Reuters - May 27th, 2006

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian police, militant Orthodox Christians and neo-fascists broke up a first ever gay rights march in Moscow on Saturday, but the homosexuals said their short-lived protest as a ``great victory.''

Activists led by 28-year-old Nikolai Alexeyev had planned to lay flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier -- a symbol of the World War Two struggle against fascism, and one of Russia's most sacred places.

But police closed the gates to the park where the eternal flame burns under the Kremlin walls, and a heavy scrum of women singing hymns and shaven-headed nationalists tried to charge into the gay activists as the march arrived.

``This is a great victory, an absolute victory -- look at what's happening,'' Alexeyev said as he was dragged, bent almost double, away from the gates by two policemen.

City authorities had banned the march, which they called an ''outrage to society,'' while religious leaders from all major faiths condemned it. Interfax news agency reported police had detained around 100 people after the clashes.

Even some rival gay activists said the march risked inflaming Russia's widespread intolerance of homosexuality, and wished Alexeyev had chosen a less direct way to protest against discrimination and homophobia.

Homosexuality was decriminalized in Russia in 1993, and although some gay clubs exist in big cities, same-sex couples almost never make a public display of their affections.

A gay German member of parliament who attended the rally, Volker Beck, was punched in the face. Beck, a leader of the Greens party and a prominent gay rights leader, was shown in German TV getting hit in the face.

``I was attacked,'' Beck told German television. ``It was a stone and a fist. It shows we're not safe in this country. The security forces did not protect us but instead prevented us from retreating. We were left without any protection.''

``MOSCOW IS NOT SODOM''

The marchers, who seemed to number about 40 although an exact count was impossible in the mob, were outnumbered at least twofold by men and women carrying Russian Orthodox icons and chanting ``Moscow is not Sodom.''

``We must stop them at this first stage, or they'll come and corrupt our children,'' said Kirill Bolgarin, 24, who had come to protest despite the pouring rain.

His friend Andrei, 25, interrupted, and gestured at the eternal flame.

``We are Russians. We are Orthodox. These soldiers died so we could live like Russians, not so these people could come here and tell us what to do,'' he said.

Alexeyev had invited gay activists from all across Europe to the march, the culmination of three days of events that were a first Russian attempt to hold a Gay Pride festival like those in Western cities.

``We came here to lay flowers at this anti-fascist memorial, but the mayor is so terrified of us that he took the step of ordering the gates closed,'' said Peter Tatchell from the British gay rights group OutRage.

``As soon as we arrived we were set upon by fascist gangs and police. Today is a great shame for Russia because a peaceful protest has been suppressed.''

Later, when police had formed a line between the two sides, a group of skinheads -- young Russian nationalists who have grown in number in recent years and have been behind a series of attacks on foreign students -- rushed toward the gay activists.

Their faces masked, they threw flares as they ran, but OMON riot police stopped them and dragged them to waiting buses.

Passers-by on the pavement outside parliament, which is on one of the capital's main streets, looked on in disbelief.

``I think it is a sexual abnormality, but if these gays want to do it, they should,'' said Robert Antonov, 35. ``Why shouldn't they do what they like? They are people too.''

PODGORICA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - More than 55 percent of Montenegrins voted for independence on Sunday, achieving the target set by the European Union for recognition of their referendum result, an official preliminary count showed.

The referendum commission president, Frantisek Lipka, told a news conference on Monday that 55.4 percent of votes cast were in favor of ending the union with Serbia. Turnout was 86.3 percent, he said.

Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic had already claimed victory for his independence drive.

"Tonight, with the majority decision by the citizens of Montenegro, the independence of the country has been renewed," he told supporters cheering the end of his decade-long campaign to restore the independence Montenegro last enjoyed in 1918.

"We've got our state!" the government's Web site quoted him as saying.

Supporters of a continued union with Serbia had refused on Sunday to concede defeat.

The mountainous republic on the Adriatic Sea has about 650,000 people. Independence advocates say it has a better chance of development and EU membership on its own than in a dysfunctional union with Serbia, population 7.5 million.

The result will dissolve a partnership with Serbia going back to 1918 in various forms. Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia all had to go to war to pull out of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s when Macedonia also quit.

PODGORICA, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) -- The heir to Montenegro's defunct throne is an architect and motorbike rider who lives 800 miles away in Paris. Now he's back to vote yes to his tiny Balkan country's independence from Serbia.

