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Friday, Oct. 8, 2004

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  "We are living through a very difficult period," Lukashenko said. "It is somewhat like the period when the mighty organization (was) founded by a great person -- Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky."

The memorial complex includes a museum and a bust of Dzerzhinsky, which stands not far from the foundation of the home where Dzerzhinsky was born.

Dzerzhinsky, deeply reviled by critics of the Soviet era, helped establish the first Soviet secret service, called the Cheka, in 1917 under Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin. The Cheka, which was the forerunner of the KGB, was responsible for mass arrests and executions.

He died in 1926, and a statue of "Iron Felix" stood outside the KGB headquarters in Moscow until it was torn down during the failed hard-line coup of August 1991 that sped the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Alexander Yakovlev, a close adviser to the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, called Dzerzhinsky "the shame of Russia" and said he personally ordered mass killings and tortures.

Persistent nostalgia for the Soviet era and respect for Russian President Vladimir Putin, a longtime KGB officer, have prompted proposals to put a monument back up in the Russian capital.

Lukashenko, first elected president of neighboring Belarus in 1994, has made himself an outcast in the West by stifling dissent while prolonging and strengthening his rule through votes denounced as unfair.

The main security agency in the nation of 10 million is still called the KGB.

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