EUROPE: The bell is not tolling only for the people of Belarus, it is tolling for us as well. It is the same bell whose tolls we heard in Berlin in 1948, in Budapest in 1956, in Prague in 1968 and, most recently, in Kiev. It is still that very same bell of freedom, although we, in the West, we, the champions of liberty and of democracy, have long forgotten it.

What is at stake today in Belarus, the ancient White Ruthenia, is quite simply the independence and national identity of the country, ever threatened by the imperialist assimilation of Russia; freedom of speech, freedom of worship, the right to own property and the right to educate one's children.  The people of Belarus, who survived the de-nationalization, repression and corruption of Soviet power and succeeded in defending the roots of their national culture whilst accepting the values of democracy, of civilization and of human respect, are fighting once again, today, for their independence, in their Parliament and in the streets and squares of their cities.

On the other side of the barricades stand the heirs of the "homines bolscevici", an anonymous, faceless mass of people, generated by the repression of constant control, educated to amoral behaviour, to treason and to ideological complicity, by seventy years of exaltation of the use of force. They are led by a ruthless nazi-communist dictator, Aleksandr Lukashenko, who bent the rules in order to stand for election and manipulated the ballot through intimidation and swindling.

It is the duty of us all, free men and women, to speak out wherever we can in support of the people of Belarus, as they fight for their liberty and independence. Lukashenko's neo-Soviet party, supported by Vladimir Putin, is biding its time, waiting for international attention and mobilization to wane before it deals with the opposition - some people are already being harassed, arrested and killed.

For the first time, albeit with great uncertainty, the European Union has acknowledged what is going on just outside its borders. For the first time the President of the United States, George Bush, has spoken out.

But it is not enough. All over the world, public opinion must take a stand.
It is up to us once again, up to our movement to take the lead: so that one day no one may say (as the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe have so often had occasion to say in the past): "you deserted us in our hour of need".

We stand by Zianon Pazniak, by Valeri Bujval, and by those who are fighting alongside them.
Today we are all Belarussians.