The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Fighting for Democracy in Belarus

Episode Date: November 28, 2024

In 2020, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya emerged as a powerful voice for change in Belarus when she ran against President Alexander Lukashenko who has led the country since 1994 with what some call "an iron hand." The controversial results led to the largest protests in the country's history and pressure on Tsikhanouskaya to leave Belarus. As her country continues to face political turmoil and international condemnation for siding with Russian in its war on Ukraine, she tells host Steve Paikin that the fight for democracy remains at the forefront of mind.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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And discover your 2-Point TVO. In 2020, Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya emerged as a powerful voice for change in Belarus when she ran against President Alexander Lukashenko, who had led the country since 1994 with some have called an iron hand. The election results led to the largest protests in the country's history and pressure on Tsikhanouskaya to leave Belarus. As her country continues to face political turmoil and international condemnation for siding with Russia in the war on Ukraine, the fight for democracy remains at the forefront of Tsikhanouskaya's mind.

And we welcome her to our studio tonight. It's great to meet you. My pleasure. Thank you for coming in here. I don't want to assume that our audience knows a great deal about your country, so we're going to do a little bit of quick history here, just to give people some background, okay? Sheldon, if you would bring up the graphic, and here we go. Let's go back to 1991.

Belarus declares its independence as the Soviet Union breaks up, and Belarusian becomes the official state language. Three years later, Alexander Lukashenko wins the first presidential election on a campaign of fighting corruption. The next year, 1995, friendship and cooperation pacts signed with Russia, and Russian is reinstated as a co-official language. Now, let's move ahead to between 2001 and 2020. Lukashenko is re-elected five more times in 2001, 2006, 10, 15, and 2020.

Opposition and Western observers insist these elections were undemocratic. In 2022, Belarus allows its territory to be used by Russia's army to launch attacks into northern Ukraine as part of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And just one more, let's take a look at a map so that we can see where Belarus is located in Eastern Europe. It is a landlocked country bordered by Russia to the east, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, Lithuania and Latvia, two of the three Baltic countries to the northwest, population about 9 million, Minsk is the capital and largest city.

Okay, with that background in place, let's go back a few years. It's 2020, Lukashenko has been in power for 26 years. You, at the time, were a stay-at-home mother of two children, and you decided to run against him. Why? First of all, it was my husband who decided to challenge Lukashenko's regime because really the Russian people were fed up

with his attitude to people, with his dictatorship, with lack of freedom of speech, and so on and so forth. He always was like humiliating people. And my husband became YouTube blogger asking people how they feel in Belarus. And when he became very popular among the population, Lukashenko jailed him. But before my husband decided to run against him because people asked him to do so. And when he was jailed, my first step to replace him was out of love to my husband. Because everything what he was doing was important for me. I wanted to support him. And of course, I didn't have any political background.

I was mother of two. But I wanted to show him and people that out of love, we have to save our country from dictatorship. What happened to your husband since then? So my husband was detained in May 2020. And since then, he is in jail. And moreover, since March 2023, for more than one year already, he's kept in incommunicado mode.

He's political prisoner. I haven't heard about him or what. I don't know if he's alive. So we can't send letters. Lawyer is not allowed to visit him. And you know, I every day have to answer my children's questions. You know where is our daddy? When are we going to return home? So it's a tough fight. You know you know that you told that I live in

other country and we're in Lithuania at the moment but we continue our fight. So we want to release Sergei and other thousands of political prisoners that have been detained since 2020. Your children are 14 and 9 and they have not seen their father in four years? Yeah. So you took his place during the election. Lukashenko got 81% of the vote. You got 10% of the vote. How much do you think that reflects the actual popular will of the people of Belarus?

You know, during all the presidential elections, you know, all the elections have been falsified, maybe beside the first one, because in 1994 Lukashenko for sure was elected. But when people saw how he started to transform our country to dictatorship, he dismantled parliament, he dismantled justice system, he changed our symbols, national symbols. The picture of Belarus, he showed with this red and green lights, it's Soviet Union style symbols, before we had different democratic symbols. But Lukashenko was the most pro-Russian person in Belarus and he always wanted to drag us back to Soviet Union. We as people want to be part of

Europe, to return to our family of countries and he was against this. So... Can you go back to Belarus? No. Actually, I myself was detained in absentia for 15 years in jail. So of course I will be imprisoned immediately. I crossed the border. And you're in Lithuania now? I live in Lithuania with my children, yeah. Is it safe for you there? Yeah. Is it safe for you there? You know, since 2020, because of fraudulent elections,

because of a wave of repressions, at least half a million Belarusians had to flee the country. And no one, no one activist in exile can not feel safe, because we don't know how long the hands of the regime are. You know, people, of course, we live in democratic world, but we don't know.

