The Economist - USA (2020-08-22)

42 TheEconomistAugust 22nd 2020

1

T

he menacingconcrete-walled jail on

Minsk’s Okrestina Street played a cen-

tral role in the reign of terror unleashed last

week by Alexander Lukashenko, the dicta-

tor who has ruled Belarus for the past quar-

ter century, to put down an uprising that

has come close to overthrowing him. Pri-

son guards worked overtime on those who

dared to protest against Mr Lukashenko’s

theft of the presidential election on August

9th. Prisoners were forced to kneel with

their hands behind their backs for hours in

overcrowded cells. Men and women were

stripped, beaten and raped with trun-

cheons. “You wanted change, how’s that for

change,” went a widely reported refrain. An

admirer of Joseph Stalin, Mr Lukashenko

has proved a worthy disciple.

The repression was ostentatious: some

victims were paraded on state television.

By August 19th, at least four people had

been killed. The aim was both to terrorise

citizens and to bind the regime’s officers by

having them commit atrocities together, a

tactic used by dictators and mafiosi to pre-

vent defections. But the violence led to yet

bigger protests, forcing Mr Lukashenko to

restrain his goons and release most of

those who had been unlawfully detained.

On August 17th a crowd of protesters ap-

proached the prison, demanding the re-

lease of those still inside. They appeared

ready to storm the building, but were

stopped by a human chain of about 150 ac-

tivists and priests. “There are snipers on

the roof, and they are nervous. The last

thing we need are more victims,” shouted

one activist, a celebrity bodybuilder named

Anatoly Gavrilov. Storming the prison

might have broken the protests’ code of

non-violence, and given Mr Lukashenko—

and his backers in Moscow—an excuse for

harsher repression.

So far the protests against Mr Lukash-

enko have been almost entirely non-viol-

ent. Marchers obey traffic signals, remove

their shoes before standing on benches,

pick up rubbish and go home at an agreed

time. Demonstrations have engulfed the

entire country, not just Minsk, co-ordi-

nated by activists through a Telegram mes-

senger channel called Nekhta (“someone”).

They have also touched off strikes at

state factories whose workers once formed

the core of Mr Lukashenko’s support. On

August 16th, factory workers joined an esti-

mated 200,000 demonstrators in Minsk,

the largest protest in the country’s history.

The next day Mr Lukashenko flew by heli-

copter to the mzktfactory, which makes

military vehicles, hoping to shore up his

support. Instead, workers began chanting

for him to resign. “As long as you don’t kill

me, there won’t be any other elections,” Mr

Lukashenko snapped back.

Yet there are signs that some strikes are

coming unstuck. Sergei Dylevsky, a worker

at the Minsk Tractor Factory who this week

was elected head of its strike committee,

admitted that arrests and threats to sack

strikers had undermined resolve. Only 200

men out of 17,000 at the factory were ready

to “go to the end”, he said.

The protests’ lack of political organisa-

tion has been both a strength and a limita-

tion. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the ex-

The Belarus uprising

The dictator hangs on, for now

MINSK

Having lost his people, Aleksandr Lukashenko turns to force to stay in power

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