However, Crown Prince Nikola II Petrovic Njegos, who has lived in self-imposed exile for most of his life, worries about ''trouble'' after Sunday's referendum.

''I'm afraid that the losers in the vote may not accept the decision in peace,'' Prince Nikola told The Associated Press. ''This is a small country with a big potential for trouble.''

The leader of the stay-with-Serbia camp says he'll accept defeat graciously, provided the vote is clean, and Nikola says he hopes democracy will prevail.

''Independence, for both Montenegro and Serbia, would mean a catharsis for both the states, and their quicker integration into Europe,'' said the prince, a lively 61-year-old who often travels to Montenegro by motorbike.

His grandfather, King Nikola I Petrovic, tripled his realm's territory in the second half of the 19th century through a series of military victories against the Turks.

He sought to strengthen its independence among the predatory empires of pre-World War I Europe by marrying off his daughters to Russian, German and Italian royalty.

In those happier times, Montenegro enjoyed a slightly comical reputation, typified by the 1905 operetta -- and 1934 Hollywood film -- ''The Merry Widow,'' in which the Kingdom of Marchovia was a veiled reference to Nikola's little domain.

Even though he immediately declared war for the Allied side against Imperial Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1914, King Nikola could not preserve Montenegro's independence. At the Versailles peace conference in 1918, Montenegro gained the dubious distinction of becoming the only Allied nation to be wiped off the map of Europe, after the victors, including President Woodrow Wilson, insisted it be given to Serbia.

The king was exiled and died in Italy in 1921. Serbia became part of Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia went communist after World War II, and only in 1989 were Nikola's remains brought home.

Many Montenegrins are sentimentally attached to the Petrovic dynasty, and on Wednesday night some 20,000 pro-independence supporters gave Prince Nikola a boisterous welcome at a rally in the capital, Podgorica. But few Montenegrins say they want the monarchy restored.

Prince Nikola says he isn't looking to restore it; he just wants its ''rehabilitation'' and the return of some of its property.

''Some historical injustices toward the royal family will have to be corrected,'' he said.

Editor's commentary: There are several misconceptions about upcoming referendum in Montenegro and all of them are caused by fascists from Belgrade and their propaganda of lies. Facts are that Montenegro economy and overall living standard are far better than in Serbia, reforms in Montenegro are bigger and faster than in Serbia, there are only few percent of those who live in Montenegro that are true Serbs and finally Montenegro never joined Yugoslavia in 1918 by popular support but was occupied and assimilated by Serb fascists. Figure of over 30% of population being Serbs is actually figure of popular support of Momir Bulatovic's party SNP, party of Serb lackeys and traitors who pledged oath to Slobodan Milosevic. They even renounced their nationality in order to continue their servitude to fascist clique in Belgrade. Similar lies were already told when Slovenia and other republics left Yugoslavia about their imminent economic collapse if they secede. Fact is that today Slovenia is full member of NATO and EU with more than four times higher living standard than in Serbia. The only and the best solution for all in former Yugoslavia was and still is to runaway from Belgrade fascists as fast as they can. Any support against independence would only strengthen position of current Serb fascist leader Kostunica and his further defiance against Hague tribunal and his open sabotage of overall integration of Serbia into EU and NATO.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A defiant Saddam Hussein refused to enter a plea Monday, insisting he was still Iraq's president as the judge formally charged him with crimes against humanity, including murder and torture of women and children.

As stipulated by Iraqi law, the charges were announced as the defense began making its case in the nearly 7-month-old trial of the ousted Iraqi leader and members of his regime.

Chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman called Saddam and his seven co-defendants into the court one by one to read the charges against them in a crackdown against Shiites in the 1980s. He listed the names of 17 people who died from torture during interrogation or from harsh prison conditions.

Saddam, the first to be called, sat alone in the defendants' pen listening silently. When Abdel-Rahman asked for his plea, he stood behind the podium and traded shouts with the judge, who tried to limit him to a one-word answer.

"Your honor, you gave a long report. That report can't be summed up by saying guilty or not," Saddam said. "Your honor is now before Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq. ... I am the president of Iraq by the will of the Iraqis, and I remain president of Iraq up to this moment."

"I do not recognize the collaborators that they brought to appoint a court and put forward a law with retroactive effect against the head of state," he said.

