"True Parasites Hide In Marble Palaces"

How to abolish an illegal decree.

Since December 1 the "parasite" database has come into force. In this regard, Minister of Labour Iryna Kastsevich says that "parasite" database includes 500 thousand people. From January 1 they will pay 100% utility bill.

What should families with children, who are objectively unable to find a job in Belarus, do in this situation?

Questions of Charter97.org are answered by the activist of the European Belarus civil campaign, mother of two children Palina Sharenda-Panasyuk.

- You and your husband are well known opposition activists. Tell me, is it real to get a job in Brest for an activist with a "burned" surname?

- Not only now, we can't get a job in Brest for 10 years. I have higher education and can't get a job at school or even in kindergarten. I used to have to do small jobs for individual entrepreneurs. But they closed their business in a row and I lost my job again and again.

My husband, coordinator of the Belarusian National Congress and activist of the European Belarus Andrei Sharenda suffers the same. In the morning he is welcomed at a new workplace but at dinnertime he is said: "We are sorry, we can't adopt your position. You know why".

This situation lasts for years in our family. We are the unemployed who are blacklisted by the state.

- Are there any vacancies with decent salaries in Brest?

- Western regions of Belarus - Hrodna, Brest - somehow survived at the expense of trips abroad.

The economic situation is a catastrophe, especially in disctrict centres. Enterprises, heritage of the USSR, lay in ruins. Several years ago enterprises of Brest, who used cheap materials from Russia or, on the contrary, produced goods exported to Russia, stayed afloat.

But in the last two years the situation has changed dramatically: Russia has closed its market for these goods.

The only enterprises that are still afloat belong to the food industry: "Savushkin Product" and "Santa". But these two enterprises will not meet the need in work of the city with 350 thousand residents. Even not blacklisted people cannot find a job for many years and leave abroad in the end. According to the new decree, they are enlisted as "parasites".

Is it possible to pay in full for utility charges for a family with two children? Is there any money left to spend on children?

It's absolutely not possible. Only if relatives support. Being adults, we have to ask our parents-pensioners to help us.

This is an absurd situation in the 21st century.

Moreover, it is unreal to pay for increased utility charges even for people who have a job in Brest. For example, we live in a rental house. And whenever it's time to pay the utility bill, lists of debtors are posted. Dozens of apartments have debts of many months to housing and communal services. And these are ordinary working families, not alcoholics. People don't pay utility bills just because they can't find money.

The ratio of salaries and utility bills in our country is out of proportion to European standards. In Poland, the utility bill equals to 300-400 zloty, with the real minimum wage of two thousand zloty. In our country the situation is as that we do not know how to feed our children after paying bills.

Programs to support families with children are being adopted all over the world, and only our state and the "commander-in-chief" are taking the latter away from children. It's not even a generalization, it's a fact.

Lukashenka and his people with "lush years" of high prices for Russian oil, which they processed and sold under the guise of "diluents", enriched themselves and pushed the country over the edge. Now Belarus has African salaries amid American prices.

Real parasites are those who came to power 25 years ago and are still sponging on us. During this time they have become so insolent and talentless that such a cartoon of power can no longer be tolerated.

Multi-storey luxury palaces have recently been built in Brest. These are the prosecutor's office, the tax office and the "palace of justice". These marble buildings worth millions of dollars. Furniture for the "palace of justice" cost 300 thousand dollars.It's the feast in time of plague.

These parasites hide in these marble palaces. And at the same time, families with children can't buy sweets on New Year's Eve holidays. Against this background buildings for officials are being built.

- What aims, in your opinion, do authors of the decree on "parasites" pursue?

- First of all, it is done to shift responsibility. The authorities have ruined everything in the country, and they want to make the "unemployed in the economy" guilty of the crisis.

According to the authorities, the unemployed should provide the clan of Lukashenka with high standards of living, it has been accustomed to during the 25-year parasitism.

Second, strategic goals of Russian and Belarusian regime, which is dependent on it, may coincide here. Perhaps, they rely on the most active people with a patriotic position - such people often fall under the influence of the decree - to leave Belarus.

The authorities are "cleansing" the country, it's the actual genocide against the Belarusians in interests of their masters from Moscow. Probably, there's a reason why a similar law on "parasites" is now being adopted in Russia upon the initiative of Putin.

- What should "parasites" do when new utility bills are sent out?

- Resist.

First of all, do not provide them with any information. Second, to ignore all these "parasite commissions" and their decisions. They are as illegal as the regime of Lukashenka. This already creates a legal basis for the struggle.

Second, to pay nothing and to unite for protest actions. No man is an island, and when there are many of us, everything may happen. As one well-known Ukrainian song of the Orange Revolution says: "we cannot be defeated when we stand together".

If there is solidarity, mass actions - such as those in 2017- could repeat. We remember they forced the authorities to backpedal and suspend Decree № 3. This is the only way. It's time to slap the regime's wrist.