“Dziennik”: European Union fraternizes with Belarusian Fuhrer
9- 8.05.2009, 15:58
The former presidential candidate Alyaksandr Kazulin gave an interview to the Polish newspaper “Dziennik”.
Answering questions of the journalist of the influential Polish newspaper “Dziennik”, the politician has stated that Lukashenka hasn’t made a single step in the direction of democratization and European freedoms.
- Belarus has been invited to the Eastern Partnership. Lukashenka symbolically returned into European salons: he has met with Pope Benedict XVI. Are you disappointed?
- One should be just happy that a sinner meets with the pope, under the condition that he is ready to repent. The sinner we mean does not care about his sins. On the contrary, Lukashenka says openly that he is not going to change the existing policy, he is not going to implement system-level reforms, and calls oppositionists “enemies of the people”. It looks as if the Roman Catholic church has blessed dictatorship.
- It is obvious that Lukashenka managed to persuade the pope and the West that something is changing in Belarus…
- The position of the West resembles Pontius Pilate to me. Europe seems to say: “I am washing hands, and I am innocent of what is going on in your country. You may do what you want there. Only my interests are important for me".
- Politicians in the EU claim that Belarus’ isolation resulted in nothing. Other ways should be tried. So the idea to include Belarus to the Eastern Partnership program appeared.
- Europe has never been carrying out a policy of isolating Belarus. We should say the truth: visa sanctions against several dozens of officials were rather a moral demonstration. A share of our trade turnover with the European states is 50%. What kind of isolation is meant?
- But the fact that we are sitting and talking now is a sign of changes, isn’t it?
- And when haven’t we been able to talk?
- When you were in prison.
- So should I jump for joy that that hell lasted for two years, not for five years? Does that show any changes? Nobody recalls 1995, when Lukashenka said openly that Hitler’s Germany was an example state for him. And Fuhrer was a role-model president. And Europe is going to fraternize with this man.
- Maybe it was worth to find a lame compromise to save Belarus from Russia’s influence, wasn’t it?
- Russian influence on Belarus is unchanging for a few centuries in Belarus already. When somebody says that he is going to change that in a few years, he or she is lying.
