Learn To Count, Messers Businessmen!

After Aliaksandr Knyrovich has been arrested, the Belarusian business community seems to be panicking.

And after Lukashenka’s statement in this regard everyone clearly realized that it wouldn’t be a picnic not only the closest cronies of the dictator like oligarch Yury Chyzh, but for everyone who have profitable businesses in our country. Even the previously precautious experts like Victar Marhelau started calling a spade a spade: “the country is cash-strapped, time to share”.

So, on the verge of the “big unrest”, some started thinking of escaping the country, some enfolded in silence hoping for luck, some doubled the bribes to their “protection rackets” in the government hoping they would protect their “milk-cows”. Generally speaking, they are ready to do anything but the most important to save their capitals.

I’ve read Aliaksandr Knyrovich’s last interview at freedom the other day. The businessman acknowledged the submarginal economic conditions in Belarus and quite objectively assessed the perspectives of the Belarusian economy given the absence of reforms. Herein, the merchant stated that Belarus was destined to stay in Russia’s sphere of influence and, in case of the smallest move towards the West, to be occupied by the Russian troops in accordance with the Crimean scenario in 15 minutes with no serious resistance.

Of course, I pity Knyrovich, like a normal person. I don’t believe an unbiased investigation and a fair trial are possible in our country. However, we are talking about the moods in the Belarusian business environment now. All our merchants realize that the system created by Lukashenka is going to an end. There’s no more money to keep this hideous police collective farm, as Russia cannot support the crazy governor anymore.

The businessmen now are being sheared like sheep and taken for slaughter like killing calves. However, I have seen no more or less major Belarusian businessman who would support the process of changes in the country by investing into an opposition organization, independent media, or helping the victims of repressions. All this could have been done in a clever way, without advertising, causing no harm to themselves and their businesses.

In a situation when the country might lose its independence, the inactivity of the business circle is not just criminal, it is stupid. If you don’t want to think about the country, think about yourself.

Lukashenka puts thousands of you in jail, seizes your companies, and makes you pay giant sums of money to buy freedom. The Russians will commit illegal takeover of your companies, blast you in your cars and shoot you in the streets. One cannot choose good among two evils.

I am often asked in the West why the Belarusian business does not help the opposition. They truly cannot understand how the people who are used to calculate everything fail to put two and two together and invest into their own normal, favourable and safe future.

Learn to count, Messers businessmen, while you are still free and not behind the bars. Every one of us needs changes, and maybe it’s the business that needs them firsthand.

Natallia Radzina, Editor-in-Chief at Charter97.org