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3/23/2006
Filed under:
* Revolutions
* Eastern Europe
* Belarus
BREAKING: TENT CITY STORMED
Lukashenko has finally given the order to storm and detain the protestors on October Square in the early Minsk morning. They have all been arrested. The square is compeltely empty. What does this bode for tomorrow, when a massive demonstration is supposed to be held? Will is happen?
MINSK, Belarus - Police stormed the opposition tent camp in the Belarusian capital Minsk early Friday morning, detaining scores of demonstrators who had spent a fourth night in a central square to protest President Alexander Lukashenkos victory in a disputed election.
The arrests came after a half dozen large police buses and 75 helmeted riot police with clubs pulled up to Oktyabrskaya Square in central Minsk about 3 a.m.
The police stood around for a few minutes and then barged into the tent camp filled with protesters.
An Associated Press reporter on the scene said they wrestled about 40 to 50 of the demonstrators, who were resisting, into buses. The rest of the approximately 200 demonstrators were taken into custody without apparent resistance.
By the end of the 10-15 minute operation, all of the protesters had been taken away. All that remained were their tents, kicked down amid the detentions, their gear and garbage.
Police had been detaining opposition supporters and would-be protesters away from the square, but Fridays arrests marked the first time they had tried to forcefully eject the demonstrators en masse.
Their action followed opposition leader Alexander Milinkevichs warning Thursday that increased persecution would only strengthen protests against the authoritarian government.
From Charter 97:
Today at 3.30 a.m. hundreds of riot policemen and policemen have attacked tent camp on October Square in Minsk. At 3 a.m. 10 police buses and patrol wagons for prisoners encircled the square. Policemen cordoned off the whole square. All reporter were drawn out of the cordons. Then several hundreds of people who were in the tent camp this bight were arrested. All of them where taken to the police buses and trucks, and taken to unknown location. Now only destroyed tents stay on the square. The life of the tent camp was trampled on by boots of policemen and police: national flags, posters, streamers, warm things, dishes. Everything is loaded to cars by street sweepers. Information has been received from people from police trucks that some special means were employed against them. People complain that some gas was used inside one of the white trucks.
[ ]
As the Charter`97 press center was informed by Tatsyana Snitko, who was detained by police together with tent camp dwellers, people in buses were beaten up. As she told, many young men have smashed faces, and policemen used foul language and threatened. During the detention policemen ordered: everybody on the floor, faces down!
Lukashenko is going for utter brutality, trying to reinstill the fear that these protestors lost over the past few days. Milinkevich warned that persecution will only lead to further protests; a direct challenge. Lukashenko took it. Now we will see if the freedom fighters in Belarus are ready to fight for it for real. I hope we see it. Theyll need to do everything they can to spread the word and bring the people out. This is absolutely disgusting.
Robert Mayer @ 7:24 pm |
Protesters Defy Belarus Police Blockade
By STEVE GUTTERMAN, Associated Press Writer 13 minutes ago
Thousands of Belarusians defied a massive show of force by the hard-line government Saturday, protesting in streets swarming with riot police and gathering peacefully in a park to denounce President Alexander Lukashenko after a disputed election returned him to power.
Rows of black-clad police blocked a central square where opposition leaders had called for a rally at noon, pushing crowds back in a bid to end a week of unprecedented protests in the tightly controlled former Soviet republic. Demonstrators shouted "Shame!" and "Long live Belarus!"
Tensions mounted swiftly around October Square as police in full riot gear arrived by the busload to shove protesters back. The crowd at a major intersection near the square where Lenin Street meets Independence Avenue quickly swelled from a few hundred to some 3,000.
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 swelled to as many as 5,000 people.
"The authorities can only confront the striving of the people for change with persecution and violence," Milinkevich told the crowd. Demonstrators held flowers and waved the red-and-white historic flag of the opposition.
"The people have come out today, they have come out in the face of truncheons, in the face of arrests. We are working against dictatorship," Milinkevich said. "The more the authorities conduct repression, the closer they bring themselves to their end."
The tense scene came a day after police stormed a tent camp in the square, the focus of round-the-clock protests over the March 19 election. President Alexander Lukashenko won a new five year-term by a landslide in a vote denounced as a farce by the opposition and criticized in the West as undemocratic.
Hundreds were arrested in the pre-dawn raid Friday. The tough response indicated the government had no intention of allowing the Saturday gathering during which opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich planned to unveil a strategy to drive forward the call for a new election.
Speaking early Saturday outside the jail where many of the protesters were taken from the tent camp, Milinkevich vowed to press ahead with a major demonstration marking the anniversary of Belarus' first independence declaration in 1918.
"We're not planning any violence, any taking of the Bastille. We want a peaceful demonstration," he said, standing with his wife and about 100 relatives of detained activists. "I hope the authorities understand this."
Police took no immediate action against the rally in the park, and did not appear to be preventing people from joining the demonstration. A row of police buses stood nearby across a street.
