European Strategy. The Case about $9 billions

At a time when the Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has calculated the price that could be offered Lukashenko for a new illusion of liberal reforms, opposition politicians have been tortured in Belarusian prison.

In recent years most respectable Belarusian opposition politicians had no time left to work inside the country - their forces almost entirely directed to neutralize the European "benefactors" who seek by all means financially to support Belarusian dictator.

It is clear that within the ground base for all of these donor infusions in thin barrel of the Belarusian economy, lays a pragmatic approach of the lobbyists, who think first about their own benefits and not about how Belarusian people can live on.

Today, Belarus has become for Europe the "thermometer" with which one can measure its temperature - the temperature of the obvious neglected disease. Disease, when morality and conscience become atrophied, and instead, realpolitik grows as a malignant tumor on its place.

Model in which the leading principle to all social processes starts just by one principle - political expediency.

You can return to the fact that this happened all the times, and always politicians were guided by their own selfish interests. Perhaps it is so, but not in the current scale. In season and out of season in politics there have been places for heroes and moral authority. Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Vaclav Havel, Nelson Mandela, Olof Palme ... You can keep naming people who by personal example showed a behavioral model of politics based on the principles and morals.

Today in the world politics it is almost impossible to name figures of this magnitude, thus now only dissidents can use conscience in the decision-making process.

Tent on the Champs Elysees

In 2007, The Belarus Free Theatre was awarded the Prize of the French Republic. We arrived in Paris at the award ceremony, and found ourselves in the center of a scandal, which resembled a volcanic eruption. Simultaneously, during award ceremony in the field of human rights, Moammar Gadhafi arrived in Paris and pitched his tent on the Champs Elysees.

Modest dwelling of the Bedouin was maintained by 196 people, and Nicolas Sarkozy provided a reception at the highest level.

The Minister for Human Rights Rama Yade addressed to the press her strong opinion on the occasion of this visit. Press recalled all Gaddafi’s vile actions, up to Libyan dictator's son driving a car through all of the Champs-Elysees on the wrong side in a fiery-red Ferrari.

On the day when Rama Yade was presenting to us the award, she almost lost her post, because Sarkozy called her to come to "the carpet" and offered to resign for disrespectful attitude towards the honored guest.

The hysterics in the press calmed down after Sarkozy announced that he and "a friend Muammar" signed contracts for 11 billion Euros. It's a decent amount to forget about human rights. Realpolitik. Pragmatic approach.

But now there is a question: Why has France actively participated in the bombing of Libya, just four years after it? What has changed? Did Gaddafi step up repression against the opposition? Did he start a civil war? No, it's just the economic conjuncture has changed. Gaddafi was always a bastard – at the time he was signing the contract, and later when he was hiding in secret Libyan bases.

But just now it is more profitable to bomb, rather than to sign a contract with him.

What are these memories for? To the fact, that Lukashenko today - is Gaddafi yesterday.

Peasant endgame

Alexander Lukashenko is not a politician - he is a "political animal", which is guided by the instincts rather than calculations. The principle of his thinking is simple: in order not to rot in a prison, it is necessary to maintain the power, and to do it he needs money; no matter what it takes, but the money must be found. The entire peasant idea is simple: to milk a cow, one should pull it tits.

Stanislav Shushkevich gave Lukashenko the best characteristic, which I'm never tired to quote: "Lukashenko – is a chess player who does not play by figures, but by the board." While generous by expense of others, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk puts the figures on the board, Lukashenko tries on to his temple, in which a corner of the chessboard will be stabbed later on.

But Mr. Tusk's does not know about it yet. And it would be worth while to look back at the history and understand that Lukashenko for 17 years as a president has survived the collapse of dozen European politicians, who carefully wiped chess figures, but never had time to use them.

Romanian high-ranking EU official, Adrian Severin, "established a dialogue" between Lukashenko and the opposition. Under this deal the European credits flowed. The money was used to increase the salaries of police and security services, and for the construction of ice rinks. Since then Severin does not play chess with Lukashenka.

German politician Hans-Georg Wieck, head of the OSCE mission in Minsk, as well for a long time had been preparing for the match against the Belarusian dictator. A former special-service agent transferred to the Belarusian authorities a huge number of European political and business contacts for that case. As a result, being retired he cries shame on Lukashenko in the European press. There is no end of the European chess players-losers, who have assigned their prize money to the winner after the first blow on the head by the board. And, meanwhile, in just the last few years, foreign debt of Belarus grew from $2,5 billion to $33 billion.

Billionaires in the uniform

Today the "affluent" crediting of the Belarusian regime is temporarily closed, leaving only the financial "streams" which are carefully collected by Lukashenka's emissaries in the European banks.

And of course, the Belarusian dictator dreams to return the former abundance, which explicitly has been alluded by Mr. Tusk.

He said that it was enough for Lukashenko to release political prisoners and to ensure "minimum respect for human rights" to begin negotiations to obtain nine billion Euros.

This raises many questions. For example: What is "a minimum respect for human rights"? If a person wants to walk, eat, dress and work: Is "a minimal compliance" only "to work" in this case?

And what Mr. Polish Prime Minister would say, if president Komorowski would not provided him with all the rights, but "a minimum"? I know that – Mr. Tusk would begin to shout that the idea of "Solidarity" has been betrayed, and the Polish dictatorship was destroying the nation. But it is only in the case of "the minimalization" of Donald Tusk's rights, not the rights of nine and a half millions of Belarusians, who, in his version, can be satisfied with a minimum.

The second question: Does Mr. Tusk know how these nine billion Euros will be used, which by the way, Polish prime minister still needs to find somewhere.

My answer: to maintain the repressive apparatus. The one, which tortured political prisoners, when the Polish Prime Minister announced the numbers for support of the dictatorship. Since only the repressive apparatus of the state can keep Lukashenko in power.

