DECLARATION OF THE FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE ALEXANDER KOZULIN: “LUKASHENKA MUST FACE AN INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL

Declaration of the former presidential candidate Alexander Kozulin:
 “Lukashenka must face an international tribunal for crimes against his people and humanity”
 
Citizens of Belarus,
Representatives of other states and international organizations,
 
It is with a profound feeling of responsibility for the future of our country that I turn to you with this Declaration today, on September 20, 2006. I am confident that it is today when the Belarusian citizens must establish and declare to the world their resolute position to bring the Republic of Belarus back into the constitutional boundaries. After the so called presidential elections in spring this year, we have crossed that Rubicon, behind which are only lies, fear and lawlessness. Today we are ready for most decisive actions that will lead us to the victory of freedom, justice and democracy.
 
Belarusians! We failed to value freedom when there was still time. We received it, together with the independence of our country, without any fight in 1991 as gift from heaven. Perhaps this is because we did not have to fight for them that we did not manage to keep these values in 1994, when one person was allowed to be above the law, destroy morality and place himself, by his own expression, “a little higher than God.” Belarusians often repeated their infamous refrain “life is good as long as there is no war” and did not notice how president Lukashenka waged a “cold civil war” against his own people. In the middle of Europe and in the beginning of the 21st century, there emerged a regime that is fascist in nature. Hundreds of thousands, millions of Belarusian citizens cannot find protection with law and their own state. The dictator threw a challenge to the entire European civilization, the entire world community, boldly and cynically mocking the most important human ideals.
 
On many occasions, including petitions to the Supreme and Constitutional Courts, I stated and proved the illegitimacy of the citizen’s Lukashenka participation in this year’s elections, the constitutional coup that he conducted and the threat that Lukashism presents to the world. I am worried by the threat of  Belarus losing its economic and political independence, disappearance of the Belarusian language, culture and the Belarusian nation as a whole.
 
Once again I state that according to the Constitution and the laws of the Republic of Belarus that the second and last legal term of Mr. Lukashenka’s stay in office ends today, on September 20th.
 
It is necessary to evaluate all the legal violations by Lukashenka during his rule of the country, including the illegitimacy of his presidency itself, and apply legal measures against the Belarusian dictator.
 
Everything that Lukashenka has done since 1995 and until today is nothing but a chain of illegal acts that have caused the executive power in Belarus to lose all legitimacy. Just half a year after his election for the first term, Lukashenka threw out of parliament the protesting members of the opposition and administered his first referendum. As a man without any historic memory, Lukashenka used that referendum to deprive the Belarusian people of their historic memory too, for his personal political aims. The national symbols were canceled, the status of the Belarusian language downgraded and the sovereignty of the nation reduced.
 
The year 1995 also marked the last relatively free parliamentary elections in the country. But even that parliament, already controlled by the executive branch, was too much for Lukashenka – more and more frequently, the presidential decrees were exceeding the legal power of the parliamentary acts. As a result, many of the decrees were declared by the Constitutional Court as failing to meet the standards of the Belarusian constitution, but this did not alter the president’s policies. Lukashenka continued openly and cynically violate the oath he gave in 1994 at inauguration and the country’s laws. The issue of impeachment arose in the parliament. In order to preserve and enhance his power, Lukashenka decided to change the constitution and place himself above the inconvenient parliament, and he accomplished that goal by initiating the 1996 referendum.
 
Having supplanted the advisory character granted to the referendum by the mandatory one, and having conducted a number of other violations of the due legal process, Lukashenka usurped democratic constitutional rights of the MPs and extended his term by two additional years.
 
The parliament reacted by setting up a special commission to investigate the legal violations of the president. The head of that commission was Victar Hanchar. The commission published a declaration that stated that, as a result of the constitutional amendments passed by an illegitimate referendum, Belarus went through an effective capture of power personally by president Lukashenka.
 
