lukashenko. These sanctions may target the Belarusian economy, including potash company Belaruskali, and oil, timber and steel companies run by the state or Lukashenko’s allies.
Although foreign interest in protests has weakened since 2020, Qihanusskaya still tries to make Belarus appear on the front page of foreign media and in the minds of policymakers.
She said: “After these pictures of beautiful demonstrations disappeared, attention to Belarus declined, which is harmful to us.” “But then capture [Ryanair] airplane Aroused new concerns, and the EU adopted appropriate sanctions accordingly. Now I hope that the United States and the United Kingdom will also join in these sanctions. We will look at their actions. “
This A Belarusian activist died in Ukraine In a possible “murder disguised as suicide,” fear was spread among politically active exiles. Qihanusskaya, who provided her with security details by the Lithuanian government, said that she “knows that I am clearly one of the goals of this regime”.
“The regime is trying to scare people active outside Belarus,” she said. “This is an attempt to scare everyone. To scare us, defeat us, and to be honest, it affects a lot of people. Why deny? But Belarusians understand that you can’t scare people forever.”
Qihanusskaya called last year “transformative.” She entered politics after her husband Sergei, an anti-government activist, was sentenced to jail for trying to compete with Lukashenko. The self-proclaimed housewife then became the opposition presidential candidate, speaking to thousands of supporters at the rally. Since being forced to leave the country, she has become a politician in exile, and she describes this transition as a “difficult road, a road to education.”
“I think people have taken too much responsibility to me,” she said. “People forget that a year ago I was just a mother and did not participate in politics at all. I have to learn a lot, I am trying to do what I can, where I am… But the responsibility is not just me, but all Belarusians.”
Her role as the unifier of a diverse and embattled opposition movement has brought tremendous pressure, because protest actions often lead to a new wave of arrests in Belarus.Her allies are among the people on trial Maria KaresnikavaShe called it the “engine” of the trio of women who co-led the protests last year. Other people trapped in Belarus wrote to her saying that the border was closed and asked what to do.
“This responsibility is very heavy on me,” she said. “Every newcomer put in jail kills me all day. Then there are 10 more [are arrested]. Then there are five more… You just clenched your fists and kept going because you had no choice. “
In her closed trial for inciting riots and disrupting public order, she received very little information about her imprisoned husband from the lawyer. She was told that he was in good health, but he had been kept in the isolation room for the past 10 months, and he reads and writes a lot. She said her other priority is to find funds to help the families of political prisoners so that activists will know that if they are arrested for protests, they will be supported.
“Sometimes it’s weird, but people don’t understand the scale of the tragedy,” she said. “When you talk about the fact that a political prisoner needs 2,000 euros to buy his family and groceries, 600 of them, and many people who have not been declared as political prisoners, are put in prison. Their families, need The relocated people, the destroyed media companies, businesses, NGOs, all need [financial] Support,” she said.
She urged Belarusians not to simply return to their daily lives, but to continue to support the opposition.This The legend of the sprinter She said that Krystsina Tsimanouskaya’s criticism of the coach has snowballed into an international political scandal, which shows that Belarus no longer has a middle ground.
“If you say anything against it publicly [Lukashenko] Then you’re done, the KGB is coming to you,” she said, referring to the Belarusian security service. “This situation affects everyone. You cannot stand aside, because there is no guarantee that it will pass by you. “
