Our symbols are Pahonia coat of arms and white-red-white flag

Lukashenka carried out the referendum that banned the country's national symbols 20 years ago.

Politician and journalist Siarheu Navumchyk talks to charter97.org and recalls the landmark events that happened in Belarus on 14 May 1995. The anti-constitutional referendum was held, after which the Belarusian language lost the status of the only official language in Belarus, the historical symbols were replaced by former Soviet ones and the active integration of Belarus and the Russian Federation began.

“Lukashenka formally initiated the referendum at the beginning of 1995, but he said during the 1994 election campaign that he wanted the state symbols to be changed and two state languages to be introduced. Two languages in fact meant the liquidation of the Belarusian language as the only state one. We, members of the Popular Front, forecast the elimination of the language, because two state languages would create a ghetto for Belarusian and marginalise it. The predictions turned out to be true since the very first day after the so called referendum. We see the results today.

When Lukashenka proposed to carry out a referendum, we, members of the BPF party in the Supreme Council, raised a number of principled questions. Firstly, the referendum was anti-constitutional. Article 78 of the Constitution said that a referendum must be held in accordance with law. The law on a nationwide vote says clearly: issues related to the national and historical peculiarities of the Belarusians cannot be proposed for a referendum. Two of four questions were about the national and historical peculiarities: the question about the status of the Belarusian language and the question about the state symbols,” Siarhei Navumchyk thinks.

– Why was it mentioned in the Constitution? For the situation like that one?

– The language is not a property of one generation, for example, ours. We cannot decide the future of what we didn't create, of what was created many generations before us and would belong to next generations. It was reflected in the law on referendums. It forbade to propose these two questions for a referendum. The referendum violated the law and the Constitution.

Article 17 of the Constitution said the Belarusian was the state language, and Russian was the language of interethnic relations. The referendum was to amend the Constitution. But according to article 148 of the Constitution, it cannot be amended in the last six months of the term of the Supreme Council. The parliamentary elections were announced on the day when the referendum took place. Nobody remembered about six months.

– This is a legal point of view. What are political results of the referendum?

– Political aspects were that the referendum would split society. I drew attention to it in my speeches. It indeed placed Belarus in the position where it hadn't been for a long time.

Let's look at a simple example. Lukashenka said and continues to repeat now that the Russians were “packing their bags” because nationalists wanted them to leave the country, parents were forced to give children to Belarusian schools and so on. In 1993, 80% of first graders went to schools with Belarusian as the language of instruction. The Education Commission at the Supreme Council received only 9 complaints. The picket of parents “Society for the free choice of languages at schools” that demanded the introduction of two languages gathered 20 people in Independence Square. It was a process of returning to the Belarusian language. People just returned what the communists had taken away from them.

– What motives did Lukashenka really have?

– When Lukashenka was elected, he said at a dinner after the inauguration ceremony that Belarus was a “closed chapter” for him and his next aim was the Kremlin. Aliaksandr Fiaduta and other people, who were present at the dinner, confirm it. In 1994-1995, Lukashenka worked for the real integration of Belarus with Russia, or, to be more precise, the incorporation of Belarus into Russia. It was a quite profitable situation for him: Yeltsin was absolutely weak, his approval rating was tending to zero, and many in Moscow really put a stake on Lukashenko. He hoped he would get power in Russia if he gave Belarus on a silver platter. By the way, many confirmed this fact. For example, Boris Berezovsky said in an interview with RFE/RL that “gray cardinals” had two main candidates in 1999 – Lukashenka and Putin. They finally chose Putin. If they had chosen Lukashenka, the result would have been the annexation of Belarus.

– Does it turn out that the referendum was needed for Lukashenka personally?

– Not only Lukashenka but also Moscow needed the referendum to destroy the national identity. It is the only thing that keeps people together as a nation. The events in Ukraine prove it. You can go to occupied regions and read the Ukrainian constitution or Poroshenko's report. Local pro-Russian people will look at you as if you were a dumbhead and will probably argue with you. But if you raise the yellow-and-blue flag, they can beat or even kill you. This is the value that the state symbols have. Those who initiated the 1995 referendum -- both Lukashenka and then head of the president's administration Leanid Sinitsa – understood it perfectly. It was, in fact, a crime against the state, especially after the events in the Oval Hall on the night of 12/13 April, when 19 members of parliament were beaten.

– What results of the referendum can we see today?

– Three articles of the Constitution, four laws and the Criminal Code were violated. I agree with law professor Mikhail Pastukhou, a former member of the Constitutional Court, that the only fact of beating members of the Supreme Council in the Oval Hall during the announcement of the referendum makes results of the referendum void. De jure, both Pahonia (Chase) coat of arms and the white-red-white flag remain state symbols of Belarus. I don't doubt that the new authorities – either a new parliament or a new democratic president – will restore the constitutional order immediately, and none additional procedures will be needed.

As for the real situation, it is difficult. There are no Belarusian schools in regions due to the referendum. It was hard to imagine this situation in the early 1990s. But we said in 1995, that the referendum would lead to it. The number of Belarusian books published in the country is dozens times less than that of Russian books. We have young people of 18-20 years old, who were born after the referendum. They don't know the meaning of many Belarusian words. I, for example, was raised in a Russian-speaking family in the 1970s, but we had television and radio in Belarusian. It was a background. We had only one lesson in Belarusian language and literature a week, but we understood the Belarusian language well. Now, in a situation of the total Russification of television and radio, the new generation simply does not know many words. They just don't hear them.

– Can we say that the referendum legalised the “Russian world” in Belarus?

– Yes, the most awful thing is that a large part of Belarus's population regards Belarus as a part of the “Russian world” and repeat Lukashenka's words: “We are Russian people”. Lukashenka says it and they repeat. If Putin sends tanks to Belarus and gives an order to the Belarusian army to replace Belarusian flags by Russian ones, it will be done immediately. Actually, we don't have the Belarusian army. This army is pro-Russian, at least officers and generals. The 1995 referendum sucked the nation's blood. Lukashenka is a ghoul and vampire, if we speak in terms of a horror film.

– If it were possible to carry out democratic procedures now, what would be the results of a similar referendum? Does our nation like the historical symbols and language?

– I do not believe the statistics in a dictatorial country. Many are just afraid of saying what they really think. As for the return of the state symbols and language, we don't need a referendum any more, because the referendum of 1995 was illegal. We just need to restore constitutional norms. It is a simple legal procedure. If the state wants to remain a state, if the government bears responsibility before people, it must raise patriots from childhood. It is done in the US, France, the Czech Republic, Poland and Ukraine. Russia does the same, but with imperial and chauvinistic overtones. Belarus is a unique country in this sense. The state headed by Lukashenka works to destroy the country.

I am sure that when people get truthful information about the national values, everything will revive in a short time when new authorities come in power. It will be like in 1991-1994, when people accepted the Belarusisation and national symbols. If we hadn't had 20, almost 21, years of inactivity, we would live in a civilised European country today. We had good conditions when the country obtained its independence. We have better economic, transit, military and agrarian sectors, let alone knowledge-intensive industries, than our neighbours. We had just one soft spot – the level of national consciousness. This factor played a key role. The main aim of a new government – to improve the economy and solve social issues – will be achieved easily in certain sectors. The development of the national consciousness will take decades. But we need to begin it immediately and work actively. We won't achieve anything without national consciousness.