Kazulin && Belarus’ “elections”
Today was an eventful day for Belarus. This day has all the chances to become a historical day, which will be remembered as “the end of the 2006 elections.” Our dictaorial ruler Lukashenka showed that he will stop at nothing and will use brutal force to stay in power. The “democracy games” in Belarus are over, effective today. I will not analyze the actual events (because at this moment many things are quite unclear and there are several possible and conflicting explanations of what happened and why), but I’ll simply make a chronology of the today’s events:
* In the morning, an opposition presidential candidate Alexander Kazulin (Kozulin) came to register as a participant in the so called All-Belarusian People’s Assembly, a Soviet-style “party congress” staged by president Lukashenka (which he uses to show in front of the TV cameras “massive people’s support”, in a Soviet way). Lukashenka and all his gang was there.
* Alexander Kazulin entered the building, requesting to be registered as a participant because his party (Hramada) has nominated him for this. Almost immediately, Lukashenka’s guards attacked him. They knocked him down to the ground and started kicking him with army boots. Among the people beating him was Dmitry Pavlichenko, a special force policeman who most probably killed two opposition politicians several years ago (at least, he’s the main suspect according to those who tried to investigate the disappearances of the famous politicians in Belarus).
* After they beat him up pretty badly, they dragged and pushed him into a blue van and transported him to the nearby police station. Here are some “nice” photos:
[Kazulin’s blood on the floor]
[KGB spooks roughly push him into the minivan #1]
[KGB spooks roughly push him into the minivan #2]
[Belarus’ KGB chief (right, Travolta-look) laughing happily after they dealt with Kazulin]
* Journalists and Kazulin’s supporters followed the blue van to the police station.
* Policemen first blocked the police station, and after a little while they suddenly changed their plans: they got out and started beating up and arresting all those people that congregated in front of the police station.
* Several journalists were badly beaten (faces beaten to a pulp; broken ribs, head concussions — all documented). About 20 people were dragged into the police station. The beatings were carried out by people who were not even wearing police uniforms, most of them were clad in black leather jackets.
* At this moment, at about 10:45 Minsk time, one of the photo journalists (either from Associated Press or Reuters) with a big photo camera, charged for his car, probably to avoid being arrested and to send the footage to the agency as soon as possible. Several people in leather jackets tried to stop him, but he managed to get into his car and pressed gas. At this moment one of those people pulled out a gun and made three shots at the car as it was speeding away (!!!)
[gunshot - photo #1] [gunshot - photo #2]
(Initially police denied that anyone shot at the journalist’s car at all, but later they acknowledged that a Belarusan policeman made three shots and said there’ll be an internal investigation.)
* Kazulin was detained at the police station until 18:00, about eight hours, and then released. He said he was also physically abused in the van, when they transported him.
* While being held at the police station he pulled down Lukashenka’s photo from the wall and tore it apart. Prosecutor’s office said they opened up a criminal investigation against him because of this criminal (!) offence, and that Kozulin probably won’t be able to run for president because of that (it’s illegal to run for president for persons who have a criminal record).
* Meanwhile, at 18:00 united opposition candidate Alexander Milinkevich attempted to meet with his followers in the Minsk center.
* An hour before that police blocked the whole Minsk downtown area (namely, October square and Freedom square) with buses, trucks, metal fences and undercover policemen, who didn’t let anyone to pass by.
* About 2.000-4.000 supporters of Milinkevich tried to gather there and had to walk away from the center, toward the Palace of sports. Special forces police, in helmets, with batons and shields, tried to push and disperse the crowd, but surprisingly there wasn’t too much roughing from the police side.
* The crowd was also unexpectedly large (these days everyone in Belarus is either too scared or too disappointed to come out and other opposition rallies were pitiful). So it was a pleasant surprise for many people that an ordinary meeting of Milinkevich with voters turned out to be a big event.
* Most of the people could leave peacefully. There were no arrests (as is usual in Belarus).
* At the time of this writing, late in the evening, Minsk’s October square was still blocked though.
