High Politics Holdup Style

Revisiting the relations between the EU and Belarus.

When I hear that all at once the West will unite, knock the living daylights out of Putin and help Ukraine, I look at Belarus and realize: nope, it won’t knock and certainly won’t help. Putin’s test range is working properly in Belarus, and the host of all this, Lukashenka, seems to be becoming a welcome guest in the West, as well as a welcoming host for the West.

It is difficult to explain the joy with which the dictator’s visit to Latvia is being prepared by a full-blown commission, what their Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics persistently reminds of, definitely hurrying everyone up.

Apparently, they want to make it before the Austrians, who also cannot wait to see Lukashenka. Their president, Van der Bellen, who is considered to be a human rights advocate there, was even sent to find out if he would come or not.

How could it be otherwise, if even the whole European Commissioner Johannes Hahn said with his natural bluntness that Lukashenka should visit Europe. And he said it in Minsk, having arrived and not noticed his protege Lukashenka’s rampant campaign against the independent press, independent trade unions, civil activists, as previously he had not noticed the blocking of Charter'97.

And besides, Lukashenka has been finally invited to Paris in November, the city of dreams of his comrade-in-arms Yermoshina. There they will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War and the opinion of the participant of all the wars, of course, will be interesting to the heads of other states.

At the end of October, Minsk will host the core group of the Munich Security Conference. When I heard this information from one diplomat at the beginning of the year, I took it as a joke. As it turns out – that was not a joke. Comrade Wolfgang Ischinger, the chairman of this conference, has even happily reported on his twitter that an “impressive number of heads of states and governments” will take part in it, and that’s on top of foreign ministers. He also says that they are going to Minsk, not to a third-rate Brussels, intentionally, because they really want to ”focus on the specific security challenges of Eastern and Central Europe.”

Ischinger – it is not Chepiga, he would not lie. He has seen a lot of things in his diplomatic day and knows well that any major conflicts needs small dealers. This does not help in resolving conflicts, but it helps to get the margin from the sale of the “egg broth.”

The idea of Munich in Minsk is, obviously, a very pathbreaking one, especially considering that only the lazy would not curse the Minsk talks on Ukraine today. Why would they curse? That’s because they have finally realized that Minsk is Putin’s patrimony, and that bringing any discussion of security issues here means complying with Kremlin’s scenarios. Comrade Ischinger does not hide his sincere desire to help the West improve relations with Putin, at the expense of Ukraine’s interests, of course.

In order to help Lukashenka in his relations with the West, from time to time, via its media channel,s Kremlin lets off portions of indignation over the “ally who has sold himself to the West,“ that is Lukashenka. The indignation is some kind of cartoonish, not genuine, but it works, however it be, it helps various fraudsters, including those in Belarus, to resent in a similar fashion and demand to protect Lukashenka from Russian aggression.

This story of courting Lukashenka always ends in the same way. At some point, Lukashenka gets tired of portraying himself as liberal and spouts off with relief everything that he and his master have agreed on. This time in Dushanbe, he told everything: the evil NATO, and the insidious Ukraine. Riga, Vienna, Berlin, Paris, Brussels, of course, "will not notice" their current protégé’s somersault, it’s not for the first time...

Do not look for tricky explanations of all this absurdity. What they are trying to dress up in the garb of high politics is no more sophisticated than a holdup. A smuggling “hole,” which was organized with Lukashenka’s help in Belarus and which allows making good money “in these difficult times,” is beneficial to both Russia and the West. Russia needs the Belarusian corridor to Europe, that is why they need Lukashenka, who is received in the West. In the end, as the case may be, even tanks will be able to get through this corridor. To that very West.

There are other explanations that are just as simple, but who we are to object to experienced strategists, political ladies and gentlemen who decide the fate of the world. After all, they have achieved unprecedented success in solving conflicts in Syria, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, helped Ukraine, Georgia, Turkey, Afghanistan, Myanmar. They are successfully fighting Putin’s propaganda, depriving of assistance the independent media in Russia and Belarus. After all, they have more than 1000 explanations why they are right, and we are wrong.

Therefore, just for the record:

Ladies and Gentlemen!

By inviting Lukashenka, you insult the peoples of your countries, because you are inviting a criminal and a dictator to the countries, where the people fought for freedom and democracy, against tyranny and won.

Coming to Belarus in an official capacity, you come with one sole purpose: to recognize the criminal regime and to justify this regime’s crimes.

Yours faithfully!

Andrei Sannikov, co-ordinator of the European Belarus civil campaign, Facebook