Theory of War

A lot of analysts and journalists viewed the brutal crackdown on a peaceful demonstration on December 19 as the authorities’ panic over the inevitable defeat, which might have happened if the presidential elections had been honest.

One has to agree with the point, but the truth is that the electoral moping-up of the political field was just the first stage of Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s new strategy, “war for salvation”.

At first, the brutal crackdown on the demonstration caused more than perplexity, it was a shock. Why did Lukashenka organize this massacre if he had falsified elections before, ignored mass gatherings of protesters, hadn’t cared a damn about international public opinion? The following development was even more illogical: the conflict with Russia became permanent, a “nuclear war” against Lithuania began, interethnic and journalistic conflict with Poland occurred… On April 11, a blast hit the Minsk metro…

War till victorious defeat

A mill of repressions, which has already begun crushing Belarusians’ fates after the presidential elections, has constantly been working since December 19: arrests, police raids, beatings, tortures, interrogations, seizure of equipment, dismissals, expulsions from universities… At the end of every week, analysts and politologists were trying to sing a mantra about “ransom for political prisoners” in different styles, but they did not understand and did not admit the fact that the loans, Lukashenka’s regime used to get from Europe for release of opposition politicians from prisons, is not a goal in itself today. At the best case, it is only an indirect positive result.

The today’s goal, Lukashenka is trying to achieve so zealously, is war. Not an abstract war with sending protest notes from a cabinet of one foreign ministry to a cabinet of another one, but a real war with shooting, victims, war prisoners and loots. The more large-scale this war is, the more chances of success Lukashenka has, the more dividends he can get.

A key to this strategy lies in the experience of those, which whom Lukashenka has dealt for the last few years: Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, Muammar Gaddafi, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad… Each of them has some “personal wars” in his career, some of them have world wars. “Why cannot I win at least one war by defeating?” Alyaksandr Lukashenka probably pondered on this paradoxical thought while his inner peasant was having a gut feeling of the approaching economic collapse.

To extinguish the conflict, one inner war was not enough. In today’s Belarus, only those who receive good money for their belief are able to believe that “the fascist-like opposition that has eaten all sugar and drunk all sunflower oil”. Besides, fight against inner enemies can lead to an unwanted result – a civil war, which doesn’t have winners a priori. It’s not excluded that this tactics used the experience of Mikheil Saakashvili, who has been offering his friendship to Lukashenka for the last few years. Saakashvili managed to gain profit, both moral and material, of his defeat in the war with Russia by just losing the territories that had de facto been under protectorate of Russia.

Lukashenka decided small actions are not for him and chose tactics “one against all the rest”.

One against all the rest

The previous, so long established, candy and realpolitik relations with the European Union, which had given Lukashenka profit of some tens billion credits for the Belarusian dictatorship, were the first to be tested for destruction by Lukashenka. He made this not after December 19, but a little earlier, during Minsk visit of the Polish and German foreign ministers, Radoslaw Sikorski and Guido Westerwelle.

Lukashenka is not a wise politician, he can rather be called an ignorant cranky boor, who does not specialize in any life activity. But the feature one cannot deny in him is his incredibly developed self-preservation feeling. It is this feeling that defines his behavioral patterns. Lukashenka will never venture upon exacerbation of relations, if the chosen tactics does not need this. One should have alarmed and seen the future in this simple act, when he began to tell Guido Westerwelle in details how he would have sent homosexuals to Belarusian collective farms for corrections. Lukashenka knew perfectly he was talking to a gay. It was not eccentricity or an attempt to explain his position, it was declaration of war. Declaration of war not by an eccentric liberal, like Saakashvili, but by Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who praised Adolf Hitler as his idol at the beginning of his presidential career. His counterpart was an excellent choice: a foreign minister of Europe’s economically largest state, moreover, the biggest creditor of the Belarusian regime.

