In Wellington, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya delivered a public lecture titled “The Struggle for Democracy in Belarus” at the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs – the country’s leading foreign policy platform.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya:
Dear Mr. Chair James Kember,
Dear Executive Director Hamish McDougall,
Kia ora, e hoa mā!
Dear friends,
First of all, let me thank the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs and The Centre for Strategic Studies, and Victoria University for the invitation and for organizing this meeting.
It’s the first time I am in this part of the world, and it’s my first time in your beautiful country. I guess I just fell in love with it at first glance.
New Zealand is, for us, a model of how to build a prosperous, sovereign, and democratic country while preserving national identity and culture. I believe Belarusians can learn a great deal from New Zealanders.
Many Belarusians have already discovered New Zealand. Hundreds of Belarusians now live in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch. Some arrived recently, after our peaceful uprising in 2020, fleeing persecution and terror. This country has long offered a safe haven to many people from Eastern Europe.
Many Belarusians in New Zealand have even rediscovered their Belarusian identity here. Some of them believe that we must learn from Maori, when it comes to national identity.
I just met members of the Belarusian diaspora in Auckland and Wellington. Living 16,000 kilometres away from home, they have learned to love both Belarus and New Zealand. They work in Business, in Academia, and some in literature. I know at least two young Belarusian female writers, who live here, and publish amazing books.
Belarus and New Zealand may not have many things in common, but one thing unites us for sure. It’s Anzac. Many Belarusian immigrants served within the ANZAC. Like Norman Mayer from Tatarsk near Orsha, or William Deonk, who was awarded the Military Medal for fighting at Gallipoli.
I hope that my visit here will help to build new connections and raise awareness about Belarus, Ukraine, and our region among New Zealanders.
Dear friends,
Yesterday, just after arrival, as an average tourist, I visited Rotorua, and stopped by Hobbiton. These films about Hobbits are very popular in Belarus too. People love it, because in these movies truth, friendship and courage win in the end.
One Belarusian writer called Belarusians “Hobbits of European woods”. Not because we are small and arrogant. But because we love to live quietly in the comfort of our homes and communities.
You may say that we prefer not to step out of our comfort zone. But in 2020, we did step into the limelight of history. This is where my story has begun.
I admit that Belarus may not be the most popular country in the world. And before 2020, when our uprising started, it was very little known. Usually, when you ask foreigners about Belarus, they could name three stereotypes: Chernobyl, tractor, and Lukashenka.
Chernobyl affected Belarus a lot. This nuclear catastrophe left a huge wound. 70 per cent of radioactive waste fell on Belarus.
I myself was one of the so-called Chernobyl children. In my teens, I visited Ireland every summer in order to improve my health. It meant a lot to me: I learned that life could be different, and more fun.
You may also know Sviatlana Alexievich, our Nobel Literature Prize winner. She wrote brilliant non-fiction books about the impact of Chernobyl and about the disintegration of the Soviet empire.
Sometimes, the post-Soviet dictatorship in Belarus is called “political Chernobyl”. Which is probably worse than the nuclear one.
Do you know what life in a dictatorship is like?
It’s when you wake up, go to the internet and turn the VPN on, to learn what’s really going on in your country and in your town, and how many people were arrested yesterday.
It’s when you check out the extremist’s list everyday, just to find there another website or Telegram channel that you are subscribed to – so you have to delete the subscription right away.
It’s when you walk down the street and see your favorite cafe closed, because its owner, your longtime friend, was arrested. She made a donation to political prisoners five years ago, and now the police came for her. She may get several years of imprisonment in a politically biased trial.
You go to visit her at the detention center, and they say that you can’t see her because she was declared a terrorist. So she can’t receive letters, money or food from outside.
You can’t do anything about it. And when you come home, you probably start packing your stuff to leave the country, because you’re afraid that you’re going to be next on the list.
Overall, living in Belarus is very much like living in a former Soviet Union, but with hi-tech surveillance. An Italian journalist called it communism with a taste of cappuccino.
But there is not only dictatorship. There are also Belarusians. Courageous people, who, five years ago, said “Enough” to the regime. They stepped out of the shadow of dictatorship – and of the shadow of stereotypes.
My husband Siarhei was one of those who prepared that. He traveled the country with his camera asking people about their lives. His blog was called “A country for living”. And people told him the truth. The truth that authorities didn’t like to hear.
When Siarhei announced his plan to run for president against Lukashenka, the dictator began to worry. He wanted to play it safe and arrested Siarhei not to let him run.
