Wednesday, August 12, 2020

Belarus under the threat of a "color revolution"?

The landslide victory (with 80.23% of the votes) of incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus’ presidential elections on Sunday sparked violent protests by supporters of the opposition in Minsk and other cities. A protester was killed and dozens were injured following clashes with police forces. 

Opposition leader  Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who received 9.9% of the votes, refused to accept the results, stating that they were rigged. 

“I consider myself the winner of this election” Tikhanovskaya said in a statement before leaving the country for Lithuania.

Foreign governments, including the ones of the U.S., Poland and Czech Republic, have already tried to interfere in Belarus’ internal situation by denouncing the electoral process as “undemocratic” and “unfree”.  U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that he is deeply concerned about the conduct of the presidential election in Belarus which was “not free and fair”. 

Fears for a “color revolution”

The victory of Alexander Lukashenko was hailed by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF). “Nothing prevented the Belarusians from holding decent elections”, said CPRF General Secretary Gennady Zyuganov during a TV interview. He underlined that Russian media and oligarchs were involved in the opposition campaign against Lukashenko. 

“It is sad that Russian oligarchs, together with the liberal media, are participating in this dirty campaign”, Zyuganov said, pointing out that “some circles in Russia support the unrest in Minsk because the oligarchy was unable to seize property in Belarus”. 

In an article published in “Sovetskaya Rossiya”, the Deputy Chairman of the CC of the CPRF Dmitry Novikov writes that the the protests which followed the announcement of the electoral result were “exactly as described in Western manuals, according to the classic scenario of “color revolutions””. As he stresses out, this plan failed because “the overwhelming majority of the people of Belarus refused to play the role of pawns in someone else’s game”.

In Italy, the General Secretary of the CC of the Communist Party, Italy (Partito Comunista) Marco Rizzo commented on his Facebook account: 
“The capitalist system and the mainstream of globalization do not accept electoral results that are adverse to them. We trust that the lesson of Allende’s Chile and the “orange revolutions” in Libya and Ukraine have been well learned in Belarus, starting with the essential relationship between the people and the armed forces. Independence from the U.S, EU and NATO Imperialism”.

Another Communist Party, the Italian Communist Party (PCI), issued a statement pointing out the danger of an “attempted color revolution” in Belarus. The statement of PCI reads:
"At this time there are protests in Belarus by those who do not want to accept the result of the elections which, with 80% of the vote, express the conviction of the Belarusian people in President Lukashenko.  
These mobilisations are an obvious attempt at subversion by forces led by US/EU/Nato, which do not want to respect the will of the people. As already happened in Ukraine with Euromaidan in 2014, which led to a fascist coup in the heart of Europe, attempts are being made to destabilise a country by supporting protests from outside.  
Belarus has the highest per capita income among the former Soviet republics, a growing economy, state-guaranteed services. But the mainstream media covering the news of the protests from Minsk want us to believe that Belarusians prefer to become the new Ukraine, relying on right-wing, neo-Nazi and pro-EU opposition. 
It is the same media that are covering up the news and don’t say nothing about the evidence of financial support to those are organising the protest from the agencies linked to the US State Department, such as the NED. 
For these reasons the Italian Communist Party calls for the highest vigilance, because the already serious situation could quickly plunge into chaos, and appeals to the Italian government not to align itself with the voices of those who would like to plunge Belarus into chaos, thus endangering peace in the heart of Europe."

 “Europe’s last dictator”?

Alexander Lukashenko’s bourgeois government has been labelled by the U.S and the E.U as “Europe’s last dictatorship”, citing alleged human rights violations and electoral fraud. 

Born in 1954, Lukashenko has been the President of Belarus since 1994, gaining landslide victories in all presidential elections. Before launching his political career, he worked as director of a collective farm in the Soviet Union and served in the Soviet Border Troops. 

Belarus, under Lukashenko, has developed relations of co-operation with countries such as China, Venezuela, Cuba and Syria. 

Alexander Lukashenko has been an outspoken critic of the U.S. for the imperialist interventions in Iraq, Libya and Syria.