<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta name="Keywords" content="Belovezhskaya Pushcha, Bialowieza Forest, Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park, state national park, biosphere reserve, World Heritage Site, European Diploma, zapovednik, wild nature, wildness, nature protection, primeval relic forest, biodiversity conservation, biological diversity, 21 centuries, danger, sanitary cutting, bark beetle, spruce cutting, forest fire, Bambiza, Kazulka, forestry, environmental science, ecological crime, environmental problem, situation in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha, future under threat, insects-pests, documents, proofs, facts, ecological accident, Khilimon, Gorevoy, Komsomolskaya truth, BelaPAN, ecological news, ecoinform, public initiative, history of the wild nature protection, bison, Kamenyuki, Viskuli, press-expedition, UN, UNESCO, Taliban, tragedy, press-tour, patriotism, appeal of the Byelorussian public, appeal of the Belarusian public, Terra-Convention, terra-convention, Aarhus Convention, nature protection legislation, especially protected natural territories, permanent monitoring plots, harvesting the living forest, wood trap, pheromone trap, giant tree, timber processing shop, timber industry, ips typographus, photos, wind-fallen forest, hurricane, wood cut rests, Dranchuk"> <meta name="Description" content="This site is&nbsp;dedicated to&nbsp;providing information regarding the problems of&nbsp;protection and conservation of&nbsp;the Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park&nbsp;&#151; the unique nook of&nbsp;wilderness in&nbsp;the center of&nbsp;Europe."> <title>Belovezhskaya pushcha - XXI century | THEY BEAT OUR PEOPLE</title> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="../site.css" type="text/css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="../print.css" type="text/css" media="print"> <link rel="shortcut icon" href="favicon.ico"> </head> <body leftmargin="0" topmargin="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0"> <div id="top"><img src="../../i/logotexten.gif" width="483" height="56" border="0" alt="Belovezhskaya pushcha - XXI century" ></div> <div id="navtop"><a href="../../en/">home</a> <a href="../news/">news</a> <a href="../idea/">idea</a> <a href="../about/">about pushcha</a> <a href="../art/">articles</a> <a href="../docs/">documents</a> <a href="../ff/">photo-fact</a> <a href="../gallery/">gallery</a> <a href="../books/">books</a> <a href="../links/">links</a></div> <div id="text"> <img src="../../i/printer.gif" alt="This page is printer-friendly. Use PRINT function of your browser" width="32" height="32" border="0" align="right"> <h2>THEY BEAT OUR PEOPLE!</h2> <h5>The article by&nbsp;Elena Tribuleva,<br> Published in&nbsp;&laquo;Vecherniy Brest&raquo; (The Evening Brest) Newspaper, #34,<br>April&nbsp;25,&nbsp;2003 </h5> <h3>Are &laquo;talibans&raquo; of&nbsp;the Belovezhskaya Pushcha now joining the battle?</h3> <p>Fighting broke out at&nbsp;the Kamenyuki village local club on&nbsp;Saturday night. One of&nbsp;the locals &laquo;tapped&raquo; a&nbsp;visitant who works in&nbsp;the Pushcha on&nbsp;temporary terms. The worker responded, and soon more people joined the fight. After it&nbsp;was clear that the odds were in&nbsp;the favour of&nbsp;the locals, two visitant workers rushed into their hotel where they took out knifes to&nbsp;rescue another <nobr>co-worker</nobr>&nbsp;who had been suffering from locals´ heavy kicks. As&nbsp;a&nbsp;result, three locals were stabbed and delivered to&nbsp;the regional hospital. According to&nbsp;inhabitants of&nbsp;Kamenyuki, two of&nbsp;the men were not involved in&nbsp;the fight at&nbsp;all. One of&nbsp;the men is&nbsp;seriously injured as&nbsp;he&nbsp;has been hit in&nbsp;the lung. Investigation is&nbsp;being carried&nbsp;out. </p><p>The event could seem an&nbsp;ordinary fight among young people, least one knows about hidden hatred of&nbsp;the local population towards the &laquo;aliens&raquo;. The inhabitants of&nbsp;the village even call them &laquo;talibans&raquo;. First of&nbsp;all because they took jobs from the locals at&nbsp;the State National Park &laquo;Belovezhskaya Pushcha&raquo;. Nickolai Bambiza, the Director of&nbsp;the Park since spring 2000, has failed to&nbsp;get along with the locals: about three hundred employees were dismissed, and many of&nbsp;them could not find another job. Then, Nickolai Bambiza resolved the problem of&nbsp;vacancies by&nbsp;inviting people from other regions to&nbsp;work in&nbsp;the Pushcha on&nbsp;temporary basis. Currently more than 100 people from Stolinskiy district, Mogilyov and Gomel regions are employed in&nbsp;the Pushcha on&nbsp;such terms. The rumour spreads among the locals that Nickolai Bambiza has been paying the invited workers more generously than he&nbsp;would ever do&nbsp;the native Pushcha s&nbsp;inhabitants. However, the villagers are convinced that the &laquo;talibans&raquo; do&nbsp;not care about the forest, that they are