Belarus Struggles to Make Sense of April Terror Attack and Country's Future
Residents share uncertainty about the leadership and economic future
Minsk, Belarus April 18, 2011— -- The crowd outside the Oktoberskaya metro station in Minsk silently studies the makeshift tribute to those slain in last week's terror attack.
One young woman silently weeps as she clutched her bouquet of carnations she is preparing to leave. Handwritten prayers, poems and photos of Jesus are tucked amongst the many floral tributes.
The photographs of 12 of the victims, seven men and five women, are surrounded by mounds of flowers and scores candles; their photos resemble snapshots from high school yearbooks of varying ages.
But they are in fact obituary images from those killed in the April 11th attack that has now left 13 dead and more than 200 wounded.
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, the man that has ruled the country for 17 years since the breakup of the Soviet Union, has declared the case solved.
Five men, spotted in surveillance video from the many cameras that constantly watch the city, have been recognized and caught.
They immediately professed their guilt, not only to the recent attack on Minsk's transport system but also previous attacks in 2008 that had previously been unresolved.
"There is no doubt they did it," states a man at a cafe in Minsk. He, like others who question this authoritarian government, prefers not to be identified.
"But the question," he adds, "is who told them to do it." He shrugs when asked how it is possible that they were caught so quickly.
Like many, he hints that the government itself could have been behind it.
The international media has couched the veracity of the arrests. "Suspects caught" or "bombers confess" has been quoted with appropriate skepticism.
Authorities are still trying to determine the motive.
"Idiots" is what President Lukashenko calls those who think the bombing was a government plot to discredit the opposition and distract Belarusians from a rapidly deteriorating economy.
"Is the situation in the country so critical that I have to resort to desperate measures? It is not critical," Lukashenko retorted on national television.
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