LETTER BY ALEXANDER KOZULIN: I ONCE AGAIN WARN ABOUT THE TREAT OF LUKASHISM TO THE WORLD

Citizens of my beloved Belarus!

I am speaking to you from prison, with the last word that I was going to say in the district court of Minsk. You know that I was denied this legal right to speak to you before sentencing. But it is impossible to silence a free man. The prosecutor and the judge were afraid to let me speak the truth, to allow me to publicly accuse the prosecution and the whole evil system that employs them. In the end, the judge even forced the attendees of the process out of the room, just like Lukashenka, who is afraid of the people. This is why they are doing illegal acts behind our backs – judging and sentencing “on behalf of the Republic of Belarus.” But I am responsible only to God and you – Belarusian citizens. You will judge how legal were my actions, and how consistent I was in my service to people.

Proofs of my innocence are obvious. My defense counsels, as well as independent jurists, conclusively proved absence of crime in any of my actions. But those who ordered the criminal case against me are trying to convince the community that the “impartial trial” confirmed the version about a “hooligan professor.”

The prosecutors knowingly ignored the fact that at the time of the incidents I was a candidate in the presidential elections and was acting within my rights as a candidate, as established by law.

Everybody remembers the state of affairs in the country in the run up to these elections, the results of which are not recognized by any civilized country.

My participation in the elections was a conscious choice and not as much a pursuit of a powerful office as a struggle for progressive ideals of the Belarusian people. I am convinced that politics can be clean, if done with clean hands and good, sincere intentions.

By the time of the elections, as now, the democratic norms of politics were cynically violated. The legal foundations of the country are purged so heavily that there are hardly any means to protect constitutional rights of citizens. Legal norms and rights have been ignored by all state institutions in order to please the regime of personal power of Lukashenka, who believes that he is “slightly higher than God.” The court system is also in service to not the law, but to the “Supreme Employer” who personally appoints judges. Civic society is destroyed, citizens are humiliated and are forced to service the interests of the ruling elite. State institutions that are called to observe and enforce the law are silent and passive, or collaborate in raging repressions that have one aim – to kill Personality in a person, and free thinking in the country. As they said in ancient Rome - Quae fuerant vitia, mores sunt – What used to be vices are mores now.

With much pain, I realized – this road will only lead to a dead end. Belarusian people cannot live a decent live in the 21st century, ruled by a handful of overlords in the stifling atmosphere of total fear.

A decisive element of my decision to run in the campaign was the fact that I had closely studied, from within, the mechanism of state power, how its gears work, and what needs to be done to make it work properly and efficiently. Because what is happening now with the state machine of Belarus is a catastrophe waiting to happen! After 12 years of the personal rule the country is facing an economic collapse and loss of sovereignty. But the ruling clique, understanding it inability to effectively manage the country, is sinking ever deeper into the swamp of dictatorship.

So I went to the elections with a comprehensive program and qualified team who would have helped Belarusians find their way to justice, democracy and economic well being. In my meetings with people, I opened their eyes to the truth, in my TV and radio addresses I was telling listeners how Belarus is becoming a Gulag camp, headed by the Chief Prison Guard, a camp ruled not by laws but by instincts. With my words and actions I was revealing the amorality of the authorities which are falling deeper and deeper into the moral and spiritual abyss.

Meanwhile, the dictator saw in me not just a real competitor but a real danger to his power that has no term of expiration. This why I was accused a malignant hooligan and disrupter of the public order, and my “presidential term” is determined by the court as five and a half years behind bars. Just look at what fantastic charges were used against me.

On February 17, 2006, in the day of my registration as a candidate to the post of the President of the Republic of Belarus, I attempted to exercise my right as a candidate to hold a press conference at the National Press Center. Instead of supporting this lawful request, the management of the Center overruled its own permission, without motivating it with any reasons in written form. The door to the building, which is a cultural facility that is open to the public, not an institution with special admission, was locked right in front of me. My certificate of the officially registered candidate did not seem like a sufficient proof to the guards who refused to let me in even to the lobby of the building. And entirely illegal was the use of tear gas against my team aid by plain cloth persons, as later transpired, officers of a special police unit, who, as the authorities subsequently claimed, just happened to stop by for coffee. In order to conceal from the public its real intentions, the authorities decided to turn the truth upside down and present the attacking officer, whom I was able to contain, as a victim, presumably beaten by a hooligan candidate. Interestingly enough, this decision to prosecute me of this alleged crime the authorities did not make until March 2, because it was on that day that another provocation against me was planned.

