1. “Trust”
1.1 What do you (your organization) intend to do to end the public “finger-pointing”? From your point of view, is any of the “proto-parliament” options a solution to this issue? If yes, how do you see it forming and functioning? If not, what alternatives do you see?
– Let's start with the finger-pointing issue. I understand that in two years many people, especially those who are actively working for change, have accumulated a lot of fatigue. I do understand this very well. Fortunately, I have a very supportive team, and I can keep in constant contact with people who share both pains and joys, make suggestions and jump in with criticism.
With most of the public critics we share a common goal – to bring Belarus to democratic changes. Yes, now is the time when some are distracted by attacks on partners – but that is not what people expect from us.
I believe that the Conference will provide an opportunity not only to speak out and respond to criticism, but also to come to decisions on our further actions, as well as the “proto-parliament” if everyone agrees that one is needed. I also consider it important that we discuss at once everyone’s responsibility. Many critics reproach me saying that we must make decisions together – and I completely agree. But we also need to put them into action together.
In this matter, I rely on discussions with partners – and see that a “proto-parliament” can be formed by delegating representatives from organizations and electing them through digital tools. Its main role is to bring together those people who, using their experience and expertise, will help to develop and approve strategic decisions. The relevant discussions should be open to the society, and the structure itself should represent absolutely different groups and views – in that case, it will work. Belarus needs real parliamentarism, not the imitation that the regime has been selling since the 1990s.
1.2 Over the past 2 years, have you (your organization) received funding for projects related to “interests of Belarusians”? If yes, would you be willing to submit a report for a “substantive due diligence”?
– Our team receives donations from private donors, smaller donations, and support from institutional foundations. We have already made inquiries to independent companies, which will conduct an audit with results to be announced publicly. The publication of people and entities’ names, of course, will be strongly restricted for security reasons – there are many people in my team who are not public – for the sake of their relatives, and I respect this concern for relatives.
We are ready to form a supervisory board at the Office, with authoritative Belarusians invited, to whom we will be giving explanations on the work of the Office and who will have the opportunity to influence decisions on the most important areas, such as choice of strategy, action planning, structure.
1.3. From your (your organization's) point of view, is today’s Sviatlana Tihanovskaya's Office one of the many political forces or is it the office of the “elected leader of the Belarusan people'', or otherwise?
– The Office is a political structure that primarily helps me to do my job. I always say that a leader is also his team, I am lucky to have the support of such people. I can meet with Belarusians and foreign politicians, and represent our voice where others cannot. Well, the team organizes all this work, looks for new ways of communicating with people – like the personal talks that everyone from 70-year-old volunteers to Ryhor Azaronak joins. The team organizes working visits, executes agreements, and passes on the obtained contacts. And believe me, this team really wants more motivated people in the movement with drive and willingness to work hard and effectively. None of us claims to make decisions for all democratic forces alone – they must be made by different forces together.
And I would like to add that the Office team are people whom I trust wholeheartedly. All doubts expressed from the outside would fall away if you saw how selflessly these people have been working around the clock for two years now.
1.4 What results have you (your organization) achieved in the last 2 years (plans/reality)?
– Our key objective during this whole period was to strengthen the legitimacy of the Belarusan voice – and yes, I happened to be the mouthpiece of this voice – and to deprive the regime of legitimacy. We have had tangible results here: today, Lukashenka and his associates have become outcasts in the civilized world, he did not manage to "turn the page", to play on the migration crisis, on the seizure of the plane, he did not manage to pretend that he had nothing to do with the Kremlin's attack on Ukraine and to exchange the lifting of sanctions for the transit of grain. All the regime’s attempts to make a window-dressing of normalization by continuing to torture people in prisons have failed.
At the same time, the voice of democratic Belarus is getting louder, just like the support of political structures, initiatives, like medics, sportsmen, industrial workers, and representatives of education. All this helps to remove the regime from the political field – and switch it to cooperation with those who really help Belarusians.
I could count the number of meetings or business cards collected, but I know this is not a result. That said, I am asking you to remember that this work will help us in the future and is already helping the democratic forces to expand rather than narrow down the work. More and more NGOs and media are organizing their work; new training and internship programs are being allocated to our country. This is an investment in Belarusians who can use the new experience for their homeland.
