Belarus: some reflections during the spring of 1997
The following are the author's reflections, written in a journal format, on his most recent trip to Belarus.
by David R. Marples
CONCLUSION
April 22
A battle is brewing here in Miensk. On Saturday there is to be a Chornobyl march to Independence Square, coinciding with a march by the Belarusian Popular Front, which in theory, is to end up somewhere else. Neither have yet received official approval, so at present both would be illegal marches. But thousands of people are expected to show up and there could be some 40,000 police and militia there to prevent marchers from entering the main square. The head of the Chornobyl group is a good friend of mine, Dr. Hennadz Hrushevoy, who sent me the official invitation to Miensk this time. But he is not in Belarus. He has slipped out to Germany, apparently to avoid arrest during this week.
The president not being here, it is hard to tell whether the response to demonstrators will be milder or harsher than of late. I am inclined to think the former, if only because the underlings will be uncertain how to respond with the leader out of the country. In addition, after the recent horrors, the foreign presence will be large. Even Amnesty International has sent representatives. Many people have asked me to stay an extra day for this march, but there is no way I would change my itinerary (other than to shorten it) or get involved in political actions. I shall be reflective when speaking in New York of what is happening in Miensk at the same time.
April 23
Yesterday was relatively uneventful. I visited the U.S. Embassy in the morning. I had promised the former second secretary, Anthony Godfrey, a copy of my book once published and I often met him in Miensk. He has since been transferred to Dublin, but I thought I would take it over anyway. The place looks like it's under siege, and I had to phone first to get the new second secretary, a young woman called Amy Stamps, to come to the gate and let me in. Inside, I was taken to the conference room where I met the highest official remaining, John Boris, the charge d'affaires. The ambassador is still in Washington and the first secretary has been deported as a suspected CIA agent.
Naturally I asked about the deportation of Serge Alexandrov a few weeks earlier. Mr. Boris said that one of their tasks at the Embassy is to monitor public demonstrations and that is all that Serge had been doing. Being a big man, he stands out in a crowd anyway, but it seems that the authorities had him targeted by the militia. I left two copies of my book with the two Americans, one to be sent on to Anthony, and we had a good chat about the political situation. I found them very well informed and intelligent people. Both Messrs. Boris and Alexandrov are of Belarusian ancestry.
At the Chornobyl Fund just around the corner, I was allowed briefly to use the e-mail. Finally, I have my residence permit, three days before I leave! Only one of the KGB was still there. Evidently they are close to finishing their inspection and the results will almost certainly be negative. On national TV today, Irina Hrushevoya, wife of the fund's president, has been accused of embezzling money back in 1991, charging excess money for children traveling to Germany. This is an old charge that was refuted by three audits last year.
In addition the KGB has accused Dr. Hrushevoy of providing financial aid to members of the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF), such as [its leader, Yurii] Khadyka. If this accusation is proved then it means that a charitable organization has taken a political action. Which is illegal of course. "Alles verboten" ought to be the watchword of this government.
After that it was the library, for me a marathon session for hours and hours. The only thing to report is the helpfulness of the library staff - all of them. And the weather has improved. Finally it is getting milder.
April 24
Yesterday I met up with Yelena Gapova, a woman who was on a panel with me at the American Slavists conference in Boston last October. She is a professor in women's studies at the State University - in fact the first ever professor of women's studies. It's not a subject that receives much favorable publicity here.
She took me to see the Bede of the Belarusian language, Adam Maldis, who presented me with a review of my book in the Belarusian journal that he edits. He runs a Belarusian cultural center in the oldest part of the city - the buildings date from the 1920s and there are not many newer parts since the war. (I realize as I am writing that my English is deteriorating. If I spent a year here I would find it hard to write, I am sure.)
After an hour with Maldis, Yelena and I went for lunch at a fairly wretched restaurant. She and her husband are thinking about leaving the country and she asked my advice. They have a 5-year-old daughter and they would like her to be educated abroad. I concurred. I am sure that if I were in their situation - and they have money - then I, too, would leave. That option isn't available to many people, but her husband is a computer specialist, a growing field here.
Returning to the subject of restaurants, the Spanish Corner restaurant, which used to occupy the most prominent place on the main street Skaryna Avenue, is no more. Rumor has it that the president himself objected to the presence of something so foreign in the center of capital. It has been replaced by a "national" restaurant that advertises "good Belarusian food" prominently in the window. I should add that I noted all this from the cafe at the Italian market opposite.
Incidentally, it is not unusual for something to occur after the president's cavalcade passes by. I heard a story about a poor fellow who had his BMW impounded for three months because the president objected to Miensk residents driving foreign cars, especially large flashy ones.
At 4 p.m I was interviewed by an Irish journalist, Adam Eustace, who wanted to know about the political situation in the country. He arrived with his translator, a very attractive young woman of about 18. The interview lasted for about an hour and a half.
I spent the evening with my friends Syarhei and Tanya at their apartment in the north of the city. Syarhei used to work for the city council. Today he works for Hrushevoy. He is an ardent supporter of all things Belarusian. It was at his apartment that I had watched a satirical film about Lukashenka back in October 1996. Between then and now, Syarhei has been attacked and beaten by thugs who were waiting for him on his way home one night. They took no money, and the reasons for the attack appear to have been political. There was nothing so serious happening on this visit. In fact we watched the entire Manchester United-Dortmund game live on Russian television!
April 25
Yesterday was spent with the Irish, Adi Roche and her friend of the same name, Helen Roche. They arrived separately from the largest convoy of aid ever to be sent to Belarus: 40 trucks and ambulances with thousands of tons of goods. Adi is a dynamic lady, about 40 with an infectious and frenetic energy. Helen is a bit older than Adi, a no-nonsense former nurse. We met at the Hotel Planeta, together with their translator, Yulia, a student at the Belarusian State University.
