David Kramer: We should tighten noose around Lukashenka

The EU should impose economic sanctions, and the IMF should not give loans to the dictatorship.

It has been stated by David Kramer, Executive Director of an influential human rights organization “Freedom House”, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs in his interview to ARU TV channel.

- The situation is very serious in many respects, and I think Lukashenka is facing his most serious threat, and it’s because of the economy, and it’s because his gross mismanagement of the economy, lack of privatization, salary increases before the election, and with pressure from Russia, frankly, more than from the West, Belarus is facing an economic collapse. In addition, Lukashenka is cracking down, as we saw on December 19, and after. Suspicions about his role in the metro bombing -- all of these things suggest that the situation in Belarus is at its most critical point now. And in my view the West needs to increase the pressure, not help him, because Lukashenka is on thin ice, and we need to push him through this ice, and possibly to bring this regime to an end. And that would be good for Belarus and Europe and all countries that support democracy. So my hope is that no one helps him out of the crisis that he created himself, and that we in fact help accelerate the crisis, so that he realizes it’s finished, – David Kramer stated.

- What effective measures could be used?

- Economic sanctions. Economic sanctions the European Union needs to impose, and in addition making it absolutely clear that there would be no support or loans from the IMF. Russia is saying they will not support Belarus, for different reasons. But together if Lukashenka will not get the IMF loan, if he does not get Russia’s loans, he is in big trouble. We can help this situation if the EU would impose economic sanctions which I would argue helped in 2007, in 2008 to free political prisoners. Visa bans, asset freeze are good, but they are not sufficient. So there is a need for more steps taken, in order to tighten the noose around Lukashenka.

- Critics of such approach say that sanctions can push Lukashenka to Russia. How can you comment this?

- Absolutely, this is always an argument against. The other argument is that sanctions would hurt the population. The population is already being hurt by Lukashenka, both in his human rights abuses, but also by his irresponsible economic policy, so that argument does not hold water. The argument about pushing Belarus closer to Russia, I would also argue, has not been the case since Lukashenka has been president. Instead Lukashenka skillfully plays Russia and the West against each other. When we (the US and the EU) imposed sanctions in 2006, and when the US used conditional sanctions, it was not the case whether Belarus was moving closer to Russia or not. It was based on how Lukashenka treated his own people. That’s the basis we should implement policies now, and not worry about whether Belarus is moving closer or away from Russia. Those are excuses not to do anything. Instead we should think how we could bring about positive change inside Belarus.

- Is it possible to have some temporarily consensus with the government of Russia about the future of Belarus and about some transformation program?

- It’s nice in theory, but in practice I do not think it’s realistic. When I was in the government, we tried to have discussions with Russia about Belarus, we did not get anywhere. I don’t it will be much help trying this time, either. We view the situation in entirely different terms. The effect may have some similar features, but overall Russia wants to try to take over a lot of the Belarusian economy. It does not want responsibility, I think, for running the country. But Russia is not bothered by Lukashenka’s human rights abuses. We are in the West, that’s what bothers us. So I think the differences between Russia and the West on Belarus are too significant to hope for real concrete cooperation.