Black-clad riot police clubbed demonstrators as government opponents marched Saturday in defiance of a show of force by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko that has drawn U.S. and European Union sanctions.

Useful link: video of the Polish news channel

"Who will cry after yesterday’s fiasco of a presidential election, for Belarus? More to the point, who can find this nation of 10 million Slavic souls without peek at a map? Safe to say, not many, which is good news for A. Lukashenko’s career plans." So begins the article by Matthew Kaminski, in Monday’s March 22, ‘06 Wall Street Journal. This is quite true, I have to admit. However, thanks to the anti-democratic policies of Lukashenko, more and more people in Europe and the US are growing concerned about the events in Belarus.
"The 51-year-old collective farmer is widely known, thanks to Condi Rice, as "Europe’s last dictator," though that nickname sells Vladimir Putin and other recent arrivals short."
"For promoters of democracy, Mr. Lukashenko is a reality check. Twelve years ago, he came out of nowhere to win nearly three in four votes in the country’s first and last free elections. The young country’s institutions were too weak to resist his frontal attack - and the populace too scared by decades of Soviet repression to care. Charismatic, to a Belarussian peasant at least, Mr. Lukashenko made wild allegations of corruption against the post-Soviet rulers. In power, he repressed in the name of fighting graft, proving a point I recently heard made by the Venezuelan editor of Foreign Policy magazine, Moises Naim, that "anti-corruption campaigns" often end up subverting democracy in developing countries."
"In addition to his KGB (the Soviet anthem and flag stayed the same, too) and selective murder of opponents, President Lukashenko used a series of popular votes - the very symbol of suffrage - to short-circuit democracy. In 1995 and 1996, the regime rammed through referendum that neutered parliament and boosted presidential powers.

"A tyrant’s best ally is fatalism."

The article also provides the information about Mr. Milinkevich and his thoughts about the election. He said that "People will laugh at those figures. In Poland people began laughing at communist authorities and this is when Solidarity won. We are getting there."
"It may take longer than Mr. Milinkevich might wish" concludes the article. "Democracy isn’t inevitable in Belarus, Europe or anywhere else. But nor is another 12 years of rulers like Mr. Lukashenko. "We are not romantics," Mr. Vyachorka said before his arrest. "We are pragmatics."

To look at the copy of the article click here.

Here is a quote from the Economist journal about the situation in Belarus:

One of Europe’s post-Soviet laggards, Belarus has been the fief of the cunning and erratic Alyaksandr Lukashenka since 1994. Following his free election that year, Mr Lukashenka has tightened his grip on power, transforming elections into a sham. He has repressed all opposition—perhaps even relying on death squads—which helped him win September 2001’s presidential poll. The run-up to his election for a third term, in March 2006, featured widespread intimidation and a campaign of beatings.

The Republic of Belarus is situated in the center of Europe on the watershed of the Baltic and Black Seas. The capital is the city of Minsk. Belarus borders on Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Russia and Ukraine. The total length of the state border makes up 2,969 km. Geographic and climatic conditions favor the development of transport and economic relations.

General information:

The distance between Minsk and the capitals of neighboring states is as follows: Vilnius - 215 km, Riga - 470 km, Warsaw - 550 km, Kiev – 580 km, Moscow - 700 km.

Languages: Russian, Belarusian
Time: GMT + 2
Religions: Orthodox Christians (70 per cent), Catholics (15-20 per cent)
Population: 10,045,200 (1999 census) At present 1.8 million inhabitants live in the capital.
Ethnic composition: Belarusians (81 per cent), Russians (11 per cent), Poles (4 per cent)
Territory: The territory of Belarus totals 207.6 thousand sq km. It stretches from west to east for 650 km and from north to south for 560 km. The republic ranks thirteenth in size among the European states and fifth in population among the CIS countries. In comparison with other European countries, Belarus is slightly smaller than Great Britain and Rumania, 2.2 times as big as Portugal and Hungary and 5 times as big as the Netherlands and Switzerland.

info taken from www.be.wikipedia.org and www.belarustourist.minsk.by