Wednesday, May 2, 2001

Down and naked in Lukashenko's Minsk Humanitarian worker expelled as president again flexes his muscles By Kate Swoger Michal Plavec was naked when the secret police came for him. It was Friday the 13th of April, and he was bathing in a Minsk apartment his accusers would soon use as part of a pretext to deport him from Belarus, a former Soviet republic whose president has been accused of human-rights violations. Plavec, employed by the Czech humanitarian group People in Need, was taken by surprise. "This day was actually normal," he recalled in a Prague interview, puffing on a Lucky Strike, a habit he picked up a few years ago as a free-lance journalist in Kosovo. "When they rang on the door I was in the bathroom, wet, of course, naked. I thought it was my friend because we had a signal [ring] and this was the signal." Within seconds, about 10 officers, followed by a state television crew, burst into his flat, as Plavec stood dripping wet and clutching a towel around his waist. An agent stripped him of the towel. "I was holding it with one hand, [and] maybe he supposed that I had a gun hidden." For several minutes, Plavec says, "I was there as God created me." The dark humor had just begun. Police questioned Plavec about living in the apartment, where they claimed he wasn't officially registered. When he refused to sign a document he couldn't read, he was escorted to secret police headquarters. He was denied legal counsel, but allowed to call the Czech Embassy. A few hours later, he was deported. "I told them that I had money for the train, but they didn't want that, so they paid for plane tickets from Minsk to Warsaw -- business class," Plavec said, laughing. But he is mirthless when discussing the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko, an authoritarian figure who has been accused of sanctioning official terror. A number of opposition politicians and journalists are missing and presumed dead. Many Western nations do not recognize Lukashenko's government, accusing him of rigging a 1996 referendum to extend his term. The opposition boycotted parliamentary elections last October, while monitoring groups labeled the vote undemocratic. The United States refused to recognize the results, which sanctioned Lukashenko's rule. "The situation there is getting rapidly worse and worse," said Plavec. "People are afraid. Independent organizations are being infiltrated by KGB agents." Plavec said his deportation was part of a campaign against foreigners ahead of September's presidential election. Lukashenko, Plavec suggests, wants to sever the country from the outside world in an effort to snuff out opposition. Shortly after Plavec was expelled, Leonid Yerin, the country's state security chief, accused international groups who are helping train domestic election observers of recruiting spies. Plavec believes that meetings and exchanges he set up between Belarusians and Czechs may have provoked the expulsion. Members of the opposition look to the Velvet Revolution as an example of peaceful insurrection. Belarus has been in economic disarray since its creation following the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. Before that, large parts of its territory were scarred by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. Winds blew radioactive isotopes from neighboring Ukraine, where the disaster occurred. Plavec, who is both a journalist and a human-rights activist, joined People in Need three years ago. He has reported from Kosovo, Montenegro, Macedonia and Albania. Vivid memories For Plavec, contact between Belarusians and foreigners is vital to bringing about change in the country, especially links with former Soviet bloc nations that are now flourishing democracies. Not only is the relationship beneficial to Belarusians, but to Czechs who need to keep the memory of their authoritarian past vivid, he said. "Now Czechs can't and don't want to think about [what it was like]. It's better to forget," Plavec said. "I was a teenager when the communist era ended and I didn't know what the secret service was. Now, I can imagine it because I lived under a similar regime." He sees little reason for optimism in Belarus. Lukashenko currently enjoys about 40 percent support among the voters, while even the most powerful opposition leaders rate only about 5 percent. The Plavec file Michal Plavec Age: 28, born in Nymburk, central Bohemia Organization: People in Need foundation. Headed Belarus office. Education: Studied history at Charles University, but dropped out "because of life." Professions: Free-lance journalist in Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro; humanitarian worker, poet. Expelled: April 13 from Minsk, Belarus, after secret police claimed he was living illegally. "Belarusians are first and foremost afraid of war," he explained. "The propaganda now claims that NATO is preparing an occupation, that if the opposition wins [the people] will lose their jobs and everything." He doesn't believe in parallels with Serbia under Slobodan Milosevic, who was toppled last fall. Yugoslavs were at least able to work in the West during the communist era, he points out. "There is a different mentality. The Balkan people have always been fighters," he said. Some Western diplomats have speculated that Russia -- which signed a cooperation pact with Belarus in 1995 and an agreement on economic union a year later -- will eventually help depose Lukashenko in favor of someone more friendly to Moscow. But Lukashenko could also manage to hang on until 2006, and even beyond -- perhaps as the governor of a Belarus that is part of "greater" Russia. But Plavec isn't sure. "You know, in Belarus, anything can happen," he said. Kate Swoger's e-mail address is kswoger@praguepost.cz