Devoir 1-Answers
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Texte 1 adapted from VOANews.com
"Freed Belarus Presidential Candidate: Lukashenko Only Responds to Pressure",
April 16, 2012, James Brooke
Andrei Sannikov ran for president of Belarus in December 2010 against Alexander
Lukashenko, ruler of Belarus since 1994. For his pains, Sannikov and six other
presidential candidates were beaten by police and jailed. On Saturday night, the eve
of Orthodox Christian Easter, Sannikov was unexpectedly released from jail.
After 16 months in jail, Andrei Sannikov said Monday that he was literally blinking
in the sunshine.
He spoke of his sudden reunion in Minsk with his wife, Irina, and their four year old
son, Danil.
“Fantastic; that was something I waited for so long, and I hoped - not every day, but
every second - I hoped that it would happen, and finally it happened,”
Sannikov, a former deputy foreign minister, honed his English while working as a
diplomat in New York. He said he fears for the 15 other political prisoners in
Belarus, including one other former presidential candidate.
Sannikov was released early from a five-year sentence. He described the pressure of
living in a high security prison, controlled by a security agency still called in Belarus,
the KGB.
“It was really unbearable psychologically, and physically also," he said. "There was
a lot of pressure on me, threats, pressure and for almost four months I was in a
solitary cell.”
As a politician, Sannikov led “European Belarus.” He said Belarus should look west
and join the European Union. As leader of a cause popular among young people in
this Central European nation, he said he felt that his life was always in danger in
prison.
He said the most frightening times came when he was locked in prison railroad cars
with criminals and moved from prison to prison.
“You can expect anything there because you are not controlling the situation," he
said. "You are absolutely helpless. They could plant with you any criminal with
whatever intentions or instructions. It was really very dangerous situation. You have
to be on guard 24 hours a day.”
While Sannikov was in prison, President Alexander Lukashenko moved closer to
Russia, receiving loans that saved Belarus from falling into a deep recession.
In the West, European countries saw no progress on human rights. They withdrew all
their ambassadors and tightened sanctions against Lukashenko regime officials.
Sannikov praised the European Union for following Washington’s lead and adopting
a tough sanctions policy.
He said the West should treat the Lukashenko government the way it once treated the
Soviet Union.
"It was based on principle," said Sannikov. "So we have to base our policy, our
activity here, in Belarus, on principle, and the West, the democratic world in general,
has to base their policy on principle."