New Eastern Europe podcasts. Bella Russians took to the streets in response to the
rict's presidential election on August ninth, twenty twenty. The authorities said that Alexander
Lukashenka received the support of more than eighty percent of voters, which clearly contradicted
the scale of social mobilization and sentiment. The authority's reaction was to use force.
Officially, three people were killed in the first days. A thousand were
arrested, many of them were brutally beaten and tortured. Hello Belarus, my
name is Vlad I'm twenty two years old. I work in construction. I'd
participated in the protests many times. In the events of August from the ninth
until the thirteenth, I was beaten by so called law enforcement officers. On
October the eleventh, I was at Pushkinskaya metro station. Nine vehicles water cannons
with colored water entered our whoop. We started to run away to the neighborhood
courtyards. I was beaten by amon. I was shot at from fifteen meters.
Another boy who was trying to take the girl away, was also shot
at. We ran to the staircase. There was a huge crowd. They
beat everyone live ammunition was fired. The shot shards hit my face as well
as in the groin area of the torso. I managed to escape through the
courtyards and a friend took me to the hospital to the emergency rooms. I
was quickly operated on. The pellet was taken out and I got three stitches.
I had a broken note and concussions. I was one of the first
to go to hospital. There was also a girl with a broken head.
Later they brought very injured people. I remember a boy with an almost knocked
out eye and a broken spine, I think. But the battered men were
not assisted by the militia. They were watching over everyone. I asked the
doctors not to write nonsense that I was shot with a pneumatic gun, but
they could not do anything because policemen were standing nearby. Thank you very much
to the doctors. They support us to the fullest and are against all his
brutality. I had to leave the country and fearing for my safety, I
left for Warsaws. I was just afraid for my health. My name is
Anton Saifulio and I'm an assistant professor at the University of Warsaw Center for East
European studies. Absolute the repressions of Belarussians did not come as a surprise in
a red degree. They were surprised by the absolute and total insolence of the
authorities, which after breaking the social contract so unwritten that we somehow care for
you, We give it a minimum, that is access to medicine, access
to education. It is relatively calm, We let the IT sector develop,
for example, that is, young people coming to Minsk could abstract about the
political situation and as it were, live in the European capital, so there
was a kind of apparent robe of stability. After the pandemic happened, the
coronavirus pandemic came, then that contract was broken. The authorities totally ignored the
issue of the epidemic and arrogantly approached the issue of the pandemic, and then
societies began to show solidarity and help each other. This was superimposed on the
election campaign. It combined with the emergence of new political forces, new faces,
which gained some trust during these dynamic events of the summer, and this
figure of eighty three percent surprised with its insolence, because all summer you could
see how much support, for example Barbarika and later at Tihanalskaya herself. The
United Opposition candidates had huge support, and this insolence really surprised people. They
went out onto the street on August ninth, and they did not expect that
they would encounter such a wave of repression, because it usually looked like this
in two thousand and six. Somehow, this so called tenth town survived a
little over a week after Maidan. It was quite a fashionable phenomenon. Then.
Two thousand and ten two thousand and fifteen are literally a few days of
such gentle pacification of the conflict, which did not lead to such a scale,
and of course all over the country, which is important, the first
three days of the whole country took to the streets. Over the first three
days, the whole country took to the streets, not only in large cities
but also smaller ones. Leader Malediechna Labin Gina Salijorsk. It clearly surprised the
authorities, which expected that this old scenario would work, that they would beat
everyone up and in two or three days it would be over. The participant
in the protest in Minsk was afraid of his safety and thereful, he asked
for anonymity. I am an actor and teacher. We learned a lot about
people's behavior and how to influence them. I still cannot understand knowing a lot
about the Nazis, Hitler, the psyche of such people, about Auschwitz.
I just cannot find an answer to the question why people are so cool.
The most frightening and incomprehensible for me is that people who say that they are
only following orders are laughing when they torment others. Where does so much hate
in these people come from? I cannot understand it when I imagine someone detained
in custody his peers, but from the Special Services rape them with a truncheon.
