WARSAW, Sept 9 — Leading Belarusian opposition figure Svetlana Tikhanovskaya today voiced hope that Belarus’s path to democracy would be “much shorter” than it was for Soviet-ruled Poland.
Speaking on a visit to Poland, Tikhanovskaya compared the protests in her homeland to the years of struggle of Poland’s Solidarity trade union, which helped topple communism in 1989.
“It was a long road for Solidarity but I hope that for us it will be much shorter,” she told students at the University of Warsaw before talks with the current leadership of Solidarity.
“We are witnessing something historic,” she said.
Poland last week celebrated the 40th anniversary of a landmark deal that gave official recognition to Solidarity, making it the first independent trade union in the Soviet bloc.
Tikhanovskaya also met with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who himself protested against communism during his youth, and spoke with Belarusians living in Poland.
“Thank you for your support. Hang in there! There’s not long left now. We will win!”, she told them, outside a building provided by the Polish government for Belarusian activists.
Tikhanovskaya fled to neighbouring Lithuania after an August 9 election in which she claimed victory against President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled with an iron fist for 26 years.
The trip to Poland, which along with Lithuania is an EU and Nato member that is supportive of the pro-democracy protest movement in Belarus, was the first by Tikhanovskaya since she fled.
Speaking after masked men detained on the last high-profile opposition figures still free in Belarus today, she said the current situation in the country was “terrifying”.
Maxim Znak had worked as a lawyer for jailed presidential hopeful Viktor Babaryko.
Tikhanovskaya’s husband Sergei was also jailed ahead of the election, pushing the 37-year-old political novice to declare her candidacy.
“I became a leader only for my husband,” she said in her speech at the University of Warsaw in which she underlined the leading role taken by women in the protest movement in Belarus.
“Belarus has never seen such involvement of women at all levels,” Tikhanovskaya said, adding: “Women realised that our role in life is much greater than we previously thought.” — AFP
