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David Kramer: Situation in Belarus reminds Groundhog Day

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David Kramer: Situation in Belarus reminds Groundhog Day
David Kramer

Sanctions against dictators are necessary in order to release political prisoners.

It was said in an interview to the editor-in-chief of charter97.org website Natallia Radzina by the former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, he Senior Director for Human Rights and Human Freedoms at the McCain Institute for International Leadership David Kramer, who headed the US delegation to the OSCE OSCE’s Human Dimension Implementation Meeting (HDIM) this year.

- The policy of the US towards Belarus was always different from the policy of the European Union by its firm and principled stand. But now they are almost the same. What is the reason for that?

– I think there are still some differences. I think the European Union is going further, and planning to lift sanctions, or suspend them. They are still waiting for the elections, as do the United States. Although, frankly, I do not think there are going to be any surprises with the elections. I think that reason to wait is to see whether there would be a crackdown after the elections just as it was immediately after the 2010 election. But I do think what is different now compared to the 2010 is the situation in Ukraine and the situation with Russia. As you know my argument has been over the years, both as I was in the government and now out of the government, that we don’t view Belarus looking through Russia’s prism, we look at what is happening in Belarus on its own, without viewing it in terms of Russia. And the release of political prisoners is a very important step. Getting people out of jail, who should not be in jail, is very important, but we are still waiting for a political rehabilitation of all political prisoners, none of them has received political rehabilitation. I hope that the West will understand its need to keep in its pocket some of the steps as leverage for insisting on political rehabilitation, insisting on media to operate freely, including charter97.org.

- Why high-level officials from the US have become frequent visitors in Belarus recently?

- I know that there has been interest in trying to get the US Embassy restored, its full level. As you know back in 2008, the US Ambassador was expelled, the number of American diplomats was dropped, I think from about 45 down to 5 or 6. So there has been a long interest in restoring the level of staff at the US Embassy. The challenge is always to make sure that it has not become a goal for which Lukashenka is rewarded. For Lukashenka to allow the EU Ambassador back, frankly, is easy, allowing 45 Americans back in Minsk is easy.

- For 21 years Belarus has been ruled by a cruel repressive regime, which was named by the US “the last dictatorship of Europe.” Why the West is making such overtures to Lukashenka now?

- One problem is that there is now another dictator in Eurasia, that’s president Aliyev in Azerbaijan, where the situation frankly is worse than in Belarus these days unfortunately. I think in the West in general there has been a sense of fatigue with sanctions, that the sanctions haven’t produced the result we’d hoped. I have always argued that we have to lower our expectations of what sanctions can accomplish. The first thing sanctions need to do is to stop the crackdown. The second thing they are aimed to do is to release political prisoners. Sanctions are designed to bring about democracy, and there is no royal road to that. So we have to lower our expectations and begin with stopping the crackdown, that has been on the way since 2010, the day of the election. So I think as we have a better understanding of what sanctions can accomplish, then there would be more patience about them. And yet in the light of what has happened with Ukraine, I do think that there is interest on the part of Europe and even in the United States to try to reach out to test whether Lukashenka is interested in engaging more with the West.

My concern, as it has been for years, is always to make sure we don’t fall for the trap. Lukashenka is a master in playing West and Russia off each other. And we have to avoid falling into his game.

- Among other things, thanks to your work as US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, in 2008 political prisoners in Belarus were released. However in 2010 mass arrests took place in Belarus again and the number of political prisoners had grown many times. Now the West greets the fact that after 5 years of tortures in prisons, the last 6 prisoners of conscience are released. According to your predictions, when Lukashenka is going to take new hostages?