Where can such things appear in their heads? Where did these sick ideas
come from? I do not know what the reasons are for these bastards.
Do they later jerk off after returning home? Is it exciting? Is it
clear? It is clear they are mental perverts. I would never have thought
of that. To understand me or that girl Christina, who tortured inhumanely detained
boys herself. I understand that there are some political reasons. The person who
is ill with power wants to keep this power, and there are those who
follow orders without thinking. They just catch everyone. They want to intimidate people.
But another matter is this absolute violence and brutal rape, some perverted violence.
It's good that fuck me. The detainees were not quartered and eaten in
these torture rooms. Joseph Barrel, head of the European Union's diplomacy in the
European Parliament, drew attention to their level of violence against demonstrators Belarus. Unfortunately,
the situation on the ground in Belarus has not improved. It has been
continues to be a brutal crackdown against citizens, journalists and against members of the
Coordination Council itself. The interior ministers recently authorized to use lethal force. Leath
of force and the increasing levels of violence against protesters are extremely worrying. However,
the use of violence could not come as a surprise. Alexander Lukashenko's regime
reacted this way in the past, and now the authorities were also preparing to
suppress protests. Moreover, some of the resources came from the West. Scenarios.
Undoubtedly, the scenario was assumed if it was the main scenario, that
is, for the previous terms, the scenario was used and ended successfully for
the authorities. It has never been so brutal. The brutality resulted mainly from
surprise, and here in quotation marks the demonstrators themselves are to blame the protest
itself, which was decentralized earlier, for example in twenty fifteen, twenty ten,
two thousand and six. It was quite easy to detain, arrest,
imprison the leaders, the evident leaders of these protests, and in general the
technical issue was simply, as they say in Russian cleaning the square, simply
disperse all the people and stop them, create an atmosphere of fear. Of
course, this had the effect that after a few days there were no protests.
But now I was incredibly surprised by the very nature of the back.
You know, you had no more Zikhanoskaya Babarika, and they all sit in
prison. People go out alone, do not go out to the square,
go out in their yards, in their neighborhood and their small towns. And
of course the authorities are not prepared first of all such a scenario that you
will have to devote all your attention to the whole country, not Mi Minsk.
And the second thing is actually the stubbornness of people who were beaten shot,
had stunt grenades thrown at them, and they did not get scared anyway.
And the fact that the government assumed such a scenario approves that in the
summer a new government was appointed by Lukashenka, and most of the ministers had
military experience. Even the Minister of Sport was a former soldier. It is
said that there was no election campaign for Lukashenka. There was an election campaign
for Lukashenka. He visited various military units, watched the exercises of for example,
the same on the internal truths. So they were appropriate preparations. The
cars we see now, the huge shields they put on, I suspect they
have been preparations for several years because the authorities that ruling camp assumed that there
could be a larger scale of protests, especially in twenty twenty, that it
would be a difficult election, and they were properly prepared. Where does it
come from, Well, some of them certainly come from Russia. There is
no one here trying to hide anything as if this is a normal issue in
Belarusian realities. As it turned out, the stone grenades came from the Czech
Republic. At least some of the batches. The rubber bullets also partly came
from Poland. In the first days of the protests, Schakowsky showed made in
Poland. It is written that some of the equipment comes from abroad, which
imposed sanctions that de facto blocked similar types of transactions. Well, it caused
some surprise. While the issue was a bit muffled only one in the Czech
Republic. Such inquiries were made to the Czech government through the activity of the
Belarusian diaspora. What is it, Why are they launching grenades from the Czech
Republic. They got a reply that the last batch was sold in two thousand
and eleven. Before the sanctions, Alexandra Lukashenko's regime prepared the ground for repression
by using various methods of dehumanization or deligitimization of the opposition, demonization, dehumanization,
marginalization of the opposition. This is hard work that the authorities have been
doing for the last twenty to twenty five years of its existence, generally from
the very beginning. Since the two thousand and one elections and in particular the
two thousand and six elections, there have been an especially important moment since the
two thousand and one elections and in particular the two thousand and six elections.
