Lukashenka To Follow Fate Of Gaddafi and Yanukovych

A support of dictators from European officials’ side inevitably leads to revolutions.

This is how coordinator of the civil campaign European Belarus Zmitser Bandarenka comments on the possibility of lifting of the EU sanctions against Lukashenka’s regime in an interview to charter97.org.

– The issue of lifting sanctions against Lukashenka and his officials has been actually worked out. This has already been claimed by senior representatives of the EU countries. How would you comment on such a move of the West?

– To make such a decision would mean to betray Belarusian people and the democratic opposition in Belarus, whose representatives are in favor of carrying on sanctions against Lukashenka and his clique guilty of fraud during the elections-2010, repressions against civil society activists, tormenting candidates for presidency and members of their election headquarters.

There haven’t been any positive changes in Belarus. The elections-2015 have been faked up in a most imprudent manner. The former political prisoners have not been rehabilitated and their rights are still being affected, one of the 2010 presidential candidates Ales Mikhalevich is still being prosecuted, none of the security forces officers responsible for tormenting and beating up democratic leaders and journalists, have not been punished.

On the other hand, EU officials are using the same tools and techniques against the Belarusian dictator that have been used in Gaddafi, Ben Ali, Yanukovych’s cases. European officials would do everything to maintain the mythical stability, trying to support dictators, meeting with them, kissing their hands and giving financial loans, most of which are stolen by dictators and then settle in Western banks.

But the people of the oppressed countries eventually rise up, cast down the tyrants, and the “stability” turns into a revolutionary conflagration.

– It’s not the first time European officials call off sanctions against Lukashenka. It has always led to the growth of repressions against the opposition in the country. Is such a scenario to be expected now?

– And again Lukashenka’s behavior is very similar to the behavior of other dictators. These people have the psychology of serial killers and sadists, and if not strict barriers are put to them, they implement their psychopathic instincts in the repressions against their own people, which leads to an inevitable social explosion on the back of economic crisis.

That’s what happened in Libya, Tunisia, and Ukraine. That is to happen in Belarus.

– What should the democratic forces do in this situation?

– It has to be understood that European politicians haven’t worked out a strategy towards Belarus and there are no leaders of Reagan and Thatcher’s level. But the Europeans are different. Belarusians have a lot of friends in Europe among journalists, human rights activists and cultural figures. It should be used as an instrument to influence public opinion in the European countries, to convey the truth about the situation in Belarus, for example, that now Lukashenka has deprived of work hundreds of thousands of sole traders and is trying to eliminate them as a class.

We should be united, following the Ukrainian volunteers’ example, who, despite the passivity of the West and the corruption of their own government, have managed to stop the Russian aggression and to defend the freedom and independence of their country.