Dictatorship must be eliminated

The organizing committee of the People’s Assembly held meetings in 20 Belarusian towns.

The co-head of the organizing committee, Viktar Ivashkevich, said this at a press conference in Minsk on July 8.

The People’s Assembly organizing committee was formed in May. The action is planned to be held on October 8 in Minsk, all regional centres, and 48 district centres. Programmes of tackling the political and economic crisis will be discussed during the event.

“Meetings of the organizing committee were held in Minsk, Barysau, Vileika, Slutsk, Mahilou, Salihorsk, Hrodna, Lida and other cities. We plan to have meetings in five other countries next week,” Ivashkevich said.

According to him, the People’s Assembly organizing committee consists of representatives of the organizing committee of the сivil campaign «European Belarus», Belarusian Movement party, the Belarusian Left Party Fair World, the United Civil Party, the Belarusian Social Democratic Hramada, the organizing committee of the Worker’s Party. The regional organizing committees include representatives of most of democratic movements.

“The action attended by several thousands cannot change the situation while the authorities can offer ten thousand well-trained law enforcement officers.

Calls on social networking sites “I wish he died” and “Down with Lukashenka” are not enough. A wide educational work is needed. Just clapping won’t help here.

Our number must be greater than the number of the regime’s henchmen,” Ivashkevich said.

In his opinion, the People’s Assembly will find wide support, because it supposes struggling against impoverishment of millions of people, daily denigration of human dignity, self-isolation of the country and loss of the country’s independence”.

“The authorities are not able to tackle the crisis in the country. They do not carry out economic reforms in fear that economically free people will appear. The authorities lay the burden of the crisis and consequences of their gross mistakes on ordinary citizens,” the politician emphasized.

“The moment of self-determination of the democratic forces has come. We realize our responsibility for the destiny of the country and therefore we stand together with our people. Political prisoners must be freed and the dictatorship must be eliminated,” the politician said.

Businessman Mikalai Pakhabau, a coordinator of the People’s Assembly organizing committee, said there were some protests at Belarusian plants with demands to raise wages.

He said workers of the cast house at the Minsk Tractor Plant stopped work for some hours in June showing discontent with the size of their wages.

Workers in Barysau, Salihorsk and Slutsk protests demanding to adjust their wages in accordance with the new ruble exchange rate, Pakhabau says. As a result, payment was increased by 10%.

“Workers come out of smoking rooms and express protest against decreasing wages and increasing prices,” Pakhabau noted.

“The idea of the People’s Assembly finds acute interest, because the level of living has not just decreased, it has fell sharply,” democratic activist from Kobryn Alyaksandr Mekh says. “Workers of city’s enterprises promised to delegate their representatives to the organizing committee in late August.”

“All social strata begin to consolidate in Belarus,” Yauheny Kanstantsinau from Navapolatsk says.

Henadzy Ramanyuk, who works at Belaruskali, says protest mood is growing at the company. “They want to smooth people with bonuses, wages increase, but this is not the money they used to earn earlier.”

Co-head of the People’s Assembly organizing committee Viktar Ivashkevich added that the population, including workers, “perceives negatively what the authorities are doing now”. “They are thinking now. They hope the crisis will end and the authorities will raise payment. These illusions may disappear in some months,” the politician said.