Dictatorship Instead of Ecology
Crisis Management in Lukashenka’s Belarus
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
The Lukashenka regime has a considerable interest in playing down the Chernobyl’s aftereffects. Given the medical and social problems, which Belarus can hardly address, it is easier for the regime to declare that the accident’s consequences have been overcome. This preempts resistance to the planned construction of nuclear power plants. Scientists who expose Chernobyl’s dangerous consequences are silenced, because they undermine the dictator’s authority. Paradoxically, this authority is reenforced by the way Lukashenka presents himself to the victims as a strong leader and so keeps alive nostalgic memories for the Soviet era.
(Osteuropa 4/2006, pp. 117–130)