Leo van Doesburg

In the afternoon, a number of interesting questions were discussed and voted on. First there was the question of whether the party should participate in the local elections in 2010. These elections would most probably not be held honestly. Would it not be better just to boycott the elections? Finally people voted for the option to participate in the elections. There should be a signal given to the people that an opposition and therefore alternatives exist. Also the campaigns could be used to spread the messages of the party and to make the party better known in Belarus. Another question was concerning the presidential elections planned for 2011. In these elections, all the opposition parties together form a coalition and name one presidential candidate. This joint candidate is chosen based on the support that this candidate has. Finally people voted that the co-chairman Vital Rymasheuski be nominated as presidential candidate for the BCD in the race for presidential elections for the j...

It was very busy in the hall of the conference centre as people were being registered. The organizers worked very hard throughout the night to finish everything in time and the conference room was decorated well for the congress. At 10:30 a.m. the congress was officially opened with the announcement that despite the fact that people were stopped on their way by the police (here called “militia”), and the presence of police and army at the square, the congress could take place, now 18 years after the independence of Belarus. This was followed with a loud “Long live Belarus”. This slogan was repeated throughout the congress After the opening prayer and practical and statutory matters, important persons gave their greetings. The first greeting, given by Stanislau Shushkievich, was remarkable. He was the one who signed, together with Boris Yeltsin and Leanid Crauchuk, the document for the dismantling of the Soviet Union in 1991. He was also the first prime minister of the independent Belar...

Minsk is a big, clean city, well lit and beautiful, with impressive buildings: a pleasant city to live in. On the other hand you see posters with militaristic, communist symbols on these big buildings. In front of the “parliament” building there is a big statue of Lenin. If you travel further, you will pass a big yellow building: the headquarters of the Belarusian secret service, still called the KGB here.Further, crossing the river you will see a kind of barn. This is the place where Lenin held his first communist congress in 1898. When you walk further, you will arrive at the Victory Square where a monument with an eternal flame to remember the victims of the Second World War when also many people were killed and 80% of the houses were destroyed.If you go further and leave the city, you will find one of the mass graves where hundreds of thousands of people were killed by this same communist regime. Every year, on the second Sunday in November, a procession is held to remember the vic...