We remember... Viktor Gonchar

Gonchar realized that the regime could be overcome only by consolidated strength Courage, audacity, great will-power, and desire for justice - these are features of the character of Victor Iosiphovich Gonchar, which made him one of the most serious opponents of Alexander Lukashenko.

Lukashenko absolutely knew that Gonchar’s political potential really could undermine the existing “vertical” administrative system. Such an opponent was a real threat to Lukashenko. So, on September 16, 1999, Victor Gonchar disappeared together with his friend, well-known entrepreneur Anatoliy Krasovski. It was the second kidnapping of a well-known Belarusian politician after the traceless disappearance of Yuri Zaharenko, the ex-minister of the Interior Affairs Department in Belarus.

The kidnapping of Victor Gonchar appeared to be not unexpected for Gonchar’s friends and relatives: for the last five years he was exposed to the authorities pressure three times.

An attempt upon his life was made in 1995. At that time Gonchar was a deputy of the Belarusian Supreme Soviet of the 13th convocation and held the post of Chief Secretary of the CIS Economic Court. He consistently opposed Lukashenko and often criticized his authoritarian management of the country’s affairs.

In the evening on June 14, 1995, near Gonchar’s home, his car was shot at. In the car with him were Ekaterina Antonik — the deputy assistant — and Evgeni Lychev — the Head of the CIS Economic Court Department. Police officers shot at the car, thinking, according to the official report, that there were criminals in the car. It was then also found out that the shooter was in a car, which belonged to the President’s Security Service.

On the eve of the referendum in November 1996 Victor Gonchar was the head of the Central Election Committee and strongly protested against the referendum imposed by Lukashenko with the aim of consolidating power. Lukashenko ordered Vladimir Naumov, head of the President Security Service (now the Minister of the Interior Affairs) to dismiss Gonchar and not let him in the Central Election Committee office.

Victor Gonchar was one of the first who appended their signatures in favor of impeachment of the President. However, Lukashenko’s dismissal did not happen — some deputies, under the influence of conclusive arguments and pressure, withdrew their signatures.

After the coup d’etat committed by Lukashenko, the Supreme Soviet deputies organized an investigation committee to gather information about the constitutional violations of the President. Victor Gonchar headed that committee. The committee analyzed almost all of the Presidential decrees and declared that practically all of them violated the Constitution. Considering the referendum, which had taken place in November, the Committee came to the conclusion that it could not be declared legitimate. That meant Lukashenko had illegally seized power and was, therefore, to be impeached. Victor Gonchar sent this conclusion to all Belarusian government authorities and establishments as well as to foreign embassies and other competent international organizations. That became the main reason that the Office of the Public Prosecutor brought an accusation of slander against Victor Gonchar according to the article 128 of the Criminal Code. Gonchar refused to appear in the Public Prosecutor’s Office, because he considered such actions illegal. A legal action against a Supreme Soviet deputy can only be brought to court by common consent of the Supreme Soviet. As the result, the Gonchar case was not taken into court.

In the autumn of 1998 Gonchar, restored by the Supreme Soviet, again became the head of the Central Election Committee. There were then two Central Election Committees in the country — a second one had been appointed by the President.

As the result, the Central Election Committee in opposition began arrangements for alternative elections for the Presidency of Belarus. Gonchar was in the charge of the ‘brain center’ of this campaign. Quickly, the Election Committees of different levels were set up across the country. Mikhail Chigir, ex-Prime Minister of Belarus, and Zenon Poznyak, chairman of the Belarusian Popular Front, became the presidential contenders. Gonchar managed to create an intensive information field not only in Belarus: elections in Belarus became a subject of discussion for all Russian TV channels and international information agencies. These events frightened Lukashenko and he lost his nerve and his composure.

