The EU and its neighbours, starting with Belarus

A Europe beyond barbed wire

Victor Angelo

 

The confrontation taking place on the border between Belarus and Poland is worrying, but it cannot be analysed in black and white. It is a complex crisis that raises a whole series of questions. We are facing humanitarian, migratory, security, geopolitical and ethical problems, in other words, a constellation of challenges that need to be debated calmly, frankly, and thoroughly.

In the background, we have two major problems. The first is about democracy. The second focuses on extreme poverty in a world that is profoundly unequal, and that conflicts, pandemics and climate change are making even more uneven and fractured.

But first, you have to think about the people who are now trapped in the no-man's-land between the Polish barbed wire and the truncheons of the Belarusian special units. It is not known how many thousands there are - estimates are not reliable. It is known, however, that they include fragile people, many of them children, who are hungry and cold and suffer constant humiliation and violence. They are also permanent targets for false news that Belarusian agents constantly circulate in order to keep the migrants' illusions alive.

Alexander Lukashenko, the master of Belarus, is clearly taking advantage of the misery of certain peoples. But our side cannot remain indifferent to the suffering of those who have allowed themselves to be manipulated, people who live in such complicated contexts that any promise, however unrealistic it may be, always brings a thread of hope. And that throws masses of people into the minefields of illegal migration.

The border with Belarus separates the European area from an autocratic regime, in which anything that can keep the dictator in power is done. Lukashenko is our most immediate concern today, but he is not the only case in the neighbourhood. If we look around and focus on who represents the closest potential or real threat, we have a bouquet that also includes the leaders of Russia and Turkey. I do not want to add some Moroccan politicians to this list, but I would recommend not losing sight of this North African neighbour of ours, who has already shown that he knows how to use mass migration as a political weapon.

It is true that there are also those within the EU who are destabilising European integration. But that is a matter for another reflection.

Let us now talk about democracy. The EU needs to formulate a doctrine that defines how it should relate to non-democratic neighbours, especially when situations of open hostility arise, as is now the case. In the current framework, one gets the feeling that democracies tend to lose out to outlaw states. It is therefore necessary to clearly establish what the appropriate response should be to aggressions of a hybrid nature, carried out at the tangent of the red line of armed conflicts between States, without, however, crossing it. A first step should be a firm and unequivocal response. This includes the adoption of sanctions in a swifter, multi-faceted and more character-focused manner. Another means will be to make greater use of the multilateral system. This will allow actions like the one Lukashenko ordered at the expense of the despair of the Iraqi Kurds, the Syrians and other peoples of the Middle East to be included on the international agenda,

As for the disparities that exist between a rich Europe and a whole series of poor countries, the pull effect is inevitable. Mass migration from South to North will be one of the most striking phenomena of this and the following decades. The EU cannot pretend it does not see the trend. It is unacceptable to leave a matter of such importance to the discretion of individual member states. The issue must be dealt with jointly. And the subject must become one of the main lines of debate at the Conference on the Future of Europe. It is also time to tell the citizens that this conference is taking place and get them involved.

(Automatic translation of the opinion piece I published in the Diário de Notícias, the old and prestigious Lisbon newspaper. Edition dated 19 November 2021)

Lowering the tension between Russia and the West

Russia and us: maximum prudence and lots of diplomacy

Victor Angelo

 

There are some intellectuals out there with a broken compass. They have shown again this loss of reference points in the way they have reacted to the criticism made to Alexander Lukashenko, the post-Soviet relic who controls the destiny of Belarus since 1994. A character who meets all the requirements that characterize a dictator. He will not have the stature of Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping, nor the madness of Kim Jong-un, or a strategic vision that goes beyond the simple obsession with perpetuating himself in power. He is a tiny tyrant who, at his manner, ruins the freedoms and the lives of his fellow citizens. This evidence escapes some. With their gaze fixed on the past, they play at being progressive and see in him a heroic survivor of the communist era, a would-be resistor to the imperialist designs of the West. And they swallow all the falsehoods that this variant of Salazar, a version with a moustache and a brute, invents to justify his actions. In particular, the criminal action against the Ryanair commercial flight, and the lies built around Roman Protasevich. They ignore, at the same time, everything that the European leaders have said on the subject. 