Supervisors of Supervisors

On October 2 a man, who introduced himself as an Officer of the Department of Corrections, wanted to talk to me. He said that he was authorized to provide information on behalf of several members of that structure.

Wishing to avoid the responsibility for the torture, he said that today all the prisons where political prisoners were hold, have been taken under control of officers of the KGB. Moreover, these officers are endowed with all possible powers. He did not tell their names. Exactly these people form so-called "pressing huts" - special cells, where the political prisoners had been thrown into, where they were abused, intimidated and humiliated. Also, they may temporarily include their employees in the staff guards.

These KGB officers are under the protection not only by their superior structure, but also under the protection of the Belarusian Security Council, and are supervised, according to the Department of Corrections staff, by the eldest son of the dictator - Viktor Lukashenko.

And the third question: Whether the power, which creates such chaos in our own country, should be a partner for negotiations and count for the financial support from the European Union?

KGB faction

The head of the Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, assessing future strategy, urges the Belarusian opposition to go to the parliamentary elections in 2012. This step is motivated by the following - it is necessary to monitor the use of the loan funds.

The Belarusian parliament has never kept an eye on anything - for that it does not have even minimal powers. Before you start to build this kind of strategy, the Polish leadership should at least see the text of the Belarusian Constitution. And to learn, for example, that the Belarusian parliament does not possess even the right of legislative initiative.

The best way is to send to Minsk a person with a voice recorder, who can ask passers-by on the streets the same question: Name one of the Belarusian parliamentarians, whom you know? I can imagine what would be a surprise for the Polish leaders, who would have listened to the recording, in which among one hundred respondents, only one would remember a certain name. And even then, not the MP, but the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, with whom he or she studied together accounting courses in the Mogilev region. But today anyone can already name those 5-7 "oppositioners", whom Lukashenko will appoint to the parliament to "control over spending of the budget funds". This is so-called "KGB faction", which will be ready to begin the parliamentary election campaign as soon as they are given permission to go-ahead by the curators of the Committee of State Security.

This will be a major strategic development of the Belarusian authorities in the coming years. Giving mercy, they will release remaining political prisoners and after this talk for a long time about how liberal parliamentary elections will be, finally allowing four or five recruited agents from opposition to get to the parliamentary benches.

European politicians such as Donald Tusk will lobby the Belarusian issue at the IMF and other financial institutions, which provide Lukashenko six billion Euros" for poverty". Well, to give nine will be too much for sure. Plus, some companies will go on sale to the same old Russia.

Thus, Lukashenko will manage to survive until the new presidential elections in 2016. By the time a lot of water would flow away together with the current positions of Radoslaw Sikorski and Donald Tusk. And out of this configuration the only one constant will stay - hence Alexander Lukashenko, who would survive another call of European politicians to that time.

Well, if in the process, the money runs out again, it’s not going to take long to take hostages again to fill in prisons - they (hostages) have been sold very well during all these years. Much more profitable than outdated Belarusian enterprises. Polish Prime Minister offers 9 billion - more than an annual income of any Belarusian industry.

It is sad, that the Europeans have kept the "keys" to the mechanism of the Belarusian democratic transformation. The ones they do not want to use, preferring to remain in the status of eternal fools, being fooled by Shklov political gambler.

The mechanism of change

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, supported by some European politicians could take a more efficient step, if to talk about the desire for a democratic transformation in Belarus. For this you did not need to seduce Lukashenko with the money for the hundredth time , but it was necessary to announce a coherent EU strategy towards Belarus.

How could it look like, and who could make it public?

To begin the transformation process under the dictatorship the following three conditions are required: the external pressure, internal pressure and rapidly deteriorating economic situation.

The first and third parts are present here in full, even though Europe does not radicalize its actions against the Belarusian authoritarian regime. It is necessary to stimulate the second component, to be able to move the process forward. And for that we, Belarusians, whose mind today is dominated by fear, must clearly understand, that is worth risking for the sake of the future and it is worth sacrificing for a stability of life.

The EU should send a message to Belarusians, which informs them about the opportunities the country would benefit from, while choosing the path to a democratic transformation. Points of this message could be:

- Priority of consideration the possibility for Belarus to join the EU;

- Financial and methodological support for the process to make structural changes in the economic and political spheres;

- Simplification of the visa regime with the countries of the Schengen Agreement;

- Support for the issue of the external debt restructuring;

- Return to Belarus the status of a member of several international organizations;

- Enhanced cooperation in the spheres of education and vocational training;

- Support for the projects of small and medium-sized businesses.

After the announcement of this message, it would be necessary to start a campaign to promote the ideas of the United Europe among the Belarusian population with a detailed explanation of these points. We shouldn’t link these changes with ”liberalization" of the crazed from the self-importance Fuhrer, but with the beginning of the transformation in the country, with specific steps of the society that wants to throw away from its neck the yoke of seventeen-years of the dictatorship.

In this case, we could mention a specific amount required for the normal running of the economy (according to estimates from 12 to 15 billion Euros). However, the amount should be allocated only under tough restructuring program to bring the economy into an acceptable form for the European Union standards. Amount to be expended under the control of a democratically elected parliament, civil society and public institutions, which help to attract not only local but also foreign specialists.

Of course, the execution of this idea could be taken by Poland, as a neighbor - the country connected with Belarus economically, culturally, and geopolitically. But to start such a project, the rulers of Poland should clearly understand that the trading period with a dictator, that has population support about 20% (taking into account the fear factor - just over 10%) is over.

Today, the Polish government should think about whether they can find in the near future a common language with the new leadership of the country, and on this basis to build a new strategy - a win-win for Poland and for a democratic Belarus.

Nikolai Khalezin