Andrei Sannikov: Belarus is ruled by bandits

The leader of the European Belarus told Polish Polityka about his time in prison.

The influential Polish magazine Polityka published a conversation with Andrei Sannikov about the limit that a prisoner should not cross. Sannikov is a Belarusian oppositionist who spent a year and a half in prison. The interview was held by Marcin Wojcechowski (translation by charter97.org).

- Were you beaten in prison?

- They try not to assault political prisoners physically, but they use every weak point. For example, my leg was hurt and yet I had to sleep on the floor under the bed, because, as they told me, there was no place in the cell. Then, although I couldn’t walk, I was placed in a cell with no toilet. Each time I had to use a toilet turned into a nightmare. I was humiliated wherever I went, and I knew that the powers were doing everything they could to enhance my physical sufferings.

- To how many different prisons were you sent during those 18 months?

- 6 prisons, 3 reformatories and 8 transfers. I spent 5 months in a one-man cell. Our prisons remind of the medieval times: stone floor with a hole, hard beds. No prison can ever be a pleasant place, but the Belarusian prisons are particularly unpleasant. Even if the environment is tolerable, the warders act like sadists. Constant humiliations, complete dependence on the administration, 80-10 percent of prisoners tell on each other, convinced that they can get benefits for that.

- How did they try to break you?

- At first, they put people who behaved like animals in my cell. Other cell-mates were told to pull information from me or convince me to sign a pardon appeal. First they explained, then threatened, and finally, put an ultimatum. They sent to me those who acknowledged their guilt and were released, just to show that there is nothing bad in a pardon appeal.

- Why didn’t you do it?

- Because I’m not guilty.

- Some other oppositional candidates acknowledged their guilt after the presidential elections 2010. One of them criticized his own actions on the TV, and claimed he had to do it upon release. Why did you act differently?

- Had I been a spy or had I really planned an overturn in Belarus, which they tried to accused me of, maybe then I would have been elaborating my steps. But I was completely innocent. I knew that my wife was in jail, and nearly the entire team. If I had admitted my guilt, my colleagues would have appeared in a much worse situation. And in my turn, I was nearly certain that they wouldn’t tell a word to the special services. That is why I preferred to stay away from all the games.

- What is most important in prison?

- It is most crucial to define the limit that cannot be crossed. You should realize that you can die behind the bars, and you should decide for yourself if it is worth it, or if you should try to avoid it. I set my limit. A politician can never say “never”, and so I considered signing a pardon appeal as an option.

- But why didn’t you do it?

- I took this decision when I realized that I was approaching the limit of my physical destruction. When I was writing the appeal, I had no hope that it would help me. I believed that the mechanism had already been set to destroy me. I tried to stop it but with not much hope.

- What was your most terrible experience?

- Threats to my family. I knew that Belarus is ruled by bandits, but I didn’t know that they are that merciless. At some point my wife was in a cell next to mine. It was no coincidence. They threatened that they would deprive us of our parental rights and send our son to an orphanage. They threatened my 78-year old mother. It had a bad impact on her health, but she did great. She came with parcels to me, tried to find out what was happening to us. She had to endure terrible humiliations from the prison administration to get even tiny bits of information.

- Your wife Iryna Khalip is a well-known journalist, correspondent of the Russian paper Novaya Gazeta in Minsk, the main newspaper of the democratic opposition. Did it help you, or on the contrary, harm you?

- We got help from Russian politicians, mostly from the opposition, but from other political wings, too. Even the Russian intelligentsia were active, they held several rallies in our support in Moscow and other cities. Actors in Russia, U.K., U.S. supported us, too. In prison, warders tried to persuade us that nobody talks about us, but we knew it wasn’t true.

- How did the powers try to persuade you that you were forgotten?

- We didn’t get to read newspapers or watch the television. But even in the censored environment we could feel that the world wasn’t deaf to what was going in Belarus. The state media were writing about the black-listed western actors that spoke for us. In the newspapers that we got, even Lukashenka’s Sovetskaya Byelorussia, with some articles cut out with a razor.

