Siarhei Navumchyk: Lukashenka Selected His Bodyguards In Russia

The dictator has become a hostage of his own personnel policy.

Deputy of the Supreme Council of Belarus of the 12th convication, journalist of Radio Svaboda Siarhei Navumchyk has told this to Belsat.

- You wrote on Facebook in the comments, that “Since 1994, Lukashenka’s guard has been formed of the Russian citizens, Russians headed the KGB, it was a total phenomenon, and having a Russian nationality was considered a big advantage in personnel issues. In the apparatus of the Council of Ministers (later – Cabinet of Ministers), Belarusians were replaced not just by Russians, but by the citizens of the Russian Federation.”

Could you provide more details of this?

- After Lukashenka was elected president in 1994, Uladzimir Yahorau was appointed to the post of KGB chairman, and Yury Zakharanka became the Minister of the Interior. These appointments were made through our Supreme Councils, and the majority of deputies voted for them.

We knew these people, they were citizens of Belarus. But then strange things started happening. Some personalities began to emerge who were in no way related to Belarus.

A very important person in the then Lukashenka administration (I don’t want to give his last name so as not to create problems for him) told me that people were recruited into Lukashenka’s security service and that such structures and special services were created that were not controlled by the Supreme Council. And it was not the KGB, but other structures, which included Russian citizens as well. Having a Russian origin was considered a big plus.

I want to say starightaway that we need to draw a line here. If a person, who has a Russian nationality, came from Russia, received Belarusian citizenship and became a Belarusian patriot, this is one thing. For example, the greatest “minstrel” of our time, Uladzimir Mulyavin was born in the Urals. He was Russian, but nevertheless - this is our outstanding cultural figure.

However, those people who began to lead the special services and who treated the whole of Belarus and our national idea with hatred are something completely different. I remember this famous episode of beating deputies in the Supreme Council, when some of my colleagues, including Mikalai Kryzhanouski, tried to contact the people who beat us, harassed and dragged us out of the Oval Hall. There was an impression that these people simply did not understand the meaning of the Belarusian words.

And the second point: look at the biographies of those who until recently had led the KGB and the security agencies.

If we take the Ministry of Defense, these are only the graduates of the Russian military schools or military academies. If we take other structures, here we had a paradox: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was headed by Ivan Ivanovich Antonovich, a Russian citizen. When the law on citizenship was passed, he did not live in Minsk and did not receive Belarusian citizenship. He, at least, retained Russian citizenship.

See where some of the KGB chairmen have gone after the completion of their heroic combat path. They went to Moscow and settled well there. For what merits were they taken there?

Let's start with the first head of the KGB in independent Belarus, Colonel-General Eduard Sharkouski, who swore that he was supposedly a patriot of Belarus. I cannot say that we had perfect relations with him, but when we passed the law on the KGB, there was a certain cooperation, we found a common language - but in the end he left to live out his life in Russia.

There is an opinion that such staff were clapped on to Lukashenka ... True or false, who knows, but in principle Lukashenka himself selected staff. Lukashenka is not so naive a person whom you can clap something on to.

He hasn’t got any naivety: he formed a team for himself, he recruited these people, he squeezed Belarusians out of positions in power structures.

Now, when he came to his senses and wants to see Belarus independent (I don’t have much faith in it, but I can admit it), he has become a hostage of this position (on the selection of Russian personnel - ed.).

The second big problem, if we talk about the special services, is the lack of parliamentary control over them.

In our time, when I was a deputy in the early 90s, there were some elements of parliamentary control, although the ideal was far away. Now there is no parliamentary control, although such control, the society’s control over the special services, paradoxically, is primarily in the interests of the KGB officers themselves. I mean junior and middle managers. After all, then all these Senior Lieutenants, Majors, Colonels, Generals will not be sent to any illegal operations. They will not be runninmg around catching oppositionists for the white-red-white flags and the Belarusian language, they will not spy upon the opposition. They will do what any normal special service should do: it is tracking the manifestations of terrorism and protecting the independence of the country.

What kind of protection of the independence of our country can we talk about, if only recently the KGB and the special services were people who questioned this independence and advocated a political union and unification with Russia.

- In the light of such facts, how do you assess the detention and dismissal of Andrei Utsiuryn, and the version voiced by “Rosbalt”, that he leaked information to the Russian FSB?

- It’s hard for me to evaluate this. It is clear that if a person is not found guilty by a court, then he is innocent. For me, there is an absolute presumption of innocence, no matter what this Utsiuryn is accused of.

In a broad sense, I want to remind you that the KGB of Belarus and the FSB of Russia long ago signed whole sets of agreements on the inadmissibility of any mutual actions on the territory of one and the other country, on the inadmissibility of any kind of intelligence. We know that they have established close cooperation. Therefore, blaming someone for a separate “collaboration” is simply ridiculous. For decades, this brotherhood in arms strengthened. So this is just amazing.

However, it is absolutely clear that the Belarusian special services should have a civilized character.

I want to remind again the beginning of the 90s, the officers of the KGB and the guards of the Speaker of the Parliament Stanislau Shushkevich. They were 5 or 6 people. These were young guys, truly devoted to Belarus and its independence. I think that all of them are already retired, and I will not spoil their careers now. Then, I think, the KGB of Belarus developed towards a civilized model of the special services.

Unfortunately, since 1994, we have seen the opposite process. However, I want to say that it is necessary to start not with the special services: it is vitally important to first restore constitutionality in Belarus, to restore the legislative and controlling functions of the parliament, free elections.

And if Lukashenka really wants to see Belarus independent, it is impossible without the return of what he stole from the people. Without the return of “Pahonia” and the white-red-white flag as state symbols, without the return of the status of the Belarusian language as the only state language.

Because, I emphasize, independence is not protected by tanks. It’s the people who protect independence. And when the people, the special services, the army have the “Russian world” in their heads, they will give away Belarus and anyone easily.