Belarus opposition calls for general strike after biggest protests yet

MINSK, Belarus

The Belarus opposition has called for a general strike from Monday, after tens of thousands of protesters gathered in the capital Minsk for the biggest rally in recent history, a further sign that the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko is fast losing support.

The opposition call for a strike follows industrial action on Friday,by thousands of workers at state-controlled factories, a traditional support base for Lukashenko.

Striking workers walked out of vehicle factories, oil refineries and fabric and fertiliser manufacturers, spurred on by the level of police violence against protesters in the week since election results gave Lukashenko 80% of the vote.

The authoritarian ruler on Sunday rejected calls to step down in a defiant speech, and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said Moscow stood ready to provide help in accordance with a collective military pact if necessary.

But Putin has stopped short of offering support or an endorsement of Lukashenko, who is facing the gravest crisis of his career. It is likely that Moscow will wait and see whether Lukashenko can survive the next weeks or even days, as protests and labour strikes grow and pressure mounts on him to leave office.

Crowds of protesters estimated at 100,000 marched through the streets of the capital to the central Independence Square on Sunday in what Belarusian independent news site Tut.by called “the largest in the history of independent Belarus”.

Columns of demonstrators raised victory signs and held flowers and balloons as a sea of protesters gathered in Independence Square, the focus of peaceful demonstrations in recent days.

“Now we’re changing history,” said 26-year-old Yekaterina Gorbina, a content manager. “Blood was spilled and the people will never forget that.”

Darya Kukhta, 39, a mother of six, said: “We believe that a new Belarus is beginning. I’m very happy to be seeing this with my own eyes.”

Demonstrators held placards with slogans such as “You can’t wash off the blood” and “Lukashenko must answer for the torture and dead.”

Other major towns and cities in the ex-Soviet country of 9 million also saw large rallies, local media reported.

Popular opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya had called for a weekend of protests after leaving for neighbouring Lithuania following the disputed election.

In the past week, more and more Belarusians have taken to the streets to condemn Lukashenko’s disputed victory and a subsequent violent crackdown by riot police and abuse of detainees.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and President Vladimir Putin spoke via telephone on Saturday.

Unusually, tightly controlled state television news aired a short item on the “alternative protest” in Minsk, while not showing anti-Lukashenko slogans.

Outside Belarus, hundreds of Czechs and Belarusians, some holding the traditional red and white Belarusian flag and portraits of Tikhanovskaya, gathered in Prague’s historic centre on Sunday in support of the protests. There were also smaller shows of support in Romania and Poland, AFP journalists reported.

Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus for 26 years, is facing an unprecedented challenge to his leadership. The 65-year-old strongman held a rare campaign-style rally on Independence Square before the opposition protest.

He told flag-waving supporters: “I called you here not to defend me ... but for the first time in a quarter-century, to defend your country and its independence.”

State television reported 65,000 people attended the rally, though other reports suggest several thousand were there.

“The elections were valid,” Lukashenko said in a sometimes emotional speech. “We won’t give away the country.”

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya

With pressure growing from the street and abroad after EU leaders agreed to draw up a list of targets for a new round of sanctions, Lukashenko has reached out to Russia, Belarus’s closest ally.

The Kremlin said that in a call with Lukashenko, Putin had expressed Russia’s “readiness to provide the needed assistance” including “if necessary” through the CSTO military alliance between six ex-Soviet states.

RT Kremlin-funded television reported that this was in the case of “outside military threats”.

A violent police crackdown on protesters has seen more than 6,700 people arrested, hundreds wounded and two deaths.

Thousands of opposition supporters demonstrated in Minsk on Saturday too, at the spot where a 34-year-old protester died during unrest on Monday.

Officials said the man, Alexander Taraisky, died when an explosive device he was holding blew up in his hand. Following the release of video footage contradicting this, interior minister Yury Karayev told Tut.by on Sunday: “Maybe they shot him with non-lethal weapons”, saying only rubber bullets were used.

Tikhanovskaya has announced the creation of a Coordination Council to ensure a transfer of power, asking foreign governments to “help us in organising a dialogue with Belarusian authorities”.

She demanded the authorities release all detainees, remove security forces from the streets and open criminal cases against those who ordered the crackdown.

She has said she will organise new elections if Lukashenko steps down. - The Guardian