Bundestag President Bärbel Bas (2nd from right) welcomes the designated recipients of this year’s Charlemagne Prize, Svetlana Tichanowskaja (right) and Veronika Zepkalo (left), as well as Tatjana Chomich, who presented the prize to her sister, Maria Kolesnikova ( u.), will accept.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin The Belarusian opposition was also a de facto victim of the Ukraine war for a long time. Because in the shadow of the armed conflict, the oppression in Belarus has hardly moved the public. The opposition, brutally suppressed by the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, has done a lot to ensure that Russia’s attack on Ukraine does not go as far as the Kremlin ruler Vladimir Putin would like.
“Lukashenko twice ordered his army to invade Ukraine, but the soldiers refused,” opposition leader Svetlana Tichanovskaya said in Berlin on Tuesday. The 39-year-old, who lives in exile in Lithuania, ran for her imprisoned husband, the prominent blogger Sergei Tichanowski, in the August 2020 presidential election against Lukashenko. But he finally allowed himself to be sworn in for a sixth term after massive election fraud and a bloody suppression of weeks of mass protests.
In Berlin, Tichanovskaya meets with her fellow campaigners, opposition members Veronika Zepkalo and Tatjana Chomich, who are also being pushed abroad, and the sister of the imprisoned opposition politician Maria Kolesnikova, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Bundestag President Bärbel Bas (SPD). The reason: On Ascension Day, Tichanowskaja, Zepkalo and Kolesnikova are awarded the internationally renowned Charlemagne Prize in Aachen.
The prize is awarded for efforts towards European unity. “In 2020, Europe stood united with Belarus, now Europe stands united behind Ukraine,” says Tichanovskaya, adding: Without a free Ukraine, her homeland will never be free either, and vice versa.
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That is why the Belarusian opposition has done a lot to prevent their country’s troops from attacking the neighboring country alongside the Russian army. Hundreds of Belarusians are fighting on the side of Ukraine. According to Tichanovskaya, there were “more than 80 acts of sabotage by Belarusian partisans” who paralyzed railway connections so that no troops could be transferred from Belarus to Ukraine.
The opposition activist, who was previously a musician in Stuttgart, was sentenced to eleven years in prison.
(Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
And Belarusian mothers would have prevented their sons from going to war with Russia. Lukashenko had drawn the country into the war against the will of the people: for example, Russian fighter jets would fly attacks on Ukrainian cities from Belarusian territory and Russian troops had advanced on Kyiv from Belarus.
The fact that he has not yet sent his own troops to Ukraine is solely thanks to the peace movement and the activists in the country: “Our people have shown that they reject this war,” says Tichanovskaya. And accuses the dictator: “Lukashenko is gambling away our independence.”
In fact, according to Western intelligence services, Putin has repeatedly tried to mobilize Belarusian troops for the Ukraine war with Lukashenko. So far unsuccessful.
Sabotage is the only form of resistance today, because Belarus has become a “Gulag”, says Tichanovskaya, who is recognized by the EU as the winner of the 2020 elections but who actually acts as the leader of the opposition, alluding to the Soviet system of repression.
Tsepkalo and Kolesnikova withdrew their candidacy in favor of Tichanovskaya
For weeks, hundreds of thousands of Belarusians had repeatedly protested against the election fraud in the summer. Heavily armed police crushed the resistance, 1,147 detainees officially registered as political prisoners, human rights groups today. “But there are many more,” says Veronika Zepkalo, who, like Kolesnikova, had withdrawn her candidacy in favor of Tichanovskaya.
And it is precisely those who are less known who are “tortured and raped. And nobody does anything. Why isn’t the International Court of Justice in The Hague indicting Lukashenko despite all the evidence?” asks Zepkalo. Then he would no longer be able to travel to the United Arab Emirates and hide the millions stolen through corruption there.
None of the three women smiles when meeting the press in Berlin. Tatjana Chomich only flashes a little joy across her face once – she can call her sister Maria Kolesnikova via the social media channel Viber to at least congratulate her on her 40th birthday, which she had to celebrate in a labor camp on Sunday. The opposition activist, who was previously a musician in Stuttgart, was sentenced to eleven years in prison.
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