Tsikhanouskaya speaks at Summit for Democracy, calls Lukashenka regime ‘thugs terrorising whole of Europe’
On December 10, Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya made a speech at the Summit for Democracy initiated by US President Joe Biden and his administration.
“Allow me to say how I feel. Allow me to be myself. I feel angry. Thousands of my fellow citizens are in prison because they dared to speak up against a dictator. It all started as a protest against rigged elections but it became something much bigger. It became a struggle for dignity and justice. Belarusians had enough of the regime ruling the country for 27 years. They felt that they deserved to be respected and heard,” she said.
According to her, Belarusians continue to pay a big price for their resistance: 40,000 people have been detained since last year; many suffered endless interrogations at the hands of the KGB; many were tortured and humiliated; some persons lost their lives. More than 300 thousand were forced to flee and more than 900 have been recognised as political prisoners, the politician stressed.
In her speech, Svyatlana made mention of her husband Syarhei Tsikhanouski who might be sentenced to 15 or 20 years of imprisonment the following week, the murdered Minsk protester Raman Bandarenka, and other victims of the regime.
“Also, I feel confused. I don’t understand what is the difference between ‘very, deeply, strongly concerne’ and ‘gravely, extremely, seriously concerned’?” she said with a sad irony.
In her opinion, it is hard to understand how ‘the group of thugs’ managed to terrorise the whole of Europe with flight hijacking or migrant smuggling without facing any significant consequences for their actions.
“Belarusians can’t say: we did everything we could and nothing worked. We cannot go home. Our home is taken from us. And until we get it back we will not stop. Ladies and gentlemen, supporting democracy, supporting Belarusians, is a process, not a one-time action,” Tsikhanouskaya noted.
Referring to the Lukashenka regime, she asked the the participants to imagine that their neighbour was an abuser and pointed out that one could try to appease such neighbour or try to satisfy his demands, but those attempts would only bolster the abuser’s confidence in his ability to control and manipulate.
“Because if you’re accommodating, you lose ground. 27 years of oppression taught us that appeasement never works. If you give him an inch he will take a mile. Let me be clear: dictators cannot be reeducated,” Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya emphasized.
The Belarusian opposition leader proposed that the world make next year ‘a year of concerted action’ and ‘democracies’ reclaiming the initiative’. According to her, the struggle continues, and despite terror and fear, Belarusians fight with ‘dedication and pride’.
Belarusians can shape the future of democratic Belarus now, but they do rely on the democratic world’s help as well as its consistency, she concluded.
