Belarus : is the end coming for Lukashenko?

[steeplejack]

The International Ice Hockey Federation has pulled this year’s World Championships citing “security concerns”.

Whilst I recognise that the micro politics of a minor sport will produce a Partridge shrug amongst many on here, this is quite a big deal. Ice hockey is the biggest sport in Belarus and generously bankrolled. The World Championships would have been a big part of any attempted normalisation strategy by the regime. Lukashenko is an ice hockey fanatic and this call will hurt him in the same way that golf cancellations hurt Trump.

It also allows Tikhanovskaya and the protest movement to claim a victory for their strategy of pressuring the regime by keeping a focus on the Belarusian situation with international bodies

I think this decision was 90% there anyway by the end of 2020, but gruesome publicity for the IIHF after their chief Rene Fazel was pictured embracing Lukashenko on a visit to Minsk, and the threatened withdrawal of corporate sponsors, sank it for good.

 

[teqniq]

 

[hitmouse]

Several Food Not Bombs activists in Belarus given two-week custodial sentences for giving away free food: Belarus: Food Not Bombs activists receive prison sentences for giving away food

 

[Pickman's model]

if the end is coming for lukashenko it's going round all the houses as it gets there

 

[steeplejack]

Yep. A drop in the ocean sadly. A 66 year old woman jailed for 15 days for being in the wring place at the wrong time on the way to the shop.

A man raped by police with truncheons last August so much that he had to be taken to intensive care, has just been jailed for 5 years for allegedly ‘assaulting’ one of his assailants.

Nothing good coming out of Belarus presently.

 

[steeplejack]

It’s the Sixth all-Belarusian People’s Assembly this week, where 2,400 people come to be harangued by the leader, and rubber stamp his plans. Effectively it’s a weird version of the old CPSU congress, without the party.

Lukashenko plans to hold a constitutional referendum in 2022 (the timetable has already slipped from ‘later this year’) and he plans to cede some powers to this body.

In the meantime he plans to meet with Putin in Sochi in late February to beg for a $3 billion loan to repress the protests more harshly.

Lukashenko’s long winded diatribe lasted four hours and was played to workplaces and ‘ideological discussion groups’ across the country.

All very East Germany in January 1989, somehow. Looks to have been a great atmosphere with a really lively and progressive bunch of folk.

 

[BristolEcho]

Thanks for the posts I don't have anything constructive today but appreciate the updates.

 

[teqniq]

Two journalists jailed for two years in Belarus for filming protests

 

[steeplejack]

Yes an absolutely appalling story. The regime is set on a very hardline course.

 

[steeplejack]

Politics in Lukashenko's Belarus, in three stages.

1. A sycophantic army colonel demands a handshake from Lukashenko during the regime's set piece "All-Belarusian People's Assembly", in order to receive what he termed "a charge of energy and determination" from the commander in chief himself.



2. The following week, said sycophantic colonel passes on the "charge of energy and determination" to his regiment by means of a handshake, and to the civilian leadership of Gomel's executive. The regime sets this marvellous event to stirring music, and is laughed at all over the internet. Krivosonov is awarded a military medal by the regime for his analinguistic patriotism.



3. The buffoon is characterised by a home-made caricature, offering passers-by the chance to receive a "charge of energy and determination" from his cardboard hand, flapping in the wind.



------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

These easy absurdities aside, it's all about optics. The regime has power backed by a very nasty and repressive security and legal apparatus with people currently being given very long sentences for doing very little (i.e. a Grodno taxi driver, merely in the wrong place at the wrong time last summer, was hospitalised after a savage beating from OMON and is now on trial for "assaulting a member of OMON" with a possible ten year sentence awaiting him). The people - I would say 60-70% of them- oppose Lukashenko and support the exiled leadership of Tikhanovskaya. However, there's not a whole lot they can do and many are either frightened or questioning ther wisdom of A to B marches which can lead to severe beating and jail time.

For her part Tikhanovskaya is on a visit to Finland and has other foreign trips planned. She was pressed today on why she refuses to support or indeed call for an uprising against the regime or violent responses to the repressions, today. Her answer is that Lukashenko will not hesitate to kill widely if confronted in this way. She prefers the strategy of peeling off individuals and groups from the cracking apparatus of power- a process calling for time, diplomacy, and patience, as well as a little bit more than symbolic sanctions and high-toned flatulence on offer from the EU. There has been a tone of dismayed irritation at the timidity of the EU's response in recent opposition statements.

