Aliaksandr Yarashuk: Authorities Got Scared Of Women

In Salihorsk authorities set firemen against the meeting of women’s network of the independent trade union.

The leader of the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions (BCDTU) Aliaksandr Yarashuk said that on Facebook. What would you think if, perhaps, all available city's fire trucks and the local authorities accompanied with the police suddenly drove up to the building where your democratic organization had gathered to hold a conference, if an Emergency Ministry officer announced that there was smoke blanketing in the building and brave fire fighters began to unwinding hoses busily, to use fire extension ladder to get to the roof and began to scurry back and forth, like shuttles, and helicopters appeared in the air for some reason?

What would you have thought if they had offered you to immediately leave the premises, allegedly because of the smoke blanketing, which they had been trying to find for about an hour, allegedly successfully but no one had been extinguishing anything, and you had not been allowed to return to the building, allegedly because it hadn’t been known when the smoke would dissipate?

That's right, you would have thought exactly the same thing and we, the activists and members of independent trade unions, who gathered in Salihorsk at the Palace of Arts to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Women's Network of the Independent Trade Union of Miners (ITUM) of “Belaruskali” thought – that it was very much like staging, a cheap performance.

The performance, played in front of us in order to disrupt the conference. Therefore, you have the right to exclaim like Stanislavsky: “I don’t believe!”.

We did the same in Salihorsk. And we were right, bearing in mind that we live in a country authorities of which panicky fear the citizens, united in the organization by democratic ideas.

This is what we said to our shocked guests from the Netherlands, the leaders of the Women's Network from the Dutch trade union the FNV, who thought that they were involved at the shooting of some kind of local variety of a Hollywood blockbuster.

We reassured them that, in spite of the fact that some Hollywood stars, who had known better days, such as Steven Seagal, come to Belarus, they had no relation to the events of Salihorsk – they come only to chew on carrots grown by the Belarusian dictator.

I think that it was not difficult for our guests to conclude that the affairs of the Belarusian regime were so bad that they fear not only men, but also women, who had gathered together.

Maybe they are right that they are afraid of women – women know the value of life better than anyone else does. They give the life, and fight for it incomparably more fiercely than men do. But the ruling regime has created such a suffocating atmosphere in the country, filled with the deadly gas of fear, that people, all the Belarusian society, are choking in it.

So, dear friends, it may happen so that Belarus will be saved by women, free citizens of the country, same as our nice friends from ITUM of “Belaruskali” and other included in the BCDTU trade unions, which we are so proud of. And our men's duty is to help them do this…