BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

Friday, April 29, 2005. Issue 3157. Page 3.

Belarussian President Tightens Security

The Associated Press

MINSK -- President Alexander Lukashenko on Thursday ordered security to be tightened in Belarus, citing strong Western criticism of his rule.

Moscow police, meanwhile, briefly detained Yabloko deputy head Sergei Mitrokhin during an anti-Lukashenko rally, and Ukraine harshly criticized Belarus for detaining five Ukrainian activists at a rally in Minsk.

"Belarus as before is being exposed to severe outside pressure, and therefore questions of security and strengthening the defense capabilities of our state take on a special significance in the current situation," Lukashenko said during a meeting on defense issues.

Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for a change in leadership in Belarus and described it as "the last dictatorship in the center of Europe." The European Union backed her position.

Lukashenko, whose current presidential term is up next year, has been strengthening Belarus' law enforcement agencies and its military, a move many see as a response to the popular protests that ushered the opposition into power in Georgia and Ukraine. He has insisted that there will not be a revolution in Belarus.

In Moscow, some 30 activists from liberal political parties and anti-government groups rallied outside the Belarussian Embassy. Police detained three people, including Mitrokhin, said Yabloko spokesman Sergei Kazakov. Mitrokhin was later released.

The protesters, who held banners reading "Lukashenko is Russia's Enemy" and "Down with Lukashism," pasted a sheet of paper on the embassy with the word "Prison" on it.

In Kiev, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Dmytro Svystkov said the ministry sent an official note of protest to the Belarussian Embassy in Kiev for the arrest of the five activists from the pro-democracy youth National Alliance.

More than three-dozen Belarussians, Ukrainians and Russians were detained by riot police in central Minsk on Tuesday as they rallied against Lukashenko.

Source:

http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2005/04/29/013.html