Meanwhile Lukashenko met Putin in Sochi last week to beg for more money. Reporting from the meeting was very muted, though, which suggests either a) they weren't able to conclude much by way of anything or more likely b) acceleration of the "Union State" is on the agenda and soon. Lukashenko has baulked at this for fifteen years but it is one of the few cards left to him internationally.

Evereyone knows the game is up with Lukashenko. I would give him two more years, maximum. No regime can survive protests such as these for ever, and these will return with a vengeance once the winter lifts. However, if there is to be a race between Putin absorbing Belarus in all but name as part of a beefed-up "Union State" or Tikhanovskaya returning in triumph to an adoring crowd in free Minsk I'm afraid there can only be one winner. The next few months are set to be decisive.

I wish I felt a bit more optimistic about it all.

 

[steeplejack]

Today is Belarusian Freedom Day. The 25th of March anniversary commemorates the brief, ephemeral moment of independence in Belarus during the civil war after the collapse of the Tsarist empire, in March 1918.

Tsikhanovskaya is leading a quite high-visibility campaign on social media around the anniversary. She continues to meet with international leaders to press her case and call for negotiations between the people and the usurping dictatorship. She is organising an online call for negotiations with the regime which has attracted 700,000 signatures to date, despite the site being banned to Belarusian ISPs and requiring a VPN to circumvent.

The regime of course is not interested. From the pictures I have seen today Minsk is under partial military occupation with armoured cars, squads of riot police conducting random checks, and the repressive apparatus on high alert.

Putin is now interfering directly, ensuring Russian hegemony over a post-Lukashenko Belarus, using a twin-track political and military strategy. I think Lukashenko fondly imagines a Tsarist-type succession to his favoured son Kolya, but it is hard to see how that can happen given that the boy is still at school. A new pro-Kremlin party has finally been registered and held it's inaugural congress with "veterans" of annexation in Crimea and asymmetrical warfare in the Donbass prominent. Russia's plan, it seems, is not to annex or absorb Belarus- who could be bothered with the trouble that would cause- but to dominate the political and military landscape when the dictatorship ends in its current form.

It is in this sense that the window for the success of Tikhanovskaya and the popular movement has narrowed dramatically. The warm words and pious sentiments emitting from Euro-Atlantic capitals aren't the substitute for the clear strategy that has emerged in Russian political circles in the last 6-7 months. Both the Belarusian dictator and his democratic opponents are running out of time to try and secure their desired medium term outcomes. Russia, unfortunately, seems to have used the period of protests most effectively and as a result has all the time in the world.

 

[steeplejack]

It was Belarusian Freedom Day last Thursday, the first set piece of the post-winter opening up for the protest movement. Predictably, hundreds were arrested and an air of paranoid repression and motiveless arrests continued all weekend, with hundreds detained overall. OMON riot squads, regular police and soldiers conducted random spot checks on passers by throughout Minsk. Don't dare to look slightly alternative and wait for a bus for too long in contemporary Belarus- you'll be arrested. There was a horrible atmosphere in the air in Minsk last Saturday, apparently, where many were arrested for crimes such as waiting for a bus and pushing a bicycle in public space (the authorities seem to have an irrational hatred for anyone with / on a bicycle).

The regime may have blundered by arresting many officials of the organisation representing Poles in the western city of Grodno, and jailing the organisation's leader Angelika Borys for fifteen days for "organising unauthorised mass events".

Borys' crime was trying to organise a traditional handcraft fayre. The UK equivalent would be jailing the head of the WRVS for selling jam. In any case, Borys' imprisonment has drawn international condemnation and significantly worsened relations with Poland, who until then had been content enough with the EU's platitudes. The regime in the meantime issued an arrest warrant for Tikhanovskaya on charges of terrorism, contemptuously dismissed by the Lithuanian authorities. Tikhanovskaya's shadow administration is responsible for BYPOL- the shadow police organisation whose members report on the inner working of Lukashenko's many-headed security hydra. The regime is desperate to smash this and has made a few arrests. It is BYPOL who has reported on the terrible morale of OMON after months of repression, resignations, and even suggested that the regime had planned a terrorist "spectacular" for Freedom Day, which it would then have sought to pin on Tikhanovskaya's organisation. Nothing happened in the end, perhaps because of BYPOL / Tikhanovskaya making this public beforehand.