Abdel-Rahman entered a plea of not guilty for Saddam.

The atmosphere in the court was silent, with few of the outbursts that have disrupted past sessions. Brought in after Saddam, his half-brother Barzan Ibrahim — once head of the Mukhabarat intelligence agency — frowned as he listened to the same charges. When asked his plea, he muttered, "What you say is not true."

Saddam and his co-defendants face possible execution by hanging if found guilty on the charges in the crackdown in the Shiite town of Dujail.

Security forces arrested hundreds of Dujail residents, including entire families, in the wake of a July 1982 assassination attempt against Saddam in the town. Witnesses, including women, have recounted being tortured while in prison. Farmlands were razed and 148 Shiites were sentenced to death for the shooting attack on Saddam. All 148 were killed, either dying under interrogation or executed.

Abdel-Rahman accused Saddam of ordering security forces to launch a "systematic, wide-scale attack" on residents of Dujail "using all weapons against them."

"As a result for your orders to use force against Dujail residents, nine people were killed in the first two days ... and 399 others were arrested," he said.

He said Saddam ordered 148 persons tried before his Revolutionary Court, then approved death sentences issued against them. Earlier in the trial, the prosecution presented the trial order and a memo approving the death sentences, both with signatures that Iraqi experts authenticated as Saddam's.

Two women and five children were among the 17 who died in prison. The judge also listed six other children who were among those executed. He did not give their ages, saying only that they were under 18.

All the defendants were charged with willful murder, imprisonment in violation of fundamental norms of international law, torture and enforced disappearance of persons under Article 12 of the 2005 criminal code of the Special Criminal Tribunal, which defines crimes against humanity.

The seven other defendants also pleaded innocent, most with curt answers of only a few words — though Abdullah Kazim al-Ruwayyid, a low-level Baath official accused of informing on some of the Dujail residents who were later killed, tried to argue against the charges.

"I have no relation to Dujail at all, not in the least," he shouted.

Under the Iraqi system, the court first hears plaintiffs outline their complaint against the defendants and the prosecutions' evidence against them. Then the judges make their accusations against the defendants as specific charges, and the defense presents its case.

With the reading of charges, the trial — which began Oct. 19 — entered the defense phase. The first five defense witnesses spoke from behind a curtain to protect their identities, testifying on behalf of Ali Dayih, a Baath Party official from Dujail.

The witnesses included two relatives of Dayih who said he was in Baghdad the day of the assassination attempt on Saddam and who insisted he had nothing to do with the crackdown.

Saddam and the other defendants have argued their actions in Dujail were legal since they were in response to the shooting attack on Saddam's motorcade as he drove through town.

But prosecutors argued that the crackdown went far beyond the attackers to punish the entire town. It said the 148 were sentenced to death after a swift trial in which the accused could make no defense, and that children as young as 11 were among those convicted.

Defense lawyers asked Monday that the full dossier of the Revolutionary Court trial of the 148 be brought as evidence, hoping to show the men got a fair trial. Abdel-Rahman said he would consider the request.

The trial has faced numerous delays and setbacks, with two defense lawyers killed soon after it began and repeated outbursts in court by Saddam and Ibrahim slowing the proceedings.

But U.S. officials observing the court have said they expect the trial to speed up, with up to three sessions a week. The trial will resume Tuesday.

The special tribunal is preparing to start a second trial against Saddam on genocide charges in a 1980s military campaign against the Kurds known as "Anfal" in which an estimated 100,000 people were killed.

EI HTU HTA, Myanmar (AP) -- His village was burned to the ground and four of his relatives executed but Saw Ta Khay stayed in his native area for 31 years, living with malaria and hiding in jungle enclaves.

Then the ruling junta launched a new offensive -- its biggest in almost a decade against the ethnic Karen minority -- and he could take no more: he, his family and all 200 fellow villagers fled to the rugged frontier with Thailand.

Now they're huddled in a narrow, remote valley with about 700 others, their backs against the border-marking Salween River. Virtually without protection, they daily fear attack from troops who are hunting the Karen in a campaign that refugees and aid groups say is marked by killings, torture, forced relocations, land mines and destruction of food supplies.

''Since my boyhood, we have always faced misery in our lives. The few happy times were when there were no soldiers close by. Only God has been there to help up,'' said the 40-year-old farmer, crouching in a hut cobbled together from bamboo and thatch from the forest.

