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MINSK – Belarus's main opposition chief proclaimed a movement to "liberate" the country from President Alexander Lukashenko on Saturday; but police moved to break up protests, making clear the anti-Western leader has no plans to go.
Interior Minister Vladimir Naumov said police had acted to avert attempts to seize power and murder Lukashenko, whose overwhelming victory in polls last Sunday raised accusations of vote rigging in the West and among domestic opponents.
Lukashenko, seen by Russia as a bulwark against uprisings that buoyed pro-Western leaders to power in other ex-Soviet republics, keeps a tight rein on media and opposition. Backers say his Soviet-style policies have staved off the social turmoil and poverty that have befallen much of the old Soviet Union.
Main opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich told a demonstration that rallies of the last week, that have garnered up to 10,000 people, showed Belarussians were no longer afraid of Lukashenko's authoritarian rule.
"I declare the creation of a Popular Movement for the Liberation of Belarus," Milinkevich told the crowd.
Hours later, riot police with shields and batons moved in to disperse the crowd; but events that followed highlighted divisions in the opposition camp.
After the rally broke up, several hundred protesters headed for a pre-trial detention centre at the urging of a second opposition leader, Alexander Kozulin.
It was to that centre that police took 300 demonstrators rounded up early on Friday morning, the opposition said.
Police in riot gear began beating their shields with truncheons, stopped the march, fired stun grenades and charged protesters. At least two people were taken to hospital.
Milinkevich, who won 6 percent of the votes to Lukashenko's 83 in the election, said the march had been a mistake. He accused Kozulin of foolhardiness in leading protesters away in a march after what he called a successful rally.
Protesters said Kozulin, who also ran against Lukashenko, was pulled out of a car by police and taken away.
"Kozulin started calling for the forcible removal of the authorities, the seizure of high-security installations and the physical extermination of the head of state," Interior Minister Naumov told reporters.
"We have arrested the most active violators of public order. Their actions will be followed by appropriate legal consequences."
Detained Activists
Milinkevich escaped arrest, but among the detained activists was his main spokesman Pavel Mazheika, who later said no more protests would be held for the moment.
"Street actions are only a small part of our strategy," he told Reuters by telephone after he was released.
Lukashenko has made no major public statements since his victory, which he said marked the failure of a Western-backed revolution. He is due to be inaugurated on March 31.
Demonstrators are demanding a re-run of the poll, which returned to power for five years a president accused in the West of pursuing Soviet-style policies, closing down the media and cracking down on rivals.
Events in Belarus have set Russia, which endorses Lukashenko's victory, at odds with the United States and western Europe.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called for the release of hundreds of activists taken into custody since Friday and condemned the use of force against demonstrators.
"The basic right to freedom of opinion and assembly must also apply in Belarus," Steinmeier said in comments released by a spokesman.
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