BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

04/04/2006

Belarus's Lukashenko confounds critics

By Andrei Makhovsky

MINSK (Reuters) - Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko on Tuesday confounded critics who suggested he was rattled by protests against his rule by appearing on television in good form ahead of his weekend inauguration.

Lukashenko appeared strained last week in the sole footage of him shown since the day after his victory in an election denounced by the opposition and the West as blatantly rigged.

With state television regularly reporting on his activities at length, infrequent appearances -- and an initial postponement of the inauguration -- prompted diplomats and rivals to suggest he had been unsettled by protests after the March 19 poll.

On Tuesday, television showed him in good humour while bidding farewell to Kazakhstan's ambassador.

"We have absolutely no problems between us," Lukashenko told the departing ambassador. "And I believe there never will be. Thank you. Kazakhstan always supported us, no matter what."

The president's chief of staff had dismissed any speculation about his health on Monday, saying Lukashenko had outscored everyone in a weekend hockey game. But the president failed to appear at a major event on Monday evening.

Western countries have roundly denounced the election and police action ending a week of subsequent demonstrations -- unprecedented in their size in tightly-controlled Belarus.

Hundreds have been sentenced to up to 15 days in prison for taking part in illegal protests.

PALACE INAUGURATION

The inauguration is now to take place on Saturday in the grandiose Palace of the Republic in central Minsk.

Main opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich -- credited with six percent against Lukashenko's 83 in the poll -- has said some sort of new protest will take place to mark the event with bigger demonstrations set for later in the month.

Milinkevich, touring European capitals, was at the European Parliament in the French city of Strasbourg on Tuesday after being received in Austria, current European Union president.

The EU is to announce an extension of visa restrictions against Belarussian officials at a meeting next week.

Protests by the liberal and nationalist opposition have been reduced in recent years by tough legislation and police action.

But they traditionally peak on April 26, the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster over the border in Ukraine 20 years ago, which contaminated large parts of Belarus.

Immediately after the poll, Lukashenko described his victory as the collapse of a Western-inspired plot to foment unrest.

Belarus's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday denounced a statement by NATO deploring the use of force against demonstrators and said it was considering reassessing more than a decade of participation in the Alliance's Partnership for Peace programme.

The ministry said NATO was "taking on a completely un-natural function ... Belarus is a major contributor to security in the Euroatlantic community."

Source:

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-04-04T142327Z_01_L28170446_RTRUKOC_0_UK-BELARUS.xml&archived=False

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