Election campaign activists were brought to disciplinary, administrative and criminal account. The sitting of the court concerning Victor Gonchar case was set up on the day after the Central Election Committee meeting on February 25, 1999 in the “Coliseum” cafй. The legal process took place behind closed doors. The judge (Zenkovich) ignored the right of Gonchar to legal defense and sentenced him to 10 days’ imprisonment. Gonchar immediately went on a hunger strike. When Gonchar was driven to the prison, he was fastened by handcuffs to a handrail and beaten severely. Even in such a desperate situation Gonchar did not lose courage or mind and repeated that he would not give up his political activity and would continue it with his last bit of strength. Unmercifully beaten, he was put to prison and none were allowed to visit him.

Gonchar served the time of his imprisonment. When the police officers drove him home from the prison, they did not even reach his house (there too many press representatives) and simply threw him out into the snowdrift some kilometers away from his house.

All that did not crush his will or spirit. Victor Gonchar held the presidential elections on May 16, 1999. The elections could not be considered legitimate as not all the citizens were able to come and give their votes because of the atmosphere of fear and violation. Nevertheless, I suppose that was the strongest action held by the opposition after the referendum in November. It revealed that in our country there are many people who do not support the Lukashenko regime and are ready to strive for freedom.

On July 21, 1999 the opposition held a popular action under the name of “The First Day without the President”. Victor Gonchar gathered people on Oktyabrskaya Square, near the Presidential residence, and addressed the meeting, fearlessly criticizing the President. He stated from that moment Lukashenko as a president was considered to be illegitimate and all his following actions would be regarded as usurpation of power. Gonchar urged the enforcement authorities and government employees not to execute Presidential decrees, which had no legal force, otherwise they would answer for the consequences. At the end of his speech, Victor made an appeal to Lukashenko to leave office, as he had no legal right to be in power. That day nearly 50 people were arrested and later subject to administrative and criminal persecution.

Gonchar realized that Lukashenko’s regime could be overcome only by consolidated strength. That strength should be presented by representative legal authority — the Supreme Soviet — which would unite opposition political parties, trade unions, and social organizations. With this purpose Victor Gonchar carried on negotiations with practically all influential forces and structures. He was preparing on September 19,1999 to hold a meeting of the 13th Supreme Soviet for the leaders of opposition parties, associations and trade unions, where he was planning to deliver a speech and present a program of getting Belarus out of the economic and political crisis. Gonchar believed that after that session the Supreme Soviet would become a coordinating center of all democratic forces, which would plan all the actions for the dismissal of the illegitimate president.

Unfortunately, Victor Gonchar did not make his speech. On September 16, 1999 at about 11 p.m. near the bath-house at Fabrichnaya Street he and his friend, Anatoliy Krasovski, were captured by unknown people, presumably by someone from the Belarusian Special Security Services. The Minsk Public Prosecutor’s Office instituted proceedings on the basis of crime evidence, according to the article 101 of the Belarusian Criminal Code — premeditated murder.

Oleg Volchek,
chairman of social association “Legal Assistance to Population”

On January 29, 1997 (shortly after the referendum in November 1996) a group of deputies from the dissolved Supreme Soviet set up an investigation committee to examine constitutional violations by Lukashenko. The committee started its investigation trying to ascertain whether legal grounds existed for the impeachment of the President. Inasmuch as the committee did not have official standing, its conclusions, decisions and resolution did not have legal force. Nevertheless, the enforcement authorities opened legal cases against all members of the committee, including Victor Gonchar and Andrei Klimov.

It is known that the committee analyzed 156 edicts and decrees, which it considered illegal or which violated Constitution. The committee characterized the referendum of November, 1996 as “seizure of government power” and concluded that the President was subject to impeachment. Those conclusions were sent to government authorities and foreign embassies. In July 1997 the Belarusian Public Prosecutor’s Office opened a criminal case against Victor Gonchar and other members of the committee according to the article 128 (2) of the Criminal Code - slander, including an accusation of a heinous crime. Conviction under that article could carry 5 years of imprisonment. After the case was declared open, the investigation got under way. Gonchar said to the representatives of international human rights organizations:

Considering my status as a Supreme Soviet deputy, I informed the Prosecutor’s Office that I would give any explanations on committee actions only to the Supreme Soviet. The Prosecutor’s Office pursued a different a course. A warrant was signed for my arrest, and militia officers took me to the prosecutor’s office by force after my refusal to testify. Investigation officers conducted a search of my apartment, looking for papers, which referred to Committee actions.