The Karen, many of them Christians, are among a welter of ethnic minorities in mostly Buddhist Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. Most live in remote areas and have radically different culture and traditions from the Burman majority.

The ruling generals say its their duty to prevent the Karen and other rebels from shattering Myanmar's unity.

This latest of several crackdowns aims finally to crush the Karen National Union, a rebel group that has been fighting for autonomy for nearly six decades, by cutting its guerrillas off from a civilian population suspected of rendering them support.

The insurgents say the regime, imbued with racial hatred going back centuries, is simply trying to eradicate them as a people. They've won support from U.S. congressmen, members of the British House of Lords and human rights groups.

''Without swift and decisive (U.N.) Security Council action, the killings and abuses will not stop. China and Russia need to stop blocking action on Burma in the Security Council, as that gives a green light to the military government's scorched earth policy,'' the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said in a recent statement.

But the offensive shows no signs of easing. The military, which has controlled Myanmar since 1962, denies any human rights violations against ethnic minorities, including the Karen, which it blames for a spate of recent bombings.

In the sole statement on the situation, Information Minister Brig. Gen. Kyaw Hsan said last month only that ''cleaning-up operations are being conducted in some areas where (Karen rebel) terrorists are believed to be hiding.''

The onslaught has spawned more than 13,000 internal refugees, according to the Free Burma Rangers, a group of Westerners and ethnic volunteers who aid displaced people in the country.

More people are heading for the Thai border.

Saw Maw Ku, 47, his wife and four children struggled into this camp just hours before reporters arrived, ending a grueling monthlong trek from his village of Bway Baw Der.

His family, including a 6-month-old baby girl, walked only by night to skirt army patrols and suffered from malaria and dysentery, he said. They arrived with their only remaining possessions -- rice, salt, two blankets and one change of clothing apiece.

The Free Burma Rangers report that most of the recently displaced don't want to abandon their homeland for the relative safety of the border or exile in Thailand, which has 140,000 refugees from Myanmar and doesn't want more.

One such die-hard family, the group says, are a mother, two sisters, a baby boy and a 9-year-old girl recovering after being shot through the stomach last month. The family was fleeing from their village and climbing up a ridge when Myanmar soldiers fired at point-blank range. They killed the father and his 80-year-old mother, who he was carrying on his back.

The flight to the border reflects the severity of the offensive, the largest since 1997, because the Karen -- a conservative, rural people -- cling to their land at almost any cost. Saw Ta Khay said over the past decade his community had to shift its hide-outs three to four times every year, but always tried to stay near their village of Plaw Mu Der, which was razed in 1975.

Some observers suggest the offensive was launched to secure the hinterland east of the newly established capital of Pyinmana. But it also comes at a time of general tightening up by the junta, including restrictions on foreign non-governmental organizations and indications that it may outlaw the pro-democracy party of detained Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Hard-liners came to the fore in Myanmar in 2004 when they ousted former junta member Gen. Khin Nyunt, who had negotiated cease-fires with 17 ethnic insurgent groups and was working on a peace deal with the Karen National Union.

If peace does come, the refugees here say they will head home. But in the meantime many, like Saw Myint Naing, are too traumatized to consider a return.

His village of Yer Loe was burned down twice and recently hit by mortars. A number of its citizens were killed, including his brother-in-law who was going out to buy rice. Another villager was forced to guide the troops, who then shot him when the patrol ran into a minefield.

The 36-year-old farmer can still hear the words of one officer, Tin Hlaing, ringing in his ears: ''If I hear one sound out of this village, we will kill you all.''

BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro - Thousands of protesters on Tuesday demanded the Serbian government resign because it has failed to arrest war crimes suspect Gen. Ratko Mladic, leading to a suspension of talks with the European Union.

The chanting protesters also accused conservative Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica of failing to distance Serbia from Slobodan Milosevic's regime.

"There won't be a European Serbia until we truly defeat all those who make us look like Nazis," said Cedomir Jovanovic of the opposition Liberal Democrats.

He demanded early elections to replace the current Cabinet, which missed a recent EU deadline to extradite Mladic to the Netherlands-based U.N. war crimes tribunal.

Full story here.

Russia has banned imports of Borjomi mineral water from Georgia, fuelling Georgian anger sparked by an earlier ban on the Caucasus republic's wines.

