Nezavisimaya Gazeta

Putin’s opponents nominate themselves as an alternative

The opposition held a round table in Moscow yesterday that approved a strategy of democratic change and endorsed anti-Putin voting tactics in the upcoming presidential elections.

Hailed by the ex-YUKOS head, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the participants discussed a draft memorandum on a system-wide alternative to the authoritarian regime and inoperative government institutions. The memo urged abolition of media censorship, disbandment of unnecessary institutions like the Public Chamber and revision of sentences being served by unlawfully convicted persons and political prisoners.

They demand a reshuffle in the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court by next November, an independent judiciary, new election and party laws, and an investigation into the activities of the election commissions.

They also propose to hold early parliamentary elections in April 2013, whereupon they will draft a new Constitution and start preparations for early presidential elections to be scheduled for May 2014.

Left Front coordinator Sergei Udaltsov stressed that the authorities had deliberately opted for a confrontation. He suggested forming several working groups to draft plans for election, judicial and other reforms. It is up to the people, he says, to decide during free elections whether Russia should take a liberal or a conservative turn.

According to Udaltsov, the opposition should focus on training observers for the March elections. After March 5, the opposition must take to the streets and build up protests up to the point of organizing a general political strike, he said.

He told NG that the next opposition protest would take place on February 26, one week before the presidential election. The public must know that the opposition is alive and kicking, he said. But they are ready for talks as well: “We are prepared to talk with both Putin and Zyuganov.”

The Popular Freedom Party’s Mikhail Kasyanov commented on Putin’s recent Kommersant article by saying that the only thing Putin could do for democracy is to postpone the election. “Judging by Putin’s articles, he doesn’t see any real threat. He has proposed that initiatives signed by more than 100,000 people should receive attention. Will they be considered by his pocket Duma?”

Gazeta.ru

Belarusian villages rise up against Chinese high-tech invasion

Residents of several villages and summer communities in Belarus wrote an open letter to the president protesting a planned technology park in their area.

The government plans to relocate the residents and lease the land to Chinese investors who plan to manufacture home electronics where locals spend time barbequing and sunning themselves on the banks of a water reservoir.

The villagers who signed a letter to President Alexander Lukashenko demand a revision to the construction plans for the country’s largest industrial park. While presenting this project, Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovich boasted that they would see “something even more amazing than Skolkovo” in the vicinity.

The Belarusian Cabinet ratified an agreement to build a 20,000-acre industrial park near the capital, Minsk, in December 2011. The Chinese partners are represented by China CAMC Engineering Co. The new park is expected to employ 600,000 Chinese, while Belarusian population is 9 million. The project will take 15 years.

The area designated for the new industrial facilities holds several villages, a summer community, four children’s camps, a health rehabilitation centre and a water reservoir that in fact supplies fresh water to Minsk. It is home to several thousand people who are joined by another 10,000 vacationers in summer. The local residents had no idea of the government’s plans before they were approved because there had been no public consultations on the project.

“We found out by pure chance,” said Ksenia Zhuk, an accountant at the summer community. The houses are to be relocated. “People began protesting wildly after the New Year. They don’t want an industrial park. The woods are to be cut down, and the new plants will discharge pollutants directly into the reservoir. This area is environmentally clean, with rare plants and a rich wildlife. We will continue protesting.”

The crowd that gathered to sign the letter refused to be pacified by a local official’s statement that the final approval was yet pending, and suggested that the industrial park should be built in Alexander Lukashenko’s estate in Drozdy. Villagers joined the protests saying they were not going to leave their homes, where generations of their ancestors had lived, as the police stood watching.

The political movement Tell the Truth, headed by presidential candidate Vladimir Neklyayev, offered legal support to the protesters. “The decision was made without consulting the local residents,” said one of its leaders, Andrei Dmitriyev. “The land will be simply confiscated for ‘state needs’ in return for a meager compensation, far lower than its market value.”

Neklyayev is confident that the people will be able to save their land if they fight strongly. His lawyers plan to request project documents and demand public hearings on the area’s development. The open letter will be submitted to Lukashenko this week.

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