Belarus: A nation’s struggle for freedom
А хто там ідзе, а хто там ідзе
У агромністай такой грамадзе?
– Беларусы.
And who goes there? Who goes there?
In such a mighty throng?
Belarusians!
Protests begin
I speak to an elderly Belarusian about events in the country — “We fight for freedom. I’m sick of this shit. He didn’t win the election. I used to be head of a company you know, had 200 people working under me, but I talked out against the government. Now I have nothing. You know how it works”
It is the 2nd day of protests against the rigging of elections by 26-year-long dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Having haemorrhaged support, arrested all major opposition candidates and inadvertently sparked a political awakening amongst the opposition, Lukashenka declared for himself his stipulatory 80% of the popular vote (in the first round no less). International electoral observers had been arrested at polling stations and scorched ballot papers bearing the name of the primary opposition candidate Svyatlana Tsikhanowskaya are found in the basement of government buildings.
Pushkinskaya metro station, in a region of central Minsk, has been the site of some of the most intense scenes of protest on the day after results are announced. With the internet almost entirely blocked, save for a handful of government sanctioned news websites, the protests are necessarily spontaneous and unplanned. They have been violently suppressed by the brutal state apparatus.
Peaceful protestors are bombarded with rubber bullets and water cannons, and the explosions of flash grenades are so loud that they can be heard from Nemiha, almost 5 kilometres away. The authorities report making 3,000 arrests on the 10th of August alone, but the real figure is certainly much higher. The overspill from Minsk prisons is transported by police truck to Zhodino almost 60km away.
“Life is hard now” continues the elderly Belarusian, “when you speak they make things difficult”
We stand on the road, beside some flats, tentatively looking up towards the crossing at the metro station. An aura of carnage emanates from the focal point of the earlier demonstration. A suspense-filled susurrus pervades the menacing quiet of the early morning. Flash grenades continue to punctuate the uneasy tranquility, explosions echoing sporadically down the almost deserted prospect.
As we stand, a Spetsnaz soldier walks towards us inconspicuously under the row of trees that line the roadside. He has covered the 200m of more less open ground with the nonchalance of a shark in open water, swimming idly and stealthily towards its prey. None of the idiot aggression of the riot police here, but studied, tempered intent.
«Руки вверх! Стой бля! ты не убежишь!» he shouts — “Hands up! Stop motherfucker! Don’t try and run!”
We put our hands up, start to walk and feign casual, slightly confused disinterest. Anyone who has ever seen a shoplifter caught in the act will know exactly the expression: the fake, insouciant surprise, the widened eyes, the brief unnatural pause as they collect themselves to pretend that the shop assistant must be speaking to the only other person in the aisle (precisely nobody). I have the luxury that I am with around 5 other people and can at least pretend that he is speaking to one of them.
The illusion is rapidly shattered. “Stop you little motherfucker! I’m speaking to you!”
Adrenaline floods into the veins, the vision thickens to a dark focus, time contorts. Foreigners are not immune to the nightmarish overtures of Lukashenka’s goons.
Out of nowhere, a car trundles along the deserted road. How it managed to get between the army roadblock at one end of the prospect and the Spetsnaz unit at the other is unclear.
The shark’s attention is diverted. Aiming his gun at the car, he and his colleague (there are 2 of them now) scream for it to stop.
For the Belarusians such violence is to become the norm. Their capital is in the hands of violent thugs, the regime shoring up its power with brute force. Young and old are swept up in the wave of violent repression; a dull panacea to the myriad ills of Lukashenka’s rule. His crippling stranglehold sees thousands dragged from the street and beaten brutally in unmarked police vans. Europe’s 11th biggest city exists in a state of quasi-occupation, its populace cowering under the weight of potential detention, its central streets controlled by police roadblocks.
In the coming weeks Vladimir Putin declares that the Russian Federation is ready and willing to provide military and law enforcement assistance to the Belarusian government. Russian troops and a “law enforcement reserve” are stationed on the Belarusian border. Lukashenka decries the “meddling” of Western governments and alleges that protests have been coordinated by Lithuania and Poland in a bid to encourage a Maidan-style revolt. This subversion, he insists, is aided by a motley band of agent-activists from the Netherlands, United Kingdom and Czech Republic. On the 16th of August he declares that a 30-nation NATO force has been positioned 15 miles from the border with Poland, and moves the army to the area in response. The external enemy acting as the frenzied justification for his egregious usurpation.
