For over 20 years I have had an interest in the country of Belarus. It started back in the late 1990s when I provided a holiday for a month for a young girl affected by the reactor explosion at Chernobyl. That went on for a few years and it was during one of these visits that I met a lady who came with the group of kids as an interpreter. Since then I have kept in touch with her and have in fact visited the country, and the interpreter has visited me as well. We talk fairly often via Skype.
If you are not familiar with the position of Belarus lets just take a look at a bit of history with which you might be familiar.
Napoleons retreat from Moscow. According to Google maps it is 1739 miles from Paris to Moscow and by foot will take 569 hours to walk from there via Minsk. Napoleon tried it in 1812 with 500,000 troops. He made it back with 10,000 men. All a bit weary and frostbitten, and one suspects, a bit fed up.
Fast forward to the period 1941-1945, what the Russians and Belarusians call The Great Patriotic War. We call it World War Two. June 1941 saw the start of Operation Barbarossa by the Germans where they crossed into Russia (Belarus) with massive armaments and started on their route to Moscow. One of the major features of that occupation was the murder of the people of Belarus. One quarter, that is 25% or one in four, of the population were killed during the period from June 1941 until August 1945. One Quarter. Men, women and children murdered. The country lost 619 villages during that time. Burned to the ground and mowed under by tanks. Villages which still no longer exist.
To give you an example. Following is an extract from the website of the memorial built for the village of Khatyn in Belarus.
“The village of Khatyn was burned by German fascist invaders on March 22, 1943 at 14. 00. 26 houses together with the farmsteads were burned. All the inhabitants were driven to a shed which was poured with benzine and set on fire. Those who tried to escape were killed.
149 (one hundred and forty - nine) peaceful Soviet citizens were burned alive: “
This is part of the site of the village now made into a memorial. Each chimney stack contains a bell which rings every few minutes.
The war ends and Russia takes Belarus under its wing, until 1991 when it declared itself an independent nation, The Republic of Belarus.
Some five years before that on April 26th 1986, a large fire broke out in a nuclear reactor close to the border of its neighbouring country, Ukraine, at a place called Chernobyl. The radiation from the fallout today affects some 23% of the ground of Belarus today. The wind was blowing from Ukraine to Belarus and then on to the rest of Europe and Scandinavia. The Soviet government of the day stated that 31 people had died during the explosion.
Today 485 villages are still uninhabitable. 2.1 million people still live on contaminated land, including 700,000 children. This is from a population as of 2018 of 9.4 million. Tens of thousands were contaminated by radiation. It is not possible to state accurately how many have died of the effects of radiation since then. Belarus became a world centre of excellence in the treatment of childhood thyroid cancer. To read more I would recommend a book written by a Belarusian Nobel Laureate journalist, Svetlana Alexievich. Her book, Voices from Chernobyl, is chilling and accurate.
In 1994 Aleksandr Lukashenko was voted in as president of the country. He has been there ever since, by fair means and foul. In August 2020 he won yet another election by a typically massive 80% of the vote. This has been disputed vigorously by the people of the country following mysterious disappearances of his opposition, activists and ordinary people.
Today the country sees daily marches of students, pensioners, doctors and other members of the public in frequent quiet walks along main highways in the towns and cities of the country. The riot police (OMON), regular police, militia and secret police (KGB) make arrests on the streets. People are spirited away to police stations and courts where they are fined and frequently imprisoned for minor or ‘nothing’ offences. The country has become a police state. A viscous police state.
My friend recently told me of a colleague of hers. The colleague took part in a silent demonstration near to her home in Minsk along with other from her community. The people stood by the side of the road displaying a red and white flag, the old flag of Belarus now adopted by the people as the legitimate symbol of their country. Nothing happened to them though the police came and stopped close by in their armoured vehicles.
Some days later she received an ‘invitation’ to attend her local police station to explain why she had been at the demonstration. They had her photograph and had traced her using it.
If she does not attend the station she will be arrested. If she does attend she will be imprisoned for 15 days. Conditions in the prisons are barbaric. Prisoners are beaten and tortured, kept without food and sanitation. One recent report told of men and women being crowded together and told to strip naked by the guards then some were taken away and beaten.. There are many reports and photos of broken limbs, severe bruising from beatings etc. Three deaths have also been reported.
Sadly, whilst many in the country are taking part in the demonstrations there are many who are content to sit back and allow others to do the work for them. In the main these are old people who have lived through the torments of Soviet and Stalinist times. They are scared to talk out of place.
The country is a tinderbox, just waiting for a match.