The head of Russia's chief public health watchdog, Gennady Onishchenko, said inspectors had found that Borjomi failed to meet water purity standards.

"I therefore revoke from 7 May... Borjomi mineral water safety certificates," he said.

Georgia's Agriculture Minister Mikhail Svimonishvili reacted angrily to the Russian ban on Friday, saying "It's quite clear that today Russia is fighting against everything Georgian".

"Borjomi is one of the best brands of mineral water in the world," he insisted.

Russia has blocked imports of Georgian and Moldovan wines and spirits since 27 March, again citing public health concerns.

Georgia's Western-leaning government has accused Russia of waging economic warfare.

Russia has been by far the biggest market for Georgian wine, and Tbilisi is now stepping up efforts to export wine to other countries.

Full story here.

Racist killings in Russia are "out of control", according to a report by international human rights watchdog Amnesty International.

The report into violent racism shows that at least 28 people were killed and 366 were assaulted in 2005.

This year there have already been a number of high-profile cases, including the death of a Senegalese student.

Amnesty condemns discrimination by the authorities and a failure to properly record or investigate racist crimes.

The Amnesty report, entitled "Russian Federation: Violent racism out of control", includes examples of police and prosecutors routinely classifying murders and serious assaults by skinhead extremists as lesser crimes of "hooliganism".

Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said racist killings and violent attacks against foreigners, visible ethnic minorities and anti-racist campaigners in Russia were out of control.

"Some Russian authorities are turning a blind eye," she said. "Instead of seeing only 'hooliganism' in vicious organised attacks on students from African, south-east Asian countries and non-Slavic Russians from Chechnya, Russia's police and prosecutors need to tackle head-on the growing scourge of violent racism in Russia."

Cases highlighted in the Amnesty report include the killing of nine-year-old Tajik girl Khursheda Sultonov.

She was attacked with other members of her family in St Petersburg in February 2004 by a gang. Khursheda was stabbed nine times in the chest, stomach and arms and died at the scene.

Another victim was Vu Anh Tuan, a 20-year-old Vietnamese student, stabbed to death in October 2004 by a gang of 18 skinheads near a metro station in St Petersburg.

Dmitri Krayukhin, head of anti-racist organisation United Europe, told Amnesty he had received threats to "cut off your head".

He has repeatedly been denied protection from the authorities in Orel, western Russia.

Full story here. Full report here.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union broke off talks on closer ties with Serbia on Wednesday over its failure to arrest and transfer fugitive genocide suspect Ratko Mladic to the U.N. war crimes tribunal, the bloc's enlargement chief said.

European Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn confirmed the move after being briefed by telephone on the hunt for the former Bosnian Serb military commander by chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte, who had expressed hope the EU would get tough with Belgrade.

"Her assessment is negative," Rehn said in a statement. "It is disappointing that Belgrade has been unable to locate, arrest and transfer Ratko Mladic to the Hague.

"The Commission therefore has to call off the negotiations on the Stabilisation and Association Agreement."

Serbia failed to keep a pledge that Mladic -- alleged to be hiding there protected by renegade army and intelligence officers -- would be handed over to the tribunal on the former Yugoslavia by the end of April, a deadline set by the EU.

The EU wants Mladic, who is charged with genocide over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims and the siege of Sarajevo, delivered before advancing Serbia's hopes of eventual EU membership.

The next round of talks, the first stepping stone toward eventual EU membership, had been due on May 11.

Rehn said they could resume at any time if Serbia was certified to be cooperating fully with the tribunal.

"The issue is about the rule of law," he said. "Serbia must show that nobody is above the law ... The armed forces and security services must be fully under democratic control."

BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) -- A top Serbian official acknowledged Monday that the European Union will likely suspend aid and trade talks with Serbia after Belgrade missed the bloc's deadline for capturing war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic.

Rasim Ljajic, the Serbian liaison to the U.N. tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, said Serb authorities will keep hunting for the fugitive ex-Bosnian Serb commander, who was indicted by the U.N. court for genocide in the 1995 slaughter of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica, Europe's worst massacre since World War II.

''The EU will not take into account the efforts we have put in (locating Mladic) so far,'' Ljajic said. ''They want the final result -- Mladic in the Hague.''

Defense Minister Zoran Stankovic, a longtime friend of Mladic, said Monday that Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica will address the nation this week about Mladic. He did not offer details about the address but said, ''no individual is more important than the people and the state.''

