KIEV, Ukraine (AP) – A prominent opposition activist in Belarus was arrested Tuesday on the ukrainian border after resisting a government attempt to deport her as part of the government’s efforts to end a month of protests against authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Maria Kolesnikova, a member of the opposition-led Coordination Council to facilitate talks with the longtime leader about a transition of power, was detained in the capital of Minsk on Monday along with two other council members.
They were taken to the border on Tuesday morning, where the government told them to cross into Ukraine. When they reached a no-man’s land between countries, Kolesnikova broke her passport into small pieces to prevent the government from deporting him. detention on the Belarusian side of the border after the incident.
Two council members who entered Ukraine, Ivan Kravtsov and Anton Rodnenkov, described Kolesnikova’s action with open admiration.
“She screams that she will not go anywhere, ” said Rodnenkov at a news convention in Kiev. “Sitting in the car, she saw her passport in a front seat and broke it into many small fragments, wrinkled them and threw them out the window. After that, he opened the back door and returned to the Belarusian border.
He said that “Mary is fit, full of power and wit, as always. “
Anton Bychkovsky, spokesman for the Belarusian Border Guard Committee, showed that she, who was detained through the Belarusian government, refused to give the main points of what happened on the border.
Belarus has used similar tactics to force other opposition figures to leave the country, to end a month of protests following Lukashenko’s re-election in a vote that protesters say is manipulated. economy in the hands of the state.
The former chief of a 66-year-old state farm rejected the complaint by the United States and the European Union that the nine August elections were neither lax nor fair and ignored their demands for discussion with the opposition.
In Washington, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a saying that the United States and its allies are contemplating further sanctions against Belarus, and expressed fear of Kalesnikava’s attempted expulsion.
We saloon the courage of Ms. Kalesnikava and the other Belarusians who non-violently affirmed their right to their leaders in free and fair elections in the face of unjustified violence and repression through the Belarusian authorities, which included brazen beatings of nonviolent protesters in general. . daylight and a lot of arrests on September 6, as well as expanding kidnapping reports,” Pompeo said.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the opposition’s main opponent in Lukashenko, left for Lithuania a day after the authorities pressed the election.
In statements to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on Tuesday, Tsikhanuskaya called for foreign sanctions opposed to Lukashenko and government officials.
“We want foreign tension on this regime, on this individual who desperately clings to power,” he said.
Tsikhanouskaya said Lukashenko had no legitimacy after stealing the vote, warning countries to oppose agreements with the Belarusian government.
“He no longer represents Belarus,” he said.
In separate comments about the attempt to expel Kolesnikova, Tsikhanouskaya praised her as a “true heroine” and said that “such movements are unable to break the will of others or her preference to replace the long term of her country. “
Kolesnikova, a 38-year-old flutist who ran a popular art center, entered politics just before the election. She led the crusade headquarters of one of Lukashenko’s main war parties, and when he prevented running and was imprisoned with fees considered political, she joined Tsikhanouskaya’s crusade.
Tsikhanouskaya’s associate, Antonina Konovalova, disappeared Tuesday after a court fined her for accepting a weekend protest.
After dark, police dispersed several hundred protesters who gathered in Minsk in solidarity with Kolesnikova and arrested at least forty-five protesters, according to the Viasna Human Rights Centre.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has expressed “very serious concern” about “the repeated use of force against nonviolent protesters, such as pressure on civil society opposition activists,” said UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric.
The UN chief’s message is that “other Belarusians will be able to peacefully exercise their political and constitutional rights in a democratic environment,” the spokesman said, and “the existing crisis we see in Belarus will have to be resolved through discussion among Belarusians. “
After a brutal police crackdown on protesters in the first few days after the vote, which provoked outrage and inflicted the ranks of the protesters, the Belarusian government switched to threats and selective arrests of activists and protesters.
Belarusian prosecutors have opened an unscrupulous investigation into the members of the Coordination Council, accusing them of undermining national security by calling for a transition of power. Several council members were arrested and others were arrested for questioning.
Last week, Pavel Latushko, a former culture minister and ambassador to France who joined the opposition council, visited Poland after being threatened and questioned. His departure came a day after Lukashenko warned that Latushko had crossed a “red line” and would be prosecuted. .
On Saturday, Tsikhanouskaya’s wife, Olga Kovalkova, moved to Poland after the government threatened to imprison her for a long time if she refused to leave the country.
Kovalkova said agents from the Belarusian State Security Committee, or KGB, put her in a car, where she told her to lie on the ground, not knowing where they were taking her. Poland, and Polish border guards called on a bus driving force bound for Poland to accompany it.
The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly condemned “arbitrary detentions and the practice of forced exile by several members of the Coordinating Council, as well as so many protesters in recent days. “
“We call on the Belarusian government to put an end to these actions, to release the detainees arbitrarily”, and to open a national dialogue,” the ministry said.
Despite tensions over opposition activists, protests continued and crowds increased over the weekend. An estimated 100,000 other people attended a demonstration on Sunday, despite heavy rains.
Speaking in an interview with Russian journalists, Lukashenko said it was “tragic” for him to face major protests, but insisted that he had retained the country’s maximum.
“I have to protect what we build with our hands, protect the other people who built it, and they’re an overwhelming majority,” he said.
Amid Western criticism, Lukashenko trusted Moscow, his main sponsor and ally. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he is in a position to send policemen to Belarus at Lukashenko’s request if demonstrations turn violent, but this is not yet necessary.
Lukashenko accused the United States of launching the protests and warned Russia that it could face future protests.
“If Belarus collapses today, then Russia will come,” he said.
According to observers, Lukashenko hopes to halt protests with selective repressions against opposition leaders and calm public anger with speeches on constitutional reform and a new election on an uns specified date. The Kremlin has backed its promise of such reform.
“The government’s situation is transparent: it expels all the country’s leaders and intensifies the repressions that oppose the protesters while mimicking a discussion about constitutional reform under the kremlin’s patronage,” said Valery Karbalevich, an independent analyst based in Minsk. “Lukashenko expects demonstrations by another 100,000 people to fail after the expulsion of opposition leaders, but this has had the opposite effect, helping to fuel more protests. “
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Associated Press editors Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Elaine Ganley in Paris and Monika Scislowska in Warsaw, Poland, contributed to this report.
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