On March 2, in complete agreement with the law, delegates of the Belarusian Social Democratic Party (Hramada), carrying all required documents, arrived for registration at the 3rd Belarusian Assembly, an event widely publicized as a “direct dialogue of the power with the people.” I had the right to attend this Assembly not only as a party delegate, but also as a presidential candidate, among other candidates who were admitted to attend. Instead of a registration, normally a celebratory ceremonial event, after a few minutes of a polite conversation with the administration, delegates of our party were met by a black clad team.

Unknown plain clothed individuals, without presenting themselves or any documents, severely beat me and my colleagues at the lobby of the Railroad Cultural Center and then threw me into a police van. In the course of almost one hour, I was being driven in this van around the city. The people who arrested me were humiliating me – I was placed between the seats, on my back, with my legs pressed against my head. I was drowning in my own blood. After this, I was delivered to the October District police station. Beaten, with bruises, in poor condition, I demanded access to a lawyer, prosecutor and immediate release. At this time, the men who arrested and beat me (later it transpired that they were officers of the elite special forces unit Almaz), were standing surrounding me in an office, under a portrait of Lukashenka. Who, in our state, could have issued an order to treat a presidential candidate in such a way?! In my condition, trying to attract attention to my demands, I broke the glass of the portrait.

On March 25, Belarus celebrated the Day of Freedom, the day when Belarusian People’s Republic was formed in 1918. Many thousands took part in a rally in Yanka Kupala park. After the rally, people did not want to leave and chose to support the hundreds of young people arrested in previous protests, who were being held at a pre-trial detention center on Okrestin street. I went with them. The peaceful march went only on sidewalks, without violating any traffic. Yet, on Dzerzhinski prospect, the march was stopped by special forces in complete battle gear. Trying to prevent the possible violence, I approached their commanders, headed by colonel Pavlichenko. When I realized that negotiations with him were fruitless, I called upon participants to dissolve, and walk to the nearby church and pray for Belarus. Having turned away from the commanders, I began walking but was struck by powerful punches into my back. Soon, many other people were struck as well. My efforts were futile – the special forces stopped not too far from a massacre. Under whose orders were they acting, using special weapons, including grenades and smoke devices, against peaceful citizens leaving the rally? The dramatic consequences suffered by many civilians as a result are still concealed.

The power needed to prove the national psychosis it created in the run up to the elections, the worked up threat of “terrorists” preparing explosions, destabilization of society and a violent overthrow of the regime. But they miscalculated – the military wanted a real collision, armed resistance, but people walked with peaceful intentions and demonstrated a high civic culture.

And so, I ended at the criminal’s bench. Six days lasted the trial during which the state prosecutor Bortnik and judge Rybakov tried to prove that presidential candidate, professor Kozulin is a hooligan, a violator of civic order. The court is a place of justice where both sides are supposed to be equal. But what did we see in reality?

The prosecutor and the court were stopping at nothing to humiliate me as a person. First days, I was refused water and food. All appeals of my defending counsels were turned down. The only witnesses called by the court, and only victims, were the police officers. Dozens of witnesses and victims of police violence called by defense were denied appearance. Many documents were not admitted to the case. From the 15 “victims” originally named in the case only few were present, at times one, other days three, and other days none still.

I will not elaborate on the massive false testimonies from the young police witnesses about the events on March 25. Clearly, the men were forced to lie, compromise with their young souls. Their testimonies that during the rally a priest was hitting policemen’s heads with a cross is simply a blasphemy!

The testimonies of the so called victims are full of contradictions. For example, one special forces officer first claimed at interrogation that on February 17, I allegedly hit his temple, then he changed it to his eye, and then to his cheek bones. The medical examination confirmed only a slight swelling in the area of the cheek bone. And how many other contradictions and falsifications were there in the trial.

