Belarus has “woken up” and the nation’s revolution is neither “pro-Russian nor anti-Russian” and neither “anti-European Union nor pro-European Union,” Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya told MEPs Tuesday.
Addressing MEPs at an extraordinary debate of the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, Tikhanovskaya described the protests that followed the disputed election victory of Alexander Lukashenko as “unprecedented in size and scope in the history of Belarus.”
“Belarus has woken up,” she said in a video statement recorded from Lithuania, where she fled after the election. “We are not the opposition anymore. We are the majority now. The peaceful revolution is taking place.”
In the election on August 9, Lukashenko, who has been president since 1994, claimed he had won 80 percent of the vote, causing Belarusians to hold mass protests that were violently suppressed by security forces. Tikhanovskaya officially won 10 percent of the vote, but her backers say that in reality, she beat Lukashenko.
Earlier this month, EU leaders condemned the disputed election and agreed to impose sanctions on a number of people responsible for violence against protesters and election fraud.
Helga Schmid, secretary-general of the European External Action Service, who also took part in the debate with MEPs, said the list of sanctions against Belarus would be “targeted” and decided upon “very very soon,” ahead of an informal meeting of foreign affairs ministers on Friday.
In her statement, Tikhanovskaya welcomed the EU’s support for protesters and added that her country was “a part of Europe culturally, historically and geographically.” But she also claimed that what Belarus needed was self-determination and integrity.
“The revolution in Belarus is not a geopolitical revolution,” Tikhanovskaya said. “It is neither a pro-Russian, nor anti-Russian revolution. It is neither an anti-European Union nor pro-European Union revolution. It is a democratic revolution.”