The Commission also found that the 1996 version of the constitution established an effectively unlimited power of the president of Belarus. The possibility of removing the president, allowed by the Constitution, lost any of its meaning and became an empty declaration. Also illusory became the notion of free and fair elections. According to the Commission’s report, the next presidential elections were due on May 16, 1999 and not in 2001, because even the newly modified constitution did not extend the president’s term by two years.
 
The opposition, represented by the illegally dismissed parliament, attempted to hold presidential elections in 1999, but this was not possible to implement. Legally, on that date, the power of the head of state was to be transferred to speaker Semyon Sharetsky who was to announce the date of the second round. The MPs also planned to hold a session deciding who would perform this role should Mr. Sharetsky be arrested by the Lukashenka’s forces. However, the repressions by the Lukasheka regime and the acquiescence of the international community meant these plans of the Belarusian opposition were broken.
 
The presidential elections in 2001 went with massive violations and brought the so called “elegant victory” to the Belarusian dictator. These elections, as well as all elections in Belarus that followed the 1996 coup, were declared undemocratic by OSCE. Thanks to the modified constitution, the country now has a system which ensures that the declared elections’ results have nothing in common with the actual voting. Lukashenka deprived voters of their fundamental right – to freely express their will in elections.
 
Other facts are no less disturbing: the majority of those who at various times nurtured presidential ambitions and could present a real competition to Lukashenka suffered tragic consequences. Some disappeared, others expediently died,  or ended in prison, in other words were destroyed or neutralized (H. Karpenka, V. Hanchar, M. Marinich, M. Chigir, L. Kaluhin, S. Skrebets, and others).
 
All civilized world is concerned with the facts of kidnappings in Belarus of known political and civic leaders – Y. Zaharenka, V. Ganchar, A. Krasouski and D. Zavadski. A national investigation established, and subsequently reflected in the report by the special reporter of OSCE Hristos Purgurides, that the kidnappings with the purpose of the physical destruction were related to the civic activities of the kidnapped, their political ideas and were administered by a specially organized criminal group (so called “death squadron.”)
 
The squadron’s activities were personally supervised by high level law enforcement officers of Belarus, among them V. Sheiman, V. Naumau, D. Paulichenka and N. Karpenkau.
 
On April 15, 2004 the UN Human Rights Commission adopted a resolution condemning the “violations of human rights in Belarus” and expressing deep concern that “the most senior officials of the government of Belarus have been associated with kidnapping and/or execution without trial of three political opponents of the currency authorities in 1999 and one journalist in 2000.” The resolution calls the government of Belarus to terminate the employment of these officials, remove them from all official business and conduct and independent and full investigation. The resolution underlines that all persons guilty of these crimes must face independent tribunals.
 
Until this time the government of Lukashenka, who stated that he himself “bears responsibility for all these disappearances” has not investigated a single case and instead is blocking attempts to do so. The materials that turned up in the investigation so far allow to conclude that Lukashenka has been personally involved in physical elimination of political opponents.
 
At later stages, in order to obtain unlimited term at power, Lukashenka scheduled another referendum for autumn 2004 that was to coincide with parliamentary elections. The decree announcing that referendum, issued on September 7, 2004, was criticized not only by Belarusian legal professionals but also international organizations because it again contradicted the constitution and the electoral code.
 
Referendum and the elections were again not recognized as democratic and free. Results of an independent observation organized by the civic group “Partnerstva” and polls by the Baltic service of the Gallup Institute showed that the participation rate in that unlawful referendum was not more than 50% of citizens, of which only 48% supported the extension of the number of the president’s terms in office to indefinite. The unconstitutional scheduling of a referendum and numerous violations of the voting enable to conclude that Lukashenka and his officials again conducted acts aimed at change of the constitutional order, and usurpation and keeping of the state power. This alone eliminated the legal grounds for Lukashenka’s participation in the elections in 2006.
 
