Opposition leaders arrested after riots in Belarus

Thousands protest alleged election fraud; violence erupts, riot police use force to drive off demonstrators.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Belarus Election Riots 311 (photo credit: Associated Press)
Belarus Election Riots 311
(photo credit: Associated Press)
MINSK, Belarus  — In the biggest challenge to authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko in 16 years in power, thousands of demonstrators massed outside the main government office to protest alleged vote fraud in Sunday's presidential election, but club-swinging riot police drove them off and beat many.
The violent night left in doubt the next step for Belarus, which is of interest to the Kremlin because of its position as a buffer between Russia and the West. The West, for its part, has been offended by Lukashenko's harsh rule and his resistance to change.
Three of the candidates who ran against Lukashenko were arrested and the top opposition leader, Vladimir Neklyayev, was forcefully taken from the hospital by unknown men in civilian clothes, activists said.
Neklyayev's aide said seven men wrapped Neklyayev in a blanket on his hospital bed and carried him outside as his wife screamed, locked in a neighboring room. His whereabouts are currently unknown. Neklyayev and two other candidates were severely beaten in clashes with government forces.
The demonstration and its violent end all happened even before preliminary results were announced. But opposition supporters were convinced that Lukashenko would fake the tally. In previous elections, none of which were judged free and fair by Western observers, Lukashenko tallied 80 percent or more.
This year's election had given tantalizing hints that the repressive political climate might be changing in the ex-Soviet state. Not only were nine candidates allowed to challenge Lukashenko, they were even given unprecedented access to state broadcast media to conduct debates.
But if Lukashenko had been looking, or trying to look, like he was flirting with democracy, the romance was clearly over within three hours of the polls closing.
The crowd that gathered in central Minsk, estimated by the opposition at tens of thousands, was significantly larger than protesters who massed after the 2006 elections. But those protests were allowed to go on sporadically for a week; Sunday's didn't make it until midnight.
As riot police beat on their shields to drive the crowd away from the government offices, the defiant crowd matched the rhythmic blows with the chant "We will come back." However, it was unclear how long such bravado could last in the face of harsh crackdowns.
"Repression and arrested have stopped the wave of protests," said candidate Yaroslav Romanchuk. "Street democracy is over."
But anger remains high.
"We had a peaceful protest and it is the authorities who used force," said Marat Titovets, a 40-year-old engineer. "After Lukashenko spilled blood, he cannot remain in power."
Protesters broke windows and glass doors of the government building, which also houses the Central Election Commission, but they were repelled by riot police waiting inside. Hundreds more riot police and Interior Ministry troops then arrived in trucks and sent most of the demonstrators fleeing. Some tried to hide in the courtyards of nearby apartment buildings, but were bludgeoned by troops waiting inside the courtyards.
Neklyayev was beaten by riot police while leading a few hundred of his supporters to the demonstration and was taken by ambulance to a hospital, according to his wife. His left eye was bruised, his nose was bleeding and he was nauseous and unable to speak, Olga Neklyayeva told the Associated Press.
Another opposition candidate, Vitaly Rymashevsky, was beaten in clashes with riot police by the government building. He claimed that the people who attempted to storm the building were police acting as demonstrators and that he was attacked when he tried to stop them.
Lukashenko, a 56-year-old former collective firm manager, maintains a quasi-Soviet state in the country of 10 million, allowing no independent broadcast media, stifling dissent and keeping about 80 percent of the industry under state control.
Although once seen as almost a lapdog of Russia, Lukashenko in recent years has quarreled intensively with the Kremlin as Russia raised prices for the below-market gas and oil on which Belarus' economy depends.
However, his tone changed this month after Russia agreed to drop tariffs for oil exported to Belarus — a concession worth an estimated $4 billion a year.
But Lukashenko also is working to curry favor with the West, which has harshly criticized his years of human rights abuses and repressive politics. Last week, he called for improved ties with the US, which in previous years he had cast as an enemy.
The European Union, eager to see reforms in the obstreperous country on its borders, has offered €3 billion ($3.9 billion) in aid to Belarus if the elections are judged to be free and fair. The prospects of such a judgment and payout seem remote, however, analysts said.