Preparations for staging a provocation in Belarus are in the making, Ivan Tsertsel, Chairman of the State Security Committee (KGB), said on Friday.
According to him, the committee keeps getting information about the would-be provocation from various sources, including special services from abroad.
“These actions are designed to destabilise the situation in our country while street protests are clearly on decline and plans to inspire protests in labour collectives and among university students have failed,” state-run news agency BelTA quotes Tsertsel.
The senior officer believes that the doers and their foreign mentors consider the brewing provocative step as their last chance to turn their plans into reality. If the operation is successful, the mastermands will lay the blame for its ‘grave’ outcome on Belarusian security agencies, he claims.
“Given the circumstances, the KGB and other law enforcement agencies are carrying out a number of measures to verify information, uncover all the perpetrator, and holding them liable,” Ivan Tsertsel stressed.
He failed to go into detail or specify who might be involved in the alleged preparations.
The KGB head might state that the pace of protests is slowing down, but on October 11, around 100,000 people showed up at the March of Honour in the Belarusian capital and other cities and towns. According to human rights centre Viasna, over 600 persons were detained throughout Belarus. The participants in Sunday’s March were facing inexorable pressure from siloviki: water cannons, tear gas, flashbang grenades, rubber bullets were used against them.
A day later, several hundred senior citizens took to Minsk streets to protest against police violence. However, the authorities resorted to excessive force against elderly people as well. On October 15, people with disabilities marched along Independence Avenie in Minsk, demanding that the Belarusian authorities stop lying and persecuting dissidents.
Belsat.eu
