Even More Disgusting Than Others

Makei died before the civil society, which he threatened to destroy in Belarus.

Belarusian Foreign Minister Uladzimir Makei died suddenly. On November 25, he was still at a work meeting with the Papal Nuncio, and on Saturday afternoon the state news agency BelTA announced his death. The circumstances are still unknown, it was a heart attack, according to preliminary data. Makei was 64 years old.

In one sentence, Lukashenka has lost one of his most unprincipled and reliable allies. There are not so many officials in Belarus who are able to justify any illegality, openly threaten the West using hostages, and tell lies with a straight face. And all this by having a good education and an obvious understanding of what is happening.

There are people (there are also a few of them) who are ready to sincerely give their lives for the regime and personally for Lukashenka. There can be no claims against them, because this is their way of thinking. There are those who “understand everything but cannot talk about it”, most of them, the attitude of society towards them is squeamish, but not aggressive. There are those who, contrary to their own understanding, are not even silent, but help the obscurantist leadership present arbitrariness and lawlessness in diplomatic language and fastening pink bows on it.

They are even more disgusting than others. The late Uladzimir Makei was one of them.

After graduating from the Minsk State Linguistic University, he served 12 years in the army (or in the GRU [Main Intelligence Directorate], these details of his biography have not yet been confirmed or denied). In any case, the path from lieutenant to colonel for a civilian who did not have a military education could lie either through the KGB or the GRU. If the official biography says that he served in the Soviet army, then with high probability it can be assumed that it was the GRU. In 1992, Uladzimir Makei came to the young Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the independent Republic of Belarus, which sent him to study in Austria. Then Makei worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at the Belarusian Embassy in France, and at the Belarusian representation at the Council of Europe. In 2000, Makei began a real career: Aliaksandr Lukashenka appointed him his assistant and head of his personal office. By the way, Makei is the only one whom Lukashenka allowed to set up an office next to him. Previous assistants and clerks worked on the floor below, approaching Lukashenka's personal office only on call. Aliaksandr Lukashenka put Makei as close as possible. And in 2008 he appointed him head of his Administration.

In 2010, Makei intimidated Belarusians before the presidential elections, being the head of the Administration. A week before the elections, on December 12, 2010, in an interview with the RTR-Belarus TV Channel, he said that on December 19, provocations with explosives were planned on October Square. In an interview with Channel One Russia on the eve of the elections, Makei claimed that groups of militants were already being prepared in Belarus and explosives for terrorist attacks were being purchased. Those elections ended with mass arrests, including all presidential candidates, with beatings, tortures, and sentences.

After that, Makei said that everything was right "with a straight face", because, as it turned out, the protesters stormed the government house. He admitted that he was in the "situational center", which means that he was involved in the decision to disperse and subsequent repressions.

In 2011, Makei was one of the first to be on the sanctions list of the European Union. But in 2012, Aliaksandr Lukashenka managed to appoint him Minister of Foreign Affairs. The sanctions were lifted from him (as it turned out, temporarily). I remember that at that time relatives of political prisoners at meetings with European ambassadors (I was at those meetings, so I testify) said: "How could it be, why? Diplomats answered that it doesn’t matter to us whether Makei or "Pupkin", just the position of the minister assumes an ability to meet with us and the leadership of our countries, because otherwise, we will have no levers of influence at all, and in general, there will be no one to whom we can then directly say "What a hell are you doing, you bastards?!"

Recently, my colleagues and I have been trying to understand where the myth about the supposedly “multi-vector”, “European” position of Makei came from. The media periodically raised this topic and for no reason. We came to the conclusion that this myth appeared at the moment when sanctions were lifted from Makei, thanks to the most primitive logic: “since the Europeans removed it, it means that he belongs to them”. Actually not, he is a stranger to them. This is called the "procedural principle" and it means that the position obligates you to have contact with a certain person or organization, and not touch upon the views. However, Makei personally supported this myth with pleasure, arguing that Belarus could become a second Switzerland. And this was enough for some of my colleagues from independent media, who began to admire: well, he does not use North Korea or Iran as a model, but Switzerland, which means he is pro-European.

However, the myth was dispelled as soon as protests began in Belarus in August 2020. In August 2020, he addressed all Belarusian diplomats, offering to leave those who “cannot find motivation” to work for the regime in these conditions, and admitted that the Foreign Ministry has not achieved dizzying successes over all these years. He said that the country "stinks of rampages and massacres" without any "pro-European" manner. On September 2, during a meeting with Sergei Lavrov, he thanked Russia for its support, which prevented the implementation of the Ukrainian scenario in Belarus. In April 2021, when the West was adopting another package of sanctions against the Belarusian regime, Makei gave an interview with the Belarus-1 TV Channel, where he put it quite unambiguously:

“Any further tightening of sanctions will lead to the fact that civil society will cease to exist. And this, I think, will be absolutely justified in this situation. The civil society they care about!”

The threat was open, without any diplomatic tinsel already: if you do not lift the sanctions, then we will rot all the oppositionists in the camps. And he kept his word: they are still rotting, and every day there are more political prisoners. It was likely the only time when he was true to his word.

Of course, having lost Makei, Lukashenka lost one of the most devoted to him personally, loyal to the regime, ready to justify any terror against "valetry". Who will replace him is unknown. Someone from the OMON, at least. Because the only difference between Uladzimir Makei and the punishers from the OMON or the KGB is the knowledge of foreign languages. All other features are the same, no matter how hard you are looking for ten differences, as in a picture, you still won’t find differences. There is no need actually.

Iryna Khalip, Novaya Gazeta Europe