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Politicians, civil society activists discuss adoption of State Sovereignty Declaration

Opposition politicians and civil society activists held a round-table conference at the Belarusian Popular Front's office in Minsk on July 26 on the occasion of 20 years since the adoption of the Declaration of State Sovereignty, BelaPAN reports.

Alyaksey Shein, co-chairman of Belarusian Christian Democracy, said that a new generation had already grown up since the independence proclamation.

Aleh Trusaw, chairman of the Francisak Skaryna Belarusian Language Society who was a deputy of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic's Supreme Soviet in 1990, rejected "speculation by certain Russian journalists who like to write that independence dropped from the clouds for us and no one had fought for it."

"In fact nothing comes easy," he said. "The BPF opposition drew up the declaration's draft as soon as we became deputies in March 1990. We were the first to propose the draft. First we were laughed at but a few months passed and Russia and Ukraine adopted similar declarations. And then time came for us to do the same."

He expressed certainty that in five years Alyaksandr Lukashenka would be gone and Belarus' historically national flag and emblem would be reintroduced. "In 2007 the Pahonya emblem was declared a national value. Maybe we will live to see the same government declare our white-red-white flag a national value as well. But I'm against this government using our emblems. It invented the emblems of its own and let it take them along when it goes," Mr. Trusaw said.