Rubinau: The President is indeed a thin-skinned, kind and tender person

Euroradio: What do you think about the Prosecutor General Office's suggestion to confiscate cars from drunk drivers?

Anatol Rubinau: I think we should take the strictest possible measures with regard to those who drive having used alcohol before this. Dependless on how much they drank. We say that the state and the President are brutal. Still, we have super-mild rules! To achieve order, there should be freedom, but severe punishments for any violations. Any measures in this case are justified, this is totally unacceptable, a druunk ddriver is a murderer. How can we tolerate a murderer?

Euroradio: Doesn't the confiscation contradict with our laws, the Constitution, doesn't it violate the right for private property?

Anatol Rubinau: People invent laws for themselves. If something does not meet the law, the law should be amended so it could serve the people. The right for private property cannot contradict with basic and vitally important interests of the society.

Euroradio: A threat of confiscation of an expensive car may create favourable conditions for corruption...

Anatol Rubinau: The fact that a rule may be broken is not a reason for not introducing the rule at all. We should struggle with corruption, severely.

Euroradio: Do you think that life-time imprisonment is not an adequate replacement to death penalty?

Anatol Rubinau: The main argument of the death penalty opponents is, what if the sentence is executed, and then they find out that the prisoner was innocent. Indeed, in such situations, when there is even a thousandth of a doubt, you should probably set aside the sentence. But there are situations where there is no doubt that a person is guilty! Like the man who killed children, raped minors – in such case, should we correct this person?  It's impossible. Why correct the person who has already done such a horrible thing! What is the value of such a man, why keeping him? There should be a clear message to everyone: if you commit something you must be aware of the punishment. Moreover, death penalty is not a revenge for the crime. Meanwhile, if we sentence him to life-time imprisonment, this would be revenge as we make him suffer throughout his life.  The death penalty is not revenge - it is a clear message: such a person cannot be in the community. That's it!

Euroradio: Still, such position makes membership in PACE impossible for our country...

Anatol Rubinau: Let's think about our society. Yes, we are not isolated, we live in the world and we should live in the way that no one will get any troubles from us. PACE... We do not create problems for anyone with our behaviour! We want to have friendly relations with everyone. However, this doesn't mean that other countries can force some rules over us if they do not meet our interests.

Euroradio: What about selling of "Belaruskaliy" ?...


Anatol Rubinau: Leave these speculations… The President said that we would not give the bowels to anyone. Where did you see that "Belaruskaliy" was given away to someone?


Euroradio: Even the price has been announced!


Anatol Rubinau: This is an estimation! If we talk about stocks, sell them, then you need to know the price. How else can we evaluate stocks? But we don’t say we are giving it away!


Euroradio: It seems that the authorities began trying to improve relations with the U.S.. What needs to be done to improve relations with Europe, and whose responsibility it should be?


Anatol Rubinau: We were treated like some kind of the untamed pet, that needs to be nurtured, given food or not, limited. This is unacceptable, as we are people, with national pride, with our own history. The lack of progress is determined solely by those Western countries. They have put a barrier in the way of at least some convergence. Why the barrier? These are our internal affairs! Have we condemned someone here, captured and seized the property of the Western countries, or interfered somewhere?

Anatol Rubinau: They say we have dictatorship. So, where and who we have in prisons? Several people, for obvious reasons. There are no searches, or arrests of relatives ... This is not 1937 or 1957. Why then has this barrier been built? After all, there is such humiliating contempt: "How are we going to deal with this? We’ll wave our hands and the people desirable to us will come tomorrow”. That’s not correct, we should not let them walk all over us.

Euroradio: You have not the usual official portrait of the state leader in your office, but the one made by yourself. When you turned my attention to the portrait, you said you knew Alyaksandr Lukashenka from another side. What is “the other” Lukashenka like?

Anatol Rubinau: This is a unique person by his life interest and deep emotional attitude to many spheres of life. He liked photography. This means, he understands beauty, knows what a shot is, how to create it in a better way, understands harmony. He liked music - he did not only play accordion, but sang, performed as well. He read plenty of books. Deep inside, he is a very thin-skinned, kind, tender person. Maybe he shows brutality as a defense mechanism, since childhood. But inside he is kind. Then, he is very intelligent. For me, it is much easier to speak with the President than with any other official. He sees the essence of any issue on the spot. It is always easier to speak with a clever person. There's no biase.

Photo: Zmicier Lukashuk