Minsk: Head of KGB Makes Provocative Statements to Justify Future Repression of Opposition Activists

On 1 March the chair of the Belarusian KGB Stsiapan Sukharenka stated to journalists the opposition planned a number of provocations for the Election Day. According to him, it was intended to organize a number of explosions at the opposition’s meeting.

-- The blood of victims will let the organizers of the protest action do anything they like. After this they will start seizing the official offices, railway stations and blocking the railway with the aim to stop the country’s functioning, -- he said.

According to Sukharenka, these provocations were to have been coordinated by the detained members of the organization Partnership.

The chair of the headquarters of Aliaksandr Milinkevich Siarhei Kaliakin called this statement a provocation. In his interview to RFE/RL he said that several days before he had received an anonymous letter informing about the plan of provocations from the side of the Belarusian secret services. Among such he called the appearance of the persons who would provoke fights on the Election Day, blocking of the city’s center and hindrances to the potential participants of the protest action who would be going to Minsk.

-- We have the documents witnessing that the secret services are preparing massive provocations against the democratic forces, including what Sukharenka said about explosions, and finding of firearms at garages of oppositional activists. They can also bring to the square the provocators who will play hooligans… They have many planned measures, and what Sukharenka said corresponds to the scheme that is witnessed by the documents we have received, -- said Siarhei Kaliakin. He also added the opposition was preparing an appropriate statement concerning these statements and that this statement will be distributed both in Belarus and abroad.