This is the coterie of contradictions to which the dictator demands the people acquiesce. His tottering narrative enforced with the strike of the baton. The rolling military vehicles a sickening compensation for his fallacy of logic. The psychic emesis that he spews onto the population, a placation of his own internal sickness; the hunger for power. There is to be no choice, only the illusion of choice. Lukashenka is the man for the job, but you can never know why. It is not the citizens’ job to know. It is the citizens’ job to accept his monarchic rule, for the good of the nation. Sovereignty coopted into stabilising the teetering psychosis of a single boorish maniac. A schizophrenic status-quo enforced by the venal finality of violence.
Facing the glinting barrel of this finality, we take our chance and run.
А што яны нясуць на худых плячах,
На руках ў крыві, на нагах у лапцях?
– Сваю крыўду.
And what do they carry on their skinny shoulders,
Their blood-marked hands, their legs and feet?
All their grievance!
Fear and Loathing in Hero-City Minsk
I speak to Evgeny, a 27 year old computer programmer about his arrest and detention. He was at a well known shopping centre with some friends and found himself confronted by OMON.
The OMON (or AMAP in Belarusian) are a special, paramilitary branch of law enforcement, formed in the twilight years of the Soviet Union as a form of riot and crowd control. Refashioned after the advent of Belarusian independence, they have been deployed en masse by Lukashenka to crush dissent in the wake of his grand electoral success. They are the waiters at the cocktail party of his dictatorial celebration, wandering around serving up canapes of violence to the unwilling guests. They wear thick body armour and helmets, as well as balaclavas to avoid identification.
“Imagine: you are simple customer of grocery, you bought products, just left a shop and guy begins to run at you… he have baton in his hand. What would you do?”
The answer is clear, and Evgeny and his friends run inside the shopping centre and escape out of a side door. Looking behind him as he exits, Evgeny sees the riot policeman come to a stop. He sees the whites of his eyes, encircled in the thick anonymity of the balaclava.
The exit leads to a raised concourse above the road. From this concourse Evgeny gets a good view of the bloody events now taking place below.
A man is dragged from his car and beaten mercilessly. A horde of reinforcements flood down from the stairs on the other side of the shopping centre and charge into the beating with relish.
This is typical of the violence that engorges the city and country in the coming weeks. Peaceful, unprovocative expressions of dissent are met with bloody violence and repression. Those not even involved in protest are dragged from the streets and bundled into unmarked vans.
This man’s crime was to toot his car horn in support of protestors. The democracy of Lukashenka’s regime on clear display.
The man is carried to a minibus. It has its curtains closed and no registration plates. The state will be accountable to no one for its violence. “I bet they were killing him inside” says Evgeny.
The handful of protestors on the street begin to scream and run.
Evgeny’s friends have an argument about whether or not they should intervene. Standing angry and helpless in the face of injustice and brutalisation, tensions run high. One calls the other a coward. The other decides that he has had enough and goes home.
Evgeny and the remaining friend go to a courtyard next to some flats and chat. They discuss their lives and the oppression that the country faces. With the handful of protestors dispersed, it seems like the night has come to an early end.
They decide to walk home.
As they do so, a police car prowls behind them on the road. Suddenly the sirens begin to wail, and the policemen inside shout at them to stop.
Knowing that arrest will result in certain violence they run. Evgeny’s friend is faster and escapes, but Evgeny makes a fateful decision.
“I ran to the courtyard… I thought that no-one could see me and I decided to hide”
Behind them the police officers exit the car and chase on foot. The adrenaline pounds as they run; predator and prey in tandem.
Hiding on the stairs to a basement flat, Evgeny waits in fear.
“I saw that he had a flashlight and a gun so that’s why I surrendered… He shouted, reveal yourself, get on your knees, put your hands above your head”
The policeman grabs Evgeny and forces him on to the ground. They jam a cable tie onto his wrists with punishing force. The bruises are still visible 4 weeks later.
Thrown into the back of the police car he is transported to the shopping centre and into the hands of the OMON riot police with their minibuses and “avtozak” police trucks.
The policeman that arrested him instructs the OMON to give him “special treatment” (more severe beating). Evgeny has no idea why — “We didn’t say a word to one another in the police car”.
He is taken onto the truck and they begin to beat him brutally.
“The adventure begins…”
А куды ж нясуць гэту крыўду ўсю,
А куды ж нясуць на паказ сваю?
