On today’s anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya shares the story of repression in her country. Turning to the division which she compared to that of once in Berlin, she said that it is no longer a concrete wall but a political wall in Belarus under president Alexander Lukashenko.
The barricade that split Berlin during the Cold War represented a better life in the Western side opposed to a worse one in the Eastern. According, to Tsikhanouskaya, this refers to the historical significance of the given moment for Belarusians and their fight for freedom. In a similar way as the Berlin Wall has been torn down to enable families separated for twenty years to embrace each other, she also expects the collapse of the Lukashenko regime to deliver freedom and unity to her country.
Belarusians believe that the recent presidential election in which Lukashenko was voted into office without a fair contest was rigged and since the election, the people have been met with force. They have been assaulted, arrested, or forced to become internally displaced persons. Still, speaking for the change, Tsikhanouskaya does not mention anything related to the impossibility of the process.
She said that the West needs to keep the pressure on Lukashenko’s regime and ensure that those guilty of the violence and repression are punished. “People in Belarus should feel that the crimes of this regime will not go unpunished,” she said.
It would not be easy, but the political wall in Belarus will collapse similarly to the Berlin wall according to Tsikhanouskaya. She pointed out that as it took many people and years of work to have the Berlin Wall demolished, so too the pro-freedom and enjoyment of one’s own rights struggle in Belarus requires time and many people.