In the meantime I'd ask you all to follow @naftanstrike on twitter. It details this struggle in terms of individuals striking against the regime in one of the country's bigger petrochemical concerns- Naftan of Novopolotsk. The regime's strategy is to enforce an air of normality under a baton and, if necessary, at the point of a gun. The brave strikers of this concern and other major industrial pillars of the Belarusian economy such as Belaruskali, MAZ and BELAZ auto factories, Grodno AZOT risk perpetual unemployment, jail and ongoing persecution for participation in these activities, but they are vital cracks in the regime's attempt to hold up a mirror of "everything is fine" to itself.

 

[steeplejack]

 

[teqniq]

Absolute scum:

 

[tim]

And thus were the seeds of the First Belorus-Irish war sown

 

[BristolEcho]

Pretty audacious really. Zero fucks given.

 

[MickiQ]

where many were arrested for crimes such as waiting for a bus and pushing a bicycle in public space (the authorities seem to have an irrational hatred for anyone with / on a bicycle).

This is like something out of Not The 9 O'Clock News, It's one of those things you know you shouldn't find funny but can't help doing so. Twill be interesting as to what response will follow on from a fairly blatant hijacking. It's obvious the man cares nought of international opinion.

 

[a_chap]

Do you really think Belarus acted alone?

 

[hitmouse]

Not got around to listening to it yet, but the German radio show Elephant in the Room, who did some pretty decent interviews at the height of the uprising last year, have a follow-up interview up now:

Elephant in the room – Nine month after uprising in Belarus #28 – AND

and.notraces.net

 

[RD2003]

Pretty audacious really. Zero fucks given.

Yes. And fuck these 'oppositionists' who would make a fairly bad situation even worse by delivering the inevitable instability and poverty of neo-liberal economics to a relatively stable, relatively crime-free society.

And it doesn't matter what these 'oppositionists' purport to stand for. Through their naivete or opportunism, they would inevitably deliver what western business interests want. It's the story of what has happened wherever the confused ex-Communists and their pro-capitalist successors who try to resist the encroachment of western capital and military hegenomy have failed. The sugar pill, for the politically naive western audience, is, as ever, good-looking youths waving candles in a fucking vast square somewhere, but the result is always the same.

 

[not-bono-ever]

Def FSB , can’t see the Belarus KGB pulling this off by themselves

 

[RD2003]

Do you really think Belarus acted alone?

If so, good on Russia. We've already had thirty years of this crap.

 

[steeplejack]

Well, a pro-Lukashenko poster has joined us.

 

[steeplejack]

Def FSB , can’t see the Belarus KGB pulling this off by themselves

You underestimate them. Of course the two agencies work together but the Belarusian KGB are no joke.

 

[not-bono-ever]

oh im not by any means but the scent of Putin is all over this

 

[Teaboy]

Yes. And fuck these 'oppositionists' who would make a fairly bad situation even worse by delivering the inevitable instability and poverty of neo-liberal economics to a relatively stable, relatively crime-free society.

And it doesn't matter what these 'oppositionists' purport to stand for. Through their naivete or opportunism, they would inevitably deliver what western business interests want. It's the story of what has happened wherever the confused ex-Communists and their pro-capitalist successors who try to resist the encroachment of western capital and military hegenomy have failed. The sugar pill, for the politically naive western audience, is, as ever, good-looking youths waving candles in a fucking vast square somewhere, but the result is always the same.

Did you forget to mention how clean the streets of Minsk are?

 

[RD2003]

Well, a pro-Lukashenko poster has joined us.

No he hasn't. I couldn't give two tosses about Lukashenko. But for all his authoritarian clownishness, his overthrow would set back the cause of any western lefties who instinctively cheer it on even more, and would inevitably, as has been seen in many a similar situation, increase western hegemony over that region. It would, additionally, as 'reform' of the economy (which can only go in a neo-liberal direction) plunge the working class of Belarus into worse poverty than they already might suffer, aided by a well-funded, media-fuelled pipe-dream of better times ahead as 'the market' works its magic. Meanwhile, the sugar pill of 'political freedom' would, of course, be cornered by pro-western capital and its favoured parties and candidates, with those who stand for radical change being consigned to the wilderness, as in the western societies the 'oppositionists' seek to emulate. As I said above, we've already seen 30 years of this shit.

