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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend.... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (18849)	3/22/2006 10:59:17 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Are Belarus Protests Winding Down? By Captain Ed on Europe Captain's Quarters It appears that the revolution may be postponed, according to news reports from Belarus and its capital, Minsk. The number of protestors appearing at the daily rallies against the rigged re-election of perpetual President Aleksander Lukashenko has dropped considerably instead of inspiring fellow Belarussians to join the peaceful demands for change: <<< The authorities arrested dozens of protesters on Tuesday, including prominent opposition figures, in an effort to squelch public demonstrations over the declared victory of President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko in the presidential election on Sunday. Protesters gathered for a third day in October Square here after a few hundred had defied official warnings and camped out on the square overnight, unmolested by the police. The arrests, however, appeared to have their intended effect as the size of the protests dwindled considerably after as many as 10,000 assembled on Sunday night in one of the largest public expressions of dissent since Mr. Lukashenko took office in 1994. In contrast, by Tuesday evening, 2,000 to 3,000 appeared, undeterred by snow, wind and subfreezing temperatures. Anatoly V. Lebedko, an opposition leader and ally of the main opposition challenger, Aleksandr Milinkevich, was arrested early Tuesday near the square. He appeared in court later and was sentenced to 15 days in jail for having organized an unsanctioned protest, his aides said. >>> Today's AP report states that the number of protestors has dropped even farther today, down to an estimated 600. However, this may have two reasons apart from the arrests that Lukashenko has initiated. One would be the Belarussian weather, where the temperatures make overnight camping an uncomfortable prospect. More likely, the original call for delayed protests by the opposition may have convinced some protestors to save their powder until the weekend. The original plan was to demonstrate on Sunday and then regather on the following Saturday. Some of those protesting made references to March 25th as the day they would gather in force to demand change. This appears to have been a tactical error on the part of the Milinkevich supporters. In order to face down tyrants like this through "people power", momentum has to build continuously until the force of it can no longer be denied. Starting and stopping these kind of demonstrations make them easier to handle and will fail to convince ordinary Belarussians to flock to their standard. Hopefully those protesting for fair and open elections and real democracy in the last bastion of European dictatorship can pick up the threads of their peaceful revolution on March 25th. If they do, they should take care to continue the effort until it succeeds instead of waiting for the weekends. Keep watching Publius Pundit for more information. captainsquartersblog.com nytimes.com news.yahoo.com

To: Sully- who wrote (18849)	3/27/2006 12:27:17 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Reports Of Their Demise May Have Been Exaggerated By Captain Ed on Europe Captain's Quarters The opposition movement in Belarus made a comeback today after going out with a whimper less than 24 hours earlier. Thousands of Belarussians defied riot police and gathered for a peaceful demonstration against Aleksander Lukashenko's oppressive regime and the rigged elections that kept him in power: <<< 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 response does surprise me; I predicted after Friday's debacle that the steam had mostly gone out of the Belarussian opposition. Publius Pundit agreed with me that the failure to stand their ground in October Square last Sunday was a tactical error, while my friend King Banaian at SCSU Scholars strongly disagreed: <<< The comparisons between Belarus' nascent opposition and the Orange Revolution next door completely misses the history of the Orange Revolution, which took years to create. The Orange Revolution was the culmination of an effort started by mass protests of "Ukraine without Kuchma" (UBK), which came from the grisly murder of journalist Heorhiy Gongadze in September 2000. UBK eventually got protests going in December of that year, which lasted well into 2001. These groups too were relatively small and were attacked repeatedly, though Kuchma was smart enough not to use uniformed police. By the end of 2001, it appeared, Kuchma had solidified power, sent Yushchenko from the prime minister's office into opposition, and was contemplating constitutional changes that would keep him in power indefinitely. And that's the point: The breakup of protests was not the end of the opposition to Kuchma. It was the beginning of another phase in the development of a real opposition. >>> However, the 5,000 who gathered in Minsk this morning, while impressive so soon after the mass arrests yesterday, still only comes to half of those who initially started protesting last Sunday. That crowd grew to over 10,000 Belarussians and could have continued to grow, had the Milinkevich supportes not dispersed the demonstrations themselves. As the Ukranians showed, the aftermath of a rigged election is a powerful time to build strength, and part of that strength comes from showing the ultimate impotence of the dictatorship. By reducing the protests in Minsk to a couple of hundred people, it invited Lukashenko to show that he is anything but impotent to shut them down and re-instill fear to keep others from joining the protests. Now that the opposition has a kernel of strength in Minsk, they need to maintain it and encourage others to join. In Lebanon, the protestors never allowed the Syrian toadies in Beirut to gain the upper hand; when Hizb' Allah rallied in strength to intimidate them, the Lebanese patriots outmarched them. Only by putting people in the streets will Belarussians take their country back from Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin, and they can't do that while they're sending them home. captainsquartersblog.com news.yahoo.com captainsquartersblog.com publiuspundit.com scsuscholars.com

