Will Lukashenka hold trial against himself?

New top officials from the Lithuanian MFA heard “positive signals from Minsk”.

Another European commissioner – Lithuanian deputy foreign minister Andrius Krivas – arrived in Minsk on March 28.

According to the Lithuanian MFA, he and Belarusian deputy foreign minister Alena Kupchyna discussed the “human rights situation and the issues, on which the European Union and its member states have serious differences with Belarus”.

The official returned to Vilnius with a hope that “it will be possible to normalise Belarus-EU relations through the release and rehabilitation of political prisoners”.

I first meet Andrius Krivas, who was appointed deputy minister only a week ago, a day before his visit to Belarus at the conference with the symbolic title “What can Belarus expect from Lithuania's presidency of the Council of the EU?”

Lithuanian politicians, including Krivas, said many principled words at the conference. The deputy minister shook my hand and assured me that we should meet the next day to discuss the situation of political prisoners in details. A spokesperson for the deputy foreign minister apologised the next day and said “the deputy minister proposed to postpone a meeting due to a tight schedule”.

It became clear next day why the deputy minister was so busy – he was going to visit Belarus. Of course, a meeting with a former political prisoner might have thwarted behind-the-scenes arrangements with the Belarusian authorities.

I'd like to see the release of political prisoners, but I absolutely don't believe the former presidential candidates and their team members will be rehabilitated. The cynicism of European politicians, who forget whom they deal with for economic benefits, is astonishing.

There have been several attempts to start the relations with the dictator with a clean sheet, but all of them had the same end – new repressions, new arrests, killings and torture of political prisoners.

In 2011, Bulgarian foreign minister Nikolay Mladenov met with Lukashenka. He is said to have offered 2 billion euros for the political prisoners. As a result, some people were released, but presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov was moved to solitary confinement for three months. Prison life of other inmates also turned into a hell.

The Lithuanian deputy foreign minister probably forgot that the people involved in the latest presidential elections had faced refined torture and cruel treatment after December 19, 2010. The rehabilitation of political prisoners is possible only if the people guilty of illegal arrests, torture and cruel treatment of opposition leaders will be brought to criminal responsibility. They are KGB jail chief Col. Arlou, former KGB chief Zaitau, current interior minister and then KGB top officer Shunevich, current foreign minister and then head of Lukashenka's administration Makei and other thugs of lower ranks.

But it would mean that Lukashenka should conduct a trial against himself, because he said on television on several occasions that the dispersal of the rally on December 19 and the following arrests had been carried out on his personal order.

The Belarusian political prisoners must be released unconditionally, but it doesn't mean the Belarusian regime can receive new loans for modernisation of the dictatorship and thus a new wave of repression in future.

Natallia Radzina, charter97.org editor-in-chief