The present situation may be bad, and the possible overthrow of it might be good-but only for those who are positioned to form a new class of pro-western oligarchs, and be part of a new middle class to feed off it.

Meet the new boss...

 

[steeplejack]

This is pretty much an unprecedented move. It's a test for the "West": EU, US, etc. I suspect they will do fuck all. Ambassadors will grumble about it for a few days then it will be forgotten by all but directly involved activist circles.

The Belarusian security apparatus is what is keeping Lukashenko in power. Nothing else. And, increasingly, Lukashenko is lashing out as he feels his power declining. He is extremely paranoid and vengeful presently.

Said security apparatus- emboldened by new laws passed granting them absolute immunity in the event they use violence, and a bizarre and probably unconstitutional decree on what happens if Lukashenko dies / is removed in a coup (power passes to an emergency committee stuffed with military / KGB gold braid, nominally headed by the Belarusian PM), are maybe flexing their muscles a bit. The regime is going very hard after independent media with the earlier arrest of several at the independent portal tut.by this week, as the start of what will be an attritional campagin against any non-state owned media.

The cracks in the regime exist but they are not quite visible yet to the naked eye. The country has no money. Maternity and pensions were late being paid for the first time in years last month. There was initially no plan to pay the normal annual gratuity to the couple of thousand surviving WW2 veterans- whose sacrifice the current regime makes so much of- until the regime was shamed into paying something by an opposition collection.

It's all a bit East Germany summer 1989. No one is speaking about Lukashenko in the medium term. Even pro-regime commentators privately acknowledge he is finished. But no one knows how he will go, or what will come next.

The smart money is still on an incremental rather than spectacular departure. Lukashenko is clinging on to ensure he is not seen to be "forced" out by external forces and to try and offer some kind of dynastic succession. There's allegedly his "constitutional reform" exercise this year paving the way for further referenda and possible elections next year. That's kind of slipped off the new agenda lately. His favourite son Kolya is not ready yet for power, still at school in Moscow, and he regards his other two sons as idiots. More likely Lukashenko will gradually become a ceremonial figure, whilst a creeping and unnanounced oligarchisation takes place. It's happening in "Special Economic Zones" around the country already.

The future for the Belarusian people is gangster capitalism, "patriotic" Orthodox nationalism & cronyism a la Putin, or EU-style "market liberalisation". The former is much more likely than the latter I'm afraid. What wonderful choices the year 2021 presents to us.

 

[steeplejack]

No he hasn't. I couldn't give two tosses about Lukashenko. But for all his authoritarian clownishness, his overthrow would set back the cause of any western lefties who instinctively cheer it on even more, and would inevitably, as has been seen in many a similar situation, increase western hegemony over that region. It would, additionally, as 'reform' of the economy (which can only go in a neo-liberal direction) plunge the working class of Belarus into worse poverty than they already might suffer, aided by a well-funded, media-fuelled pipe-dream of better times ahead as 'the market' works its magic. Meanwhile, the sugar pill of 'political freedom' would, of course, be cornered by pro-western capital and its favoured parties and candidates, with those who stand for radical change being consigned to the wilderness, as in the western societies the 'oppositionists' seek to emulate. As I said above, we've already seen 30 years of this shit.

The present situation may be bad, and the possible overthrow of it might be good-but only for those who are positioned to form a new class of pro-western oligarchs, and be art of a new middle class to feed off it.

Meet the new boss...

So what's your answer...just leave things as they are? But as you've said, you "couldn't give two tosses" about Lukashenko. Makes sense.

 

[RD2003]

Did you forget to mention how clean the streets of Minsk are?

Clean or dirty, they will, after the overthrow of Lukashenko, no doubt occasionally be filled with 'Black Bloc' types and other assorted lefties, whose cause will be as hopeless and ineffective as in Western Europe.

Authoritarianism or oblivion... None of this is good, but it's the way it fucking well is.