We work a lot for the diaspora, and in different countries we have managed to change the political will towards our people. We are, rather successfully, working with Ukraine. Most of this work is not public, but I remember well how at the beginning of the war the representative of Ukraine told me: "You, Belarusians, to help us, help yourselves". And I understand what he meant. We support Ukraine in every possible way, because now Ukrainians are fighting for the future of their country and ours, for the security of the whole region. Without a free Ukraine, there can't be a free Belarus, but without a free Belarus, there will be no sustainable security in Ukraine and Europe. That's why, with the help of different online tools, we work every day and communicate with Belarusians who do not actively support Tsikhanouskaya, Babaryka or Latushka – but want to live better. We explain to them the value and importance of sovereignty for their lives, we explain how rising prices are related to Lukashenka's involvement in the war. And every day we communicate with the international community so that it understands the answers to the same questions: how the sovereignty of Belarus affects the state of affairs in Europe and how dangerous the crisis in Belarus is for the neighboring countries.
And if we talk about me personally, I spend most of my time talking to people. Hugging relatives of political prisoners, cheering up workers, asking activists how they are doing, listening to comments from cyber partisans… The state has not listened to people for years, and now, of course, I cannot talk to every person from Belarus alone. But I am trying to do it. Whether you may call it a result – you decide. But for me, the most important thing is people.
2. "New Belarus"
2.1 What is your (your organization's) vision of the New Belarus? What exactly do you want to build? In solutions, reforms, figures.
– It is not enough for us, Belarusians, to defeat Lukashenka – we need to defend the country's independence and return Belarus to the democratic path of development. For example, the parliamentary type of republic will help to prevent the recurrence of dictatorship. Our team has already published the Draft Constitution and amended it after a public debate – and is now preparing a package of bills that are primarily needed to rectify the situation where the regime has taken the country. For example, we have to return independent courts, divide the branches of power, and reform the electoral law – to allow the people to really participate in governing the country – not the way we were shown in 2020 and years before. This is the political foundation of the New Belarus.
It is equally important to take care of the economy, because the main duty of the state before people is to give them security, including protection from poverty. During these two years of communication with absolutely different Belarusians, I realized how important it is to stop restricting entrepreneurship and let businesses, both IT companies and those manufacturing goods, develop freely. Our team has been working for months to make the EU's plan for a democratic Belarus possible, which is 3 billion euros, already reserved for Belarusians to be unfrozen as soon as changes happen in the country. But the economists we work with say that this aid package may be increased up to 10 billion. And for me, it is important that this money is used to save people, to improve their lives. So many people now call and just tell me that they are saving even on food – this is what the illegitimate retention of power and the dictator’s complicity in war has led to.
Of course, the new Belarus is a country where sanctions have been lifted, where international companies are happy to invest and create new jobs. It is a country where all those who have been politically persecuted are released and rehabilitated – and can return to their homes. It is a country where parents do not cut down on their own expenses to provide for their children. And, of course, the new Belarus is a safe, sovereign, peaceful, non-nuclear country which is respected by all. Given what we see in research, it's a country with European values. And most importantly, a country where human initiative is encouraged, not destroyed. Experts in different fields are working on deeper characteristics – and I just want to add that this is a country where I live together with my husband and children in our house – and no one can break in because Belarusians are protected by law.
2.2 Do you (your organization) have a strategy for the next 3 years? A set of tasks derived from the strategic objectives, team, resources?
– We have scenarios and action plans for different scenarios. Now, after the war started, we know – we cannot assume that something will not happen because it is barely realistic or irrational. For example, the war, on the one hand, changed everything: we, Belarusians, had to answer the question whether we are co-aggressors or not. And we coped with this test – but we had to do a lot of work that we had not done before: convincing, explaining that Belarusans stand against the war, and providing proofs. On the other hand, our priorities have remained unchanged: we still stand for the release of all politically imprisoned people and the transit of power – through fair elections. In February, however, new priorities were added to these: protecting the independence of Belarus, helping stop the war in Ukraine, and ensuring the withdrawal of Russian troops.
We will discuss how to work together on these priorities at the Conference. I have a team, but I have already said above that it is not enough to meet all these challenges. I encourage partners to engage in a constructive dialogue about how we will share this responsibility. And we will find resources upon having concrete plans – we know this both from communication with Belarusian entrepreneurs who support the movement, and from international partners.
3. "Operational tasks"
3.1 What is your (your organization's) plan for releasing political prisoners?
– First of all, political prisoners need to be talked about every day so that everyone remembers about them – which is what I do. It is also important for people who are now in prisons – that we continue to write to them, help their children. But it is also important to prevent Lukashenka from trading the lives of these people. We insist that even during the war, the issue of political prisoners cannot be put aside. Our objective is for all of them to be released, not only some of them.