The search resulted in nothing. Although, according to Gonchar, the case was not closed, there were no further arrests or investigations against the members of the Committee.

Andrei Klimov was a successful entrepreneur. Using the profits from housing construction he founded a bank and a newspaper, called by his name. On February 10, 1998 he sent a letter with the Committee conclusions to the Prosecutor’s Office, the head of the Interior Affairs Department, the head of Tax Inspection, and every head of the local Administration.

On February 11, the day after the letter had been sent, when Klimov and his wife went out, three men in civilian clothes got out of a nearby car, showed Interior Affairs Department identity cards and arrested them. Later Tatiana was set free without any accusations, but Andrei was accused according to the article 91 of Criminal Code – large scale embezzlement and article 151 – doing business without a license.

Although Human Rights Watch cannot comment on the validity of these accusations, three facts point to the political nature of this criminal offence. First, and most obvious, the choice of time for the arrest. Second, the commission mostly met at Klimov’s office, provoking regular examinations of the firm’s activity. For all of 1997 “the examination of the firm’s activity was ongoing by the Security services and the Investigation agencies…” Third, and finally, law-enforcement services refused to release Klimov on bail – at the moment of writing of this report he has been under arrest for four months, despite the fact that the law provides for pre-trial detention as a possible replacement for the punishment sentence.

The Report of the International Remedial Organization “Human Rights Watch”
July 1998, volume 10

On the 1st of March at about 1:30 in the afternoon, the head of the Central Commission of the Presidential elections was arrested by militia officers in Minsk.

As BelaPAN informed in the press-center “Charter ‘97,” Gonchar was in his car, parked on Kiseleva Street, when he was asked by three militia officers to follow them. The commission chief refused to get out of his car. Then some militia buses came and blocked in Gonchar’s BMW. He was then taken from the car by force. The side window of the car was broken. By the news from “Charter ’97”, the head of CEC was put into the militia “Volga” and taken to court. Now Victor Gonchar is supposed to spend 10 days in jail despite the fact that his responsibilities as head of commission were not relinquished by anybody.

Yriy Alecseev,
BelaPAN, “Narodnay Voliy”, № 38, 03.03.99

For the first ten days of March 1999, Belarus and the world waited arduously for news from the holding cell of the capital. In this “political prison” Victor Gonchar struggled with the regime. Gonchar is the head of Central Commission of Presidential Elections, which was appointed by the deputies of Supreme Soviet of the 13th convocation. Struggling to the death in the full sense of the word, Victor Iosivich refused food, water and medical care for the whole ten days. Like Aleksandr Motrosov in 1942, Victor Gonchar did not have a weapon except for his own body and will power.

The Head of Central Commission gave his first interview to “Narodnay Voliy.” Since this paper is delivered daily to the “people’s prison”, Victor Iosifovich got news about events taking place outside the prison walls just from this paper

— Victor Iosifovich, could you first remember some details about events on the 1st of March. How were you “arrested”?

— At 1:30 in the afternoon my car was surrounded on every side by six cars of foreign manufacture. A Militia colonel, not introducing himself and not showing his papers, asked me to get out of the car to talk. I tried to call my wife on my cell phone to inform her about this assault but at that moment one of militia officers broke out window on the right side of the car and punched me in the head. I was pulled from the car and taken to the police station.

— And how were you received in the station?

— Rude. In response to my demand that they show me the papers explaining the grounds for my arrest, the lieutenant on duty answered: “The papers are for us, not for you.” After that they confiscated all my belongings and papers and sent me to a cell.

