The U.S. and European Union strongly condemned the actions of the Belarusian authorities at a mass opposition rally on the day of the presidential elections of December 19. In particular, the U.S. State Department spokesman Crowley said that the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko had missed a chance for rapprochement with the West, thus making Washington to keep all sanctions against Minsk in force.
In turn, EU High Representative for Foreign Policy Catherine Ashton called for the immediate release of all detained of the Belarusian opposition.
Earlier, U.S. State Department said that Washington could not accept the results of presidential elections in Belarus as legitimate. Besides, the OSCE stated of no possibility to talk positively about the elections in Belarus and of being seriously disappointed with the counting of votes.
In response, Alexander Lukashenko declared that his country would not «break its back, crawl, or persuade.» «I have said to all the OSCE leaders that we’re ready to be full partners in the dialogue,» he said. The Belarusian leader also stressed that the opposition protests in Minsk «are not a democracy, but banditry.»
Let’s recall that presidential elections were held in Belarus on December 19 with a landslide victory of Alexander Lukashenko, having gained more than 79% of votes.
After the voting the opposition held an unsanctioned rally at Kastrychnitskaya Square in central Minsk, and then attempted to capture the Government House, but action was suppressed by the internal troops and Special Forces. According to the media, three opposition candidates — Rygor Kastusiou, Andrei Sannikov and Nikolai Statkevich, were detained in Minsk.