So, the beginning of the day looked like it’s the end of the “elections game” and a potential beginning of an unrest, but somehow the evening was much more quiet, although obviously police tried their best to prevent Milinkevich’s meeting with the voters. But what’s important, there was no violence.
On internet forums there were lots of versions and speculations (who planned what, who’s to blame, who’ll benefit from this…). But it’s hard to say at this moment how it will turn out.
The only disquieting thing is today’s coverage of Minsk events in the Western media. It’s really upsetting for me to see how inadequate it was. There was a lot of misinformation. And I think virtually no one even mentioned the gun shots fired at the journalist’s car. Although, this is huge: police opened fire on a journalist, just like that.
March 3rd, 2006 at 2:22 am
Hi!
Thanks for the great covereage. Google news here in the US has tons of info, but its all muttled and unclear as to whats going on. And YES! We too are disgusted at the lack of the media coverage in the US. I am personally calling our local radio talk station tonight to bring it up to a show host cares about these things.
Once again, great voerage and like you blog. I am going ot link to it. Thanks for your link to mine.
My husband is calling his brothers in Minsk tonight when its morning there so we can find out whats going on.
Charity
March 3rd, 2006 at 3:54 am
How do you feel about close future of Belarus? Is there any REALISTIC possibility of changing regime (to democracy) in this presidental election?
March 3rd, 2006 at 5:06 am
Very interesting. I read that shots had been fired at Kazulin’s campaigners. Are you sure those were journalists?
March 3rd, 2006 at 5:50 am
Thanks for this good round-up. It makes for very depressing reading, although, as you say, encouraging that there was a relatively large turnout for the Milinkevich rally. It’s almost laughable, isn’t it, that Kazulin could be removed as a candidate for tearing up a photo of the dear leader? It looks like no dissent is going to be brooked in this election period…
March 4th, 2006 at 7:46 pm
Do not expect any help from the media on this. But we chalked it in on the “UT-O” list.
March 4th, 2006 at 11:48 pm
Charity: Great, thank you.
Petr: I would bet 1% on the opposition, and 99% on Lukashenka. I think the best result we can hope for in these circumstances is to get things moving inside the country: people will see an alternative to Lukashenka’s rule and we’ll get involved. Our main problem is to fight average voter’s fear and total apathy. I think both opposition candidates (the main opposition candidate Milinkevich and the “dark horse” opposition man Kazulin) are doing a great job in that department.
BiB: There’s already a joke about it:
“Belarus State News Agency reports: today an opposition candidate tore up an icon of Lukashenka and will be jailed for blasphemy and sacrilege”. ;)
newc: Sorry about my ignorance, what’s UT-O? I don’t think I heard about that, and Google wasn’t much of a help either…
March 4th, 2006 at 11:51 pm
http://www.br23.net/en/2006/03/04/shooting-incident-new-details/ — part two, more details about the shooting accident.
March 5th, 2006 at 12:31 pm
“Elections” in Belarus
Neil Clark: In the run-up to the elections on March 19th we can expect to be saturated with ‘last dictatorship in Europe’ style propaganda about Belarus- put about by EU fanatics and supporters of The Empire. The BBC:I have seen
March 5th, 2006 at 1:00 pm
Tim Worstall: Who is the “EU fanatic”? Which “Empire” are you talking about? And who is the supporter of that Empire?
March 7th, 2006 at 1:36 am
Administrator is right that Lukashenko will win by a huge majority. Milenkevish is taking the right approach to it all, Kazulin will probably go missing within a few days, and the Belarusian people continue to live in fear. The polls say they don’t and the Luka-press says they don’t, but I lived in Minsk for a year and have felt it too. I have some good friends in Minsk that won’t use any marketing techniques in their small business in the stadium market, because they know they will be shut down if they get ahead of anyone. The economy appears to be doing good on the macro-level, but in the small businesses and homes, they still struggle to buy bread.
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Belarus Presidential candidate attacked
Very alarming developments in the Belarussian Presidential election, as an opposition candidate is violently assaulted by the President’s bodyguards.
In the morning, an opposition presidential candidate Alexander Kazulin (Kozulin) came to registe…
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