When my husband was in prison, I decided to step in for him and run in his place.
I did that out of love for him: he invested so much effort in the campaign! And out of love for the people who sincerely believed in change. They stood in long lines to put their signature in my support. How could I fail them? My duty was to give them hope.
Before 2020, I was not even interested in politics. I was a mother busy with raising our two children. But Siarhei’s arrest and people’s enthusiasm changed everything.
Under people’s pressure, the dictator registered me as a candidate. But he didn’t believe for a second that I could defeat him. “Our constitution is not for a woman president”, he said. He was just sure that Belarusians wouldn’t vote for a woman.
Diving into politics was, for me, a sort of a bungee jump. A leap of faith, without other support than that of Belarusian people and my team of volunteers behind me.
First, I didn’t believe in our success. But with every meeting with voters I felt more and more certain that we would win. Belarusians overgrew the dictator. They changed. They wanted change. They turned more and more towards Europe.
The election took place August 9, 2020. This time, we had an alternative count of the ballots. I received more than 50 per cent of the votes in the first round. I was supposed to be declared winner and president of Belarus.
But dictators have a hard time saying goodbye to their beloved toy, power. Lukashenka refused to step down. He declared himself a winner, as he did for 30 previous years.
People were outraged. They took to the streets to defend our victory. Just to be met with brutal force. Several people were killed by police bullets. Thousands were arrested around the country. There was no internet for three days.
The KGB forced me to leave. They told me, “If you stay, you’ll never see your children again.” The regime hoped if they push me out of the country, the protest will stop.
But people in Belarus kept fighting and kept believing. Women in white were protesting against violence. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered all over the country. They faced the brutal force with their bare hands and flowers.
Belarusians kept on protesting for a year, but the Russia-backed terror prevailed. By violence, the dictator Lukashenka took Belarus back, but he lost the Belarusian people forever.
After that, he began a hybrid war against Europe, using illegal migration. He hijacked a Ryanair plane to arrest journalist Raman Pratasevich. And finally, he dragged our country into war against Ukraine.
If it was not for Russia, Lukashenka wouldn’t have remained in power. But Putin had his own plans with him. They were planning the invasion of Ukraine already. They needed Belarus to be a launchpad for the attack against Ukraine – against the Western democracy.
With the war, repression in Belarus became even more fierce. But Belarusians didn’t remain silent. Railway partisans helped Ukrainians to slow down Russian attack on Kyiv, by sabotaging Russian military convoys. There were about 100 such attacks. For that, more than twenty people were brutally detained, tortured and sentenced to 10, 14, 20 and more years in prison.
Many Belarusians protested in the open. They sent money to support Ukraine. They leaked information to Ukrainian forces. An underground group destroyed a Russian intelligence plane.
Hundreds of Belarusians went to fight for Ukraine. They formed a Kalinouski regiment, one of the best in the Ukrainian army. 80 of them gave their lives for Ukraine’s freedom.
One of them was Maryia Zaitsava. In 2020, her face covered in blood became a symbol of our revolution. She was stunned by a police grenade and went to Europe to undergo a complicated ear surgery. After that, she could have stayed there to study, but she went to Ukraine.
In her very first battle, she was killed. It happened in January this year. The day before she just celebrated her 24th birthday. As a queer person, Maryia knew what it’s like to live in an unfree society. She wanted to change her life – and that of all Belarusians. She sacrificed herself to this dream.
Today, Belarus is under hybrid occupation. Russian troops are stationed there, including nuclear weapons. Putin and Lukashenka use Belarus territory to terrorize neighboring nations, primarily Ukraine.
War propaganda is everywhere. Political parties, independent media, trade unions and NGOs – including ecological, feminist, cultural – all are banned.
About half a million Belarusians were forced to leave Belarus fearing persecution. More than 1100 remain in jail, including our Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski, Polish-Belarusian journalist Andrzej Poczobut, Maryia Kalesnikava, Mikola Statkevich and others. A dozen people have died behind bars since 2020. Repression continues, people are arrested every day.
In June, after five years in jail, my husband Siarhei was released. It was due to president Trump’s personal involvement, and I’m very grateful to him for that.
After the release, Siarhei was unlawfully deported from Belarus. For two years, he was kept incommunicado. I had no news from him whatsoever.
When we met again, I, at first, could barely recognize him, he was so thin and exhausted. Our little daughter couldn’t recognize him at all. He said that he managed to survive hell. For the most time, he was kept in total isolation: no talks, letters, phone calls. He was buried alive in his cell.