very unlikely to&nbsp;defend it&nbsp;and hence would cut any part of&nbsp;the forest down&nbsp;&mdash; wherever it&nbsp;is&nbsp;ordered. </p><p>More to&nbsp;say, the &laquo;talibans&raquo; have shown themselves as&nbsp;rather troublesome. Few stay for long. Some work a&nbsp;couple of&nbsp;months, others start packing right after a&nbsp;week. Among them there is&nbsp;a&nbsp;bit of&nbsp;everything: heavy drinkers, robbers and also some men who do&nbsp;not think much before they use their. Some are former convicts. Kamenyuki Local Council, previously the quietest in&nbsp;the region of&nbsp;Kamenetz, has now been regularly appearing in&nbsp;connection with criminal reports. The number of&nbsp;<nobr>5&ndash;6</nobr> registered crimes committed in&nbsp;the region annually has now increased by&nbsp;three times if&nbsp;compared with the last years. Only since the beginning of&nbsp;the current year six crimes have been registered in&nbsp;Kamenyuki, committed by&nbsp;the &laquo;talibans&raquo;. As&nbsp;a&nbsp;rule, the crimes are thefts of&nbsp;private property, but there are also other examples of&nbsp;&laquo;devilry&raquo;. Certainly, local <nobr>law-enforcement</nobr> bodies did try to&nbsp;raise the alarm, as&nbsp;all respective social indicators started showing a&nbsp;sudden declining tendency. According to&nbsp;our information, Nickolai Bambiza received <nobr>so-called</nobr> &laquo;information requests&raquo; from the local police (militia) more than once. The police asked to&nbsp;submit information about the worker s&nbsp;criminal background if&nbsp;they come from other regions: it&nbsp;would be&nbsp;helpful for the authorities to&nbsp;know whether a&nbsp;citizen respects the Criminal Code or&nbsp;whether he&nbsp;maybe is&nbsp;running away to&nbsp;the silent Pushcha to&nbsp;escape prosecution. No&nbsp;need to&nbsp;mention, the requests were ignored. . &laquo;The weakest goes to&nbsp;the wall&raquo;, one of&nbsp;the employees of&nbsp;Kamenetz District Department of&nbsp;Ministry of&nbsp;Internal Affairs explained to&nbsp;the author of&nbsp;this article with disappointment. Perhaps the Director has powerful connections&laquo;. However, the fight is&nbsp;on&nbsp;everyone s&nbsp;tongue, and the <nobr>law-enforcement</nobr> bodies have started the inquiry in&nbsp;spite of&nbsp;attempts to&nbsp;hide the last events in&nbsp;the Pushcha. Locals´ only fear is&nbsp;that all the process can end up&nbsp;with the result that the local police inspector will be&nbsp;made responsible for the problems. They say that the real reason of&nbsp;problems are invited workers, who are absolutely unnecessary in&nbsp;the region. At&nbsp;present signatures on&nbsp;an&nbsp;open letter are being collected in&nbsp;Kamenyuki. The letter does not only cover the &laquo;talibans&raquo; problems but more than that and is&nbsp;to&nbsp;be&nbsp;delivered to&nbsp;all major newspapers and all governmental bodies including the President. </p><p>Will they be&nbsp;heard this time? </p> </div> <div id="navbot"><a href="../../en/">home</a>|<a href="../news/">news</a>|<a href="../idea/">idea</a>|<a href="../about/">about pushcha</a>|<a href="../art/">articles</a>|<a href="../docs/">documents</a>|<a href="../ff/">photo-fact</a>|<a href="../gallery/">gallery</a>|<a href="../books/">books</a>|<a href="../links/">links</a>|<a href="../map/">sitemap</a></div> <div id=footer>&copy; copyright, <a href="../ig/index.html" title="About Initiative Group">Initiative Group Belovezhskaya Pushcha 21st Century</a> | <a href="mailto:pushcha-XXI@tut.by">pushcha-XXI@tut.by</a>, 2001-2004<br><br> <!-- HotLog --> <script language="javascript"> hotlog_js="1.0"; hotlog_r=""+Math.random()+"&s=110673&im=126&r="+escape(document.referrer)+"&pg="+ escape(window.location.href); document.cookie="hotlog=1; path=/"; hotlog_r+="&c="+(document.cookie?"Y":"N"); </script><script language="javascript1.1"> hotlog_js="1.1";hotlog_r+="&j="+(navigator.javaEnabled()?"Y":"N")</script> <script language="javascript1.2"> hotlog_js="1.2"; hotlog_r+="&wh="+screen.width+'x'+screen.height+"&px="+ (((navigator.appName.substring(0,3)=="Mic"))? screen.colorDepth:screen.pixelDepth)</script> <script language="javascript1.3">hotlog_js="1.3"</script> <script language="javascript">hotlog_r+="&js="+hotlog_js; document.write("<a href='http://click.hotlog.ru/?110673' target='_top'><img "+ " src='http://hit5.hotlog.ru/cgi-bin/hotlog/count?"+ hotlog_r+"&' border=0 width=1 height=1 alt=HotLog></a>")</script> <noscript><a href=http://click.hotlog.ru/?110673 target=_top><img src="http://hit5.hotlog.ru/cgi-bin/hotlog/count?s=110673&im=126" border=0 width="1" height="1" alt="HotLog"></a></noscript> <!-- /HotLog --></div> <div id="map"><a href="../../en/"><img src="../../i/home.gif" width="11" height="10" border="0" alt="home"></a> <a href="mailto:pushcha-XXI@tut.by"><img src="../../i/mail.gif" width="13" height="8" border="0" alt="send e-mail"></a> <a href="../map/"><img src="../../i/map.gif" height="8" width="8" border="0" alt="sitemap"></a></div> </body> </html>