Moscow (EFE).- The President of the United States Donald Trump, convinced the authoritarian Belarusian leader, Alexandr Lukashenko, to pardon over a hundred prisoners on Saturday, including the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski.
In exchange, Trump lifted another package of sanctions against Belarus, considered the last dictatorship in Europe and Russia’s main ally in the war in Ukraine.
According to the presidential press office, the pardon took place after two days of intense consultations between Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, and the White House envoy, John Cole.
Trump is trying to gain an ally for his plan to end the war in Ukraine.
Human rights organizations were confident that Trump would secure the release of Belarus’s principal political prisoners, especially since Trump himself aspires to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
A few months ago, Sergei Tikhanovsky, Lukashenko’s greatest enemy and the husband of opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, was released. As of Saturday, Bialiatski and 122 other prisoners were released.
The fragile health of Ales Bialiatski, the 63-year-old founder of the human rights organization Viasna, led the Belarusian opposition to fear the worst.
Amnesty International had repeatedly called for his release, as he was repeatedly sent to solitary confinement and denied the medication he needed since his arrest in 2021 and sentencing to 10 years in prison in 2023.
News from the prison was not encouraging. Bialiatski had been held isolated since May 2023, when transferred to notorious Prison Number 9 in Gorki, Moguiliov Region, known for its harsh confinement conditions.
“The struggle continues,” he said upon arriving at the US Embassy in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, on Saturday.
Maria Kalesnikava, known as “the heart” of the 2020 protests against electoral fraud, is another opposition leader released on Saturday. Since then, international organizations have reported over a thousand political prisoners in Belarus.
Kolésnikova was forcibly taken to the Ukrainian border, where she tore up her passport and refused to be deported. She was subsequently sentenced to 11 years in prison for conspiring to seize power.
Lukashenko also pardoned Viktor Babariko, a well-known banker who was imprisoned five years ago before registering his candidacy for president.
Other activists, journalists, and foreign citizens were also released and transferred to Ukraine.
Withdrawal of sanctions for pardons
Hours earlier, the White House announced the lifting of sanctions on Belarusian potash. Before being sanctioned in 2021, the state corporation Belaruskalia exported over 10 million tons of potassium chloride, accounting for 20% of the world’s total and placing it behind only Russia and Canada.
“In line with the orders of US President Donald Trump, sanctions on potash are being lifted. I consider it a good step by the US with Belarus. We are lifting them right now,” Cole told local media, as reported by the BELTA agency.
He added that as relations between the two countries normalize, more sanctions will be withdrawn and expressed confidence that the time will come when there are no restrictions on the Belarusian dictatorship.
It mattered little that Lukashenko had violently suppressed anti-government protests in 2020, organized hybrid attacks against NATO countries, and ceded his territory to the Russian army for its invasion of Ukraine.
“We have discussed the war between Ukraine and Russia, as well as Venezuela. We have talked about the future and how to advance the rapprochement between the US and Belarus to normalize relations. That is our goal,” said the US envoy.
In August, while traveling to Alaska for his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump demanded that Lukashenko release all political prisoners.
Belarus argued that the pardon was the result of “agreements reached” with Trump regarding “the cancellation of illegal sanctions against the Belarusian potash sector adopted by the previous US administration under Joe Biden.”
Since November, Lukashenko has pardoned a total of 156 citizens from countries such as the US, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Australia, Japan, Lithuania, and Latvia.
Belarus, a country known for using political prisoners as bargaining chips in negotiations with the West, stressed that the pardons would contribute to stabilizing the situation in Europe. At the time, Belarus accepted the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons on its territory.
Washington had previously lifted sanctions imposed in 2022 on the Belavia airline.EFE
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