- I do think that sanctions we started imposing in 2006, increased in 2007, did lead to the political prisoners’ release, as you know early in 2009 in January. Kazulin was the last one, and it took some more months, including one more step on sanctions in March 2008. And it cost us an Ambassador, Karen Stewart. But we had specific goals in mind for those sanctions, and I would argue that they accomplished the goal of getting the people out of jail. They didn’t wait for rehabilitation, none of those prisoners have been rehabilitated either. But then this almost a race, a competition, particularly from European ministers, to Belarus, to try to engage, even though there hadn’t been a political rehabilitation.

And from the end of 2009 until the elections in 2010 there was almost embrace of Belarus. Then backward, when we saw the violence, the crackdown, maybe the worst one, starting after the day of the election in 2010. So we have to make sure that we don’t fall for this trap again. We talked the other day about how it reminds a movie, the Groundhog Day. We’ve seen that before. So no one wants to see a repeat of what happened in 2010. That means making sure we stand with our principles, making sure that we view what’s happening in Belarus on its own terms, not through a Russia’s prism. And it means making sure that we call truly what we stand for, and we go back to what we’ve said has to be done in Belarus. And it includes political rehabilitation, and it includes creating a more open environment for journalists, bloggers, opposition figures to be able to operate without fear of being arrested, harassed, intimidated or expelled. It requires a patient approach. This is a guy who has been in power for 21 years. And I don’t think that anyone is expecting an upset in these elections. So he is going to be re-elected again. It is an election that has already partially been decided. But I think that the West wants to see what happens, whether there would be a bad crackdown again, whether there would be protests and rallies against the election. But the opposition has largely taken a position of not participating in these elections. So it’s different from 2010 when you had a number of people running for presidency, and then most of those people wound up in jail immediately after the election. So this election is shaping up somewhat differently. We’ll have to wait and see what happens. My hope is that the West will keep in its pocket some of the incentives that would be useful for leverage with Lukashenka down the road. There are many more things he has to do before there is normalization of relations. And we have to make sure that he does them not just for cosmetic or superficial reasons, but that he does them on a sustained basis. Do I think he can change? Not really. But I am speaking in person (лично) as I say that. But at the end of the day he is the guy who is in charge right now, and the West is trying to figure out how to deal with him best way we can.

- Russia is opening a military base on the territory of Belarus. Does the US realize its danger?

- I think that extension of Russian military anywhere these days is a cause of concern. It does seem to me that it is not a coincidence, that Putin did this… It seems like he had pressured Lukashenka, who didn’t seem that interested in having this base, as the West and Lukashenka were patching up relations. So I think this is Putin’s effort to try to throw up monkey wrench, to try to screw things up for Lukashenka in the West. And I think from the Western perspective there would be some understanding it is not Lukashenka’s idea, it is not his decision, it’s Putin’s decision. And it is a part of Putin’s geopolitical games that he had been playing off for quite a while, while not welcomed, and I think it will cause uneasiness for the Baltic States, for this country, for Poland. It probably won’t affect the larger calculus between the West and Belarus.

– Today it is obvious that Putin is restoring the Soviet Union. What the US can do to counterpoise the new Evil Empire?

- The US does not accept spheres of influence that reflect interests of Putin’s part to try to recapture the empire, recapture the Soviet Union. The US stands for the independence and sovereignty and territorial integrity of all of the countries in the region. The invasion of Ukraine, the occupation and annexation of the Crimea are the first of the kind since the World War II, so it is a huge challenge to the West, to Europe and the United States. What we want to do is to make sure that we stand for the independence of all of the countries in the region including Belarus, and to block efforts by Russia to interfere, to say nothing of invading, its neighbouring states. I was in Georgia a few weeks ago. Georgians remain nervous about their big neighbour to the north. There are efforts to move the demarcation line on a regular basis. And Georgians also experienced invasion of the Russian forces in 2008. Estonia was a target of a cyber attack in 2007. So, even the countries that are members of the NATO, are nervous these days. And we have to make sure that we stand with our NATO allies, including with our Chapter 5 guarantees, and we have to do what we can to support other countries in the region, maintaining their sovereignty and territorial integrity.

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