"I am tired of being afraid, and the fear is leaving me," said Yelena Sokolovskaya, 44, an accountant who stood at the rally in the park. She said the government's claims that the economy is thriving are "a lie Milinkevich speaks the truth."
A three-man crew from Belarusian state television, which has aired repeated reports showing the protests in an extremely negative light, was leaving the park as protesters in the crowd pelted them with snowballs and shouted "Shame on Belarusian television!"
The election set off an unprecedented week of protests, beginning with an election-night demonstration that drew some 10,000 people to Oktyabrskaya Square an enormous turnout in a country where police usually suppress unauthorized gatherings swiftly and brutally. Protesters raised the stakes at another rally Monday, setting up tents where hundreds stayed through the night and remained until the raid at 3 a.m. Friday.
Police arrested hundreds of people in connection with the protests, but their failure to break up the camp over several days raised opposition hopes of establishing a foothold. Those hopes ended when riot police stormed in, wrestling about 50 protesters into trucks and taking away hundreds of others who didn't resist.
The European Union and the United States said Friday that they will impose sanctions on Lukashenko, who they say has turned Belarus into Europe's last dictatorship since his first election in 1994, and both called for an immediate end to the crackdown on the opposition.
EU leaders said the bloc would take "restrictive measures" against Lukashenko, including a likely travel ban and a possible freeze of Belarusian assets in Europe. The White House said the U.S. would act in unison with the EU.
Those measures seemed unlikely to influence Lukashenko, who despises the West and has allied his country with Russia. In a statement late Friday, the Foreign Ministry said the sanctions had "no prospects" and that Belarus reserves the right to take retaliatory measures.
3/25/2006
Filed under:
* Revolutions
* Eastern Europe
* Belarus
RALLY, BRUTALITY IN BELARUS
After Lukashenko gave the order to clear October Square of any and all protestors in the Friday twilight., it was completely cordoned off by riot police. Access to the square was denied. But thousands, at least twenty to thirty thousand, people showed up for the planned opposition rally and it was held in Yanka Kupala Square instead. Even more would have gone if there had been more space, and if they werent hampered from doing so. Democratic opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich called for the creation of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Belarus, part of the oppositions plan to go underground and build widespread support for kicking Lukashenko out of office.
The protest ended peacefully. He had called on the authorities not to break it up because he would make sure that it didnt get out of control, and so the police didnt move in. At no time before has such a large amount of people been able to gather to denounce Lukashenko without being severely beaten. Exactly one year ago even only a couple of hundred people were able to gather before being whacked with police batons. It was definitely a historic day.
But
It didnt last for long. The other opposition candidate, Alexander Kozulin, marched a few hundred people to a detention center where the October Square demonstrators had been taken to. They faced a SWAT team and the army. Just hours after the peaceful rally, they were all beaten.
The head of the SWAT team beat Kozulin and arrested him. They fired smoke grenades, noise-makers, and tear gas into the crowd. They exploded directly above people. One by one they were stripped away and beaten in the face, back, and legs with batons until they bled. The women, instead, were punched in the face. Then they were taken away in paddywagons to who knows where. At least one person is confirmed dead with a skull injury. Even sicker is that Belarus state television showed up so that they could film a beaten man and say that he was stomped on by his fellow protestors. The protestors are hardly the animals here. All they could do was throw snowballs back at them.
Milinkevichs press secretary Pavel Mazhejka was briefly detained, and for awhile Milinkevich himself was nowhere to be found. But he is alright and has said that the authorities are fully responsible for the slaughter of the protestors and they will be held to account. He has sworn that Lukashenko will not finish this five year term. It has become the top news on CNN.
Br23 reports that arrests and detentions are now occurring in other parts of the city, with riot police showing up where young people hang out, throwing them face down into the mud, and dragging them into the wagons. He also reports that the state telecommunications monopoly has shut limited the dial-up internet access for a time.
Ivan Lenin has translations from LiveJournalist Lipski who details a bit about the rally, and then even more about the second march that preceded the terrifying crackdown. Make sure to read those reports, especially for the little significant details.
This is all that is really known right now. We have to wait for more on-the-scene news and blog reports to come out and then wait for them to be translated. This post will be updated continuously as that news comes out. Scroll here as well. The Interior Minister is saying that an unexplained device blew up and that terrorists were behind the explosion. An impressive story, for sure, if only it were true.
Today was the largest rally in Belarus post-Soviet history. It was also the single bloodiest one day as well. What happens next will be up to the opposition. Lukashenko will continue to rule by force, but he wont be able to now that the people are slowly but surely beginning to fight back. Milinkevichs plan is to create a popular movement to liberate Belarus from Lukashenko. The revolution has already begun in the minds of the people. The revolution that overthrows Lukashenko will take years of connecting people and helping them to resist. But that day will certainly come.
*****
There are tons of photos that you all certainly must see. Tons. Taken by news agencies and LiveJournalists alike. Click here, here, here, here, here, here. There is even video here.
Robert Mayer @ 3:17 pm |