These were especially important moments because it was the post Maidan elections, so Maidan
two thousand and four. The Belarussian authorities had tied to prepare because the signal
was precise that this scenario would be attempted in Belarus, and the two thousand
and six elections were the elections when the linguistic processes of the opposition began with
renewed vigor. First of all, playing with feelings of nostalgia, using profusely
old language still so well. The West is the enemy. The West wants
to destroy us, deconstruct our reality in order to use us. The Belarussian
Democratic opposition wants to do this in Belarus because they get money from the West.
This is the initial easiest path that has been open to power then discredit,
but the public no longer believes it. For example, Babarica, Yes,
the case of Babarica who took pencils and did everything in the world.
Another one that's having orgies in Turkey and so on. So it's a discrediting
of the leaders of a possible protest. It's devaluation. Definition of distinguishing specific
classes or even I would say, the layers of society. First of all
generational ones. For instance, these are young people who have not left puberty.
They are prone to drug addiction or alcoholism, and so on and so
on, as we will see in the frames after two thousand and six when
they destroyed this tenth town. Then in the TVs just syringes, bottles,
glass and so on, and of course demonization. During summer Lukashenka presented the
full extent of the language that these are prostitutes, drug addicts, the social
elements of society in general. This work is systematic until the Internet was developed,
that is, until the Internet appeared in most Belarussian homes and people in
their fifties or sixties gained access to the internet. It worked fine. Of
course, at the time of digitization, the public did not believe it anymore.
But evidently language, primarily building a specific language, the language of the
image of the opposition, has always existed. Now it has failed because the
indoctrination of the state services, especially members of their special militia units on Mona,
resulted in the yang Belarussians in the uniform, not only facing the demonstrators
but also using brutal violence against them. Few object for this also raises voices.
Also after examining when their profiles on social networks were still open, it
was possible to find out from the content that they write post comments under the
photos that they believe it to some extent. Later anonymous reports appeared in the
telegram channels that most of the boys from my part do not want to deal
with it, but it will be a punishment later, prisoner punishment. We
can get ten years for not doing this and that. So physical preparation,
as we all see, is there there is one great unknown when there is
moral preparation. How ideological processing is conducted. Although in the first days of
the protest, unlimited violence was assumed, so through this unlimited violence it was
necessary to suppress the protests at the very beginning and close the case. However,
the further strategies are that sometimes we hit, sometimes we sometimes harder.
Sometimes we do not touch women, but later these women can also be hit.
We throw rocket grenades and shoot pensioners during their march. These are decisions
of specific people, the same amon man or person who stands in the ranks
of the military and militia will not make such decisions. Initially, regime officials
often refrained from physically attacking women. As a result, the Belarussians sometimes managed
to free the arrested men. This has changed over time. Women are now
the target of physical attacks, but also repression against their families, against their
children. As underlined by Belarussian sociologist Aleana did Yes, when we talk about
detention and physical violence, this applies to all women as well as men,
but men are more likely to suffer physical violence to be beaten. It's a
fact that the repression of women is more polished and psychological. Women are being
bullied. Women are being bullied and intimidated that they'll be stripped of parental rights,
that the children will be taken away. It was the same with Tikhonovskaya.
There was a moment when she was threatened with having her children taken away,
and at one point set Lana even considered ending her campaign. Here,
the authorities have drawn a line for women, you're either an activist and politician,
or you're a wife and mother. The Special Militia Services OMON, however,
would only be enough to suppress mass protests on the national scale. The
regime used the army for this purpose. Army. Yes, the role of
the army is great. The entire top brass was militarized. Lukashenko also understands
the significance of this military elite, which, for the most part, if
we are talking about generals and the highest military ranks, is still Soviet for
perhaps to some extent post Soviet. So we also assume some pro Russian sentiments.