The same has been true of the propaganda coming from the Kremlin. For some of our bewildered people, Putin is always right, when he attacks our part of the world. The explanation is the same, although in a strengthened dose, that the Kremlin has a more symbolic meaning and touches the soul of those nostalgic for the Soviet Union more than Minsk.

The truth is different, however. Putin is a threat. Like other despots, his power strategy is to create an external enemy, so as to allow him to appear, in the eyes of his own, as the defender of the homeland, its traditional values, and its nationalist projection as a great power. In this plan, everything that emerges as internal opposition, and that could jeopardize Putin's future, is accused of being at the service of foreign powers and pursued with all ferocity.

The external target par excellence is NATO. And the rhetoric from Moscow, which some here faithfully echo, attributes to the Atlantic Alliance the design of wanting to camp along the Russian borders. It is the alleged eastward expansion of NATO. There are four member states that share border lines with Russia: Poland and Lithuania, which are neighbours of Kaliningrad, a highly militarized Russian enclave, plus Latvia and Estonia. These countries joined NATO by their own will and because they meet the conditions required by the organization: a democratic political system, based on a market economy and respect for people's rights; and the existence of an effective defence structure duly framed by a legitimate political power. It is essentially about democracy and sovereignty. It is this sovereignty - the ability of each country to decide freely on its foreign alliances - that Putin does not want to accept being practiced by Georgia and, above all, Ukraine. Since he has no such right, he uses intimidation, trickery and, when necessary, force as an alternative. 

Those who live in an outdated ideological labyrinth do not understand these things. They pay no attention to the voices coming from the European camp, even though our leaders have the democratic legitimacy that dictators lack. Nor do they care that our side has unsuccessfully sought to revive the NATO-Russia Council, an essential consultative body for détente. The last meeting of that Council took place in July 2019. Further, Russia was invited to send military observers to the allied exercise SteadFast Defender 2021, which is taking place across Europe and with a special focus on the Black Sea. It did not respond to the invitation.

The current conjuncture is worrisome. Tension between the two sides of Europe is as it has never been in the last 30 years. In such a context, the summit planned for June 16 in Geneva between the American and Russian presidents is going to be very difficult. It is urgent to defuse the existing dangerous situation, so this meeting will require maximum diplomacy and prudence.

(Automatic translation of the opinion piece I published today in the Diário de Notícias, the old and prestigious Lisbon newspaper)

 

 

Lukashenko flies low and will crash

Lukashenko in choppy flight

Victor Angelo

 

For some states, the repression of dissidents knows neither limits nor borders. Anything goes when someone is considered an enemy of the regime. Even when he or she lives abroad, convinced that it is safer. One may not be, however, if one is considered a target for the criminals who control power in the home country. Some dictatorships have an awfully long repressive arm. They have no qualms about operating on foreign soil and conducting murders, kidnappings, or making frivolous or unsubstantiated accusations in order to force Interpol to issue international arrest and repatriation notices. In other cases, they brutally intimidate family members who have remained in the country, with the aim of silencing the opponent in other latitudes.

The atrocious execution in Istanbul of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 was the most visible case in recent times. But it is not only Saudi Arabia that violates international law in this way. In a recently published report, the reputable NGO Freedom House took inventory of individual cases of transnational repression and the regimes that practice it, with total disregard for the sovereignty of other states and the norms of political asylum and refugee protection. In addition to the Saudis, the list includes China, Iran, Rwanda, Russia and Turkey. It would be easy, unfortunately, to add a few others. North Korea, for example, which organized the assassination of Kim Jong-un's half-brother at Kuala Lumpur airport in 2017. And as of this week, we have to include Lukashenko's Belarus.

The Belarusian dictator, who is not cleared of the well-founded suspicion of having rigged the August 2020 presidential elections in his favor, is afraid of his population and of those who lead the opposition against his regime. Therefore, it follows the old methods of dictatorships, that is, it represses the street demonstrations with all brutality, creates a generalized situation of fear, and decapitates the organizational summit, the leadership that is capable of making the popular masses move. Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, did not go to KGB school like his protector Vladimir Putin, but that does not stop him from acting in "special operations" mode.

That is what he did, by forcibly and cunningly diverting the Ryanair commercial flight from Athens to the Lithuanian capital. The interception violated all international standards related to civil aviation safety. It was also a serious affront to the European Union because it was an air link between two Schengen capitals, and a total disregard for political asylum rules. But it allowed him to kidnap and put out of action an important activist in the fight for democracy in Belarus, the young journalist Roman Protasevich.

