Belarus Opposition Leader Admits It Looks Like ‘We Have Lost’
“I have to admit that we have lost the streets"
Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya has admitted the protest movement against dictator Alexander Lukashneko “seems to have lost” after being on the verge of toppling his regime last year.
Ms Tsikhanousakaya, who fled Belarus after apparent threats to her children amid a violent crackdown on protests in the summer, said the path to freedom and democracy would be longer and harder than many imagined.
“I have to admit that we have lost the streets. We have no way of combating the regime’s violence against protestors,” she told the Swiss newspaper Le Temps ahead of a planned visit to the country next month.
“They have the strength, they have the guns…I know Belarusians are tired, they are afraid.”
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Belarus in August after Mr Lukashenko, who has ruled the former Soviet nation with an iron fist for 26 years, claimed a landslide victory in a rigged election.
Police launched a brutal response, using stun grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas on the crowds. Several people died while many more reported being tortured in custody.
Criminal cases linked to the demonstrations are ongoing, with a pair of young journalists last week sentenced to two years in prison each after they covered police violence during an anti-government protest.
“We are building the structures for the struggles of tomorrow,” Ms Tsikhanouskaya added in the interview. “Our strategy is to organise ourselves better, to put the regime under constant pressure, until such a time when people will be ready to take to the streets again, perhaps in the spring.”
The 38 year old found herself the accidental face of the protest movement last year after her husband, a popular video blogger and opposition figure, was barred from standing against Mr Lukashenko and jailed.
Ms Tsikhanouskaya was allowed to run and galvanised the opposition with mass campaign rallies. She said she would have won the presidency had the vote been free and fair.
In exile she has continued to run an office and met with European leaders in a bid to keep up pressure on the Lukashenko regime. In an interview with the Telegraph last year she said she was “suffocated by fear” but could not betray the hopes of the Belarusian people.
Source: The Telegraph
It us enough to look at at the Ash-ke-Nazi regime in Ukraine, and tne almost starving Ukrainian simple people! They are neighbors, and most White Russians( = Belarus) aren’ t blind and stupid like the corrupted Westeners would like to have them!
Jerry..The Ukrainian are low IQ morons with short memory ?
They forgot about “holodomor” enforced by yiddish speaking komissars, & today their ne holodomor is enforced by hebrew speaking komissars ??
She’s panicked she’s going to be sent back to Belarus like Navalny was to Russia by her EU handlers to be a jail martyr, so she wants to call the whole thing off now.
Yes, the Belarusian people were right on the edge of electing a 38-year-old housewife with no political experience President of the country. And, just then, Saddam Hussein rode past on a unicorn.
What actually happened was what the west does every time, following the Gene Sharp Regime-Change manual – run a political-firebrand candidate, then when they lose, claim the vote was rigged and demand the leader step down, while provoking (and often paying for) street protests in the hope of causing enough chaos that the ‘dictator’ will either actually step down or order the police to break it up. If (a), perfect; the complainer steps into the breach and pronounces herself president. If (b), perfect: the western media goes wild with graphic images of bleeding protesters and grim-faced cops swinging truncheons, and asks rhetorically, “Are you going to let this happen?”
No doubt Lukashenko IS a dictator; he’s been in power forever, and I have my own reservations about his leadership and his favourite tactic of playing the west off against Russia in an effort to get sweetheart deals for himself. But I don’t live in Belarus, and it’s up to them, and while it is a little hard to believe that Lukashenko consistently gets 90% majorities, I don’t find it at all hard to believe that more than 50% voted for him, which is good enough.The idea that a majority voted for Tickyboo and only Lukashenko’s goons prevented her from taking over the country is preposterous. It shows what retards The Telegraph thinks you all are that it would expect you to believe it.
Being thick as a brick is the reason that she just discovered that she lost; it was quite obvious that she lost because she never won the elections. Where do these people come from?
the Juan guido of Belarus has won hundreds of thousands $ from CIA
Why is this little piglet free to run around? She needs to be locked up for a few decades till she is too old and burnt out to carry on her regime change efforts. She needs to rot in a small cold and cramped cell. She needs to STFU.