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https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/brody/ukrainian_collaboration.htm https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/STUDIES%20IN%20INTELLIGENCE%20NAZI%20-%20RELATED%20ARTICLES_0015.pdf https://www.archives.gov/files/iwg/reports/hitlers-shadow.pdf≤

https://chas.cv.ua/politics/15329-bandervc-melnikvc-obyednuyutsya.html https://www.istpravda.com.ua/research/2012/01/16/55531/

In the summer of 1996, deputies of the 199-member Belarusian parliament signed a petition to impeach Lukashenko on charges of violating the Constitution.^[1] Shortly after that, a referendum was held on 24 November 1996 in which four questions were offered by Lukashenko and three offered by a group of Parliament members. The questions ranged from social issues (changing the independence day to 3 July (the date of the liberation of Minsk from Nazi forces in 1944), abolition of the death penalty) to the national constitution. As a result of the referendum, the constitution that was amended by Lukashenko was accepted and the one amended by the Supreme Soviet was voided. On 25 November, it was announced that 70.5% of voters, of an 84% turnout, had approved the amended constitution. The US and the EU, however, refused to accept the legitimacy of the referendum.^[2]

What was the power struggle about?

Lukashenko immediately started consolidating power in the executive branch.^[3]

[1] [2]

[3]

[4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]

https://books.openedition.org/ceup/581

https://news.tut.by/society/500773.html

Controversy

Throughout the IIHF's history, various events have been seen as controversial. During the Cold War, IIHF ice hockey tournaments served as a microcosm of the war as the dominant ice hockey nations were largely either North American or from the Eastern Bloc. This was not viewed as being especially controversial as it was in keeping with cultural tensions during the Cold War.

In the 1970s and 1980s, new competitions between East European, primarily Soviet and Czechoslovakian, amateurs and Northern American professionals contributed to a debate about the value of amateur versus professional ice hockey. [13]

The IIHF received widespread international criticism for holding the 2014 Men's Ice Hockey World Championships in Belarus because of its poor human rights record. The IIHF again received criticism for planning to partly hold the 2021 Men's Ice Hockey World Championships in Belarus.^[4]^[5] In January 2021, after tournament sponsors threatened to withdraw from the event,^[6]^[7]^[8] the IIHF withdrew the 2021 World Championship from Minsk due to safety and security issues during the political unrest, besides the COVID-19 pandemic and decided to solely hold the tournament in Riga, Latvia.^[9]

Controversial flagpoles of the teams at the 2021 IIHF World Championship in Riga, Latvia

On 24 May 2021, following the Ryanair Flight 4978 incident, Latvian officials replaced the Belarusian state flag in Riga with the former flag defaced with the former coat of arms used by opposition groups, including at the 2021 IIHF World Championship display of flags. In a letter addressed directly to Latvian foreign minister, Edgars Rinkēvičs, IIHF president René Fasel asked for either the IIHF name, its flag and its symbols to be removed from such sites, or the offical Belarusian flag be restored, insisting that the IIHF is an "apolitical sports organization".^[10] In response, Staķis said he would remove the IIHF flags.^[11]^[12]

Last dictator of Europe

Europe's last dictatorship or Europe's last dictator, and variations thereof, have been used in Western media to refer to Belarus and Alexander Lukashenko respectively for almost two decades. Lukashenko has been the president of Belarus since Belarus became independent in 1994. He has been elected in six elections, in 1994, 2001, 2006, 2010, 2015 and 2020 which were declared to be democratic and fair by official sources but have all but the first one been disputed by international organisations such as the OSCE and other more established democratic countries. Since the last elections in 2020, there have been mass protests in Belarus and Lukashenko is not recognised as the legitimate president by the European Union, the US nor the UK but rather Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya the main opposition candidate.

The term has been used by leading national media in several Western countries including, the US, UK, Denmark,^[13] and France^[14] to name a few.

Background

According to American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington there is a general historical trend discernible toward democratisation of governance in the form of waves of democracy. According to him, the democratisation of the Eastern bloc constitutes the third wave. Exceptions to this general trend have been termed as democratic backsliding.

Use of term

The first documented use of the term 'last dictator' is from a BBC article from 2001 published in the wake of the September 11 attacks.^[15] That article states that: "Belarus began to earn its reputation as Europe's last communist dictatorship in 1996, when Mr Lukashenko used a referendum on constitutional changes to rid himself of an awkward parliament."^[15]

In the article "Dark Days in Belarus" published in the Journal of Democracy in October 2002, in an issue dedicated to democratisation, political scientist Roger Potocki refers to Lukashenko as "Europe’s “last dictator”" in the opening sentence.^[16]

Since then the terms have increasingly been used to describe the country and it's leader.^[17] In a statement to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2005, Condoleezza Rice, then US secretary of state, listed Belarus as one of six countries she termed outposts of tyranny.^[18] She elaborated that Belarus failed the so-called "town square test": if a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm, then that person is living in a fear society, not a free society. We cannot rest until every person living in a "fear society" has finally won their freedom.^[18] In a CNN interview a couple of months later she described Belarus as Europe's last dictatorship.^[19]

More recently two critical books were published in 2011, one by political scientist Andrew Wilson published the book "Belarus: The Last European Dictatorship"^[20] and the other by former UK ambassador to Belarus, Brian Bennett, "The Last Dictatorship in Europe: Belarus Under Lukashenko".^[21] There is an abundance of both academic and general media using the terms.^[22]^[23]^[24]^[25]^[26]