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Olga Zakharova: Lukashenka is all yours, lay down conditions to him

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Olga Zakharova: Lukashenka is all yours, lay down conditions to him

Why a former head of Swedish Foreign Affairs Ministry went to Belarus?

Charter97.org website received an answer to this question from a well-known Russian human rights activist, a representative of the Working group on investments of the Committee of international control over the human rights situation in Belarus Olga Zakharova.

- Recently European politicians, analysts, other official persons have become frequent visitors of Belarus. Do Europe and the United States agree to “an Azerbaijan scenario” for Belarus?

- When a former Foreign Affairs Minister of Sweden Carl Bildt visited Belarus, I had wanted to copy a link to his article he had written 4 years ago, “Lukashenka is Loser”, to send him in his twitter and ask, why he went there. Is he ready to eat his words? Or has Lukashenka turned from a loser into a winner and peacemaker? Or is it a different Carl Bildt? Or does he have a multiple personality disorder?

On the other hand, unfortunately, we have already seen such “Europeans’ multiple personality disorder” in numerous occasions. It is another cycle in the rum=up to the presidential election, when we see that democracies on the both sides of the ocean are interested in stability at whatever the cost. In the circumstances of the war in Ukraine, when the big Eastern neighbour is demonstrating imperial ambitions, a sanitary cordon should be created urgently. And today Lukashenka is offering the West to use Belarus for this aim.

It’s true, Europe and the US agree to “Azerbaijan scenario” for Belarus, when sanctions are quietly lifted from the dictatorial regime, and from a considerable number of commercial organisations, owned by “the purses” of Lukashenka. I want to observe that it has happened right after Minsk meetings on Ukraine, after the visit of the Director of the European External Action Service Gunnar Wiegand to Minsk.

There is an impression that now European bureaucrats do not even care to save their face and are not going to make serious demands to Lukashenka concerning the situation with political prisoners and human rights. Yes, European and American politicians of different levels are saying that the core of their policy towards Lukashenka has not changed. I am sorry, and what are we observing over the last year then? Or is it such a fiendishly clever policy which we cannot understand, or we are taken for not very clever people.

“The Azerbaijan scenario” is what Lukashenka wants most of all. It’s because Aliyev is legitimate in Europe, his assets are not arrested, and meanwhile he has more than a hundred of political prisoners, and no one wants to do anything about that. But Aliyev trades in oil and gas, and Lukashenka trades in his location near the border.

- European politicians justify ignoring of the human rights situation in Belarus by geopolitical interests. Will war pay all scores?

- Geopolitics is a very strange and indistinct notion, and everyone understands it in one’s own way. In this case a simple logical analysis of the events over the last 20 years shows that those “geopolitical interests” the European community feels towards Belarus, have not been successful in any way. Lukashenka is neither a guarantor of sovereignty, nor a guarantor of stability of Belarus, and consequently, he cannot be a guarantor of geopolitical interests.

A dictator has never been a reliable partner. To my mind, there is not a single agreement which had not been broken by him eventually. For how long is it possible to fall into the same trap again and again?

- Moreover, in the situation when Lukashenka has such week positions?

- It’s true, Lukashenka does not have money now. And Russia is not able to support him anymore in the same measure. That is why, guys, he is all yours – lay down conditions to him, make him fulfill them, and then play with him for as long as you want.

Do not dive up on the demands you had to him 4 years ago. Do not make advances to him, he does not appreciate that. It’s a different mentality.

- So why this situation is not used? Or the most important thing is for Belarus to stay quiet?

- Yes. They are sweeping the trash under the carpet. It is considered that there are hotter things. Now Ukraine is on fire, the Islamic State is approaching form the South. But this belt of instability is going to stay anyway. As long as there is no democracy in Belarus, there is no European choice. The farther, the more cynical it gets. Belarus is turning into a bargaining chip in other players’ games.

Now politicians should demonstrate results in Ukrainian problem quickly, everything else does not matter. So let’s sweep the trash under the carpet, and let’s deal with it later.

Maybe, negotiation techniques which once were workable for countries with undemocratic regimes, are tested on Lukashenka now. But two things are confused here: there are undemocratic, but caste-ridden regimes, which are able to negotiate and which can make some concessions. And there are personalistic regimes, which are founded on one man, as a rule, a great paranoid. This person could either leave the house heels foremost, or there is no other way. It’s impossible to find agreement in this case. You can try to buy him, but not that you don’t have enough money for that – you are going to be deceived anyway.

If you start to support a personalistic regime – it lives on. And it’s no use to hope for some split of elites, as a dictator is going to continue “reshufflings” these elites anyway. We are observing that in Belarus for more than 20 year already. Lots of former ministers, deputy minsters, officials and directors are in prisons, not because they had done something wrong, but in order to prevent them from doing something. So it is a huge mistake.

One can judge how good Lukashenka is as a guarantor of security in Western Europe by reports of the Departments of Security of Lithuania and Latvia. It is demonstrated there pretty clear that Belarusian secret services are working to the benefit of the Russian neighbour. European politicians have this information, and so the more surprising is that Latvia is ready to receive Lukashenka at the Eastern Partnership Summit.

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