Alyaksandr Kazulin: “The main thing that I can fulfil Iryna’s last will” (video)

His first interview at large political prisoner Alyaksandr Kazulin gave to the Charter’97 press center. Alyaksandr Kazulin has been released today for three days to take part in the funeral of his wife, who died on 23 February. The mourning ceremony for Iryna Kazulina is to take place today in Minsk. “The main thing now is that I can fulfil the last will of my beloved Iryna – to lay her to rest,” Alyaksandr Kazulin says.

– Mr. Alyaksandr, accept our deep condolences. How have you been released from the colony? The prison chief has taken you home by car...

– Thanks you much. Well, I’m not really at large. I have been released only for three days to say the last farewell to my wife. As soon as I learnt about Iryna’s death, I went on hunger strike, and declared I would go on dry hunger strike from 26 February. You can imagine what a dry hungry strike is... Today I have demanded in a rather severe tone to allow me to phone to my daughters and bury Iryna. I was saying it was a refined humiliation of me and my family. It has passed two days since my wife died, and no one does anything. Then I had a hard conversation with the head of the Penal Department of the Vitsebsk Region. He tried to tell me fairytales, but I didn’t believe them. But at 8.45pm I was said to gather my belongings and go home. The main thing now is that I can fulfil the last will of my beloved Iryna - to lay her to rest.

– Mr. Alyaksandr when is the mourning ceremony and the funeral to take place? Many Belarusians want to say last farewell to Iryna...

– The mourning ceremony is the most likely to be in the Red Church. At about 8.00pm. The funeral is to take place on Wednesday. We need to clear out some details, so in the morning we will be able to say everything for sure.

– Do you suppose, personally Lukashenka ordered to release you?

– I was put into prison by his personal order, I released by his order, too. Any other person would release me on the amnesty, because I have already served a third part of my term. He could have released me without problems and saved his face. Moreover, he knew in what condition my wife was. As you understand, Iryna needed her husband near her first of all. It would have been humanly in this case. He made everything he could to humiliate me.

– Do you reckon on your final release? The EU and the US insist on your immediate and unconditional release. Your discharge is the first step to beginning of normalisation of relations between the official Minsk and Europe.

– It has always been important for me to know: whether I am an object of bargaining or a political agent. Lukashenka should stop pressing upon his people. It’s time to negotiate and solve the future of the country. And do it seriously. It’s obvious, Lukashenka can’t avoid it, he fears Kazulin and does his best to keep him in prison.

– Do you mean you are ready to negotiate with Lukashenka?

– Even after I passed through so much humiliation and insults from him, I’m ready to negotiate. Though, as you understand, after his speech on TV concerning my wife, I was deeply insulted. I watched this speech two times – on ONT channel and on STV one, and just petrified. And then I simply horrified how mean a person can be, how low he can fall. I saw a burnt field of earthliness, absolute callousness. You understand well, that any emotional upset when a person has cancer of forth stage leads to... to what it has led. One can’t say that Lukashenka killed my wife, but he made all for it to happen.

But even in this situation, before cherished memory of my wife, who died, defending her dignity, her people, fighting for her husband, for the country, I am ready to rise above my feelings. And I advise him to do so, because he can do such things that will be painful to all of us. The case isn’t in welfare of my family. Today not only my family is in difficult situation, any Belarusian family is in difficult situation. So the problems must be solved more seriously and profound, than the authorities try to do.

– Mr. Alyaksandr, how have you lived these two years in the colony?

– I had to fight constantly. Some people treat me as a former candidate for presidency, others – as a future president. Everyone in the colony calls me a president. The administration of the colony, as you understand, fulfils orders, and naturally, the treatment was rather rough, sometimes even cruel. Prison is prison. For instance, I lost the right to have a short meeting with my wife and relatives only for the fact I fell asleep. When I ended my hunger strike, I was very weak. If I didn’t sleep, I fell down. I could sit on a chair and fell asleep. Of course, I understand, they are given orders, but it should be something human in them. I can tell much, but one needs to imagine he or she is a person who must fulfil orders. We don’t know what orders they are given, how they must account to the authorities, so one needs to understand them.

– You bore heroically a long hunger strike – 53 days, and achieved the impossible – the Belarusian question was raised in the UNO Security Council. How did it influence your health?

– I felt very bad. I didn’t expect the recovering after the hunger strike would be so painful, so long. As I was explained later, I had come to the verge. I lost in weight every day, and I weighted 63 kilogram last days. I lost 30 per cent of my weight, after that irreversible process begins... The United States, which raised the Belarusian question in the UN Security Council, saved my life.

I didn’t regret for a moment and don’t regret now what I have done. If you struggle not for yourself, but for something more, you don’t think of yourself. It becomes unimportant what will happen to you. If there is God and Providence, it must be so. If your country and your people need you, you will live. So if you are ready to go all the way and sacrifice everything, only then, at the limit of human abilities, you can achieve something. We live in such a country, where we need to prove something, we fear to lose a job, post, privileges, material comforts, but at the same time we forget we are losing the main things – our soul and conscience.

– Mr. Alyaksandr, after you became an opponent to the regime, you have sacrificed much. Do you regret it?

– I can say I just had no other choice. I explained people many times we need to act together and don’t think who which posts will take, don’t think how to look better. I wasn’t interested in it. I was interested only in the result. I think I have obtained some result finally.

– Belarusians and the whole world have fought and will fight for your final release. What would you like to say to people?

– I have received many letters from Belarus and the whole world. The record is 240 letters a day. The letters from Belarus are special. When people write, when it affects them, when a small light is gleaming in their hearts, it gives a hope that people will begin to realise in what country we live and what we should do to obtain a result.

Photo by Radio Svaboda