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Zmitser Dashkevich: Lukashenka has evident inferiority complex

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Zmitser Dashkevich: Lukashenka has evident inferiority complex

The fairy tales the Belarusian dictators tells western leaders are the result of the long-term isolation.

Zmitser Dashkevich, a former political prisoner and co-chairman of Young Front, said it in an interview with charter97.org commenting on Lukashenka's remark that western leaders began to talk to him.

– The dictator said in an interview with Serbian media that the leaders of western countries began to “say hello and talk to me”. What did he mean? As far as we know, none of western high-ranking politicians have not met with him lately.

– I have to note that the statement shows he has an evident inferiority complex. He understands he has been an outcast for the whole civilised society for 20 years. Even Putin was invited to the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landing, but Belarus, the country that lost every fourth citizen in the war, was not represented. Perhaps, it really happened recently that a third row politician shook hands with Lukashenka on the sidelines, so, he decided the West welcomes him. Of course, he will never be recognised by the West.

– Lukashenka emphasised in his latest statements that “the West is not capable of anything”. In your view, what can explain the increased anti-western rhetoric of the Belarusian ruler?

– The European Union and the United States are really weak today to do something in the post-Soviet area. Perhaps, it's not the right time and not the right leaders. As for the increased anti-western rhetoric, I don't think it has any grounds. Lukashenka has been manipulating the anti-western rhetoric for 20 years intensifying or weakening it from time to time. It is a permanent process.

– Can we speak that the EU and the US have softened their pressure on the Lukashenka regime in the issue of releasing political prisoners? If so, what caused it?

– I would say that the West's pressure is frozen. There is a package of minimum sanctions and demands to release the political prisoners. On the one hand, nobody cancelled these demands, but on the other hand, nobody insists on them and imposes any serious sanctions that could hit the Lukashenka regime.

– How do you think the West should act towards official Minsk in the situation when all attention is focused on Ukraine?

Iryna Khalip once said an absolutely right and clever thing: Europe should stop buying Belarusian oil products for a couple of days, and Lukashenka will do everything it want. The carrot and stick policy is not effective. The Western threatens him with one hand, but backs him with the other. Lukashenka is smart to cope with such manipulators. He himself is an experienced manipulator.

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