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Opposition activists stage commemorative procession to Stalin-era massacre site

 

Some 100 people, mostly opposition activists, took part in a commemorative procession staged in Minsk on Sunday to honor the memory of the victims of the Stalinist terror on the occasion of Dzyady (Remembrance of Ancestors Day).

The march, organized by the Conservative Christian Party (CCP) and sanctioned by the Minsk city and district authorities, ran from the Culture Palace of the Worsted Mill on Mayakowskaha Street to Loshytsa Park, a Stalin-era massacre site.

Participants displayed Belarus’ historically national white-red-white flags, the banners of the CCP and an opposition youth organization called Malady Front, as well as banners saying, “Dzyady” and “Let Us Defend Belarus from Russian Imperialism!”

The march ended with a rally in Loshytsa Park. CCP Executive Secretary Valery Buyval read out an address by Zyanon Paznyak, in which the émigré CCP leader, formerly a historian and archeologist, noted that he estimated up to 10,000 people were executed and buried at the site by the NKVD in the 1930s.

“After we carried out excavations at Kurapaty, we planned to do excavations in the Loshytsa ravine, but the Communist authorities learned about this and decided to fill up the ravine, cover the area with asphalt and build garages there,” Mr. Paznyak, who emigrated in 1996, said in his address.

CCP Deputy Chairman Yury Belenki stressed that the Belarusians would be able to build an independent and economically strong state only if they managed to preserve the national language and culture.

At the end of the rally, participants sang together "Mahutny Bozha" (Oh, Lord Almighty), a Belarusian-language religious anthem.