Opposition presidential candidate Alexander Kazulin is being charged (Soviet-style) with “hooliganism,” organizing group actions, and violating public order. He faces a possible six year prison term.

Poland’s Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz signed in Warsaw, along with Belarussian opposition leader Alexander Milinkiewicz, a Declaration creating a foundation to be named in honor of Konstanty Kalinowski, Belarussian commander of the January Insurrection of 1863-1864 in Lithuania, which will fund at least 300 places at Polish universities for Belarussian students currently jailed and facing university expulsion, starting in July.

Lukashenka has not been seen in public since election day, giving rise to variety of rumors, attributing his absence to: a serious illness, a drunken celebratory binge, or being tied up in negotiations with his Muscovite allies over the signing over Belarus’ major economic asset (the pipeline company Beltranzgas) in return for electoral support.

Hundreds of people have placed lighted candles on Nyamiha Street in Minsk as a gesture of solidarity with those beaten and arrested yeserday.

Video of Interior Ministry Special Forces attacking peaceful demonstrators in Minsk yesterday, beating women and the elderly.

Wearing the red beret is SOBR (Special Forces of the Ministry of the Interior) commander, Colonel Dmitry Vasilyevich Pavlichenko, arrested and accused November 2000 of “being the organiser and head of a criminal body engaged in the abduction and physical elimination of people.”

Over ten thousand demonstrators answered opposition candidate Alexander Milinkevich’s call to participate in a Saturday protest rally against the Lukashenko regime’s March 19th electoral fraud. The rally was timed also to commemorate the Independence Day of the first Belarussian Republic of 1918. Faced with police blocking access to the main square in Minsk, the demonstrators moved their rally to a nearby park.

Over the last few days, hundreds of arrests were made, including not only the protesters camped in tents in October Square, but also journalists, Pavel Mazejka (the press spokesman for opposition candidate Alexander Milinkevich), and today rival opposition leader Alexander Kozulin.

Kozulin had called for demonstrators to march on Okrestino prison to demand the release of political prisoners. The march had begun, when Colonel Pavlichenko’s Interior Ministry Special Forces units confronted the marchers, fired tear gas and stun grenades, and then proceeded to charge the protesters, swinging truncheons. photos

Casualties are not yet known. A number of people were hospitalized. At least one, Siarhey Atroshchanka, sustained a serious head injury.

Reuters

The tent camp in October Square in Minsk was stormed by police at 3:30 A.M. local time last night. The remaining protestors, estimated as around 460 people, whose numbers had been systematically reduced by the covert arrest of individual protestors for days, were forced onto buses and carried away. One of the protestors detained was opposition leader Valancina Palevikova.

Former Polish ambassador Mariusz Maszkiewicz was badly beaten.

Twenty two independent journalists have also been arrested.

New York Times

Some of the arrested were lined up and forced to stand facing a wall all night.

The European Union has announced sanctions against Belarus.

Mosnews reports:

Belarus opposition leader Alexander Kozulin and his campaign headquarters staff are currently working on the plan to set up an alternative government in the country, Gazeta.ru said Wednesday.

The “People’s Trust Government” project will then be introduced to the political council of Belarus democratic forces.

Alexander Kozulin previously called for an end to the demonstrations in October Square, and is suspected of functioning as an agent of Moscow or the Minsk regime. One wonders if he is about to be promoted internationally by Russian Intelligence as a purported democratic opposition successor to Lukashenko, but one who who would, in reality, continue to operate as a puppet of the Kremlin.

Bloggers wishing to register support for the efforts of the people of Belarus to free themselves from dictatorship and rejoin the community of civilized nations might choose to display on their blogs the 600 year old national arms of Belarus: the Ðu0178агонÑ [Pahonia – “the Pursuer”], linked to Belarus Elections 2006, or to any other website associated with the Belarussian Opposition. (A smaller version will be found in the lower portion of the right column.)

The Ðu0178агонÑ [Pahonia, Vytis in Lithuanian, Pogon in Polish] is the coat of arms of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania, adopted in 1386 by Grand Duke Jagiello on the occasion of Lithuania’s conversion to Christianity and dynastic union with Poland.