‘Wooden fence’ may become an iron curtain
Filed Under Curtain Rods | Posted on December 15, 2007
President Alexander Lukashenko’s tirades against the West sometimes sound as though they were taken from the speeches of North Korea’s Kim Jong-il.
With the continued backing of Russia, the threat of sanctions and an asset-freeze if Sunday’s polls are rigged are unlikely to perturb him. Barring a last-minute upset, he should win about 75 per cent of the vote.
Assuming that he is not toppled by popular protests, the future of Europe’s most-repressed people does not look good. At a time when freedom of travel throughout most of Europe is greater than ever, Mr Lukashenko is planning to pull up the drawbridge of its most isolated backwater.
A recent law threatening those who “discredit the reputation of Belarus abroad” with prison could be followed by a ban on foreign travel. “Lukashenko is trying to shut the doors and black out the windows,” said a senior Western diplomat. “Once he’s got through the elections, he’ll take the final steps, making [Belarus] a totalitarian regime.”
“It’s not an iron curtain yet,” said Anatol Hrytskevich, one of Belarus’s most-respected historians. “But you can already see the wooden fence.”
Tags: ades, becom, curta, curtain, doors, iron curtainRelated posts
Leave a Reply