WASHINGTON/ BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The United States, the United Kingdom and Canada could impose sanctions on Belarus on Friday, 4 sources told Reuters, and the European Union told President Alexander Lukashenko that he recognized him as the country’s valid leader.
Diplomatic tension over Lukashenko intensified a day after he himself took the oath of office for a sixth term in a rite of inauguration that was kept secret until it was completed.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said that after the “fraudulent” inauguration, British, AMERICAN and Canadian officials were applying sanctions opposed to those guilty of “serious human rights violations. “
The four resources said the measures can also arrive on Friday, possibly sliding given the challenge of coordination between the 3 countries.
More than 12,000 people have been arrested and many have remained in criminal status since Lukashenko declared the winner of the presidential election on August 9, which the opposition denounced as rigged.
Mass protests have left him dependent on his security forces, and those of his best friend Russia, to maintain his control of the 26-year-old force in the former Soviet republic.
Canadian Chancellor Francois-Philippe Champagne said: “The inauguration is as illegitimate as the elections it follows. “
The European Union said Wednesday’s abrupt oath was opposed to the will of the people.
“The so-called ‘inauguration’ . . . and the new mandate claimed through Aleksander Lukashenko has no democratic legitimacy,” the 27 EU states said in a statement.
“This ‘inauguration’ contradicts the will of a giant component of the Belarusian population, expressed in many non-violent and unprecedented demonstrations since the elections, and only further aggravates the political crisis in Belarus. “
The EU, Belarus’s main monetary donor, also said it “re-examines relations” with the country, meaning the bloc will seek to cut direct investment in Lukashenko’s government, channeling it instead to aid teams and hospitals.
PROTEST NIGHT
Lukashenko downplayed the conviction.
“We have not asked to recognize our elections or not recognize them, recognize or not recognize the legitimacy of the newly elected president,” said online news page Sputnik Belarus.
The 66-year-old leader defended the way he swore.
“You know that about 2,000 more people were invited to the inauguration, along with the army. And it’s almost to keep it a secret,” he says.
The ceremony, a state-sponsored main instance that would take a position with wonderful fanfare, took place without prior caution in an obvious attempt to prevent it from being interrupted through protests.
Instead, he lured thousands of people to the streets of the capital, Minsk, on Wednesday night, where security forces chased the protesters and fired water cannons to disperse the crowds.
Police arrested 364 people, the Interior Ministry said.
A video featuring a driving force for a taxi rescuing a protester and moving away from the police with batons has gone viral on social media.
Detained opposition policy Maria Kolesnikova suggested protesters surrender and mock the security forces that arrested her, in a letter to her shared father through the Tut news portal.
“You’ll have to tell them not to give up, keep going!These other people who kidnapped me are incredibly weak and hysterical. They don’t even know how to do their homework well,” the 38-year-old wrote.
Kolesnikova honed her prestige as a hero for protesters by breaking her passport for forced deportation to Ukraine this month.
(Additional report via John Chalmers, Kate Holton, Elizabeth Piper, David Ljunggren, Andrey Makhovsky, Maxim Rodionov and Maria Vasilyeva; written through Mark Trevelyan, edited through Angus MacSwan)
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