The Revolution Is On Hold, OK?
The U.S. calls Belarus 'an outpost of tyranny,' but many of its citizens are in no rush for democracy
MINSK, BELARUS--The moment seemed ripe for revolution. Rose-laden protesters in Georgia had ousted leader Eduard Shevardnadze; mass public demonstrations had brought an opposition democrat to power in neighboring Ukraine; even the small republic of Kirgizstan had dumped its autocratic government. So why not my country, wondered Aliaksandr Atroshchankau, as he joined a pro-democracy demonstration in front of this capital's Republican Palace recently.
He soon had the answer: The thousand or so protesters who bothered to show up were scattered by police; the organizers were roughed up and tossed behind bars; state-run television stations barely acknowledged the incident. "Everyone is moving forward, and we're going back, back to the U.S.S.R.," said Atroshchankau, 24, whose political activities got him expelled from the university in Minsk. "Revolution can't happen just because you want it to."
Maybe not, but calling for a political transformation in Belarus has become a hallmark of President Bush's international campaign for democracy--a theme he is addressing during this week's visits to Russia and Georgia. The Bush administration decries this former Soviet republic, a nation of 10 million, as an "outpost of tyranny" --and denounces its leader, President Alexander Lukashenko, for running the "last remaining dictatorship in Europe." Unlike its erstwhile Soviet brother Ukraine, though, Belarus may not be ready to overthrow its leader, whose archaic regime and centrally planned economy are best described as "Soviet lite." Still, change seems inevitable--the question is, how and how soon? "Lukashenko is a powerful individual as a politician, and the economy has not collapsed," says a senior western diplomat in Minsk. "What will set people off in feeling that a change needs to be made is hard to judge."
Eye candy. Look around the streets of this sleepy capital, whose law-abiding residents rarely jaywalk, and one wonders whether the Soviet Union ever really collapsed. In the center of town, a statue of Vladimir Lenin is adorned with fresh red carnations. Down the block, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, medals dangling from his epaulet, is buying stale bread at a Soviet-style grocery called, simply, Bread Store. But turn the corner, and there are dozens of giant yellow cranes and brightly painted billboards heralding luxurious business centers and shopping malls. There are also a Benetton and a dozen McDonald's restaurants and several sushi bars--capitalist eye candy against a backdrop of grim Stalinist architecture. Russian hinterland or European backwater? Belarus can't make up its mind.
Beneath the veneer of a crime-free society and nascent market forces is a corrupt system of tight control and limited personal freedoms. It may not be tyranny--opposition figures still distribute anti-Lukashenko literature, and a handful of independent papers criticize the president--but it does smell of dictatorship. In fact, Belarus is the only post-Soviet state where the secret police continue to be called the KGB. "The Belarussian opposition operates under the harshest circumstances, and the regime is only becoming more and more oppressive," says Anatoly Lebedko, an opposition figure with the centrist United Civic Party. On the wall behind him hang framed photographs of six political dissidents who disappeared or were arrested in the months leading up to Lukashenko's re-election, four years ago. "If we can break the information blockade," Lebedko says, "then we can win."
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