But as soon as I appealed to the honor of the officer, who was evidently uncomfortable telling lies, and asked him to confirm that what he was saying was nothing but the truth, the judge immediately accused me of pressuring the witness and rudely interrupted me, preventing the officer from answering my questions.

I wanted very much to have a look into the soul of that so called judge. I feel really bad for all these rybakovs, bortniks, all those whom the power chose for the role of Gestapo, because they know not what they are doing in their obedient service. That was exactly the problem – that the objective of the court was in concealing the truth rather than establishing it. The result of this farce is the court room was the July 13 sentence of almost maximum severity for the crimes charged.

I don’t think we need to elaborate any further on the judicial side of the process, which was witnessed by the Belarusian and international community. In Belarus, the law has long been turned into an instrument of power.

Have you noticed that the authorities are sick? And the problem is not that the main ruler is psychologically unhealthy, but that the authorities have lost the ability to feel the people’s pain. The power ceases being the power of the people. But maybe, it never was such? The power has unlearned how to speak, have a dialogue with its people, it can now only speak from the position of power, through the barrel of the gun or through the chains of armed special forces.

Once again – our main problem, our main evil is the moral decline. The Lukashenka regime is dangerous particularly because it cultivates the most basic instincts as the highest values, because it raises to the level of state ideology its intention to kill any spirit and live fire in a human being. Lukashism seduces and corrupts those few who are strong, buys the opportunists and completely enslaves the weak.

Under the banner of virtue – “state for the people”  - the regime has divided the people of Belarus into two approximately equals halves – “the acceptable” and the “unacceptable.” The acceptable people are allowed to breathe, but only the air exhaled by the power; allowed to see, but only through the glasses prescribed by the regime; allowed to make friends, but only with those approved by the power; allowed to love, but only the power itself. The unacceptable part of the people are enemies (“bastards”, “lowlifes”, “imbeciles” as the president calls them). They are those who want to independently breathe, see, work, be friends and love. They are growing in number, but they, according to the plans of the regime, must either be converted into the acceptable or destroyed.

Today, the future of our children is already stolen. Tomorrow they will steal the future of our grandchildren. We bear responsibility for our choice, the present and the future of Belarus. We bear responsibility in front of the future generations for preserving our nation in the borders of the Belarusian state.

This is not only my personal view, but the inner logic of the events.

Today I was made a criminal at the direct command of Lukashenka, who is using the court system as an instrument of political persecution and personal vendetta to a competitor who dared to speak the truth. Evidently, in this unequal fight the power has lost, suffered a crushing defeat – because it could not find any better arguments save for repressions and prisons. It would not sustain the pressure of truth and spirituality in an open debate, so it hid behind the fence of armed soldiers and could not present anything but the lies, the boots and grenades.

The way the authorities treated the legal rights of a candidate in elections of the President is a litmus test of the state of the entire society and the crisis of Belarusian statehood. About what rights of an ordinary person can we talk if a candidate to the highest office was not able to protect his rights!

From the first days the Lout took the highest office in 1994, the power has been turning absolute before our very eyes and under our acquiesce. Not even a year since his elections, at the order of Lukashenka, members of the parliament, who were protesting against the first anti constitutional referendum, were beaten. Then, during the night from April 11 to 12, 1995, the members, protected by the parliamentary immunity, were carried away from the parliament hall, beaten with special forces’ batons. That was the Belarusian equivalent of the Reichstag fire plot. The people kept silent, and in 1996 another attempt to violate the Constitution followed. This again was successful, by way of a referendum, even though shortly before Lukashenka was facing an impeachment. That is when the need to observe the laws disappeared, and the rule of the presidential decree began. The “decretor” Lukashenka’s public admission that he knows where the disappeared Zakharenka, Honchar, Krasovkiy and Zavadkiy are testifies: the president placed himself above people and was increasingly acting under his own concepts of right and wrong. He added himself two more years of the first term, than “elegantly” falsified the election to his second in 2001 and the subsequent parliamentary elections, conducted another illegal referendum in 2004 that enabled him to rule without term. The Constitution, the Electoral Code, all “unacceptable” laws are ruined. As the head of the Electoral Commission, a “prominent” lawyer, Ms. Yermoshina, appointed by Lukashenka in place of the disappeared Honchar, stated that the country began using not the letter but the spirit of the law. I would say not the spirit but a rather unpleasant smell. And finally, in March 2006, another tragic farce took place in Belarus. In reality, the second round of the elections had to have been called for July 16.

