BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

29/11/2006

Belarus' main opposition leader detained by authorities

The Associated Press

MINSK, Belarus: Belarusian opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich was detained by authorities Wednesday when he returned from Latvia after attending a NATO summit as a guest, his spokesman said.

Milinkevich, the main opposition leader who ran against authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko in March and led unprecedented protests following the vote, was detained at the Minsk airport on suspicion of carrying a forged passport, spokesman Pavel Mazheika said.

Officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Milinkevich was returning from the NATO summit in Riga, where he met with U.S. President George W. Bush, Mazheika said.

Milinkevich led demonstrations that drew large crowds to Minsk's central square for a week to protest after the March presidential election, in which the official count gave Lukashenko a third term with 83 percent of the vote in balloting widely rejected in the West.

Milinkevich spent two weeks in jail following an April 26 protest, which attracted about 10,000 people. He has been detained at least twice since then, but released.

Lukashenko has ruled Belarus since 1994, quashing dissent, harassing and jailing opponents and maintaining his power through elections dismissed by critics abroad and at home as illegitimate - tactics that have earned him the moniker of "Europe's last dictator" in the West.

In a speech at Latvia University on Tuesday, Bush harshly criticized Lukashenko's regime. "The existence of such oppression in our midst offends the conscience of Europe and it offends the conscience of America," Bush said.

Source:

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/11/29/europe/EU_GEN_Belarus_Opposition.php