BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS
DATE:
28/02/2008
Belarus Opposition Chief Denounces Regime;Returns To Jail
MINSK (AFP)--Belarussian opposition leader Alexander Kozulin called on Thursday for President Alexander Lukashenko's "totalitarian" regime to be dismantled, after briefly being freed from jail for his wife's funeral.
Speaking shortly before returning to jail, where he is serving a five-and-a- half year term for demonstrating against Lukashenko's rule, Kozulin said the Belarussian leader had offered him the chance to leave the country with his family shortly before his wife's death on Feb. 23 from cancer.
But he said he had chosen prison rather than "deportation" and an uncertain future that might not bring an official pardon.
Kozulin, who has won high level support from the US and other Western governments, said he bore no ill will towards the head of this ex-Soviet republic of 10 million people located between Russia and the European Union.
However, he said it was time for a fresh start.
"The moment of truth has arrived. Today we face a situation where the construction of a totalitarian state has been completed," Kozulin said at a press conference.
"Today Lukashenko has a choice - to accept my offer and start a completely new stage in Belarus' development," said Kozulin.
He also proposed a meeting of all democratic political forces, both those inside the country and those exiled in the West.
The U.S. has called for the unconditional release of Kozulin and all other political prisoners in Belarus.
On Wednesday Kozulin, looking gaunt after a hunger strike to force the authorities to release him, attended his wife Irina's funeral at a Catholic church in Minsk with his two daughters and over 1,000 other mourners.
Source:
Archive
