Word: belarus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...first glance, the headlines appear unconnected: The U.S. and its allies again fail to secure agreement on a U.N. Security Council ultimatum to Iran; democracy activists in Belarus take to the streets to denounce the electoral farce that returned the authoritarian Alexander Lukashenko to power; Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice holds a security summit in Australia with her counterparts from that country and Japan. Yet those headlines, together with the ones announcing closer economic ties and strategic ties during President Putin's visit to Beijing, hint at how Sino-Russian concerns over U.S. policy elsewhere may prolong the Iran deadlock...
...rejection of Sunday's election in Belarus, which was judged by European monitors to be fraudulent, may also be taken in Moscow as a reminder of what it perceives as Washington's effort to reverse Russian influence in former Soviet territories. The "pastel" revolutions of recent years in Ukraine, Georgia and elsewhere have fed a sense that the U.S. is pushing its own influence into Moscow's traditional sphere of influence by supporting democratic rebellions against pro-Russian strongmen such as Belarus' leader Alexander Lukashenko. Russia has pushed back by pressuring allies in Central Asia to distance themselves from...
...many Belorusians riled up - it has been the extent of the intimidation campaign that led up to it. The night before the election, all mobile phones in Minsk received text messages to the effect that those gathered in the square would be butchered. Earlier General Sukharenko, head of the Belarus KGB (which still goes by that notorious title), explained publicly that all those taking part in the street protest would be considered terrorists and get up to 20 years of jail under new anti-terrorist legislation. He claimed that his secret police had uncovered plots to overthrow the legitimate government...
...Accordingly, border guard patrols with police dogs inspected trains inbound from Ukraine, detaining many Ukrainian and Georgian citizens. Even allied Russian citizens were deported from Belarus, if their connection to Russian liberal parties or groups was established. Shortly before the election Belarusian and Russian TV stations showed one such terrorist who "confessed" to have been trained how to poison a city's water supply system planting a dead rat. But even many of those who had previously supported his Boss smelled the rat. "You listen to this-and you think: one of us must be an idiot," said Vasyl Koktysh...
...Despite the parallels, the Belorusians' fight will be nothing festive and colorful like 2004's so-called Orange Revolution in nearby Ukraine. More likely it would be a smoldering, painful and drawn-out affair, not unlike that of Solidarity in Poland over 30 years ago-Belarus has slid that far back under Lukashenko's decade-long reign. And a bloody backlash at some point remains a serious possibility; despite all his bravado, Lukashenko is cornered and nervous. The election, he said soon after, had "convincingly demonstrated who is the master of our house." And he isn't eager to hand...