The early part of the day was dominated by a visit to the Miensk psychiatric hospital in Novinky, just outside the city. Adi told me that this used to be a house of horrors. When they visited there last fall, children were all shackled, tied to their cots, locked in rooms. One area was used for electric shock treatment. The children were all soiled and filthy. Adi and Helen had laid into the staff and poured money into the place - not the adult section but most of the children's section. There were still some really disturbing and horrific sights, but the impact of the Irish and Welsh - we met a group from Newport there, too) has been dramatic. The children were mostly up. Some were running around. They seemed pleased to see us. Some had "water on the brain" - great swollen heads, some almost no head at all. Most had been abandoned by their parents. Adi said that hardly any get parental visits, but her role has been to humanize one of the most feared institutions in Miensk. Yulia has very long hair and at one point she was chased and surrounded by kids who just wanted to stroke it. Helen is wonderful with these children. She marched into the various rooms, took them out of their cots, hugged their poor wretched bodies and you could immediately see the difference in their attitude. The staff are mostly OK, but there are some women there (all the staff are women) who reminded me of something out of a Dickensian poorhouse, scowling at us, slamming doors, etc. Pity the poor kids when they are alone with them.
We went for lunch afterward. Adi simply hired a cab for the afternoon and arranged a fee - ludicrously cheap at $40. The cab driver was with us for about five hours. The problem for the Irish was their convoy, which had been halted at the border, ostensibly because of a search of the convoy had uncovered some baby food that was not permitted in the country. Adi had a cell phone which kept running out of battery power and the calls were made at a furious pace, interspersed with oaths and various permutations. She phoned Ireland, Bierastie, the Belarusian ambassador in London, the Irish Embassy in Moscow, etc., etc. Nothing, it seems, can get these trucks to move. And they stayed together, blocking the entire border crossing. By the afternoon there was a 50-kilometer backlog of vehicles. The Belarusians won't budge. Imagine: a country that tries to keep aid out. Evidently with the president out of the country, the border police had no idea how to react.
April 25
The convoy has crossed the border and will arrive in Miensk about 6 p.m. en route to Novinky!
Afterword, 6 May 1997
The political situation remains volatile. The Belarusian Popular Front is being accused of terrorism. This is a result of a government provocation: a bomb was exploded in an apartment a week ago and a mysterious letter turned up that threatened to destroy military headquarters of the OMON and other groups if the attacks on the BPF did not end. The implication was clear: the BPF had transformed itself into an armed terrorist group and thus had to be stopped. What nonsense!
What surprised me in April as opposed to earlier visits was the sheer pervasiveness of the forces of the president. No one was safe or sacrosanct. A [former Chairman of Parliament Stanislau] Shushkevich was as likely to be beaten on the street as a [opposition leader] Khadyka. Former member of Parliament Hennadz Karpenka had become a pariah.
The odd journalist remained defiant. I met with Uladzmir V. Glod, formerly the deputy chairman at Belapan [a news agency], who continues to lambast the government in the pages of Narodnaya Volya, along with a handful of others. Miensk News appears spasmodically. Svaboda has far more articles in Russian than I had ever seen before, but it continues to attack the president and, like Narodnaya Volya, is printed in Lithuania.
The gleaming light amid this darkness is Russian television. Just before I left, Rossiya featured a program on integration between Russia and Belarus. Belarusian TV broadcast simultaneously, a decision it no doubt lived to regret. Two teams of panelists were assembled, one from each country. There were odd dissidents on the Belarusian side (Stanislau Bahdankevich, a former member of Parliament and the former chairman of the National Bank, sat there like a stone throughout), but most appeared to be handpicked "Luka Muka-ites" [Lukashenka supporters]. The interviewer, however, had evidently not been told that the opinions of the Belarusian president were not to be questioned and made fun of the Belarusian participants. One old man was furious and had to be told to sit down. At the very end, the interviewer strolled over to him and said, "Speak to us kolkhoznik, please." Russian TV has shown the most graphic images of the public clashes in Miensk, which has so infuriated the president that he has declared the photographs and film to be fabricated.
Khadyka had a serious mental lapse recently and went on Belarusian TV to debate the president. The event enabled the government to claim that there is free expression in Belarus, a huge propaganda triumph. And Khadyka was duly arrested after the program, thus demonstrating the reality. But to reiterate: without Russian television Belarus would be much more repressive than it is already. In the absence of CNN, BBC and others, it is a godsend. Whatever Belarusians on the North American side of the water may think about the Russians (in Russia), they should offer a prayer of thanks to those who run the TV stations.
One of the principal victims of the present regime is one of Lukashenka's "own." Tamara Vinnikava, the former head of the National Bank, who was brought in to replace Bahdankevich late in 1994, was arrested earlier this year on the grounds that she had abused her position. But no trial has been held. This proud, attractive woman, one of the elite of the Lukashenka circle, has been in prison for two months without trial, and while I was there, the authorities resolved that she must serve a further three months before her case is heard.
Granted that this woman was not the most humanitarian person in the world, but she will have served five months in a jail for an unproven misdemeanor. Even if the worst suspicions are proved correct, is she somehow a danger to society? Moreover, she is known to be seriously ill. In fact she has been made an example of the vindictiveness of the president.
If it could happen to Ms. Vinnikava, the message runs, it could happen to anyone.
David R. Marples is professor of history at the University of Alberta in Edmonton and director of the Stasiuk Program for the Study of Contemporary Ukraine at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, which is based at that university.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, June 1, 1997, No. 22, Vol. LXV
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