Belarus: NATO rejects claims that foreign troops are on the border

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s claims that “foreign powers” are organizing a build-up of troops on the country’s border are groundbreaking, NATO said.

The president dressed in military fatigues, saying he had placed his armed forces on ‘high alert’.

Protests continued on Saturday in the streets of Minsk following a disputed election two weeks ago.

Protesters demand Mr Lukashenko’s downfall.

The leader, who has ruled Belarus for 26 years, claimed that the NATO bloc was trying to split Belarus and install a new president in Minsk.

He said troops in Poland and Lithuania were ready, and that he was moving his armed forces to the western border of the country.

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“They are escalating the situation in our country, trying to overthrow the authorities,” Mr Lukashenko said, adding that he had instructed his security chiefs “to take the utmost measures to defend the territorial integrity of our country.”

Nato rejected the claim, saying it “poses no threat to Belarus or any other country and no military build-up in the region. Our stance is strictly defensive.”

“The regime is trying at all costs to divert attention from Belarus’ internal problems with completely baseless statements about imaginary external threats,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda told the AFP news agency.

A Polish presidency called the suggestion that Poland had placed any border destabilization plan “regime propaganda” by the Belarusians, which was “sad and surprising”. “Poland … has no such intention,” the official added.

NATO urged Belarus to respect the fundamental human rights of its citizens.

Mr Lukashenko was re-elected president on August 9, but the vote was widely considered fraudulent. Protesters fighting the result were hit by a brutal raid that killed at least four people and protesters said they were tortured in prisons and detention centers.

Belarus – the basic facts

Where is Belarus? It has Russia – its former imperial master – to the east and Ukraine to the south. In the north and west lie the EU and NATO members Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

Why does it matter? Like Ukraine, this nation of 9.5 million is caught in rivalry between the West and Russia. President Lukashenko, an ally of Russia, has been nicknamed “Europe’s last dictator”. He has been in power for 26 years, holding much of the economy in state hands, and using censorship and policing by police against opponents.

What’s happening? Now there is a huge opposition movement, which demands new, democratic leadership and economic reform. They say Mr Lukashenko rigged the August 9 election – officially winning by a landslide. His supporters say his toughness has kept the country stable.

The president has vowed to crush the unrest and has previously blamed the dissident for taking on “foreign-backed revolutionaries.”

On Saturday, crowds of Protestants waved flashing lights of mobile phones and flew Belarusian flags in the streets of Minsk, chanting “freedom”.

Police in riot gear stormed a rally on Friday, removing hundreds of protesters by truck, according to the Interfax news agency.

A “solidarity” chain of hundreds of people, many wearing white, formed earlier in the day on the busy Komarovka retail market.

It follows the country’s biggest protest in modern history last weekend when hundreds of thousands filled the streets.

Opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who was forced into exile the day after the election, vowed to “stand to the end” of the protests.

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She told the BBC that if the movement stopped now, they would be “slaves”. “We have no right to step back now,” she said.

Ms Tikhanovskaya said the BBC voted for Belarus, not as a future president but as a “symbol of change”.

“They raged for their future, for their desire to live in a free country, against violence, for their rights,” she said in her only interview with a Western media outlet.