Lecture : 4 minutes
Refugee in Lithuania, the opponent to President Loukachenko believes that the inhabitants of Belarus will never accept “the current leadership again”. She will return to her country when she “feels safe” there.
The leader of the Belarusian opposition, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, this Friday challenged President Alexander Lukashenko, affirming that the Belarusian people will “never again accept” his leadership, while the power has launched legal proceedings against it. ‘opposition. “The president should know by now that we need a change,” Svetlana Tikhanovskaya told reporters in Vilnius, in her first speech since taking refuge in Lithuania on August 11. The Belarusian people “will never again accept the current leadership”, she assured. The opponent, who claims victory in the presidential election of August 9 and denounces fraud, “hopes that common sense will prevail, that people will be heard and that there will be new elections.”
Svetlana Tikhanovskaïa clarified that she will return to Belarus when she “feels safe”, while the authorities began proceedings on Thursday for “undermining national security” against the “coordination council”, formed by the opposition to promote the political transition after the August 9 election. The opposition rejects the presidential results, which give Mr. Lukashenko the winner with 80% of the vote.
The president, who faces daily demonstrations and a strike movement triggered at the call of the opposition, assured this Friday that he would “solve the problem”. “This is my problem, which I have to solve and we solve it. And believe me, in the days to come, that will be resolved, ”he added, quoted by the public press agency Belta.
Belarusians “can never forgive”
However, for Svetlana Tikhanovskaïa, a 37-year-old English teacher, new to politics, who upset the presidential campaign by gathering unprecedented crowds at its meetings and by obtaining the support of other opponents, Belarusians “will never be able to forgive and forget all the violence of which they were the target ”. A little nervous, she refused to answer questions about her own safety. “As for the threats, I would prefer not to address this issue at this time,” she said in English. “Everyone is afraid today in our country, but it is our mission to overcome this fear and move forward,” she said.
On Wednesday, the European Union rejected the results of the presidential election and promised additional sanctions against Belarusian officials behind “violence, repression and electoral fraud”.
Asked about Russian support for Lukashenko, Tikhanovskaya replied: “I call on all countries in the world to respect Belarusian sovereignty. The attitude of Russia, Belarus’ closest ally and economic partner, will be essential to the end of the crisis. Moscow has so far mainly warned against any “foreign interference” in the “internal affairs” of its neighbor.
“We no longer want to live in fear and lies,” Tikhanovskaya said, calling on the striking workers to consult with the coordination council set up to organize the protests. “The creation of the coordinating council aims to negotiate a smooth handover,” said the opponent.
“Find a way out of this crisis”
The authorities are now attacking the “council”, set up in the continuity of the historic protest movement demanding the departure of Alexander Lukashenko. A member of the council, lawyer Maxim Znak, presented himself to the authorities in Minsk for questioning on Friday morning. “All for one and one for all! », Exclaimed demonstrators when he arrived. This “advice” has already been vigorously denounced by the Belarusian president, who sees it as an attempt to “seize power” and threatened to “cool some hotheads” within it.
On Friday, the EU denounced the prosecution of the Belarusian authorities against the “coordination council” formed by the opposition, describing this attitude as “intimidation”. By responding to the constitution of this council by opening criminal proceedings, “the Belarusian state authorities have once again reverted to politically motivated intimidation,” said a spokesperson for the EU external services, Nabila Massrali. “We call on the Belarusian authorities to end this investigation and to resume dialogue in order to find a solution to this crisis,” she added in a statement.
The UN, for its part, said it was “extremely concerned” by the fate of a hundred demonstrators arrested, even if thousands of others were released. “We call on the Belarusian authorities to immediately release all those who have been arbitrarily or unlawfully arrested,” said Elizabeth Throssel, spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
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