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn is to meet chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte Wednesday to decide whether to call off a May 11 round of trade and aid talks with Belgrade. The EU gave Belgrade until April 30 to catch Mladic after it missed an earlier March 31 deadline.

U.N. prosecutors insist Mladic is in Serbia, but Ljajic said his whereabouts are unknown.

Serbian media have reported that Kostunica, who promised to deliver Mladic to The Hague this month, was secretly negotiating Mladic's surrender to the U.N. court.

Ljajic has said authorities uncovered a support network of about 130 individuals, mostly Bosnian Serbs, who sheltered and protected Mladic. Five Mladic aides have been arrested in recent months.

Editor's commentary: Don't forget that Kostunica gave his word to Carla Del Ponte, a Chief UN War Crimes Prosecutor that Mladic will be in custody of Hague tribunal by the end of April. Kostunica is therefore a plain liar and a liar can't be PM. If he has any dignity as a man he would resign his post and call for elections. There is absolutely no excuse for him this time. No effort to apprehend Mladic was staged in April at all. It is one thing not wanting to extradite war criminals or not being able to but it is entirely different thing to lie like a skunk and then pretend like nothing happened. It is better to have Toma Nikolic as Serb PM because at least we know what to expect from him than to have a liar that deceives people all the time. All who go into coalition with a liar are liars themselves because their true intention is to deceive people as well.

Suspending talks about joining EU is not enough. More serious sanctions must be enacted immediately to punish liars and those who protect international criminals. EU suspended national Yugoslav soccer team from European Cup in 1992 and that is what EU should do again with cooperation of FIFA. Serbia has no right to participate in Germany this June. Those who cherish criminals have nothing to do in sports competitions on EU soil. UN should endorse this measure in order to protect integrity of UN War Crime tribunal. BTW, BK TV owned by Karic family that has rights to broadcast FIFA Cup in Germany has been shut down by the government of Kostunica because of political reasons. Milosevic is dead but political persecutions in Serbia continue.

MINSK (Reuters) - More than 1,000 protesters carrying banned flags marched through Belarus's capital on Monday to demand the release of jailed opposition leaders who had pledged to work for the removal of President Alexander Lukashenko.

Marchers were nominally marking the May Day holiday and among their slogans was a call to end short-term labor contracts they say allow employers to intimidate workers.

But the thrust of the protest, authorized by city officials, was to press for the release of Alexander Milinkevich, the opposition's main leader, and other activists jailed for up to 15 days after a rally last week.

Milinkevich had challenged Lukashenko's landslide re-election victory in March, denounced by the opposition and in the West as blatantly rigged.

``Freedom for Milinkevich!'' marchers shouted as they passed along the approved route. Many carried the red-and-white national flag banned by Lukashenko in his 1990s drive to restore Soviet-style symbols.

``Not all our friends are here today. Many are behind bars,'' Alexander Dobrovolsky of the United Civic Party told protesters from a wooden rostrum in an outlying square surrounded by parkland.

``We need solidarity to keep us together every day.''

Milinkevich was summoned by police and taken to a courtroom after telling 7,000 protesters last Wednesday that the opposition intended to use civil disobedience to turf Lukashenko out of the office he has held since 1994 in two years or less.

Last Wednesday's campaign coincided with the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster over the border in Ukraine, traditionally the biggest opposition rally of the year.

Also jailed on public order charges were veteran activist Vintsuk Vechorko, Communist opposition campaigner Sergei Kalyakin and trade unionist Alexander Bukhvostov.

Stanislav Shushkevich, Belarus's first post-Soviet leader and now a prominent opposition figure, told Reuters after the May Day protest that he had already been summoned to appear before police on Wednesday.

Milinkevich's wife, Inna Kulei, told Monday's marchers that the jailed opposition figures had now been placed in separate cells after being initially confined together.

``The authorities are afraid of us. They are afraid of our leaders even when they are in jail,'' she said. ``Now they've separated them because they are afraid they will prepare a coup if they serve their time together in one cell.''

Lukashenko, who won 83 percent of the vote to 6 percent for Milinkevich according to official tallies, has made clear he will stick to his policies. He is supported by many voters, particularly outside Minsk, who say he has provided a measure of stability and prosperity absent in other ex-Soviet states.