– На свет цэлы
And where do they take this grievance?
And where do they take it?
to the whole world!
In the Fog
When Lukashenka became a deputy (member of parliament) in the state duma in 1990 it was a moment of great personal fortune. Deputies were immune from prosecution and this afforded him an escape from the numerous charges of assault levelled by almost everyone on his staff at the Gorodets collectivised state pig farm.
In the avtozak, Evgeny is thrown onto a pile of people. The pile is 3 or 4 deep and those on the bottom struggle to breathe. Some pass out.
Evgeny reflects sardonically that he is not sure whether he was lucky to be on the top — “More beating but at least I can breathe”.
His hands are cable-tied behind his back. His arm is broken in several places and later requires surgery.
The violence delivered by the riot police is relentless and brutal. Inside the wagon they exchange rubber batons for iron ones.
“Everyone in the pile wriggled to escape the blows. Everyone was screaming. We were like worms”
They walk on the prisoners “as if we are the ground”.
“A riot policeman was standing on me. I could feel his boot in my back. He asked — ‘are you alive there bitch?’. I said ‘Yes’. He turned me over with his baton and booted me hard in the eye”.
Blood gushes from Evgeny’s face onto the pile below him.
2 young men beg for mercy and implore the riot police to relent. This only encourages the police who sadistically ramp up the aggression.
There are threats of sexual violence. A young couple is beaten particularly harshly and the man asks the riot police to show mercy to his girlfriend. The police beat them more severely and taunt the woman. She is told that she will be forced to perform oral sex on all of the officers. She cries, utterly terrified. “I don’t know what happened to her” Evgeny tells me.
With utter hatred, he calls these men “cyborgs” and “Nazis” and it is easy to understand why. “These people have no empathy, no human emotion. They enjoy this”.
The riot police taunt the detainees as they beat them. They call them “bitches” and “scum” and ask why they want to “rip Belarus apart”. “Is this the change you wanted?” is a common refrain.
They are obsessed with the idea that protestors have been paid. They ask how much they have been given — 5 dollars? 10?
The violence is gratuitous and sadistic. Evgeny is instructed to leave the avtozak. As he crawls to the door, the same officer asks him where he is going. He says that he is leaving as he has been told. The officer responds, smirking, “No you’re not” and he and another repeatedly punch Evgeny in the face. “Now you will leave”.
Over the course of the evening Evgeny is transported between 3 avtozaks and 1 bus. The ever increasing number of detainees means that prisoners have to be swapped between trucks to free up space.
In the final avtozak, Evgeny is forced into a locker with 5 other men. It is hot and claustrophobic, and they are crushed together in the enclosed space. One of the detainees passes out, struggling to breathe. Evgeny sucks at the hinges of the locker door for air. Outside the locker he can hear the riot police laughing and joking.
А хто гэта іх, не адзін мільён,
Крыўду несць наўчыў, разбудзіў іх сон?
– Бяда, гора.
And who schooled them thus, many million strong,
Bear their grievance forth, roused them from slumbers long?
Want and suffering!
Come and See
Evgeny is transported to Okrestina prison, around 6km from the centre of Minsk. The violence continues.
The prison is to become infamous as a site of beatings and torture. In the following days I see a sign that states simply “Окрестина = Освенцим” (Okrestina = Auschwitz). In a country where around 30% of the population was murdered by the Nazis in World War 2, these are not throwaway comparisons.
He is taken to a courtyard and made to kneel against a fence, his hands raised above his head. There are around 200 other prisoners in the courtyard. Anyone who lowers their hands below head level is beaten.
A young man explains to the guards that he is a pianist and asks them not to hurt his hands. They hold him down, spread out his arms and break his fingers with a baton.
A young Armenian man tries to reason with the guards. He speaks terrible Russian and is making little sense. He says that he is a famous programmer and that his father has died. He says there has been a mistake. The guards punch him, calling him “чурка” (churka) and “хач”(hach), taboo anti-Armenian/Caucasian Russian language ethnic slurs, similar to the n-word in English in their unacceptability.
Inside the prison, Evgeny and the other prisoners are made to sign blank documents. He reasons that these are to be used in the manufacturing of charges.
Back in the courtyard a guard approaches Evgeny and sits next to him. “Well, shall we go to the protest tomorrow then?” he jokes.
