Zmitser Bandarenka: This is a process of self-organizing of Belarusians

An imprisoned leader of the Belarusian opposition comments on the tide of protests in Belarus.

Zmitser Bandarenka, coordinator of European Belarus civil campaign and election agent of presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov, was sentenced to 2 years in a minimum security penal colony for taking part in a protest rally against the flawed presidential elections on December 19, 2010.

The wife of the political prisoner re-sent his latest letter to charter97.org. Zmitser Bandarenka comments on postponing the hearing of his cassation appeal from July 1 to July 15 and the tide of grassroots protests in Belarus, when Belarusians began to gather for silent protest actions in spite of crackdown on the opposition after the presidential elections.

“It’s clear that they trade in us, so all hearings are postponed. I think if there had been an order, someone would have got a softer sentence, someone would have been freed. But grassroots protests started and they have to “smother that fire”. They are again scared, or to be more precise, as Tsoi sang “they are scared again to change something”.

I am happy that the process of revival and self-organizing has begun. The matter is not in us and not in them, it’s obvious. It is just because the fruit became overripe long ago…

Like Kusturica has a film Time of the Gypsies (which means bad time), we have TIME OF GOOD PEOPLE. Both in Belarus and in the world. As a Pole once said, Poles switched to altruism mode during Solidarity movement. People now expose their best qualities in our country and in other places. I am lucky because many people take care of me,” Zmitser Bandarenka wrote.

We remind that Zmitser Bandarenka was transferred from the Interior Ministry’s detention facility to the Republican Prison Hospital, located in the same building due to serious problems with his spine (spinal disk hernia, pinched spinal nerves, leg paresis).

The political prisoner writes about the prison hospital:

“I have IV infusion twice a day and a pile of medicines. I haven’t noticed any improvements, but it’s easier psychologically. I know that I am under doctors’ control. People are more intelligent in the hospital ward. They are simple guys, from prisons. They have serious problems, for example, the final degree of cancer; some are after neurosurgical operations. I can walk outside twice a day, not in stone cage, but in the yard with grass nearby. Food is better than in detention facility, of course. I again underwent a blood test and ECG tracing. They even examined my brain vessels…

… On the other hand, it’s difficult for the body to take this amount of medicines, so it reacts to treatment like a tired horse to extrinsic stimuli.

I don’t know how long I will stay here. They are military doctors here. If they have an order, they will discharge me. Unlike in a hospital for civilians, no one explain anything here. They do injections, give pills and ask: “How are you?” I say: “I feel pain.” – “How much can you walk?” – “A little, but crippling and through pain” – “Well”.

A doctor said in the beginning she would treat me from two weeks to a month. Now I see that they want to get rid of me as soon as possible.”

The latest MRI scanning showed that Zmitser Bandarenka has pitched nerves not only on the right but also on the left side. The political prisoner says his both legs may be paretic.

Zmitser Bandarenka asks to show his MRI result to independent doctors.