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Mikalai Statkevich: We are released as Lukashenka had run out of money

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Mikalai Statkevich: We are released as Lukashenka had run out of money
Photo: nn.by

A political prisoner Mikalai Statkevich has given an exclusive interview to charter97.org

The former presidential candidate in Belarus, the head of the Belarusian Union of Military Servicemen, a retired Lieutenant Colonel Mikalai Statkevich was released on August 22 after 4 years and 8 months behind the bars.

Natallia Radzina, the editor-in-chief of charter97.org website, had a phone conversation from Warsaw with Mikalai Statkevich, while he was on his way home in a car with his wife Maryna Adamovich.

- Mr Statkevich, it is my third interview with you from the moment of delivery. You had already experienced an imprisonment and a term in a correctional labour facility previously. How was you released this time?

- Frankly speaking, I supposed that it could happen, as I received some information from newspapers and saw Lukashenka was running out of money. But I thought I would be released after the “elections.” Although when I learnt that no one from the oppositional candidates had collected 100,000 signatures, I realized it is possible at this moment already.

They entered my cell and said to collect belongings. I tried hard to learn where I was taken. I had three versions: either I am released as the usurper is dismissed, or I am taken to a penal facility, or they simply decided to bury me.

They seized all my things, they kept me for a long time, searched, they made me put a signature under a receipt, as I received money from my personal account. Then I realized that I was to be released.

In the release decree it was written about Lukashenka’s decree concerning political prisoners, so I realized that more people would be released. I hope, all of them.

I was given a ticket, taken to the bus Mahilyou – Minsk, and they [law enforcers] stood there until the bus left. During the drive I called my wife and informed I was at large.

- You have said that you supposed a release was possible soon, as you saw Lukashenka was running out of money. The money had probably dried up completely, as you have been released at this very moment, hadn’t it?

- Undoubtedly, Lukashenka does not have money any more. In the next few days the question of receiving another credit from the Eurasian Union and support of the Belarusian regime by Russian money are to be decided upon, and our release could be an attempt to frighten Putin: look, I am making concessions to the West, and in case you don’t give money, I will really take offence at you. 

- First of all, they are trying to “sell” you to the West in exchange of the IMF loans.

- Yes, certainly! But I do not think that Lukashenka is going to receive a credit before the formal end of the “elections.” The IMF mission planned to come in October, and they need money now, so he is going to pull them primarily out of Russia.

- I was imprisoned in a KGB prison cell next to you. I know that it was a hard time for you there already. Do you think that people who had put us to torture must receive punishment?

- Absolutely. There is Article 128 of the Criminal Code of Belarus, “a crime against security of mankind”. It does not have period of limitation, and one of its paragraphs reads – “inhuman treatment or torture related to political beliefs.” I think that people who had been doing that, including the ones in corrective labour facilities, in Horki and Shklou, must incur responsibility.

The minimum prison term under this article is 7 years. By the way, many times I warned the administration of Shklou colony that they are to be charged under Article 128 of the Criminal Code of Belarus.

- Where did you have the most difficult times: in the KGB remand prison, in the correctional facility or in prison?

- You know, it depended. There have been very harsh periods, when I had to endure the time in the punishment cell, the ward-type room (PKT). Absolutely wild things were happening, mentally ill persons were placed into my cell, and I could not react against, as I didn’t know the rules there, and I thought that in case of resistance it would be worse.

It was especially difficult in 2011-2012. And later there were unjust penalties, the ward-type room and the punishment cell again, but as you have spent lots of time behind the bars, you do not expect anything good, so you do not take that as some radical measures.

It was certainly difficult in prison as well – it’s isolation. But I had support, I received letters, not all of them, but part of them. I am very grateful to my family, to my wife – they have been doing their best to support me.

I am also thankful to all people from Belarus, who were concerned about me, who organised protest rallies and pickets, and also to journalists, who had been writing about me. I was not able to read your website, but I know that Charter’97 supported me, and thank you so much for that.

- Your wife Maryna Adamovich had been fighting for you all these years heroically, and she deserves credit for your release to a great extent. You registered your marriage in prison. Do you plan a honeymoon?

- (Laughs). I think I must do that. We will dedicate a week for that.

- From prison you called upon registering you a single candidate for presidency, and to announce a boycott if that doesn’t happen. People have supported you, and today Yarmoshyna complained that people do not want to participate in the vote. What could you say to boycott adherents?

- It is beyond me why some politicians had agreed to participate in this “elections” at all, while the candidate from the previous “elections” was still in prison, and the result is obvious. They have not been able to collect signatures, and now the situation with boycott is difficult, as this idea has been discredited to some extent, as they supported the boycott idea after their failure with signatures.

Now we should think what to do. It is impossible to vote for anybody, when after the “elections” all these “candidates” are going to recognize the elections “fair.”

Truly speaking, all the time on my way from Mahilyou I was thinking what situation we are facing now. Having discarded the idea of a single candidate, the opposition has committed something like a political suicide.

- The entire world has been fighting for you. You have already been called a Belarusian Mandela. Mandela succeeded in making changes in the Republic of South Africa. How are you going to achieve changes in Belarus?

- I have been struggling for release of political prisoners all the time. I won’t stop doing so, I am going to continue. Undoubtedly, I won’t be able to do that alone, and I really hope that we are going to do that with people who have dignity and courage.

I strongly hope that there would be more of such people thanks to my actions, thanks to the example, not only my example, but of other young people who had not come apart in incredibly hard conditions. And at last we are to make this country a normal one.

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