Lukashenka had sense to drag Russian into the war, but he didn’t need any special activities for that, because Idiosyncrasy of Belarusian and Russian regimes is reaching the bottom end of the scale, and endless economic wars have become permanent. However, Lukashenka made a certain gesture by arresting and sentencing two young Russians, who had been on the Square on December 19. They would have received 3 or 4 years in prison if a theme of talks over Russian 3-billion loan had not popped up. Fortunately, the talks died just after the Russians had been released.

It more difficult with Lithuania, which president Dalia Grybauskaite favours Lukashenka during her political career. Even “nuclear blackmailing” launched by the Belarusian leader against the entrusted to Grybauskaite state, cannot convince her she will not receive economic dividends for her love. Activity of preparing a construction site for a Belarusian nuclear power station on the Lithuanian border increased sharply in winter despite both economic and weather conditions. Two themes were simultaneously discussed in press: unsafe Fukusima reactor leaking in Japan and acceleration of NPP construction works in Belarus. The acceleration was not caused by financing the project: all companies earlier expressing desire to participate in construction take a pause after the Japan earthquake and quieted waiting for better times. Only the Belarusian authorities, under surprised glances of analysts, zealously continued digging the pit.

Some time passed and Lithuanian politicians stopped keeping silence, which seemed to calm down the Belarusian authorities, which by that moment had launched military actions against Poland. The situation here was already hot due to Radek Sikorski’s attempts to lead the European fight against the Belarusian dictatorship, which was explained by his fiasco, so evident after his failure to “tear Belarus from Russia”, the tactics so caroled by sweet-voiced Poland’s favourite, collaborator Alyaksandr Milinkevich. The Belarusian authorities chose an inerrable “denotator”, journalist Andrzej Poczobut. He is not just a journalist, he is a Belarusian correspondent for Poland’s largest newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, which is never at loss for words and for actions when it comes to protection of journalists’ rights.

Among the closest neighbours, only Ukraine, which Lukashenka needs as a link in his machinations with Venezuelan and Iranian oil, was out of combat actions. In the end, this project became no longer interesting for Viktor Yanukovych, and the Belarusian ruler got an opportunity to neglect his economic interests trying to open the “Ukrainian front” in connection with an anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, on which occasion he was going to visit Kyiv, the news that made European Commission President Manuel Barroso, who does not plan to meet Lukashenka in Kyiv and any other place, choke.

As it may seem at first glance, Lukashenka is on war of annihilation with the European Union. But it’s only the first glance. His absolute ignoring European sanctions is based on unshakable conviction that things will not move further a travel ban for certain Belarusian officials. As for imposing economic sanctions, Lukashenka always can accuse the EU of an attempt to “drive the people of Belarus to dugouts” and use a default procedure. As a result, the European Union will look as an aggressor, but the Belarusian dictatorship will look as a victim. After that, Lukashenka will be happy to shut all Russian pipelines cutting off gas and oil supplies to a number of Eastern European countries.

Lukashenka understands that perfectly well. That is why, even after the blast in Minsk metro on April 11, foreign ministers of the European Union who had gathered in Luxemburg for a lunch, discussed the situation in Libya, Bahrain, Syria and Yemen, mentioning Belarus, which is situated in Europe, only in the Miscellaneous.

Directed Blast Concept

The blast on April 11 was to explain Belarusians that they should immediately forget about the deficit of dollars, sugar and oil, and come to the realization of the fact that the period of “dug-out” has come. And that they would be lead into battle with European and American subjugators by the Belarusian and his 6-year-old crown prince Kolya. By the way, Kolya was one of the first who visited the scene of the terrorist attack, having kindly invited his father to the bloody excursion.

