Undaunted by the violenceand arrests of October's Freedom March, people gathered in the streets of Minsk on March 12 to call for a democratic Belarus, independent from Russia. The first in a series across the country, Vincuk Viacorka believes such events are integral to a structured negotiating process.
So is the once-popular Belarusian Popular Front really working for the people of Belarus now? It spent much of the 1990s in crisis. Denied access to the media, and with Zenon Poznyak attempting to lead from the United States, it eventually split in two last autumn. The "revived" BPF has since emerged as part of a broad alliance of opposition parties.
Accusations that the party is, or was exclusively Belarusian, are "lies" insists Viacorka.
We are, and always have been a multi-ethnic multi-confessional country. Tolerance is one of our characteristics. The BPF is a centrist, European Union-style party, nationalist in the sense of statehood."
He points out that it works with Jewish organizations, and that senior office holders include ethnic Ukrainians and Russians.
"My mother is ethnic Russian. So I personally can't be an ethnic chauvinist. But we defend the right to our language and historical memory, against those falsifiers who represent the civilisation of Ivan the Terrible and Joseph Stalin," said Viacorka.
So will Belarusian be the only permitted language of participation in a new democracy?
"The official language should be Belarusian. It will survive only if the right to speak Belarusian, to have your children educated in Belarusian is defended by the state, as it was in pre-Lukashenko times. His so-called 'bilingualism' means a return to Soviet suppression of the language. But nobody will be forbidden from speaking Russian, Polish, or any other language, especially in those areas completely inhabited by Ukrainians or Lithuanians. Members of the pre-Lukashenko Parliament learned Belarusian step by step. This is not a question for this generation. In those times the majority of people thought, 'I don't speak standard Belarusian, but let my children or grandchildren speak it from nursery school.'"
So if the BPF wants to safeguard the nation's future, why won't it participate in this autumn's parliamentary elections?
"No elections will take place, only a farce," said Viacorka. A report by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe Advisory and Monitoring Group lends weight to this view, strongly criticizing the new Electoral Code. Free and fair elections are impossible with such limited access to the media, argues Viacorka. The OSCE AMG's report calls for greater definition of the new Parliament's procedures, a matter the opposition wants to negotiate:
"Today's Parliament has no rights, as well as being unelected. Lukashenko can veto every decision. It makes no sense to participate in elections to a powerless body."
On Feb. 12 newspaper Narodnaya Volya published a letter from Police Lieutenant Oleg Baturin of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He claimed that at the October Freedom March, he and other officers were under orders to provoke violence. Denouncing the government, Baturin wrote that many in the police "hate the regime as much as you." So does the opposition have support in those institutions that might be expected to be conservative?
"Officers, Generals, and men in the ranks of the police and the military support us," says Viacorka.
And while the Orthodox Church leadership toes Lukashenko's line, he also claims the support of dissenting Orthodox parishes and the Catholic Church.
The spring 2000 protests will show people in the power structure that the dictator is not eternal, Viacorka believes.
"He will have his end. They show that a lot of people don't depend on official propaganda, but they have their own thoughts, and they are not afraid."
Algirdas Petraitis is a pseudonym. The author of this article asked his name be withheld.
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