— Is that to say that you were arrested without court permission or prosecutor’s sanction? Did they draw up a statement of arrest at least?

— They did not produce for me any papers about the arrest nor did they orally tell me the reasons for my deprivation of liberty. And after some period of time I was conveyed to the judge.

— At that time, as I know, your colleague from the Supreme Soviet Valery Schukin was raging before the militia department’s door, demanding to be allowed in court, but he did not see the convoy.

— I heard the indignations of Schukin, both a deputy and human rights activist, about breaking the law and Constitution. But the escort of four militia officers brought me to a judge through a side entrance and internal yard.

— Does that mean that politician Gonchar was judged by an extraordinary “police” court which is forbidden by the article 109 of Constitution?

— Super extraordinary! Without public or journalists, without lawyers, without witnesses, without even allusion to legal procedure. The process took only three minutes and consisted of the declaration of judge Valentina Zenkevich’s “verdict” – her decision.

— There is a decision of V. Zenkevich, the judge of the court of the “police department,” about forcible arrest. But did you have any writ from court?

— No, I did not. I got neither written nor phone notification, nor oral invitation from the court.

If it is so that means judge Zenkevich committed functionary forgery (article 171, Criminal Code — author’s note).

— How were you taken to the “political prison”?

— About a dozen militia officers knocked me off my feet, twisted my arms behind my back, and grabbed my head, and dragged me to a bus with blackened windows. On the bus they locked my hands into handcuffs to try to hang me by my hands and wrists from the handrail. But the wire on which they wanted to hang me was too short. That is why they continued the torture in different way. I was forced into a seat, than one militia officer twisted my arms behind my back and another pushed my neck into the bar of next seat with one hand and pressed my eardrum with the thumb of his other hand.

The chief of public action department in Headquarters Internal Affaires of Minsk Executive Committee managed all this torment. After that torture my hands, especially the left one, hasn’t recovered their functions yet.

— And how was the disgraced deputy received in the “political prison”?

— The officer on duty in the holding cell in compliance with instructions refused to receive me because I did not say my name and the officers did not have my passport. However, deputy director of special receiver department N. Verkeev, who appeared soon, brought the order from a higher board to receive Gonchar without any papers.

— How can you characterize your attitude to anti-constitutional and illegal actions of the power structures?

— I did not recognize them as the representatives of authority and I did not take part in their actions. But I demanded from the director of receiving-distributing department to stop the boorishness and rudeness of his staff. And I have to note, the measures were taken – corridor sergeants began to act in a more appropriate way.

— And how did the doctors act?

— In a whole as they are supposed to. Around the clock duty was organized. They suggested examinations a lot of time including in the militia hospital, but there were no violent acts. They sent all senior staff from the hospital of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, (MVD) but doctors refused to use force to conduct an examination. One doctor from the MVD hospital, Sergey Mikulich, broke the Hippocratic oath. On Saturday at daybreak (on the 6th day of my dry hunger-strike) deafening sounds of bravura music were heard in the corridors of temporary holding prison. People wearing militia uniforms and black masks rushed into the 13th cell. They drove out other people in my cell to another one and made me into a “swallow.” (Hands and feet are joined together behind the back. – Author). “Doctor” Mikulich poured 400 grams of glucose into my stomach by force. With all this going on he “commented” that if I make resistance, he would pour this stuff into my nose.

— Captain Kondratin — to all appearances, the leader of the arrest of the Head of the Central Elections Commission, — loudly declared to the people gathered near the gates of “political prison” and even gave his word as an officer, that Victor Gonchar had stopped his hunger-strike, drinks tea with cookies and asks to bring him some bread and yogurt.

— They told me the same things, like my wife begs me to accept the delivery of juices and yogurt. Guessing that it was not true I demanded an opportunity to call my wife. They took me to the office of the director of temporary holding prison to make the phone call. I was only able to tell that I was forced to call off the hunger— strike before the operative officer on duty and deputy director of special receiver department Verkeev, who were also in the office, threw themselves on the phone. They nearly broke my arm.

