On April 24 Zianon Pazniak, leader of the Christian Conservative Party, celebrated his 70th anniversary in New York. Belsat TV representatives met with the famous Belarusian politician abroad and extended our best wishes.
‘I enjoy good health! At the moment I am getting ready for the congress of the Christian Democracy Party which is in sight. Political activity is of high importance now. I am analysing the situation in Ukraine and the threats that Belarus may face and seeking ways to stop their spreasing. I hope all people live freely in a free Belarus,’ Zianon Pazniak told Belsat TV.
On May 4 a solemn celebration on the occasion is to take place in the Belarusian Church in New York.
Zianon Pazniak, an uncompromising opponent of Lukashenka’s regime, became one of the founders of the Belarusian People’s Front in late 80s. Historian and archeologist Pazniak discovered Kurapaty, an area in the outskirts of Minsk, in which a vast number of people were executed between 1937 and 1941 during the Stalinist Purge.The discovery and exhumation of the remains in 1988 gave an added momentum to the pro-democracy and pro-independence movement in Belarus in the last years of the Soviet Union’s existence.
After Aliaksandr Lukashenka became president of Belarus in 1994 the contrast between the two politicians only sharpened. Under apprehension of his life Mr Pazniak left Belarus in 1996; he has been living in emigration since that time.
Artsiom Husak, Maksim Drahun, DR, belsat.eu/en