We are also trying to change the rules of recognition of political prisoners – some political prisoners are not recognised as such by human rights defenders. It is important that all those imprisoned on political grounds have this support.
We continue to demand UN action for the immediate release of political prisoners in grave physical condition, visits to prisons by representatives of the Red Cross and OSCE ODIHR, and access of priests to political prisoners.
And now my legal representative Sviatlana Babintseva is gathering an independent legal council of lawyers and human rights activists to finalize the Rehabilitation Act. This is a document which, in fact, is a road map of how to release all the innocent people in the shortest possible time. Its draft was proposed a year ago by Siarhei Zikratski, when he was a member of our team. But after a public discussion, and with the start of war, it became clear that the document had to be finalized. And it will be done not only by our team, but by an independent and professional council.
3.2 What is your (your organization's) attitude to the "Army of New Belarus"? If you consider this work front necessary, what exactly do you plan to support it in?
– An army requires enormous resources and an understanding of how it will operate, where and for what purpose. This is a very serious set of questions, including political ones – for example, on the territory of which country and in what status can such an army be based in the current situation? So far it looks like a beautiful, but not elaborated concept. But we will talk to the authors of this idea, including publicly at the Conference, and together we will be able to understand it better.
For example, I want to discuss that today it is perhaps better to focus efforts on organizing partisan struggle within the country. We support the Peramoga Plan – more than 200,000 people have joined it, and are counting on this plan at a key moment. It even has representatives of the active security forces in it.
And, of course, I am asking you not to forget to support Belarusian volunteers in Ukraine – they are heroes, whom, moreover, the regime clearly fears. And now, we are working to launch training courses for Belarusian officers at military academies in some countries neighboring Belarus. So we have something to discuss with those who are ready to take responsibility for this focus area.
3.3 Do you (your organization) have a plan in case of "black swans": "food riot", "death of Stalin", "transfer of hostilities to the territory of Belarus"?
– In 2020, we painted six scenarios of events and our actions in these cases. There was also the scenario of Russia starting a military invasion of Ukraine. Unfortunately, it came true. I have to admit that, although we allowed for this possibility, we were not prepared that war would actually start. For me personally, it came as a shock – as it did for many Belarusians.
After that, I started taking scenario development even more seriously, because your question is essentially about them. And recently people have joined our team who have strengthened this work. What was a revelation to me – it's clear from the messages we get from regime structures that they see the same scenarios. And although I can't say it's easy for Belarusians now, there are in fact no good scenarios for the regime.
And I see our task as developing a joint action plan with partners in different scenarios. For this, of course, we need to work together. But I see daily meetings of the organizing committee before the Conference – and there are members of the Coordination Council, the National Anti-Crisis Management, the Babaryka team, BYPOL, Supratsiu, representatives of parties and the civil sector – and this, frankly, really gives me faith that we can organize joint work.
It is important to understand that all scenarios in one way or another lead to a negotiating process – the only question is the balance of power and which sides will participate. And the regime's position is now rapidly deteriorating.
4. "The Future"
4.1 Do you (your organization) have a project of "cultural identification of the nation" (who we are, where we come from, where we are going)?
– I will start my answer by saying that when they say that in 2020 we saw the rebirth of Belarusians as a nation, I agree with that. Because I turned out to be among those who for the first time felt belonging to their country and responsibility for where it was going. And now, I have also tried many things on myself – in these two years, I have understood the value of our Belarusian culture, Belarusian language, and history. I have met a lot of talented, wise, bright people. This is who we are – a nation of hard-working, honest, and compassionate people for whom the most important things are the well-being of their families and the possibility to realize their potential. In 2020, it became clear how the regime hinders many Belarusians’ normal lives and efforts to make their lives better. Recently, a man shared a story of how he experienced the value of independence for the first time: He looked out the window (he lives in a Belarusian town) and saw a Russian tank passing by, a soldier was sitting on it with a bottle of vodka. And at that moment, the man realized that this way of life had nothing to do with him, a Belarusian.
That is why, in my opinion, what is happening now is exactly the events which forge Belarusians as a nation. All surveys show that the value of security in one's yard and in one's country is growing for people. A lot of my acquaintances are switching over to the Belarusian language. People open Belarusian schools, take more interest in their roots, and start to recognize themselves in the biographies of historical figures.