Recently, one Belarusian was extradited from Vietnam on demand of Belarusian regime, and he's facing death penalty. So it's not always. And actually, regime are misusing international institutions like Interpol. They put us in red list. I'm declared as extremist, as terrorist in Belarus and there are many people like me and of course we might have problems while travelling, you know, while crossing borders.

So it's not as life in exile. Though of course people who stay in the country, they live in constant fear because of the regime repression. So our task, common task is to return our country back to people. We have had many prime ministers, presidents, significant cabinet ministers, famous people in this studio before but we have never had anybody who had as much security as you. You are traveling with I don't know how many people are out there.

You've got your people, you've got RCMP, I think you've got Ontario Provincial Police as well. Do you need that much security wherever you go? You know, it's up to the country to decide, you know, how to secure my visit because of course I'm like enemy of this regime and something might happen so and I'm grateful to the countries who is taking care of me and who is taking care of all the Belarusians who had to flee the country because we are like stateless people not all of the business want to ask for

asylum but we need you know legalization issues just to stay free in the redicule. So we are grateful to Canada that you are hosting many Belarusians who are escaping repressions in Belarus. Understood. We showed the map earlier that shows a thousand kilometer long border between your country and Ukraine. You have long-standing cultural ties, your two countries. And I wonder how much friction the war between Russia and Ukraine has caused in Belarus. You know, we have to divide Belarusian regime and Belarusian people. It is Lukashenko who is so-called president in Belarus who allowed Russian missiles to be launched from Belarus. You know he made our country co-aggressor against the will of Belarusian people and Belarusian people despite all repressions in our country you know we since the very first days of

the war we went to the rallies against the war. Our partisans stopped Russian trains who were bringing weapons to Belarus. Our Belarusian military volunteers are fighting shoulder to shoulder with Ukrainians. So our Belarusian refugees helped Ukrainian refugees because we know what it means you know to grab your child, to grab one back and leave your country you, leaving everything behind. So Ukrainian pain is our pain. We have to explain that Russia, they don't see Belarus or Ukraine as separate independent

states. They look at us as naughty children who want to Europe, who want to live a democratic life. They want to return to the Soviet empire in a family. But we are sovereign independence countries. And it's up to people to decide our future. And of course, the victory of Ukraine and fate of Belarus are deeply interconnected. We need Ukrainians to win this war with the help

of a democratic world to give those and people one more opportunity, you know, to dismantle this regime. You had a meeting with Canada's foreign minister, Melanie Jolie, not too long ago. How did that meeting go? What did you discuss? I met with the minister several times. She really became a friend of Belarusian people. I met with the prime minister also several times. I see how the Canadian government is trying to help Belarusian people, our Belarusian democratic movement, in our fight. I'm so grateful for this because you are so far away.

I think that many Canadians don don't know where Belarus is. But the values we are fighting for is the values to cherish so much here in Canada. So what we're asking from the Canadian government is pressure on Lukashenko's regime to weaken them. You know, sanctions, political isolation. But on the other hand, we need assistance to our civil society, to our media that have been ruined in Belarus and now have to work from exile. We need support to our human rights defenders who are taking care of thousands of political prisoners. So, the Canadian government supported our media outlets a lot. And you know, we have to fight with the huge propagandistic machine we need our alternative media to be very strong

so what else we need is voice and so as Canada is going to be chair in G7 very soon we I asked minister to give the voice to Belarus and democratic forces you know to mention Belarus in final communique of different... And do you think she will? I think that, again. You think that? I say really eagerness, you know, to help us to ruin this regime in Belarus. Let me ask you about...

I mean, there's two different approaches to getting what you want. On the one hand, if the world isolates, puts sanctions on, makes life difficult for Belarus, that's one approach. The other approach is to engage, to try to negotiate, to try to establish more ties with Belarus. We're clearly taking the first approach, not the second approach. Do you think it's working? I think that many leaders, democratic leaders, still think that dictators cannot be re-educated.

That if you are communicating to them or you appease them, they might be changed. They're not. They will never change. They will challenge democratic world more boldly you know they will become more aggressive if democracy will not show its teeth so I think the best solution in countries like Belarus where people have full consensus you know against the regime help people to do our job. Because we don't ask

countries to interfere or to do our job instead of us. We want to do this ourselves. I mean this meant the regime and change country for democracy. But help us. No one war and no one fight cannot be won when you are alone. It's about Belarus, it's about Ukraine, we need allies, we need energy to continue. And if people think that democracy doesn't care if they don't help our movement to keep pressure on the regime, so what's the reason to fight for democracy? Democracy is powerful, democracy has to but show it. So I think that dictatorship can only be fought.

