"For 20 years, Lukashenko has ruled Belarus in the fashion of his hero Joseph Stalin. Public assembly is banned, the press is censored, the Internet is monitored, telephones are tapped, and people’s livelihoods—and lives—depend on avoiding politics.
Far from rejecting it, Lukashenko relishes the title, bestowed on him by Condoleezza Rice, of Europe’s last dictator. “I am the last and only dictator in Europe,” he said in 2012."
The Daily Beast (read the full text) 28.1.2014
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/28/forget-kim-jong-un-china-s-new-favorite-dictator-is-belarus-s-aleksandr-lukashenko.html
"The friendship with Beijing has yielded considerable benefits for Lukashenko. In 2002 and 2007, he made minor concessions to evade Western sanctions. But when Washington imposed fresh sanctions in 2011, a year after he violently suppressed a mass uprising against his rule, Lukashenko was rattled only momentarily. Within weeks, China had filled the void, offering not just a billion dollars, but also an assurance of “full backing for [Lukashenko’s] stance on domestic and international questions.” Last week, the relationship was deepened further when Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, conferred his country’s prestigious Friendship Award on Lukashenko’s visiting prime minister. Lukashenko, in turn, has promised China a “stronghold in Europe.” Despite the influx of Chinese cash into Lukashenko’s coffers, life for ordinary Belarusians remains grim."
Link thanks to former Belarusian presidential candidate and diplomat Andrei Sannikov in exile.
Photo: Nikolai Petrov-Pool/Reuters
Photo (flags): Kerstin Lindén
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