President of Belarus Under Fire

The Belarusian president, now 57, loves hockey and has green-lighted a program to accelerate the building of many indoor rinks throughout the country. He is an avid player still and hosts an up-scale tournament. He is also active in affairs regarding the Belarusian Ice Hockey Federation, very hands on, one would say.

European Union lawmakers asked the IIHF to punish Belarus if the regime of Lukashenko refuses to release political prisoners. Also newly imposed media restrictions have surfaced throughout the country.

At the forefront of the protests are European Parliament members Marek Migalski of Poland and former Slovak and NHL hockey star Peter Stastny. They have also organized an internet signature campaign to move the 2014 championships out of Belarus.

Stastny is now trying to have one of the 70 IIHF Congress delegates — consisting of the presidents of all the national ice hockey federations – to put the question on the agenda at their meeting in Helsinki, Finland in May. He hopes that a majority will endorse the change of venue.

Referring to Lukashenko, Stastny said, “I know he is an avid hockey fan, he enjoys (it), and he is passionate. He plays hockey two or three times a week. It just hit me that if you touch upon somebody’s hobby and passion, you might just get good results, he might react and he might kind of open up gradually. You know the only condition is to release immediately those political prisoners.”

Stastny, who can speak Slovak, French and English fluently, concluded with, “To get to organize such an important event, it’s a matter of privilege, a matter of being rewarded. What is Belarus and the Belarussian regime right now being rewarded for? That is the question that bothers me.”

“The only thing which can force Lukashenko to change his internal policy is a boycott of the Ice Hockey World Championship,” said Austrian European Parliament member Hannes Swoboda. He added, “It’s the only leverage because it is a very important event for the Belarusian president personally.”

Recently, Lukashenko appeared on Russian-English television (RTV Network). The Rolco Sports Network obtained the transcript of the hockey portion of the interview.

RTV- Right now, could we start with ice hockey? Even though you’re personally involved in this, you’re an avid hockey fan, and you give a lot of your time to hockey, Dinamo-Minsk’s performance in the KHL has been very poor. It lost to Dinamo-Moscow, the team I support, so I am happy, but at the same time I feel sorry for your team. Why did that happen? And what are your prospects? The World Championship is not too far away, after all.

LUKASHENKO- I don’t know why you mentioned me at the beginning (interview) because I don’t play for Dinamo-Minsk. Had I played for them, they might have won. I’m joking, of course. First, objectively speaking, this is only the third year that our team has been playing at such a high level. And it is the second time we’ve made it into the playoffs. This is not bad at all. Second, we expected to go much further this year but I think the managers of our team made some mistakes when planning the season. They reached peak form during the first half of the season, when we defeated Dinamo-Moscow twice, and won many other games, and were ranked first in our division. But then we lost the momentum in the playoffs. You can’t possibly stay in your top form throughout the season. You need to be able to time the peak of your form…..

RTV- So it was a planning mistake?

LUKASHENKO- Yes. Timing the peak of the form is what Dinamo-Moscow did, as well as other teams that had lost to Dinamo-Minsk before that. We had beaten them before, but they managed to time the peak of their form to the most important game. I think this is the key reason.

RTV- What about the World Championship? Let’s not forget the fact that, despite Dinamo’s loss, Belorusia is still in the elite of world hockey. Do you have any surprises in the works for the World Championship?

LUKASHENKO- Well, I don’t think there should be any surprises there, although surprises are inherent in sports. They can happen at any time. However, we are not planning any surprises deliberately; neither are we planning to leave the elite of world hockey.

RTV- Mr. Lukashenko, the 2014 World Hockey Cup will be hosted in Belarus. There have been rumors, actually, about some plans to take the right to host the Championship away from Belarus and give it to another country. What do you think of those rumors? Is there any substance behind them, or are they just gossip?

LUKASHENKO- I heard that talk. It’s nothing more than talk. This is a purely political process that has nothing to do with sports. If it happens, it will be a blow to the reputation of the Hockey Federation at least, or to world sports in general at most. After all, Belarus has deserved and earned this World Championship, and we have done a great deal in preparations for it. I am sure that if this Championship in Minsk takes place, all journalists will say that they saw nothing like that before. You said we have been very hospitable and friendly during this meeting; the entire country is going to be just as hospitable and friendly when hosting the Hockey Championship.

RTV- So there are some surprises in the pipeline, I can feel that.

LUKASHENKO- Well, this is where God tells us to do our best.

Russian Hockey Federation Issues Support of Belarus

In other developments regarding the controversy to remove Belarus from hosting the 2014 world championships, an official of the Ice Hockey Federation of Russia weighed in. Valery Fesyuk, executive director of the federation said his group won’t support the European Parliament’s resolution calling on the International Ice Hockey Federation to keep the championships out of Belarus.

Fesyuk said, “The IIHF is one family. We are involved in sport. And sport, as everyone knows, is outside politics. If a misunderstanding occurs with one of the members of our family, then we will take a stand to defend him.”

In a rebuttal statement on the radio, Stanislau Shushkevich, the first leader of an independent Belarus, says he supports moving the 2014 ice hockey world championships away from Belarus. Shushkevich said a precedent for the move already exists — the 1969 championship scheduled in Prague that was moved to Stockholm in response to the 1968 Soviet crackdown on the Prague Spring reform movement.

The Czechoslovak team eventually won the 1969 championship, defeating the Soviet Union.

Shushkevich went on, “Holding the championship in Belarus would not open the country to the world. But our best hockey player among politicians and best politician among hockey players, the boss of Belarus (Alexander Lukashenka), will certainly lose if this championship is not held here, because he certainly wants to take advantage of this championship for his own purposes.”

Last year, when he was Chairman of European Parliament, former Prime Minsiter of Poland, Jerzy Buzek, with the support of fellow MPs called on the IIHF to move the World Hockey Championship from Belarus to another country.