Professor Nikitchanka Named Chief Organizer of Opposition's Traditional Chernobyl Demonstration

Ivan Nikitchanka, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, has been named the head of a group that will organize an opposition demonstration traditionally called Charnobylski Shlyakh (Path of Chernobyl) in Minsk.

Opposition forces have staged a march in the Belarusian capital on April 26, the date of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant, for years.

Dr. Nikitchanka, a professor who is an authority on the Chernobyl aftermath, was appointed to lead the organizing committee at Thursday's meeting in Minsk, which was attended by representatives of the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF), the United Civic Party, the Belarusian Party of Communists and the Belarusian Social Democratic Party "Hramada."

The committee's lineup will take final shape at a meeting on April 3. On the same day, the organizers plan to apply to the city government for permission to stage a march from Yakub Kolas Square in downtown Minsk along Independence Avenue to the square in front of the National Library on Minsk's northeastern edge.

BPF leader Vintsuk Vyachorka suggested that a group of opposition politicians should lay flowers at a Chernobyl memorial close to Bangalore Square an hour before the demonstration.

In an interview with BelaPAN, BPF Deputy Chairman Viktar Ivashkevich expressed certainty that the demonstration would be peaceful and would not involve a violent breakup by police. Unlike in previous years, this year's demonstration is staged against a backdrop of looming energy problems for Belarus and the European Union's offer of assistance in modernizing the country's power engineering industry in exchange for democratization and the release of political prisoners, Mr. Ivashkevich said.