This phrase, I sent out from the walls of prison, shocked the whole board of prison authorities and inspired me to stand firm.

— It is said that special temporary prison was literally overcrowded with people from special services.

— Yes, in response to a knock from the cell, somebody in a special services uniform always came and then only with his permission the corridor officer on duty appeared. Beside all the talks took place only in the presence of some people in civilian clothes.

— On the 11th of March 1999 deputies of Supreme Soviet and Minsk Council, members of Central Elections Commission, journalists, film-photo operators and simply Belarus patriots waited for Victor Gonchar for four hours near the “political” prison’s gate without any effect. What is the procedure of discharging of political prisoners in Belarus like?

— At dawn on March 11, eight special services officers, with a Major at the head, took me by my hands and feet and dragged me to a militia bus by which I was delivered to a temporary isolation cell. There, they threw me on the floor where I spent some hours wearing a shirt and no boots. After that they put me again on the bus and we were going around the city for more than an hour.

At 14:40 the term of my arrest was over. They threw me and my clothes out of the bus, and left. I staggered down the streets losing consciousness sometimes. I had to go through back yards to my house because people were scared by my appearance and dashed aside. By the way, there was that doctor-sadist Mikulich together with the special services officers on the bus. I cannot call him in different way since with his consent a man, who was supposed to be in a hospital under a dropper, was left in the street in freezing weather. I lost consciousness due to tiredness before his eyes on that bus. In his presence I lost consciousness in an isolation cell, too where I had been brought from the temporary holding prison.

— Victor, the authorities’ attempt to bring a criminal action against the members of Central Election Commission designated by Supreme Soviet of 13th convocation by the article №61 (conspiracy) broke through. Now they made a new attempt – by the article №190 (misappropriation of power). How did it go on?

— On Wednesday, the day before my discharge, the Chief of Investigation Department of the Headquarters of Internal Affairs, Major Levkovich came into the cell, said that criminal investigation had begun and asked me to take part in investigation activities. I refused.

On Thursday, when I was thrown into the temporary isolation cell, they repeated the attempt. Levkovich tried to read an indictment to me, but I closed my ears and repeated: “Bring an action against Lukashenko and investigate him as long as you want.”

— It is declared that a preventive punishment was signed against Victor Gonchar — a written undertaking not to leave the place. Is it true?

— I did not make any signed statements concerning this issue.

The interview was cut off since Victor Gonchar felt bad again and he almost lost consciousness. Zinaida Gonchar asked to drop our conversation immediately. Well, it is enough for first information. Victor Gonchar will tell us the rest of the details when he gets better. Speedy recovery to you, Victor Iosevich.

Andrei Koval, “Narodnay Voly”

Zinaida Gonchar says:

— In the five days after recent nightmares at 4 o’clock p.m. somebody rang the door. Believing that it was my son coming back from the market, I opened the door. About fifteen people “flew” into our flat, threw me down and screamed, “Power supervision”. Yelling “guns and drugs” they began to conduct a search of the flat. None of the people introduced himself or showed any identification documents, or a search warrant. During the search they constantly exchanged words with each other on the radio.

Nevertheless the manager of this “operation” is known. He is the Chief of Investigation Services in the Department of Headquarters Internal Affairs, Major Levkovich. My husband identified him. He hurt me and took the phone away from me when I tried to call. He snatched the phone from Victor too. He was in the bed at that moment. When I demanded to invite neighbors as witnesses Levkovich refused and told me that the officers can be witnesses. At last, after many claims, one of the people who rushed in showed me a document. The officers did not produce the search warrant for me and just announced that the prosecutor of city signed it. Not finding guns and drugs, the “investigators” confiscated a press release for journalists and took off. However they had to make a note about physical injuries they caused to me in their report.

Andrei Koval, “Narodnay Voly”

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