Opposition defies crackdown in Belarus

Women’s protest march brings 300 arrests amid jailing and exiling of leaders

Women hook their arms Saturday as they defy police officers during a rally in Minsk, Belarus, to protest the official presidential election results. More photos at arkansasonline.com/920belarus 
AP
Women hook their arms Saturday as they defy police officers during a rally in Minsk, Belarus, to protest the official presidential election results. More photos at arkansasonline.com/920belarus AP

MOSCOW -- Longtime Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, clinging to power after claiming victory in an election last month condemned by Western leaders as fraudulent, is trying to sap the will of protesters by neutralizing opposition figures one by one, jailing or exiling them.

Opposition activist Olga Kovalkova wasn't allowed a last look at her city. Security agents took her from her jail cell, told her to cover her face with her hoodie and drove her out of Minsk as a KGB agent held her head down.

Once outside the capital, when the agent let her lift her head, she started talking. She might not be able to convince the agents they were on the wrong side of history, she thought, but she was determined to try.

Meanwhile, police in the capital of Belarus cracked down sharply Saturday on a women's protest march demanding the authoritarian president's resignation, arresting more than 300 people including an elderly woman who has become a symbol of the six weeks of protest that have roiled the country.

More than 2,000 women took part in the march in Minsk.

Lukashenko's legitimacy is in tatters, disputed by his own population and by Western governments. But he's proving difficult to budge, bolstered by Russian support and his still-loyal security forces. A stalemate has set in, with each side waiting for the other to stumble.

The European Union's plan to sanction officials responsible for falsifying the election and cracking down on protests has been stalled by Cyprus for unrelated reasons.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned of sanctions, but vaguely. In any case, analysts question whether targeted sanctions would be enough to deter Lukashenko, given his backing from the Kremlin.

Kovalkova says her captors did not seem to understand that Belarusians no longer fear Lukashenko.

"I was trying to seed questions in their heads," she told The Washington Post after the agents expelled her at the Polish border Sept. 5. "Why are they violating my rights just because I don't support Lukashenko? My task was to convince them we all have equal rights.

"I wouldn't call it a dialogue, but I kept on talking."

Kovalkova, a senior official with opposition presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya's campaign, is one of many who have been expelled from the country. Tikhanovskaya, too, has been kicked out; Maria Kolesnikova ripped up her passport at the border to avoid exile and has been charged with undermining national security. Belarusian authorities have portrayed the expulsions as voluntary escapes.

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Kovalkova, a member of the opposition's coordination council, was arrested last month while meeting with fellow council member Sergei Dylevsky. Both were jailed. After 15 days, when Kovalkova was due for release, she said, a KGB official came to her cell and told her she would be expelled from the country or jailed indefinitely.

"I said, 'I'm not leaving the country. No way.' And they said, 'You do not have any choice.'"

The opposition remains optimistic it will prevail, heartened by the first large, sustained and peaceful protests in the history of this country of 9.5 million people. But optimism may not be enough, analysts say.

The human rights group Viasna said more than 320 people were arrested in Saturday's march.

"There were so many people detained that lines formed at the prisoner transports," Viasna member Valentin Stepanovich told The Associated Press.

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So far, Lukashenko's strategy seems to hang on at all costs: He dismisses the protesters as "rats" and "wild Nazis" who are part of a foreign plot. On Thursday, he put his army on high alert and accused "crazy politicians" in Poland and Lithuania of fomenting war.

"I am often reproached with, 'He will not give up power,'" he said Sept. 10. "And they are right."

The two agents who drove Kovalkova to the border wore masks. Instead of being afraid of them, she told them they should stop hiding their faces. In a normal country, she said, being a policeman is something to be proud of.

"My message to them was, 'I don't want you to be embarrassed to be a representative of law enforcement or the police,'" she said. "'What is happening is unacceptable, and it cannot go on. People are afraid of the police.'"

Information for this article was contributed by Robyn Dixon of The Washington Post; and by Yuras Karmanau and Jim Heintz of The Associated Press.

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