Businessmen, Take the Side of the People

Everybody is glad to observe the arrest of court businessman Yury Chyzh.

It is ghoulish joy, to be more exact. And here may be some reasons: what did Chyzh and other hockey players-mower agents think about when they supported the regime of the last dictator in Europe? During the election campaign-2010 I was one of chiefs of Andrei Sannikov's electoral staff and I can say for sure that everybody - students, pensioners, workers, peasants, former policemen and military men - supported him. Only businessmen stood apart. And only few of them were for Sannikov.

I was also subject to fund raising for the election campaign. I used to hold tens of meetings with Belarusian businessmen before the elections and after signatures collection. Every time I heard - "We are in the system and know its rules. We know how much money is needed to get some benefits and be safe. If the government changes, we will not know what to do." We managed to raise funds for the election campaign in the last moment, my talks with businessmen continued in prisons after events in the Square. I learn about many people in the business system, directors of leading Belarusian industry giants and many bureaucrats.

I had to defend actions of the opposition. I said that there had been not more than 300 opposition members under persecution and we had constantly fought for everyone of them both in Belarus and the world. I told my companions: "You see that I receive hundreds of letters from all over the world. I got letters from George Bush and Václav Havel, Kevin Spacey hold my image during the solidarity rally, I was the laureate for the Sakharov Prize. Nobody overall need you, our companions forget about you the next day after your arrest. Your wives give up on you and you are forced to make over their business to people from security agencies and Lukashenka's Administration. And above all, over these years tens or even hundreds of thousands of businessmen, directors, state employees have passed through prisons".

It is clear that Lukashenka's dictatorship is losing positions now. There is and will be no money in the country. New loans will be spent to redeem old ones, and the regime will tap businessmen for money.

Rudy, Lukashenka's assistant, has recently written that the regime in Belarus could be called a state capitalism. It is not true. There is a farm and feudal system in the country, when the main collective farmer can break any oligarch's back. The country is on the edge of a bourgeois revolution, but businessmen should be involved too.

I urge businessmen and leaders of state enterprises to stop being the comprador bourgeoisie and the object for tapping money. Let you take the side of the people and you will not be despicable traders anymore, but respected people.

The "parliamentary campaign" starts in a few months. Do not regard it as an election, but a fight for your rights, a dignity campaign. Join Belarusian opposition parties, work with independent media and civil rights organizations and stay together with your people. There are political leaders to rally around. Mikalai Statkevich is one of them. You can create your own parties and organizations. This is the only way to protect yourself, your families and to initiate a normal European Belarus - the country for business and decent life.

Dzimty Bandarenka, coordinator of the European Belarus and former business manager of Radio 101.2, especially for charter97.org