These elections once again violated the constitution even in its modified form. They were declared six months prior to the official terms and Lukashenka announced his candidacy for the third time. The regime discredited the elections also by the total falsification and repressions of voters. This time the infamous “death squadron” acted against the activists openly, having received an official card blanche form the head of state. If I, a presidential candidate, could be publicly and violently arrested and taken away in an unknown direction sinking in my own blood, one can only imagine what tortures Zaharenka and other kidnapped opposition members had to endure! Only the constant attention of the international public prevented the death squadron officers from shooting and killing me too.
 
The results of the 2006 presidential elections were not recognized by the European Union and the international community.
 
On March 20, 2006, I turned to the Belarusians and world public stating that Lukashenka and his officials conducted a state coup and usurpation of power, ongoing violations of the constitution and laws and demanded that the guilty officials faced responsibility for their crimes.
 
On Mach 22, I turned to the Political Council of the democratic movements and to the second opposition candidate Aleksandr Milinkevich with an initiative to “unite all democratic movements for achieving real results” and to establish a national Council of Trust to this end. The Council, formed of wide representation of public, would become a prototype of the future government of Belarus. I am confident that the united opposition, the Belarusian people and I would have enough courage and political will to achieve formation of legal institutions for returning the country to the constitutional field.
 
But on March 25, after a peaceful demonstration was violently dispersed, I was arrested. A professor, academician, former dean of the country’s main university, I was turned into a criminal and put to under a farcical trial in best traditions of Stalinism. But there is not a force strong enough to cover the Truth. And today, from my prison cell, I am taking the role of the prosecutor.
 
I name citizen Lukashenka guilty of crimes against his people and humanity. I declare that citizen Lukashenka committed the following criminally prosecutable offenses under articles 357 of the Belarusian criminal code – keeping state power by unconstitutional means; article 426 – exceeding the authority by a state official causing grave consequences and article 128 – crimes against human security – for systematic executions without trial, kidnappings with the purpose of disappearance, torture and other cruel acts committed as punishment against their victims’ political convictions.
 
Persecution of Lukashenka for these crimes is a business of both Belarus and the international community. All local remedies available in Belarus to initiate a criminal case against Lukashenka and his accomplices are exhausted. The prosecutors and courts are personally subordinated to Lukashenka and completely ignore calls for prosecution of state criminals.
 
In order to restore justice and law in Belarus I propose the following measures:
 

1. Mark the 10th anniversary of the 1996 referendum by holding a Congress of United democratic movements with possible participation of the state powers in exile including the 13th parliament, disbanded by Lukashekna and headed in exile by Semyon Sharetsky, and Rada of the Belarusian People’s Republic, a government in exile, and the Belarusian communities abroad for the purposes of resolution of the constitutional crisis in Belarus. This forum would pass Pact of National Accord and Civic Peace, Program of Immediate Actions for social and judicial development of the country and form a governing council of the national trust or another collegiate institution. The forum would also consider opportunities for official acts of Belarus abroad.
2. The Political Council of the united opposition movements to demand the prime minister, S. Sidorsky, to assume temporary functions of the head of state, in accordance with the Constitution, effective September 29, 2006, and announce presidential elections. The Political Council, civic organizations and groups would also send declarations of the illegitimacy of the Lukashenka’s regime to national and international institutions.
3. Form a national Commission to organize and conduct an international Civic tribunal. To this end, civic representatives of Belarus would turn to the heads of states whose national legislation allows to begin persecution of foreign officials for crimes against humanity. The Civic Tribunal of Belarus, having considered crimes against humanity committed by the regime, would turn its decisions to the courts of the country that has such universal jurisdiction and to the Chamber of representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus.
4. In case the Lukashenka regime commits repressions against its people, the opposition, in accordance with the General Declaration of Human Rights, has the right to use as the last resort an “uprising against tyranny and oppression”, but I do call on all democratic forces and citizens of Belarus to be ready for the non-violent protest.