Svetlana Alexievich Statement, errata
Miscellaneous Belarus-related news
Last remaining member of the Coordinating Council Presidium in Belarus Svetlana Alexievich released a statement on September 9, 2020.
Here’s a quick xlation:
My like-minded friends in the Presidium of the Coordinating Council are no longer there. Everyone is either in jail or expelled. Today they detained the last member, Maksym Znak.
First, they kidnapped the country and now they are kidnapping the best of us. Hundreds of others will replace us. It was not the Coordination Council that revolted. The country revolted. I want to repeat what I always say. We were not preparing a coup. We wanted to prevent a split in our country. We wanted a dialogue to begin in society. Lukashenko says he will not speak to the “street,” which is hundreds of thousands of people who go out every Sunday and every day. This is not a street literally. This is the people.
People go out with their young children because they believe they will win.
I also want to appeal to the Russian intelligentsia, the term we used in the past. Why are you silent? We only hear rare voices of support. Why are you silent when you see a small, proud people being trampled? We are still your brothers.
And I want to tell my people that I love them. I'm proud of them.
Here again, a stranger is ringing my doorbell ...
Nobel laureate, head of the Belarusian PEN center
Dementors (Хапуны, var. ) are masked creatures widely considered to be one of the foulest to inhabit Belarus. They feed on human happiness and generate feelings of depression and despair in any person in close proximity to them. They are often referred to as "soul-suckers" and are closely associated with Titushki, mercenary agents who supported the riot police during the Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity in 2013-2014.
Belarusian poet Vladimir Neklyaev, meanwhile, had this to say in an interview published by Belarusian Partizan on September 9, 2020.
“[Lukashenko] is full of fear. He is consumed by hatred and a thirst for revenge. Fear, hatred and revenge make up his entire essence. His father was not Belarusian, and he never liked Belarus.
He especially disliked Minsk, which was initially too ‘aware’ for him. And now, after the whole of Belarus has become too "aware" for him, he has grabbed a machine gun out of fear and hatred.
Why? To exact revenge!
For what reason? Because both Minsk and Belarus have denied him power, the authority he, after deceiving the people, ascribed to himself in the Constitution and considered eternal. Why isn't he shooting yet? He is not shoot only because he lacks sufficient forces to deploy against Minsk and the entire country,” Neklyaev said.