“It’s alright for Tsikhanowskaya isn’t it? Already in Lithuania, whilst you are in prison” he continues, referring to the presidential candidate who has fled the country after reportedly receiving threats against her children.
“Thanks for the concern but I’m old enough to make my own decisions” Evgeny responds.
Eventually he is taken to hospital. At the hospital surgeons operate on his arm. The multiple fractures require pins.
At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, the ward is full of people beaten and brutalised by OMON.
One man is wearing an adult incontinence pad. His bandages are covered in blood. Evgeny suspects that the man has been sexually assaulted by police. “He was totally broken… in his eyes only animal fear and horror… horror”
Officers arrive to question Evgeny and the other patients. They are treated like suspects in an investigation. At the end of the interview an officer asks him who he voted for and what social media channels he follows.
“I just lost it, I got so angry. How can he ask me who I voted for?”
Eventually Evgeny is given his clothes back. They are caked in blood. “I don’t know whose blood it was. Mine or the other prisoners”.
Evgeny leaves Belarus to start a new life in Poland. He does not feel safe in Belarus, under the rule of Lukashenka, and the ever present threat of re-arrest, imprisonment and continuously augmented oppression. He argues that the dictator has successfully crushed the protests, and now, with the backing of Putin’s Russia, and the support of a compliant, violent and loyal state apparatus, will only increase his power.
Behind the brutal sadism of the balaclava’d thugs that present as law enforcement, there is a cynical and final logic. “There are 2 reasons for all of this. Firstly, to make everyone feel animal, primal fear. Secondly, to drive people mad so that they consume themselves with anger. Few of us will plan revenge”.
А чаго ж, чаго захацелась ім,
Пагарджаным век, ім, сляпым, глухім?
– Людзьмі звацца.
And what is it, then, for which so long they pined,
Scorned throughout the years, they, the deaf, the blind?
To be called human!
The Revolution does have a Womanly Face
It is the day of the March for Freedom. Between 100,000 and 220,000 people have amassed on the streets to protest the oppression and violence of Lukashenka’s regime, to support democracy and to express dissent at the usurpation of the democratic process.
The crowds dress in white and red, the colours of the onetime Belarusian flag, a symbol now synonymous with opposition support.
The sun beats down. The atmosphere is festive, even celebratory. People chant anti-Lukashenka slogans and sing songs. Musicians play on guitars, and even a duda, a sort of Eastern European relative of the bagpipe.
“This is not about politics” says Andrej, a 30 year old Minsk local, “this is just Belarusians coming together to feel free, help one another and stand together”.
From the top of the hill at the museum, the great mass of the crowd can be seen in all its resplendent glory.
Milan Kundera conceived of politics as coming from a desire to take part in the “fantasy of the Grand March… on the road to brotherhood, equality, justice, happiness…” and the reliance of that fantasy on kitsch. Kitsch, states Kundera, is a partition screen put up in the way of death, that necessitates the negation of irony, criticism and deviation. Put simply, it is life with the shit extracted and sectioned off, all in the name of the higher ideal. In that case, is the desire of these people to grasp at the abstract concept of freedom just another sacrifice on the altar of kitsch?
I ask Oleg, a 26 year old Minsk resident, what he thought of the rally and whether it inspired hope. He says that it does and that he has never seen anything like it. He says that he doesn’t want to be on camera. He is crippled by shyness.
He tells me that he was taken into foster care as a child after his father and then mother left him. His father was never interested and his mother left him to move to Sweden with a lover when he was 10. In foster care he was badly abused — “every day for me was like a little Okrestina”.
Despite the boorishness and brutality of Lukashenka and his OMON, there is one word on the lips of the assembled demonstrators; peace. They are so intent on employing peaceful methods that many remove their shoes before standing on park benches with their placards. These people, singing songs and carrying flowers, are the same that Lukashenka derides as “whores, criminals, drug addicts and prostitutes” or “foreign agents sent from the Czech Republic and Poland”.
They demand but one thing; the free and fair elections that will give them a say in the running of their country and the power of autonomy over the decisions that affect their lives. They collect in their thousands in support of freedom and a society free from coercion and violence.
As the avtozaks and military vans roll through the streets of Minsk and the baton-wielding OMON and kalashnikov holding military units cordon off streets and drag innocent bystanders into imposing, unmarked trucks the future remains unclear.
“The people now have hope. When we see so many protestors we are already free. Belarus will never be the same again”
