BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

20/12/2007

Belarus KGB head does not think threat to national security comes from opposition

Yury Zhadobin, head of the State Security Committee (KGB) of Belarus spoke about the opposition at his first press conference in his new position, online paper Khartiya'97 reports. Having reported about capture of foreign spies, he said he knew the opposition by names and it consisted of 1,767 "destructive elements," but they didn't threaten the national security.

"Though Belarus is demonstrating peaceable external policy, our opponents try to intrude our country to gather political, economical, military, scientific and technical information. The Committee uncovered the agent net of military intelligence from the neighbouring country [Poland] and activity of more than ten agents of foreign secret services was terminated," online paper cites the head of the Belarusian KGB. According to Zhadobin, activity of agent net of military intelligence of a state was terminated due to "classical counterintelligence operation." "We have created a severe counterintelligence regime, to say the least, for the opponents on the territory of our country," Zhadobin said.

Speaking of condition of the Belarusian opposition, Zhadobin said: "I wouldn't say they [opposition] pose a threat to the national security." "The so-called community of destructive elements consists of 1,767 people. We know their names and surnames, their number doesn't grow or reduce," the KGB head noted.

According to him, "these people confess something they like, most of them confess nothing but just earn living by foreign grants." "It is a means of earning money, they [opposition] don't need the power, they have found their niche where they can earn money," head of KGB is quoted as saying.

Source:

http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=1455