Walesa says internet will let Belarus follow Tunisia

"We live in the era of the internet, mobile telephones and satellite TV. In Tunisia, people communicated freely over the internet and president Ben Ali ended up having to flee.

"Sooner or later, we'll see the same thing happen in Belarus," Walesa, an ardent internet enthusiast, whose Solidarity trade union brought down communism, in Poland in 1989, said.

"Lukashenko can lock up people in prison, but he isn't able to stop the struggle for freedom and democracy because we live in an era where technology serves people," said Walesa, who won the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize.

Once dubbed by Washington as Europe's last dictator, Lukashenko jailed hundreds in an unprecedented crackdown on protests against his disputed December 19 election victory.

Opposition leaders said the ballot was rigged while international observers pointed out irregularities.

Lukashenko was sworn in for a fourth term as president on Friday, in a lavish Soviet-era style ceremony boycotted by the West amid threats by the European Union to restore sanctions if he fails to release his jailed opponents.

On Thursday, Poland dismissed as "absurd" allegations by Lukashenko that Warsaw and Berlin had plotted to oust him through the election protests and said EU economic sanctions against Minsk were likely.

Also on Thursday, Lukashenko reinforced relations with Moscow, securing a loan to help the ex-Soviet republic build a nuclear power plant said to be worth six billion dollars.

Source: AFP