OPPOSITION REVEALS INDISCRIMINATE APPROACH

2001-07-16

The opponents of the current Belarusian ruler Aleksandr Lukashenko have mastered the art of discrediting. An avalanche of recent sensational revelations concerning the ruling top shows skillful stagecraft behind them.

On June 10, the media received by e-mail an interview with former law-enforcement officers Dmitry Petrushkevich and Oleg Sluchak, in which they accused top-ranking officials of setting up a death squad to abduct and murder the journalist Dmitry Zavadsky, politicians Viktor Gonchar and Yury Zakharenko and businessman Anatoly Krasovsky.

A national weekly Svobodnyie novosti published in its July 6-13 issue an interview with General Major Valery Kez, former deputy chairman of Belarus' Committee for State Security (KGB) who later held a top position at the Belarusian Security Council. Kez, who was dismissed by the presidential edict in 1996, also made revelatory statements. "Every year of Lukashenko's staying in power pushes us further back from creating a rich and democratic state and brings us closer to a one-man dictatorship…", Kez said. The general also said he agreed with the "death squad" version.

Finally, on July 7, Ivan Titenkov, manager of Lukashenko's business affairs in 1994-99, burst out with accusations against his former boss in an interview to a Minsk-based newspaper Den. An awkward attempt to prevent the publication of the sensational interview turned against the authorities. After the interview appeared in the Internet, almost all non-state media published it or indulged in retelling it.

One can only praise the attempts to attack the odious government. But they also need commenting.

As far as the law-enforcement "defectors" are concerned, the opposition already made a blunder, when it tried to capitalize on the sensational revelations by a former policeman officer Oleg Baturyn. The man really helped the opposition when he confessed that plainclothes agents had been ordered to provoke demonstrators into clashes during an opposition Freedom March on October 17, 1999. But then Baturyn consciously or unconsciously played a provocative role when he gave an interview to the Belarusian TV, denying his previous statements and the fact that he had been allegedly kidnapped by the Belarusian secret services. Thus the authorities received an additional advantage and could boldly deny all the accusations of being involved in kidnappings.

General Kez had the grace to regret his leading role in an incident after which Lukashenko believed that he can get off scot-free from anything, in the opinion of his old opponents. On the night of April 12, 1995, masked policemen brutally evicted members of the 12th Supreme Soviet [Belarusian parliament prior to the 1996 referendum], who went on a hunger-strike to protest against the preparations of Lukashenko's first referendum in 1995. Later the top leaders reportedly relished the candid camera footage featuring the leader of the Belarusian Popular Front Zenon Poznyak being kicked by a secret policeman. Now Kez, who executed the order, emphasizes in his interview, "My remorse is not caused by political conditions". He is obviously trying to pre-empt natural questions by the democratic public: Why did he not resign immediately after such a disgraceful action? Why did he conceal his remorse for six years from the public? Why did he resurface on the eve of the presidential election?

Finally, Titenkov in the role of the fighter for democracy and Belarus' better future makes a comical picture. Being Lukashenko's business manager he embodied for the opposition the brazen plundering of the country's assets by a marginal clique that came to power in 1994. His name was linked to a number of shady transactions, which filled up the presidential fund. Finally, it was Titenkov who tore publicly the national white-red-and white flag at the roof of the Presidential Administration building, after it was replaced with the current red-and-green flag as a result of the 1995 referendum.

Today Titenkov is the main hero of the independent press. It is natural that reporters take up any story, no matter who it comes from, as it keeps their pot boiling. But the chain of revelations by Lukashenko's former associates is not a spontaneous process. It is quite probable that the opposition headquarters are engaging anyone who can wash the authorities' dirty linen in the public.

Doing so, they cast away questions of morality or interpret them in Lenin's style. But history has taught that the victory of the proletariat over the cruel tsarist regime resulted in a more brutal totalitarian Soviet regime.

Vasily Leonov, leader of the anti-Lukashenko electoral movement "For a New Belarus", former minister of agriculture, is undoubtedly a worthy man. But it shocks to hear him say in an interview to the weekly Nasha Niva that his organization is ready to support any strong enemy of the government. "It does not matter whether [he is] ultra right, ultra left or middle-of-the-road", Leonov said. Several years ago, Leonov, then a powerful first secretary of a regional committee of the Communist Party of Belarus, favored a young and aggressive Lukashenko, then head of a state farm. He considered Lukashenko a battering ram against an old clan of officials. Later Lukashenko sent his patron to jail. [Leonov was arrested in 1997 on charges of bribery that many considered politically motivated. He was released on in the fall of 2000.] Is the opposition making the same mistake now, trying to bring to power anyone capable to overthrow the current government?

It is dangerous to forget the lessons of history and ignore the moral aspect of political choice. Will the opposition take this into account? Will the presidential hopefuls, who the democratic public lay their hopes with, be able to give an adequate moral assessment to all kinds of revelations and their authors? These are not idle questions. One should not think that Belarusian voters, who were too often trampled on, have lost the feeling of morality. Especially, the democratic public whose votes Lukashenko's opponents crave for.

If Lukashenko's former associates are sincere in their remorse, one can hail it. Better late than never, they say. But the regime's opponents should measure a thousand times before striking an alliance with those who treaded down their flag.