Siarhei’s release was a booster for our democratic movement. Today, he’s in a much better physical shape. He continues his fight for a free independent Belarus and for releasing all the political prisoners.
This is what our movement has been doing for five years in exile. You can say that we are building a parallel Belarus, sowing seeds of democracy for the future. Our civil society is very active in Europe and all over the world. But our needs are multiple: to support the prisoners, their families, the released. To teach children Belarusian language and history. To provide help to immigrants in need.
Together with Norway and other European countries, we created the International Humanitarian Fund for political prisoners. We even began to issue our own passports to replace expired national passports which Lukashenka’s authorities don’t want to renew. Because of their decision, many Belarusians abroad became de facto stateless.
Our people are tough, hard-working and creative. Before 2020, Belarus was known as Europe’s IT lab. In the last years, almost all the creative educated class was forced to emigrate to keep their jobs and businesses. They continue working with us, using hi-tech innovations to fight for democracy. We have our own voting application, our Cyberpartizans who hack the regime’s servers, our online education projects, psychological consultations and lawyers’ offices, etc.
We built resilient legitimate political structures in exile. The Office of the president-elect, the United Transitional Cabinet as proto-government, and the Coordination Council as proto-parliament are all functioning. We conducted elections online, the next ones are next spring.
We advocate for more economic sanctions against the regime – but not against the Belarusian people. We must preserve their mobility: let them travel, study and see what life in democracy is like. We also call our partners to open cases against Lukashenka and his cronies, to ensure their accountability. We’ve collected evidence of 6700 cases of crimes against humanity.
Thank God, we are not alone in our fight. We have powerful allies, such as the US, the UK, Canada and the European Union. And I hope that New Zealand will join this exclusive club too.
Our long term goal is to join the EU. Only within the European Union can the survival of our nation be guaranteed, as our Nobel Prize winner Ales Bialiatski wrote. Otherwise, we are going to remain Russia’s colony and to dissolve into the so-called Russian world.
Dear friends,
Belarusians, who live in exile around the world, are united by one dream: to come back home, to live normal lives at peace with our neighbors, in harmony with our environment.
I want New Zealanders to discover our beautiful Belarus one day. To come to see the land of the European Hobbits. I’m sure you will love it.
Unfortunately, travelling there is not safe today. Not only because of the war in Ukraine. Sometimes foreign citizens are arrested and accused of espionage by Lukashenka, to serve as hostages in his political games with the West.
But you can help Belarusians in their fight wherever you are. Spreading information in your social media, telling the stories of Belarusian political prisoners. Donating to humanitarian organizations, such as the International Humanitarian Fund. Cooperating with the local Belarusian diaspora.
And, of course, supporting Ukraine. Ukraine’s victory will be our victory too.
To support the Belarusian democratic movement is also to support Ukraine, and vice versa. Our destinies are intertwined. We have a common enemy: Russian colonialism.
Ukraine’s victory will open a window of opportunities for Belarus. If Lukashenka loses Russia’s support, he won’t hold for three months. To weaken Russia is a key to both Ukraine’s victory and Belarus’s freedom.
I’m grateful to New Zealand’s government for introducing recent sanctions against Russia’s shadow oil fleet and against Lukashenka’s company Belnaftakhim. I’ll ask your politicians to consider further sanctions against Lukashenka for crimes against humanity and war crimes. Even symbolic support matters for us.
Besides, I’ll ask them not to extradite Belarusian citizens to Belarus, where they risk being persecuted for their political views. And to officially recognize our democratic political structures, as the EU did. Let’s formalize our relations for the future.
Dear friends,
Our fight is a global one. Democracy is under attack everywhere around the world. Dictators believe that might is right. They don’t need to listen to people’s opinions. They just need obedient servants. They say that people can be happy without personal freedom. Let’s prove them wrong.
What I ask you to do is – don’t give up on democracy. It’s like air: you don’t notice it until you are suffocating.
Please cherish your freedom and your way of life. It is easy to lose and hard to get back.
Democracy is not perfect, Churchill said. But at least it can be improved. Dictatorship can’t.
Don’t think that what’s going on in Belarus doesn’t concern you. If democracy loses there, there will be less freedom everywhere.
Solidarity with freedom fighters all around the world is what will bring us victory. Thank you for standing together with the Belarusian people for peace, democracy and human rights.
Zhyve Belarus!
