English

Belarus needs national liberation campaign instead of opposition forces, Paznyak says

Belarus needs a national liberation campaign instead of opposition forces, Zyanon Paznyak, the emigre chairman of the Conservative Christian Party, says in an article posted on his website, said BelaPAN.

There can be no opposition forces in an occupied country that is ruled by a dictatorial anti-national regime, Mr. Paznyak explains.

Removing such regimes requires a liberation campaign or even a guerrilla war, he says.

Mr. Paznyak noted that in 1997, he had suggested establishing a Belarusian Liberation Movement whose backbone would be formed by activists of the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF). According to Mr. Paznyak, he wanted the Movement to unite all anti-government pro-Belarusian forces under Belarus' historically national white-red-white flag.

Instead, so-called opposition forces were cobbled together from "non-national" parties, pragmatic politicians who had quit the BPF, Communists and Alyaksandr Lukashenka's former functionaries, Mr. Paznyak says.

He warns that there can be no change for the better without national and cultural revival and predicts that a new generation of pro-Belarusian people would emerge.

"Support groups" should be founded to launch the liberation campaign, Mr. Paznyak says. The 150 groups that were set up in 2011 under the slogan "For New Elections Without Lukashenka" could join the campaign without waiting for anyone's instructions, he says.

Zyanon Paznyak, currently 68 years of age, has been living outside Belarus since April 1996, when he fled the country after authorities issued a warrant for his arrest in connection with his role in street protests against President Lukashenka's pro-Russian policies.

In the period between May 1990 and January 1996, Mr. Paznyak was a member of the Supreme Soviet (parliament), where he headed the group of the Belarusian Popular Front.

In 1994, Mr. Paznyak was a candidate in a relatively free and fair presidential election. Out of the six candidates on the ballot in the first round, he came third with 12.9 percent of the vote after Mr. Lukashenka with 44.8 percent and Vyachaslaw Kebich with 17.3 percent.

In 1999, the Belarusian Popular Front's radical wing led by Mr. Paznyak split from the main BPF to found the Conservative Christian Party. The new party claimed to be the only true BPF successor and did not recognize the "other" BPF. It also distanced itself from the rest of Belarus' opposition groups and labeled them as the "regime's accomplices" for the lack of action against the threat of Belarus' incorporation into Russia, and dependence on Western grants.