So keep pressure on dictators, help people who are fighting against this dictatorship and it will be like your contribution into this fight. Alright, let me ask you about political events of the last couple of weeks. Donald Trump has been pretty clear that his days of continually supplying Ukraine with arms to help in its war against Russia, those days are coming to an end. He wants America first. He wants a much more isolationist America. Are you concerned that that will spill over to Belarus and that the support

that you want from America, from Canada, from other Western countries won't be there because the West seems to be entrenching more. So as Viktor of Ukraine is really critical for Belarus, of course, I'm worried that some assistance to Ukraine can be stopped. But I really believe in democratic society, I really believe that in democratic countries there's people who are deciding. And I see eagerness of Canadians and American people to help Ukraine to win this war because people understand that Ukrainians and persons, we are not just fighting for our pieces of

land, we are not just fighting for our pieces of lands, we are not just defending our countries, we are defending democracy. And democracy is in critical position at the moment. I understand, America first, you know, every country can take care only about their land, but then, believe me, dictators and tyrants will knock your doors very soon, if you don't stop them at the front line that is in Belarus and Ukraine at the moment. So there cannot be simple answers to difficult questions. You know, if stop providing Ukrainian with necessary weapon

for them to defeat, you know, dictators, it will not solve the issue of this resistance between democracy and autocracy. It will only embolden them. You know, we already see how dictators are making alliances, you know, they are leaning from each other and they are crossing the red line after red line, challenging the democratic world. And if you don't answer, if you try and, you know, to appease them, you know, believe me, it will bring to much worse disaster.

Well, you know there is a view out there, and I'm not saying, I'm not taking a position on this, but you know there is a view that says that Russia invaded Ukraine because the West was too provocative. The West started making noises about having Ukraine come into NATO. Russia started to feel nervous about what was happening on its border, and therefore that was part of the reason why they invaded. Not to mention decades and decades of history feeling like Ukraine was part of their country anyway. Could you make the same argument about Belarus?

If we show too much interest in Belarus, does that provoke Russia even more? And does that provoke Lukashenko even more to keep things the way they are? I would put the question a little bit different way. It's not the issue that you are paying too much interest to Belarus, is that Belarusian people paying too much interest in democratic world. This is us who are choosing our future. This is us who want to be part of big democratic and wonderful family.

The same about Ukrainians. It's not like NATO who is coming to Ukraine. It's Ukrainian people who are choosing NATO, for example, or Europe. And why should, how dare any other country to interfere and to conduct? You can't do this or you cannot. We are sovereign people and we have right to live in the country we choose.

There are elections again in January, right? Are you going to stand as a candidate? You know, what you call elections in Canada or in any other democratic country has nothing in common with elections in Belarus. We can call it a ritual, farce imitation or reappointment of Lukashenko by Lukashenko, but not election. Because in the country where alternative media are ruined, where all the civil organizations are liquidated, where thousands of political prisoners, where people live in constant fear, where KGB, and we still have KGB in Belarus,

you know, they feel like absolutely impunity, you know, There is no justice system, no observers. So it's imitation. It's not about elections. All political opponents of Lukashenko are in jail or in exile. Nobody can become opponent to Lukashenko in elections because there is total repression in in Belarus so it's impossible and of course we as Belarusian people we don't recognize these so-called elections and they say full consensus among our democratic allies our Western allies that the countries

will not recognize Lukashenko again. So you don't plan to run? I can't. I live in exile. If I return the country I will be detained immediately. The same as other, you know, at least half a million people who had to flee Belarus. It's impossible. So I think that people in the democratic world don't usually understand that what you call elections is not elections at all. I understand. I take your point. I take your point. I can't and I think not anybody else can oppose Lukashenka. Because in 2020 Lukashenka got such a huge trauma that we lost elections to a woman,

he lost elections to Belarusian people and now it will look like more like military operation rather than elections understand, you know The greatest hockey player in the history of the world, you know, it's from Belarus originally. Yeah. Yeah. Have you met Wayne Gretzky yet? No, okay. Well, his family has Belarusian roots, of course and And I had two great-grandfathers come from Belarus as well. Oh really? Yes indeed. So there you go. Look many prominent people who are working in different countries have Belarusian roots and they're very proud of this and for us it's much easier to talk to people who have some knowledge about Belarus or who had some great grandfather in Belarus because it's becoming like

what's happening in Belarus becoming your pain like as well and for me as for politician is the most difficult is to talk to person with empty eyes who you know doesn't take care about the country because we need help you need assistance we need like influence doesn't take care about the country. Because we need help, we need assistance, we need influence. But if I can't touch the heart of the person, it's difficult to communicate. Well, I know this is not the life you plan to have, but this is the life you have.

And we wish you well with your quest. Thank you. Thank you very much.