Conference “New Belarus” opened in Vilnius
In Vilnius on Monday began conference “New Belarus”dedicated to the second anniversary of the 2020 presidential election. It brought together the leaders of the opposition, public society and the movement for free elections.
wide range of participants
According to the Belarusian edition “Our field”, among the organizers and participants of the conference – representatives of the Office of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, NAU, the Coordinating Council, the Honest People community, the Resistance movement, the Bypol initiative, speeches by parties and the expert community, including Pavel Latushko, Dmitry Shchigelsky, Alexander Dobrovolsky, Alexander Azarov, Valery Matskevich, Elena Zhivoglot, Olga Kovalkova, Volodymyr Ostapenko and others. All names are not disclosed, including the security guard.
The event is held in the format of a conference, not a congress; accordingly, voting on documents and decisions is not planned. At the same time, the speakers of each panel are expected to express a common vision of strategic priorities, the transition period, the reform of democratic forces and assistance to civil society. These should be documents or action plans.
The conference was attended by prominent representatives of the Belarusian society from different social groups and views. Despite the recent split in democratic circles, the forum participants plan to designate the future audience of their actions.
48 experts, 45 representatives of business, 128 representatives of the public sector, 49 representatives of media communities (bloggers), 25 former political prisoners and families of political prisoners serving sentences, as well as 59 representatives of the structure received invitations to capture. 153 applications were received with the registration form. Participation in the conference was confirmed by 321 people and 51 media representatives.
It is expected that a conference will be held with the reform of the Coordinating Council and the creation of a Joint Transitional Cabinet, which includes representatives of various structures.
Tikhanovskaya’s priorities
According to the online publication “Solidarity”Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, in her speech, announced the priorities that we intend to implement and which they want to receive feedback from those present:
- Defend independence and provide foreign troops from the country
“To do this, we must do everything to provide the country with international transportation, the sale of Russian troops and get rid of total dependence on Russia.
- Popularization of the Belarusian language, culture, development of the structure of education, for example, the openness of Belarusian universities, schools, kindergartens, depending on the country, in order to strengthen national identity.
Also Tikhanov’s mistake step up surveillance and external pressure on the regime:
“We must respect the partisan resistance movement, the Belarusian volunteers in Ukraine, expand the Peramoga plan, conclude universal jurisdiction cases in the UN court and the International Criminal Court against those involved in the aggression in Ukraine and the territories against Belarusians.”
- Assistance in the development of independent media and societies.
“It is critical that Belarus needs access to reliable information and the ability to implement its own projects, ideas and initiatives”.
- Help Belarusians solve their problems.
“A huge number of people in Belarus save money, cannot leave the country, do not have access to normal distribution and medicine. be a vision of how to solve the problem of economic policy”, Tikhanovskaya noted.
- Creating a roadmap for the transition from dictatorship to accounting.
“We will jointly organize the development of an action plan for surveillance situations, which will need to be tracked quickly and coherently at a dangerous moment.”
To implement the sixth priority of the program, voiced by Tikhanovskaya, it is necessary to reorganize the self-democratic movement, for which she proposed the reform of the Coordinating Council, to create a Joint Transitional Cabinet and a digital commission to unite Belarusians.
In addition, Tikhanovskaya responded to criticism addressed to her:
“Had someone else been there, perhaps he would have been more prepared for this. It is impossible to create a regime, propaganda, personal offense to divide us and give a reason for celebration.
So, today and every subsequent day of working together, each of us made a compromise. We all need to remember that there is no such thing as “I don’t like this” in a review, only the sentence “Will this help the people we are responsible for?” We must create a collective body and make decisions. And these should be professional, authoritative and courageous people. They definitely need people who are responsible for security, for participation, for intelligence.”
Single office
Pavel Latushko, for his part, stated that “the priority is to manage the provision of the country during the transit period and at the very beginning of transit”. The policy also provides for the creation of a Unified Timetable Cabinet, in which the goal of the restoration of Belarus can be set.
“Our package is very simple, – said Latushko. – No victory plan, no strategy works without the possibility of implementation and without a specific structure that will take responsibility for it.
Hope in Ukraine
Businessman Vadim Prokopiev sees a chance for Belarus in the victory of Ukraine and the creation of an alternative government:
“We have been at war since 2020, since the last hopes for the “velvet” Belarusian revolution disappeared. Since the theory of non-violent resistance did not work.
Lukashenko is a false target, he is just a person convenient for the Kremlin. The barbarian empire entails a war not with Ukraine, but with the entire civilized world.
The war, according to their coherent logic, should be permanent, waged outside of Russia. This is the way to survive in the empire. There is no presence when Moscow suddenly begins to respect the revolution of the people of some small “forest country” and gives up the Belarusian “ledge” (this is the wording of the Security Council of the Russian General Staff). Take a look at the map, you will see that, having let Belarus go to Europe, the empire will be able to tolerate a moral development of such a size that it will not keep its lands inside and will fall apart…”
The forum of the Belarusian democratic forces in the Lithuanian prison will last two days.