Life Imitates Art -Vendetta in Belarus

By STEVE GUTTERMAN, Associated Press Writer

MINSK, Belarus - Riot police clashed with protesters in the Belarusian capital Saturday, forcing demonstrators back and hitting several with truncheons. Four explosions were heard, apparently percussion grenades set off by police.

The clash broke out after a line of riot police blocked the path of hundreds of protesters heading to a jail where demonstrators arrested in previous protests were being held. Police beat their shields with truncheons and advanced on the crowd.

The protesters began to disperse, yelling: "Fascists!" But police detained some 20 people and loaded them into large trucks.

At least two people were seen lying on the ground after the clash, apparently seriously hurt. An ambulance came to pick up the injured.

The main opposition candidate in the vote, Alexander Milinkevich, denied media reports that he himself was detained.

He told The Associated Press that his spokesman, Pavel Mazheika, was detained in a separate incident. Milinkevich went to a precinct house to attempt to secure his release.

"No, I have not been detained," he said. "I came to the (police precinct house) to help my press secretary, who was carrying equipment and was detained," he said.

However, Alexander Kozulin, an opposition leader who called on protesters to head to the jail after the rally, was beaten and detained during the clash, his spokeswoman, Nina Shidlovskaya said.

The violence came after an opposition rally drew thousands of Belarusians peacefully in a park to denounce President Alexander Lukashenko after a disputed election returned him to power.

Rows of black-clad police blocked the central October Square where opposition leaders had called for a rally at noon, pushing crowds back in a bid to end a week of unprecedented protests in the tightly controlled former Soviet republic. Demonstrators shouted "Shame!" and "Long live Belarus!"

Tensions mounted swiftly as police in full riot gear arrived by the busload to shove protesters back. The crowd at a major intersection near the square — where Lenin Street meets Independence Avenue — quickly swelled from a few hundred to some 3,000.

After gathering on the other side of the sprawling square with a crowd of about the same size, Milinkevich led supporters to a nearby park and the group swelled to as many as 5,000 people.

"The authorities can only confront the striving of the people for change with persecution and violence," Milinkevich told the crowd. Demonstrators held flowers and waved the red-and-white historic flag of the opposition.

"The people have come out today, they have come out in the face of truncheons, in the face of arrests. We are working against dictatorship," Milinkevich said. "The more the authorities conduct repression, the closer they bring themselves to their end." . . .