MINSK, Belarus (AP) - Riot police wielding truncheons clashed yesterday with protesters who held a defiant rally against the disputed election that extended the rule of Belarus' hard-line President Alexander Lukashenko.

Many protesters were detained, including one of the Opposition leaders, Alexander Kozulin.

MINSK, Belarus - Riot police beat an unidentified protester in the Belarusian capital Minsk yesterday. The clash occurred after a line of riot police blocked the path of some of the 1,000 protesters heading to a jail where demonstrators arrested in previous protests were being held. (Photo: AP)

The clash occurred after a gauntlet of riot police blocked the path of protesters marching to a jail where demonstrators arrested in previous protests were being held. Police beat their shields with truncheons and advanced on the crowd.

Four explosions ripped through the air, apparently percussion grenades set off by police, and protesters began to disperse, yelling: "Fascists!" But police detained at least a score of people, loading them into trucks. At least two people lay injured on the ground, and one was seen being taken away by ambulance.

Earlier, rows of black-clad police blocked the central Oktyabrskaya Square where Opposition leaders had called for a midday rally. Officers pushed the crowd of about 3,000 back in a bid to end a week of unprecedented protests in the tightly controlled former Soviet republic. Demonstrators shouted "Shame!" and "Long live Belarus!"

On the other side of the sprawling square, Opposition Leader Alexander Milinkevich led another crowd of several thousand to a nearby park, where he announced "the creation of a movement for the liberation of Belarus".
"The authorities can only confront the striving of the people for change with persecution and violence," Milinkevich told the crowd, which grew to as many as 7,000 people. Demonstrators held flowers, waved the red-and-white historic flag of the Opposition and shouted "Mi-lin-ke-vich!" and "We are not afraid!"

"The people have come out today, they have come out in the face of truncheons, in the face of arrests," Milinkevich said. "The more the authorities conduct repression, the closer they bring themselves to their end."
Milinkevich praised Belarusians who have protested since the March 19 election, but acknowledged that their numbers are not enough to defeat Lukashenko's government.

"We can be proud of what we have already done: Fear is vanquished," he said. "But today there are not 200,000 or 500,000 of us coming out into the square. If there were, they (the authorities) would run away from the country."

The tense scenes came a day after police stormed a tent camp in Oktyabrskaya Square that had been the focus of round-the-clock protests over the election in which Lukashenko won a new five year-term by a landslide in a vote the Opposition denounced as a farce and the West criticised as undemocratic.

Milinkevich, who officially received about six per cent of the vote and wants a new election without the participation of Lukashenko, had been calling all week for a major demonstration Saturday marking the anniversary of Belarus' first independence declaration in 1918.

"We're not planning any violence, any taking of the Bastille. We want a peaceful demonstration," he said before the rally, standing with his wife and about 100 relatives of detained activists.
Police took no action against the park rally, and did not prevent people from joining it.

The crowd began to disperse peacefully after Opposition figures called for an end to the rally and said the next major demonstration would be held April 26. Heeding a call from Kozulin, many demonstrators headed toward the jail where some of the hundreds of protesters arrested Friday were being held - and the clash ensued.

The country's top police official, Vladimir Naumov, said one protester suffered a light head injury and eight police officers were hurt. He claimed the police had not set off the explosions, accused protesters of throwing rocks and bottles and refused to say how many people were detained. He said Kozulin had called for the government's overthrow and Lukashenko's death.

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