To: Sully- who wrote (18849)	3/27/2006 12:44:09 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Incoherence In Belarus Captain's Quarters By Captain Ed on Europe The situation in Europe's last dictatorship appears to have declined into a strange incoherence where both the government forces and the opposition give mixed signals about their intentions. On Friday, Aleksander Lukashenko ordered a roundup of the few hundred protestors still in the streets a week after a rigged election electrified the Belarussians into action. Today the protestors returned for the next scheduled event -- and the government did nothing to stop them. However, while the main body of protestors voluntarily shut down the demonstration in order to consolidate their support, another faction attempted to stage another in front of a police station -- and gave Lukashenko an opportunity to demonstrate his brutality: <<< Black-clad riot police clubbed demonstrators as government opponents marched Saturday in defiance of a show of force by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko that has drawn U.S. and European Union sanctions. A week into protests set off by the disputed election that handed Lukashenko a third term, opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich told a crowd of thousands that momentum is growing to bring democracy to Belarus. "We are starting work against dictatorship, and this work will sooner or later bear its fruit," he said. But Milinkevich also urged a monthlong recess in protests, apparently hoping to calm tensions and gain time to build opposition forces, which have fallen far short of the huge outpourings that peacefully overturned governments in Ukraine and Georgia. The day of confrontation and wildly swinging emotions left two big questions for the former Soviet republic of 10 million people, characterized in the West as Europe's last dictatorship: How much dissent are the authorities willing to allow and how much support does the opposition have? >>> Neither question got an answer today. After perhaps 20,000 people protested without any incident, the main portion supporting Milinkevich went home after the Lukashenko opponent decided not to pursue any more open demonstrations. Instead, he decided that it would be best to shelve the demonstrations for another month, waiting for the anniversary of the Chernobyl meltdown in order to take advantage of an emotional event in order to press for more participation. Lukashenko has tried to move people back into the area evacuated after the nuclear-power accident, a policy that has caused widespread anger among Belarussians. However, another Lukashenko opponent, Alexander Kozulin, decided to step up the pressure today rather than wait, and took a few hundred people to the police station where Minsk police held some of the previous day's protestors. Apparently hoping that the police would join them or stand aside, the Kozulin group surrounded the station and chanted slogans. Unfortunately for Kozulin, the Minsk police did not join them but began to beat and arrest the protestors. One man died and several injured in the melee, and police captured dozens of Kozulin's followers. Publius Pundit reports: <<< The protest ended peacefully. He had called on the authorities not to break it up because he would make sure that it didn’t get out of control, and so the police didn’t 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 didn’t 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. >>> This looks like the beginnings of a split in the opposition at a time when unity is critical in facing down the government. Milinkevich apparently was furious with the action by his ostensible partner in opposition, claiming that Kozulin "spoiled this holiday". Given enough fuel, this could degenerate into a dangerous split between a reformer attempting to use the system to patiently bring down a dictator and a renegade insistent on provoking violent reactions from him. Belarussians do not yet appear ready to revolt against Lukashenko and his pro-Moscow tilt, and having this kind of tension between opposition leaders will not give fence-sitters a warm feeling about jumping into the movement. Milinkevich may be right not to pursue the demonstrations further if the two leaders cannot coordinate any better than this. The movement has to decide whether it wants to unseat the Lukashenko regime by peaceful rallies or through the exposure of the state-approved brutality seen in Minsk. The latter would give Lukashenko too much latitude to keep applying force in suppressing the opposition. Putting it off for a month seems a long time for the momentum to simmer; Milinkevich may not have much passion left in his movement. But if the opposition appears confused, so does Lukashenko. Clearly the rallies have him rattled and unsure how to react. Milinkevich forced him into enduring today's more peaceful rally, accepting Milinkevich's word that his opponent would keep the crowd under control. His security forces responded to his orders when Kazulin stole a march on Milinkevich, but he cannot be sure that they will remain loyal if repeatedly asked to beat up unarmed and peaceful protestors. He can't afford to have the demonstrations but cannot afford to keep using force to break them up. So far the threshold seems to depend on the size of the rally. That's why Milinkevich would be better advised to keep the rallies and demonstrations going instead of having them drop off the radar screen as proposed. Lukashenko is on the ropes and continued pressure would eventually strip him of all his options. Hopefully, Milinkevich and Kazulin can coordinate their strategies and tactics in order to make that day come soon. ADDENDUM: The AP takes this bleak picture of the demonstration: news.yahoo.com Not much joy in this protest, and the woman in the picture looks rather haunting. captainsquartersblog.com news.yahoo.com publiuspundit.com