BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

26/04/2006

Belarussians gather to remember Chernobyl disaster

More than 5,000 opposition protesters massed in the Belarusian capital Minsk today to mark the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster despite police fencing off a downtown square where they had planned to rally.

Alexander Milinkevich, the opposition candidate who challenged authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko in last month's disputed election, said the closure of the square showed authorities were scared and vowed to continue a campaign of protests.

"We will not wait five years, we will do it in a year or two, maybe faster. Through peaceful action we will destroy this regime," he told the crowd.

Prosecutors had summoned Milinkevich earlier today and, he said, warned him not to appear at the start of the evening rally commemorating the nuclear explosion that covered nearly a quarter of Belarus' territory with radioactive fallout.

He vowed to defy their order not to be at the square, which is both the symbolic centre of the opposition and across the street from the presidential administration building.

Oktyabrskaya Square was the same plaza in Minsk where an unprecedented week of protests were held in March after presidential elections that the opposition says were fraudulent.

Authorities had given permission for the rally, but banned Milinkevich and other political figures from appearing at the march's starting point of Oktyabrskaya Square. As the crowd tried to reach the square, police loudly ordered them through loudspeakers to move about one mile away to the Academy of Sciences, where authorities had authorised the rally to take place.

By the time the crowd began to march toward the academy, more than 5,000 people were participating.

Milinkevich, speaking beneath curved colonnades at the main entrance to the academy, said he would launch a process aimed at impeaching Lukashenko and called for another rally on May 1.

Protesters stayed on the footpaths and carefully observed rules, even using underground crossings to cross streets along the way. They were accompanied by police in trucks, reminding them through loudspeakers: "This action is not permitted. Participants will be held responsible."

"I want to live in a free country where there is no fear," said Andrei Denisevich, a 23-year-old engineer who said he was taking part in an opposition rally for the first time.

"It's very frightening for me, but I came to this protest. Every citizen must make his civic position known."

Antonina Vezhnavets, 16, said she also was frightened. "I am afraid not only of ecological Chernobyls, but of political Chernobyls. We are told in school that there are no problems in Belarus, neither ecological nor political, but the main thing is there is no freedom," she said, carrying the white-and-red flag of the opposition.

The opposition had hoped the rally would get a large turnout, which would be a sign that Milinkevich's supporters are able to keep up momentum in their campaign against Lukashenko's authoritarian government.

The opposition challenges government claims that the consequences of Chernobyl are being remedied adequately, and it strongly objects to programs to resettle people in fallout-contaminated areas that had been evacuated.

The head of Lukashenko's administration, Gennady Nevuiglas, told an official commemoration of the Chernobyl explosion today that "the authorities are strongly resolving the question of rehabilitating those who suffered."

"We have shown that one can live on the contaminated territory. We are preserving life there. We have returned hope to the people, and that's important," he said at the ceremony outside a church dedicated to the memory of Chernobyl's victims.

About 1,000 spectators were on hand for the ceremony, including some of the so-called liquidators, the hundreds of thousands of workers who were pressed into service by Soviet authorities to clean up the heavily radioactive areas of the plant and its surroundings.

One of them was 50-year-old Viktor Ivanov, who sharply disagreed with the official claims of good treatment of those who suffered.

"During the whole 20 years, I've received only one packet of Chinese tea as humanitarian aid," he said. "I feel like the government has thrown everybody away and forgotten all about us."

As evening started to fall, the protesters began walking to a square where there is a memorial to Chernobyl victims.

Source:

http://www.eveningecho.ie/news/bstory.asp?j=180764240&p=y8x764946&n=180765000

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