What does Poland need democratic Belarus for?

Polish media continue to discuss the situation in Belarus. Different points of views on this problem exist.

We offer a text of an article from a popular blog of Polish political writers, ozon.salon24.pl, under a title “What does Poland need democratic Belarus for?”:

In light of the recent events across our Eastern border the interest to Belarus has grown again. You may hear again that Belarus is ruled by a tyrant, and we cannot accept that. Luckily, Foreign Minister of Poland has completely different philosophy.

Radosław Sikorski has met with this tyrant who is unkindly destroying the poor Belarusian people (what does it mean?), and oppressing Poles who want to make this nation free. Ten he expressed the hope that experts would reach an agreement concerning freedoms in development of language and culture by Poles in Belarus. It is a right approach to the issue. It would be bad if the Union of Poles of Belarus believed that Belarus needs democratization, that Belarus should be liberated. Such actions of the UPB would simply worsen its situation.

To our mind, all this cooperation with the Belarusian opposition is an erroneous policy. These tours around Europe and Polish press coverage of Alyaksandr Milinkevich only make the situation of Poles worse. It should be added that the abovementioned Milinkevich is an honorary member of the Union of Poles, and we have the full picture of a wrong policy. In such a situation Lukashenka evidently associates Poles with his enemy from within, which is to be got rid of or at least considerably weakened. What do we need that for? Poles can exist within the framework of Lukashenka’s regime without any problems.

It should be noted here however that “pro-Lukashenka” leadership of the Union of Poles which was created some time ago, undermines Polish interests considerably as well. They do not pursue a policy loyal to the Polish state, which is even worse than the wrong policy of Borys. Treachery is much worse than a mistake, especially when this mistake is done (have been done?) by the entire our country.

Belarus’ democratisation is not a Polish interest, and also interest of the Union of Poles. Polonisation of Belarus is in our interests, and these are the two widely divergent things. The fact that Polish firms have been allowed to enter the Belarusian market, should in no way be connected with holding general election. I can say even more, election would decrease influence (significance) of Poles undoubtedly, as there are very few of our fellow nationals there, and not all of them use Polish language in their everyday life. Besides, after democratisation one can expect with 100 percent certainty that Russian language is to prevail in Belarus, as Russian language is dominating there absolutely.

At the moment Belarus is trying to balance, and to our mindб by supposing that absence of democracy does not discredit Belarus as a state and as a potential Polish ally, Radosław Sikorski is doing right.