Lukashenko: People who want to live peacefully should not be shunned

Whoever is ready to live peacefully, work and make a difference should not be rejected by society, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said at the meeting to review the social and political situation and the crime rate in Belarus on 24 January, BelTA has learned.
 
“I said this in the church: we should not create any additional points of tension in our society. Therefore, I instructed the Belarus President Administration to work out this issue jointly with the public, and to propose a possible solution [this pertains to the return of those who went abroad after the 2020 events in Belarus]. Those who are ready to live peacefully and create value for their country should not be rejected by society. This is an axiom. It was not my idea. And if we are wise people and the government has signs of wisdom, it should act accordingly. We should not shun those who stumbled and realized it, we should offer a conciliatory gesture,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

“But only to those who will be released from jail or return from abroad and will become even more ardent supporters of Lukashenko than those who already are. There are such people indeed,” the Belarusian leader noted.
 
According to him, the enemy will prevent these people from returning home in every possible way: “We see this. For the self-exiled opposition who uses the interests of the people as a bargaining chip, ordinary people will always be a battering ram to fight against the state and a stable source of personal wealth.”
 
“You have probably noticed this flurry of hateful reports in Telegram channels, chats and so on that came in response to my suggestion to talk to those who realized their guilt and wanted to live in their homeland. They wrote that security forces seized those who tried to return, put them in jail, nearly killed them! This is absolute nonsense. Nobody is rounding up anyone. But why are they acting like that? Because the reason why opposition leaders are given money is because there are several thousand people who fled with them. The West knows that it might be able to use these people against our country in the future. And these allegedly 1,500-2,000 fugitives are led by these opposition leaders whose offices receive some funding. We know for sure that these unfortunate 1,500 get one or two cents of this money. The rest stays in the pockets at headquarters, offices,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.