"So, 12 days on Okrestino, and then three days in the KGB pre-trial detention centre they held me. The biggest complaint against me was that I refused to give the name of the person who was my contact from those people who supported the campaign [Andrei Sannikau's presidential campaign] from abroad. I refused to give his surname, saying I didn't remember. They were annoyed by this. They wanted to give me a lesson: if you are so stubborn, you will go to jail, or you will have problems. Eventually, the trouble came. They came to my cell in the pre-trial detention centre with a copy of this man's passport and asked, ‘Is this him?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Why didn't you tell us straight away that it is your former colleague!?’"
"Of course, both the work itself in the Foreign Ministry and the fact that I had a ‘human rights’ direction increased the internal pressure. My internal dialogue continued: why do I remain part of this system when it is so anti-Belarusian, anti-national, anti-state. I did not want to be part of it. At the same time, I saw that I was good at working in this system: I had the necessary skills and a good reputation, I was perceived normally by my partners. I did not want to leave this place, I felt that I could still be useful for our country. At the same time, I realised that there was less and less room to do something useful for my country, and that I was more and more serving the regime, in fact serving the interests of Lukashenka himself."
"Washington is a very politicised city, and what you can do depends largely on the level of relations with the United States. During Lukashenka's rule, Belarus's relations with the United States were very uneasy; they created uncomfortable and wrong positions for effective work in Washington.
Nevertheless, I did my job: I had contacts with experts, diplomatic corps, civil servants in the embassy, I had to work a lot with the Congress. At that time there was an initiative to adopt the ‘Belarus Democracy Act’ and my task was to prevent its adoption. I had a whole series of meetings and consultations on this subject with American experts from the Congress. Although, after difficult negotiations, the law was passed a few days later, I was lucky to learn a lot, I understood how this system works, how decisions are made, how laws are passed. I was able to build friendships with my former opponents. I loved working in Washington, it's the best city in the world for those involved in international politics."
Valery Kavaleŭski is a Belarusian ex-diplomat. He was born on 25 February 1976 in the village of Berezhnoye, Brest region, then USSR, and received a patriarchal upbringing. He graduated from the prestigious Department of International Relations of the BSU Faculty of History, IPM Business School, then a Master’s degree at Georgetown University. He was First Secretary for Political Affairs and chargé d’affaires of Belarus to Washington, USA. In 2006 he resigned from the Belarusian Foreign Ministry in disagreement with the third presidential term of A. Lukashenka. He worked in the Belarusian high-tech business company Regula, engaged in investments. In 2010 at the presidential election he supported the candidacy of Andrei Sannikaŭ and after Lukashenka’s ‘victory’ he was arrested right at the office, kept for 12 days in Okrestino prison and three days in the KGB pre-trial detention centre. In 2012, under the pressure exerted on him and his wife, lawyer Maryna Kavaleŭska, he left with his wife and son to the United States, worked at the World Bank in Washington, went to protests outside the Belarusian Embassy, where he used to be a diplomat, and pro-Ukrainian rallies. In 2020, he flew to Minsk to vote for Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. He was detained at one of the protest marches, kept in the isolation centre at Okrestino. In December 2020, Kavaleŭsky left Belarus to take part in the Office of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya in Lithuania as an advisor on international issues, now continuing his mission in Poland.