Therefore, if we answer this question from the political point of view, Belarusians should be helped to reveal their potential. This requires the support for independent media, cultural community, scientists, students, writers, and teachers. I know many responsible sportsmen and businessmen – they support their own people and their own business as much as they can. I try to help our initiatives whenever possible. Recently, we have recorded a video named the Belarusian Manifesto – and I specifically recorded it in a white T-shirt with a red heart, made by Belarusians. It's a small thing, but it's very important for us to take such steps towards each other.
Well, at every meeting within my visits I emphasize the need to put pressure on the regime, but at the same time support Belarusians. I know the example of the Dogs of Europe play by Mikalai Khalezin and Natallya Kalyada’s Free Theatre based on the book by Alhierd Baharevich. This book was written several years ago, and the play has been shown in Minsk. But in 2022, when the war had already started and this book became even more relevant to Belarusians, the play was shown in London. And it is not just because it is a great achievement. It is because at this time it has become very important to show the Belarusan identity.
Today, the cleansing of all Belarusians continues, and it is one of the main confirmations of the regime's betrayal. Therefore, we need to create and launch platforms and opportunities to keep promoting our Belarus. We are working with the Belarusian Council for Culture and Belarusian cultural initiatives, artists to promote Belarusian culture. This dialogue is already underway and will continue.
4.2 How do you (your organization) plan to protect the interests of Belarusian diasporas abroad? Is there a separate program?
– We are working on integrated solutions at the political level. This work began long before the war, but now it has become even more acute and urgent. On the one hand, it is the struggle against discrimination of Belarusians. On the other hand, to help civil society, repressed people, business – create conditions for those forced to flee. Through EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Johansson, we are resolving the issue of migration to the EU, access to the labor market, education, healthcare. We have already set up a working group with Poland, and concrete steps have been taken to introduce three-year humanitarian visas for Belarusians. In the Czech Republic, a verification system has been created to enable students to obtain visas and continue their studies.
We support People’s Embassies and respond to their requests, as well as the Belarusians Abroad, Razam communities, the Belarusian House, and many others. We should not forget about Belarusian national minorities in Poland, the Czech Republic and Lithuania – here we are creating and will continue creating cultural centers and opening Belarusian schools and classes.
We've been talking a lot lately about helping business associations. A business working group has emerged within the Office – because we realized that we hadn't paid enough attention to this matter, and with the outbreak of war, many entrepreneurs have faced discrimination because of their passport.
In all countries we gather information from the diaspora – and use it at political meetings to defend the interests of Belarusians. Yes, it is not always 100 percent successful, but the situation of Belarusians has greatly improved since the beginning of the war. We have managed not only to preserve the previous ones, but also to create new opportunities for Belarusians – such as scholarships or rehabilitation programmes. My personal joy is that we managed to launch the first program for children of political prisoners, and the first group left for rehabilitation and rest. I hope the program will expand.
What is also important is that our representations are appearing in different countries – for example, in the Czech Republic and Estonia our commissioners are already working, who can help the diaspora on behalf of "Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya". This is a great relief – because visits take a lot of time, and previously representatives of many countries were willing to communicate only with me. But now we have built strong contacts and given the way to solve our issues through more than one person.
4.3 Do you (your organization) see the need to form a "virtual network of Belarusians" – a digital space? Do you plan to participate in this work?
– I am very interested in the Digital Belarus project developed by Pavel Liber and his team. We communicate with Pavel, he is a frequent guest at the Office. He tells us about all the updates which will allow Belarusians to participate in decision-making, share information, and unite on common interests. At the political level, we have already started negotiations so that Digital IDs, planned to be launched, will have recognition in different countries, and their holders can enjoy some benefits and preferences. There is still a long way to go before the issues of visas and documents are resolved, but fortunately I am surrounded by people who set ambitious goals.
I believe these issues require a thorough publicly available discussion and you, as well as the public forces claiming to be "politicians», should pay attention to them.
– Thank you for your questions, Aliaksandr. They are designed for and require longer answers – but within the limitations of my schedule I answered them as thoroughly as I could. I know that you will attend the Conference on August 8-9, so see you there. And anyone who can't join offline, I invite you to join the live stream online. The list of speakers is already available, but I can tell you that the discussion will be moderated by Siarhiej Padsasonny, and the stream will be hosted by Katsiaryna Rayetskaya, so I am sure it will be engaging.
