The Dog that Didn’t Bark – Lukashenka Regime Again Ignores Anniversary of Belarusian Independence

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 15 – As Sherlock Holmes knew, sometimes the most important development is not what happens but what doesn’t.  This weekend has provided additional truth of that observation. Yesterday, Ukraine marked the 28^th anniversary of its declaration of independence; today, Belarus did not do the same. 

            On August 25, 1991, three days after the collapse of the Moscow coup, the Belarusian SSR Supreme Soviet voted overwhelmingly to make its earlier adoption of the Declaration of State Sovereignty a constitutional act and change the republic’s basic law accordingly. On the same day, it suspended the activities of the communist party and make the republic independent.

            That effectively became Belarusian independence day, but it was never officially marked as such. Instead, in the early 1990s, July 27, the date of the adoption of the Declaration of State Sovereignty became the republic’s independence day. Later, under Lukashenka, this holiday was shifted to July 3, the anniversary of the liberation of Minsk by Soviet troops in 1944.

            The difference in treatment of the events of August 1991 in Belarus and Ukraine speaks volumes about the differences between the two countries (belaruspartisan.by/politic/474355/ and reform.by/28-let-nazad-belarus-provozglasila-nezavisimost/).