Therefore, having unquestionable proofs, I stated on March 20, 2006 and am declaring again that I accuse the so called president Alexander Lukashenka and a group of his accomplices of a coup d’etat and anti-constitutional acts aimed at usurpation of power by violent means, of rampant violations against the Constitution and the laws of the Republic of Belarus and demand a criminal investigation against himself and his accomplices.

Given the gravity of these acts committed to violate the rights of the Belarusian people, I ask what other proofs does the international community need in order to pose the issue of Belarus at the United Nations Security Council?

The Belarusian ruler Lukashenka demonstratively violates the rights of an entire people and very principles of a civilized community.

I declare that today, in the center of Europe in the 21st century, a Belarusian state farm equivalent of a German corporal has rebuilt the Belarusian state after the Hitler’s model which, in 1995, he openly admitted to admire. And if 70 years ago, Europe treated the establishment of Nazism in Germany with unforgivable negligence, today we cannot repeat the mistakes of the past, because Lukashenka is throwing a cynical challenge to the European civilization in the 21st century.

Once again I am warning the world of the threat of Lukashism and am calling to open a broad front to combat this threat!

I am calling upon all the honest and courageous people of Belarus, Europe and the world to say a decisive “No” to the creation of a military-police machine of suppression of the Belarusian people. I am certain – we will find a way to return the Belarusian state into a lawful, constitutional field. International support of Belarusians must increase.

We have a historic right to fight against the tyranny. It is time for effective activities of a new coalition of all progressive movements in Belarus. The opposition has to go to the people. Carry the truth to the people, remembering the words of Kastus Kalinouski “Oh, our truth will thunder and like a lightening will fly around the world!” We have to start from daily work in small towns and villages, helping to solve problems of ordinary people, walking door to door not only during electoral campaigns.

My dear fellow citizens, people of kindness, faith and wisdom! Remember, the evils of the earthly rulers come and go, but the higher justice is unavoidable. That is the law that is not subject to violation by rybakovs and their presidential sponsors. No matter how long my suffering, I will continue to fight for my goals. I will continue to fight even while imprisoned, using all means available to me, and the truth and spirit will prevail!

For us, those who believe in the world of freedom, humanism and social justice, being prosecuted by the dictatorship is an honor. Some of us will actually have to prove that they deserved this honor. The regime likes to talk about the cowardice of its opponents – we promise that the arrests and persecution will make us stronger, and the hatred of us by the rulers will make us more consistent.

Yes, people are not without blame for their destiny. Democratic movements in Belarus have made many mistakes. Main among them are disunity and too much patience, but we will overcome these weaknesses.

Conducting its reprisal against myself, the Lukashenka regime is trying to intimidate the entire opposition, all people who are not indifferent. But we must continue to fight with more energy for the common good, and Belarus’ future. We have a way to freedom, it is marked by honesty, courage, common sense and love for the Motherland. This way goes only through the abolishment of the dictatorship.

Friends, comrades in the party and the movement! This is a great happiness to serve one’s people. I am grateful to my supporters and call upon those who can see that it is not possible to live like this any longer. Get active and act in solidarity, each in their place, for the sake of fast changes in our country. Show your solidarity with the courageous young people from the Partnership, who are persecuted on absurd charges. Fight for every political prisoner!

I am calling the leaders of the Belarusian opposition to unite soon not around personalities but around programs of action.

I know, the time of changes in our country is close. I believe in that and even in prison am working for it.

I could finish with words “I shall return!” but I am already with you, always, with the power of love burning in my heart. We are together!

Long live independent and free Belarus!

Yours Alexander Kozulin,
July 13, 2006, pretrial detention, Minsk