What, in turn, cannot be said about the younger composition of officers
who have already grown up in the conditions of Belarus. Even a few cases
also appeared on the internet when they resigned from service. This protest began to
unfold in August later when the Sunday marches appeared and on Saturday, the so
called internal troops became more involved. Clearly Amon was not up to the task.
There is also such data that it is about one thousand, five hundred
people, and obviously it has simply not covered within the country, okay,
in midsk but in the country it will be quite difficult, and that's why
soldiers of the internal troops were also recruited. Therefore, the role of the
army is large. The generals must also have certain guarantees, because at some
point it will also become clear that they too could make the right decision,
which would not be in line with Lukashenka's The ruling camp, headed by Lukashenka
or some top elite, understood perfectly well that it was necessary to deal with
the army first of all with a militia and in order to keep the ranks,
and so far it has been successful. Clashes in the streets are the
most visible part of the confrontation with the demonstrators. The Pularotian KGB, the
Public Security Committee, is also active in the background. The service, originating
from the Soviet era, is responsible for intelligence and counter intelligence, but also,
and perhaps above all, for maintaining control over its own society. Every
large and small town in Belarus has its own KGB branch, and of course
the right job was done all the time. Kidnappings of various kinds of persecution
seemed to be a permanent element of active social and political life in Belarus.
On August ninth, however, there was much more to this work. Watching
hasty decisions like tzikanoskayas and expelling them from the country on a quickly adopted strategy
or taking all the members of the coordinating council abroad simply expelling them. And
it was callis Nikova who was surprised by destroying her passport that she clearly managed
her break this pattern a little. A certain surprise existed and functioned in the
sense that it was related that a lot of work suddenly happened, but kidnappings
arrests creating fictitious cases. This is a plot that has always been occupied by
the Belarussian KGB, but now there is a much larger scale of it,
and you do not have to forget about your friends in Russia. Frequent visits,
especially in August early September, of FSB planes to Minsk. Recently,
there was also a visit by Narishkin, the director of the Russian FSB,
who was meeting with Lukashenka. It can also be said that there is a
plan with covert coordination by Russia's special services. They are trying to clean the
space locally with the local Belarussian KGB zat. One of the methods of silently
intimidating Belarussians is to deprive them of their livelihood. What has been going on
for the last twenty years is happening in a nutshells. Economic repressions have always
been there, now they are just on a much larger scale. You can
also guess that the system of employing people was also done for it, that
is so called contracts. Not like, for example, in Poland that after
three years you get a contract for an indefinite period, in Belarus you get
a contract all the time with the management's decision for a year, two or
three. But all this time is precisely defined so as not to extend the
contract or to extend it. It was also related to the reform of the
pension system, but also to be able to carry out the so called economic
repressions. Belarussian society, however, is allergic and material plane again here referring
to the social contract that it has concluded with society. We guarantee you jobs
and develop peacefully, live staff families, take loans and live a normal life.
After this contract was broken, after the largest factories plants in Belarus woke
up, it was of course remembered that economic repression should be you to suppress
this freedom movement to the prey beginning, including the union movement in workplaces and
an example of this method is two musicians members of the band Irdorat, who
posted a short statement on social media. They became famous for street performances of
the song Pyreman Changes by Victor Toy and the Russian band Kino Alexandrovitchamoli. That
stive Anger's dancecape. But it's changes. For changes, we have to enter
Brasilvania. Yeah, wor d Due to social activity, they were dismissed from
Culture Center, where they had been working for years. Is just that Irdorad
has no home, But everything will be fine. Could always wins. Despite
the use of brute force, protesting Belarus have not ceased. They change,
The regime continues. They're also margyrs readings, cyber partisans are fighting. The
art of resistance is being born. Beilar Russians remember history. Please listen to
the next podcasts devoted to the Pillar Russian Awakening podcast produced by Free Range Productions.