Recalling the recent history of Belarus, over the last 16 years there have been 4 blasts which are memorable for the nation, and all of them unfortunately were politically advantageous to one and only person – Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

The first one was in spring 1997. To be exact, it was not one, but a series of explosions which happened within 2 weeks: the gas trunk pipeline, a gas-distributing compressor station and the building of the court of Savetski district of Minsk. All these blasts topped by a grenade launcher shooting attack at the Russian Embassy building in Minsk, happened just before the signing of the Agreement on creation of the union state of Belarus and Russia. Then it was necessary for the Belarusian authorities to demonstrate vulnerability of Russian pipelines, for the agreements to be signed on the terms offered by Minsk. Anatoly Chubais read the trick of the Belarusian authorities and blocked signing the Belarusian version of the agreement, and substituted it by an absolutely neutral version. As a result, a softer variant was signed, and no one ever recalled the perpetrators of the blast who had not been found.

The second one happened in October 1997. The blast in Mahilyou resulted in death of the chairman of Mahilyou regional state control committee Yauhen Mikalutski (Mikolutski). He was far from being an angel, but he was a hindrance in multi-million illegal traffic transactions, mostly related to alcohol, which had been carried out by the authorities through Mahilyou region. During the funerals Alyaksandr Lukashenka, standing among officers of Alfa detachment in metal helmets who reminded crusaders, pompously said: “They have launched a challenge to me, and I meet it.” Viktar Sheiman was appointed the person in charge of the case. By the way, Sheiman was the patron of illegal trafficking at the same time, and it is not excluded he was an architect of Mikalutski’s assassination.

As a result, no one was punished for the murder, and those who had been arrested, were released for lack of evidence. The response to the challenge taken up was postponed for better times.

The third one took place on July 3, 2008. During a concert dedicated to the “City Day” in Minsk, before a vast assembly, an explosive packed with ball bearing and disguised as a fruit juice package, was detonated. The blast entailed hospitalization of five dozen people, many of them were disabled for the rest of their lives. Right after that a total fingerprinting of the whole male population of the country started. By a strange coincidence, the blast coincided with the redivision of spheres of influence among law-enforcing agencies. Finally, the son of the Belarusian president, Viktar Lukashenka, gained control over most law-enforcing agencies, and the former supervisor of the special services Viktar Sheiman lost his influence almost completely. The culprits of the terrorist act have not been found naturally, no one was punished.

The fourth one happened on April 11, 2011. A blast with the explosive yield of 5-7 kilograms of TNT has taken place at Kastrychnitskaya metro station. According to preliminary information, 12 were killed, about 150 were injured. Alyaksandr Lukashenka said with a false drama in his voice: “Guys [muzhiki, peasants], we have been presented with a serious challenge. We need an adequate response – and it must be found.”

That is, if compared to 1997, this challenge has been launched to “us”, “guys”, not “me”. “Guys” is an address worthy of a president. My friend, a writer Pyotr Vail, after visiting Minsk in 1996 after the parliamentary crisis, said: “I have an impression I am visiting Chechnya – the leadership of the country addressing MPs here says “guys”. It was a reasonable observation, but I would say the same I said then: they are not the head of the state and deputies elected by people, but they are “guys” settling problems and sorting out things.

Herostratus Oath

Lukashenka understands perfectly well that the bubble of the “Belarusian economic miracle” blown up by European loans and Russian almost free energy resources, has burst. The time has come to pay for the many years of lies and uncontrollable wastefulness. Today he still believes that the situation could be conserved, but just a little time will pass, and he will understand the game is over, and no prayers or repressions or blasts would help him to stay in power.

In order to retain power Lukashenka is ready for most awful steps, in comparison with which even the blast in Minsk metro would seem just a child’s play. He is ready to throw millions of Belarus’ citizens into the abyss of chaos, just to avoid punishment for deaths of people, broken fates, ruined economy, the loss of a decade and a half. Today he is ready to gain fame of Herostratus, who had burnt down the Temple of Artemis, and pretend he is a prey to circumstances, making us forget that he is exactly the one responsible for the troubles experienced by the country.

Today Lukashenka has become not just an insignificant collective farm director, who had started “a little liberation war” in order to save his own life – he has become an acid test, an indicator which measures how far the civilized world would be able to go in ignoring the issue of human rights for the sake of “political expediency”.

Nikolai Khalezin