Lukashenko: no biased NGOs will emerge if citizens’ initiatives are noticed

State authorities and public agencies need to see citizens' initiatives, then no biased non-profit organisations will emerge – as stated by Belarus’ President at today’s nationwide conference dedicated to Actualisation of Methods and Forms of Work with the Population at the Local Level

Aleksandr Lukashenko believes managers, perhaps, sometimes fail to see citizens’ initiatives, they do not know how to integrate them into the process of state-building – giving people no opportunity to feel their involvement and be useful.

“Meanwhile, there is a request. We should admit that, at some moment, we – like our public union Belaya Rus, the Belarusian Republican Youth Union, trade unions and so on – missed it, and various non-governmental marginal organisations flourished as a result. They lured people with seemingly noble ideas, which acquired a political colour at the right moment. And they – driven by a desire to help those in need, protect nature and animals – became hostages of destructive forces engaged by the West," the President stressed.

Aleksandr Lukashenko added, “As appeared, these NGOs and societies declaring protection of dogs, cats and animals have never protected anyone. They even had no plans to do this. Under fashionable signs, politically engaged people were thrown at us (while we rejoiced). The managers were paid a lot, and they gathered (also paying them) you know what kind of people: they were pushed – rightfully – to the margins by society, and further took the lead in 2020.”

According to the President, this happened due to a silent agreement of authorities at all levels. “Such small islands were born in our society, and they absorbed everything that we had to fight against. We experienced the result of this. Fortunately, the process is now very seriously monitored. I would like the authorities to understand that society must be cleaned out of these scoundrels,” he stressed.