The political costs of this criminal act are high. The European Council was expeditious and unanimous in its condemnation and response. The airspace Lukashenko controls is no longer on the route for European flights - and not only that, as several Asian airlines have followed suit - and the national airline of Belarus will have to suspend its connections with destinations within the EU. Moreover, the economic sanctions will be extended.

Some will say that these kinds of penalties have little effect on a country that depends primarily on its relations with Russia. They also add that such measures will increase Lukashenko's political subordination to the Kremlin. It is hard not to recognize the merit of these remarks. Experience shows that sanctions against third countries do not lead to major political transformations, except when they directly hit the ruling clique and the sectors vital for the country's economic survival. It is not yet known which will be the new personalities and which activities will be added to the existing sanctions list. But in these matters, the symbolic dimension is equally important. The political and diplomatic isolation of Alexander Lukashenko, and his people, must be made very clear. It serves as a lever. It is up to the Belarusian democratic opposition to do the rest. 

(Automatic translation of the opinion piece I published yesterday in the Diário de Notícias, the old and prestigious Lisbon newspaper)

EU sanctions on Belarus

The European Union has prepared a list of about 40 Belarusian personalities close to Alexander Lukashenko – his name is not in the list – that would be subject to sanctions. The list should be approved this coming week. I will comment further on it as soon as I have seen it and the kind of sanctions that it includes. However, an initial reflection can be made right now. Sanctions are a straightforward way out. The experience has shown that the type of measures adopted ends up by having little impact on the situation. They do not lead to real change. And, in all truth, they hide the lack of political will to undertake a more proactive approach. In this case, I have not yet seen a single proposal that I can say “that’s a concrete way of helping the Belarusian people to solve the impasse”. The EU is not showing enough creative thinking.

Lukashenko must go

The people of Belarus had never occupied the centre of our European attention. For us, in the European Union, they were just a small nation at the outer periphery of our political space. We knew nothing about them. Now, they are at the centre of our admiration. They have shown, since the fraudulent early August elections, to be a very valiant people. They have been on the streets almost every day, to tell the dictator that enough is enough and that he should go. Men and women, lots of folks, some older people as well, everyone is ready to face the police repression because they want to be heard. This is no revolution pushed from outside the country. This is a genuine popular movement. I think that sooner the dictator will have to yield. The popular dislike is too obvious for him and his small group of supporters to be able to ignore it. And he cannot count of Vladimir Putin’s help. If this one comes to help – I hope he will not – he will get rid of him in any case. Putin knows that Lukashenko is politically finished.

Europe meets on Belarus

The leaders of the European Union met today to discuss the situation in Belarus. They agreed that the presidential elections of 9 August were not credible and therefore the results announced by the country’s electoral authorities cannot be accepted. That is a good statement. But it is not enough. The leaders should have called for new elections to be held as soon as possible. They put a lot of emphasis on dialogue between the dictator and the opposition. That dialogue should be about the electoral process to be followed when organising new elections.

The leaders have also expressed support to the possible role the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) could play in Belarus. I found it a bit strange as we all know that this Vienna-based entity is in a crisis mode. All its key leadership positions are filled by officers-in-charge. They have no political clout to facilitate any dialogue in Belarus.

In the end, the most important thing the EU can do is to send a clear message to Alexander Lukashenko that his legitimacy is not recognised and personal responsibility for human rights violations will not be forgotten. Dictators love strong messages. Brussels must realise it.

Lukashenko is on his way out

 My crystal ball is out of order. Therefore, I cannot see what is next in Belarus. But I have looked at the pictures of the crowds that came to the streets every day since the election last Sunday. I have all seen the reports about today’s rally against the dictator, the fraudster Alexander Lukashenko. I concluded that he keeps losing ground, including within his administration and the police forces. People have shown a tremendous amount of courage. They are determined to get him out of power. He has lost the support of the factory workers, which he thought would keep their loyalty towards the regime and his person. He thinks he can count on the police and the army, plus the support coming from Russia. He might be wrong. My reading is that his position is very fragile. Any intervention coming from Putin’s side will make things worse. And Putin knows that as well.