- The West was defending you. How about Moscow?

- So did Moscow, to my surprise. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov twice spoke about human rights violations in Belarus. I don’t recall a similar case in the post-soviet space.

- Why does Lukashenka hate you? According to the official statistics, you only got 3 percent of votes during the elections.

- He knows how many people had really voted for us. I say “us” because there was a team behind me. Two of my teammates were former heads of state: two former defense ministers, representatives from different parties from left to right wings, artists and scientists. Memories from the election campaign helped a lot to survive the prison. During the campaign, more and more people came to every new meeting. The KGB couldn’t sabotage a single meeting, the atmosphere in the meeting halls was that good. The people came to listen to everything till the final words, and dealt with provocateurs themselves. This is where Lukashenka’s hatred probably originates from.

- Maybe Lukashenka has personal claims to you?

- I don’t know why. Personally, I don’t hate him.

- Maybe because he was challenged by a former deputy foreign minister?

- I was a staff diplomat, I am a devoted democrat. I had come to the Belarusian Foreign Ministry long before Lukashenka came to power. I believe that diplomats must serve the state, not the president.

- What hinders changes in Belarus? May 2010 have been the last chance?

- It was a good chance, but not the last one. The powers were scared and decided to take harsh measures. It was not the first time, but before the powers had used their illegal methods after foreign observers and journalists left. In December 2010, they were too frustrated to wait. We were one day short to take over the control when we were arrested. Any conversation with the powers was unreal. Not with Lukashenka, with someone else, but we had no time. Maybe Europe was too soft. Maybe we should have insisted on the second round of voting instead of talking about the forged results. We can get our next chance already tomorrow. Lukashenka’s political regime is doomed, and it is a result of the events of 2010.

- 2011 was marked by a grave crisis in Belarus, but nothing happened.

- Maybe because all opposition leaders were in prison.

- Maybe, there is no alternative to Lukashenka. According to social scientists, 70 percent of Belarusians want changes, but they don’t see anyone who could lead them, and the opposition is weak, dispersed and unpopular.

- In the soviet times, social scientists said that Brezhnev had 99 percent of votes. I don’t trust independent social research in Belarus because we have no democratic institutions. In January 2011, several surveys were held to see how people had voted a month before. The surveys showed that Lukashenka could have won already in the first round. But in January, a wave of repressions and intimidation came. What was the point with the surveys at that point?

- Do Russia and the European Union help Belarus become a democracy?

- Not Russia. In the late 90s my friends in the West told me not to be afraid of the integration with Russia because Russia was where the democracy would come from. It was in the end of Boris Yeltsin’s presidency. We in Eastern Europe know that the democracy will not come from Russia, no matter how others are trying to convince us in the opposite.

Europe should realize how crucial Belarus is. What Lukashenka started here, today is picked up in Russia and Ukraine. It is easier to help Belarus transform than to change anything in Russia or even Ukraine. And the effect from changes in Belarus can be huge for the entire region. There is an opinion that if we don’t support Lukashenka Russia will absorb Belarus. But in the result of his support, even from the West, Moscow’s impact in Belarus is only growing. Lukashenka cannot guarantee stability or independence of Belarus, and sometimes this is what western politicians are trying to tell us. We are doing our best to promote the European values in Belarus fighting for our rights, but it turns out that the Europeans themselves don’t have much faith in these values.

- What should Belarusians do and what should the West do to make changes possible in Belarus?

- In 1998, professor Geremek said that Poland’s moral duty is to help democracy in Belarus. It would be too ambitious to call professor Geremek my friend, but we had a very good relation. Poland realized this moral duty only in 2010, when a real attempt to analyze our situation was made. It is common that one doesn’t ask about opportunities and pick alternatives when it comes to one’s moral duty. The most important thing is the moral blockade of the dictator regime. And, as far as the Belarusian people are concerned, with financial and moral support we will prevail. The spirit of 2010 is not dead. If the majority of countries treat Lukashenka the way Poland treats him today, he won’t have any perspectives.