Piotra Sadouski About Protests In Minsk: I Look To Future With Optimism

Former Belarusian ambassador to Germany personally participated in the actions against deeper integration.

Minsk hosted a two-day protest against deeper integration between Belarus and Russia. Former member of the Supreme Council of XII convocation, Belarusian ambassador to Germany, linguist Piotra Sadouski participated in both actions.

In a conversation with the correspondent of Radio Racyja, he shared his impressions from these natural events, as well as his opinion on the future relations with Russia and the fate of independence:

- I'm sorry that people do not feel in the air the importance, the historical importance of what happened in Vilnius. And how many our people were! I have seen Belarusians “going Vilnia”, in the words of Siarhei Dubavets. Dubavets invented this word, and I like it. That is to remember the historical Vilnius, its bridge, the names of those figures who lived there, worked, died ... It actually was the funeral of Kalinouski, not the reburial. This should be continued. I say the feeling is ambivalent, but the thread remained untorn, thank God.

Here, the number is not important, it is not necessary to emphasize it. It’s the spirit of the event that is important. Of course, it’s good that 10 thousand came.

- How do you assess the fact that Aliaksandr Lukashenka and Vladimir Putin did not sign any agreement on deepening integration in Sochi in the end of the day?

- I cannot comment because I do not know the text. I understand a little bit what economy is. I once co-authored the Foreign Investment Law, when I worked in the Supreme Council.

- Nevertheless, negotiations will continue on December 20 in St. Petersburg. What are the intentions of Russia, in your opinion? Are those only economic issues, or political, geopolitical, military as well?

- I'll tell you a little metaphorically, I will not comment, because do not know what is in the head of the, so to speak, main man in Russia. Belarus, like Ukraine, is the phantom pain of the Empire. Ukraine, as a leg or thigh, fell off, and it hurts Russia. Belarus is also giving Russia a phantom pain, maybe it’s not a thigh, but a hand. And they want this part, a hand, back.

How to get it back? The so-called hybrid economic war is the best way. To drive Belarus to a loop around the neck, like in the early '90s. And the same Lukashenka, without thinking about the latest prospects, began to pull this loop.

We were completely laced. Once upon a time, Radio Svaboda has done an interview and asked us, some ten people, what independence was. And Mikhail Chyhir, the former Prime Minister, said that, in his opinion, independence is being self-sufficient. This is not entirely true, but there is a great truth here.

- Still, are you optimistic or pessimistic about the near future? Will survive or not?

- I remain optimistic. Because I cannot imagine that, for example, my two grandchildren just disappear so that I will not stay in them, so they will no longer be my continuation. The green grass, the sky just cannot disappear.

A drama, I recall the ancient Greek drama, is turning into a tragedy not when the protagonist dies, but when the chorus die.

Piotra Sadouski did not believe that so many people with heart, he said, who took to the streets of Minsk, the “chorus”, can just disappear, or change their high spirit for sausage and discounts for gas. “Anyway, a man lives by spirit, and not by the number of pants in the locker room. This is my optimism,” says Piotra Sadouski.