Paul Goble
Staunton,
January 30 – Pavel Severinets, a Belarusian Christian Democrat who plans to run
for president, says that “the day when Moscow decided to use force to transform
Belarus into part of the empire will be the beginning of the end of the empire.”
Any attempt to repeat the Crimea or Donbass in Belarus will lead Russia to fall
apart.
The
threat that Moscow will try, he continues, is “great;” but the Russian regime
may ultimately be dissuaded not only by the resistance it would face in Belarus
and the opposition of the international community but by the negative
consequences such a step would have within Russia (nn.by/?c=ar&i=224161&lang=ru
and region.expert/severinets/).
“From the times of the Grand Principality
of Lithuania,” Severinets says, “the mystery of the life and death of the
Russian Empire has pulsated here: the first congress of the RSDRP was in Minsk,
the tsarist headquarters in the First World War were in Mohylev, and
Beloveshchaya pushcha became he turning point” in the struggle to disband the
USSR.
For 500 years, Moscow been trying to
swallow up Belarus but has failed and will fail again, he argues. Moscow can
send MIGs, but we can send books because we rely on our history and our culture
which are quite different from those of the empire and its rulers. “We pray ad
will do what we can that they will not ever succeed.”
Some Belarusians believe that
Alyaksandr Lukashenka has become a believer in independence. But for 25 years, he has been “a guarantor
[only] of his personal power … People will not defend a state that oppresses
them. You want Belarusians to support
you? Give them back freedom, repent, release political prisoners and the unjustly
condemned, raise the white-red-white flag, and hold free elections.”
“If Lukashenka won’t do that,”
Severinets says, “he will have signed his own death warrant and history will
anything but merciful to him.”
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