BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS
DATE:
Friday, January 27, 2006
Belarus Leader Orders Ban Against Protests
By YURAS KARMANAU
The Associated Press
MINSK, Belarus -- Authoritarian Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko warned activists late Friday that any protests over the country's upcoming presidential elections would meet a harsh government response.
In an interview carried on all Belarusian TV channels, Lukashenko vowed that he would not allow the type of mass street protests that brought opposition leaders to power in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.
"There will be no disturbances. No one will climb onto the barricades to fight Lukashenko," he said. "If there are provocations, we'll give them such a going-over they won't know what's hit them," Lukashenko threatened.
He has ruled the nation of 10 million since 1994, quashing opposition groups and independent media, leading Western nations to dub him "Europe's last dictator" and treat him as a pariah.
The Belarusian leader also turned on Western diplomats, saying he would not allow any interference in his ex-Soviet republic's internal affairs. "The embassies should know, that they can be out of here at 24 hours' notice and no one will help them," he said.
Lukashenko, who has forged increasingly close ties with Russia since the wave of revolutions in other post-Soviet states, said he was confident of Russian Vladimir Putin's support in the March 19 election.
"President Putin wants Lukashenko to stay, he wants to see Lukashenko in Belarus," he said.
Lukashenko has extended his time in office and strengthened his powers through elections and plebiscites denounced by Western governments and his opponents as fraudulent.
Belarus' beleaguered opposition has united around Alexander Milinkevich, the founder of the country's largest network of non-governmental organizations, as its candidate for challenging Lukashenko, despite widespread doubts about the vote's legitimacy.
Source:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/27/AR2006012701989.html
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