Police quash anti-Lukashenka demonstrations (05/05/96)

Police quash anti-Lukashenka demonstrations

MIENSK - A protest here on April 26 in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster turned ugly as Belarusian riot police bloodily beat participants, international agencies reported on April 26-27.

The rally, not sanctioned by the government, quickly turned into an outpouring of opposition to Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka's seeming abandonment of his state's national sovereignty in forging a new union with Russia, said OMRI Daily Digest on April 29.

Protestors called on Mr. Lukashenka to resign after "betraying the country by belittling the Chornobyl accident." The demonstrators clashed with police and many were admitted to local hospitals with injuries. Local reports by the independent news agency Belapan indicated that Russian riot police units took part in the beatings and arrests of civilians during the demonstration.

Some 200 persons were arrested. People's Deputies Pavel Znavets, Alyaksandr Dabravolsky, former Chairman of the Belarusian Supreme Council Stanislau Shushkevich and a number of journalists, including Uladzimir Dzyuba of Belarusian Radio and Radio Liberty correspondent Edward Tarletski, were taken into custody during the demonstration, said Respublika on April 28. Also held were Vintsyuk Vyachorka and Yuriy Khadyka, leaders of the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF).

The Belarusian authorities not only violated the domestic law on parliamentary immunity, they extended the scope of arrests to encompass foreign citizens. Seventeen Ukrainians, members of Rukh and the Ukrainian National Assembly-Ukrainian National Self-Defense, were arrested, as was UNA-UNSO People's Deputy Yuriy Tyma, taken off the Kyiv-Miensk train in the southern Belarusian town of Baranovychi on April 26 and released the following day.

Ukrainian Television correspondent Natalia Chanhuli was among those held. She was freed on April 29 after intervention by the Ukrainian Embassy, Respublika said that day.

Commenting on the demonstrations, an embassy counselor confirmed that Russian OMON riot police took part in the beatings and arrests of participants, according to Respublika. The Foreign Ministry of Ukraine indicated that release of some UNA-UNSO members held in Miensk was being delayed because those arrested were speaking only Ukrainian to Russian-speaking investigators, Reuters reported on April 30.

Many of those held were subsequently tried and convicted, in jail cell proceedings without benefit of counsel, of "petty hooliganism" and face 15 days, confinement, said Vsieukrayinskiye Viedomosti on April 30. A large number were forced to sign blank confessions, after undergoing interrogation and deprivation of food and water, according to the same report.

On May 1, the BPF called on its supporters to stay home and away from the officially sanctioned May Day rally in the city center. At the rally, Communists and trade union officials called for a quick resolution of the economic crisis in Belarus, reported Deutsche Presse Agentur that day.

Disregarding BPF calls to ignore the May Day rally, up to 8,000 nationalists, mostly students and young people who had joined a march to the demonstration by the Belarusian Social Democratic Hramada, reiterated demands that Mr. Lukashenka resign, said Belapan.

More arrests were made in the vicinity of the May Day rally, although the numbers were unclear. Belapan reported that some persons at both the May 1 and April 26 rallies were taken into custody by Interior Ministry troops for addressing the authorities in Belarusian.

Official Belarusian Television reports from May 1 portrayed the nationalist participants of the April 26 and May Day demonstrations as a pack of drunken students and pensioners with too much time on their hands, said Belapan that day.

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