The detention of Raman Pratasevich shows how far the Belarusian dictator-president will go to shut down protest
On Sunday, three secret service agents and a Belarusian fighter jet “hijacked” a Ryanair plane from Athens as it crossed Belarusian airspace, just minutes before it reached Lithuania. The target was an opposition journalist, Raman Pratasevich, who helps run the Telegram channel Nexta, the main voice of the Belarusian opposition, many of whom are now in exile in Lithuania and Poland. This seems to be Belarus’s equivalent of a Litvinenko or Navalny moment – a message to the opposition that no one is safe from the regime, whether at home or abroad.
From detention in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, Pratasevich was forced to make what looks like a hostage video, “admitting” to organising mass disturbances and appearing as if he had been badly beaten. Pratasevich, however, is just one of hundreds of political prisoners detained in Belarus since mass protests against a rigged election in August 2020. This extraordinary act of piracy is therefore three things: it is dictator-president Alexander Lukashenko’s attempt to completely shut down the ongoing protests against his 27-year rule (Pratasevich is 26); it is a dramatic internationalisation of what had been largely a domestic problem; and an open show of contempt for the ability of the Europe and the US to do anything about it.
Why did the regime target Pratasevich? In 2005, Condoleezza Rice dubbed Belarus “the last true dictatorship in the heart of Europe”. Lukashenko has rigged every election since 1994. The EU first imposed sanctions on Belarus in 2004, strengthening them on Lukashenko and his associates in 2011.
But the country’s geopolitical situation changed dramatically once the war in Ukraine began in 2014. Belarus had to protect its own sovereignty, and diversify economically and diplomatically to reduce its traditional dependence on Russia. Its capital city hosted the Minsk agreements, peace negotiations over the war in Ukraine. The 2015 election was rigged as normal, but there were no real protests, as the opposition didn’t want to rock the boat. The regime started to object to being called “the regime”; Lukashenko even joked that he wasn’t the “last dictator” any more: Vladimir Putin in Russia or Ilham Aliyev in Azerbaijan were worse. Most sanctions were lifted the following year.
But things had changed by 2020. Six years of diversification had empowered civil society, and the government undercut its authority by ignoring coronavirus. And then Lukashenko mismanaged the election – or failed to rig it properly. He excluded what he thought were the most dangerous candidates but he mockingly allowed the wife of one, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, to stand, supported by other women from the other campaigns. Lukashenko said the burden of the presidency would cause Tsikhanouskaya to “collapse, poor thing”. She didn’t. Lukashenko claimed he won the election by 80% to 10%. Independent counts and an online platform for recording votes, called Golos (meaning “Voice”), had Tsikhanouskaya and Lukashenko roughly equal or Tsikhanouskaya ahead.
It took three months, but the government shut the protests down with unprecedented repression. More than 30,000 people were arrested; hundreds were tortured in prison, at least three demonstrators were killed and others disappeared. By comparison, under martial law in communist Poland in the early 1980s, only 10,000 were arrested, and the Polish population is four times as big as that of Belarus. But it was Nexta that kept things going, as the opposition shifted tactics to flash protests. Sanctions were imposed by the EU, UK and USA but were weak, and have not been updated since December.
Since then the government has sought to eliminate all remaining opposition. More than 400 political prisoners are estimated to be in jail. There have been leaks of alleged government plans to build detention camps and target opposition members abroad. In April, a supposed coup plot against Lukashenko was hyped on state media. It is no coincidence that the seizure of Pratasevich happened just after the authorities also shut down the largest domestic independent news portal, Tut.by, which also had a huge domestic audience of 3.3 million, 63% of local internet users.
How should the world react? The EU has called for European airlines not to fly over Belarus and prevented the national airline Belavia from using EU airports. But this would also prevent members of the opposition from leaving Belarus. The country is not as invulnerable as it might look. The economy is weak and Russia cannot pay all the bills. Targeted sanctions against exports, potash and oil products, and against trading in Belarusian bonds, could apply useful pressure. Otherwise Europe may have another rogue state on its borders.
Source: The Guardian, Andrew Wilson, May 26, 2021. Andrew Wilson is professor in Ukrainian Studies at University College London and the author of 'Belarus: The Last European Dictatorship'
Putin likely gave Belarus the go-ahead to divert the Ryanair plane, officials and experts say
Belarus's authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko is heavily reliant on Putin's support from an economic, military, and political standpoint. It's therefore thought to be unlikely that the Belarusian dictator would make such an audacious move without the Russian leader's blessing.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on Monday said that it was "very difficult to believe that this kind of action could have been taken without at least the acquiescence of the authorities in Moscow." Raab added that there was no firm evidence of Russia's involvement.
"Belarus would not have hijacked an EU plane without Russian approval," Yale historian Timothy Snyder tweeted.
As world leaders have denounced Belarus's actions as state-sanctioned hijacking, Russia has continued to offer Belarus support following the incident, and dismissed suspicions of its involvement as "obsessive Russophobia."
The Ryainair flight, which was en route from Greece to Lithuania, was grounded under a fake bomb threat and escorted into Minsk by a fighter jet.
After the forced landing, Belarusian opposition journalist Roman Protasevich was taken into custody. Protasevich has been a leading critic of Lukashenko, who faced mass protests in 2020 after he won a sixth term in an election widely viewed as rigged. The 26-year-old dissident fled Belarus in 2019 over fear of arrest, but continued to criticize Lukashenko while in exile.
As Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday condemned the Belarusian government over the "brazen and shocking act," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov defended Belarus's actions as "reasonable."
Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova in a Facebook post accused Western countries of hypocrisy over the response. "It is shocking that the West calls the incident in Belarusian airspace 'shocking'," she wrote.
The White House on Tuesday announced that President Joe Biden will meet with Putin face-to-face for the first time since becoming commander-in-chief. Psaki during Tuesday's briefing indicated that Belarus would be discussed.
Biden on Monday said he supported the EU's push to sanction Belarus and called for Protasevich's immediate release, adding that his administration would "develop appropriate options to hold accountable those responsible, in close coordination with the European Union, other allies and partners, and international organizations."
Meanwhile, Putin is set to meet with Lukashenko later this week in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi.
With the EU sanctioning Belarus, barring flights over the county, and banning Belarusian airlines from using its airspace or airports, some analysts say that the incident has benefited Russia in the sense it's pushed Lukashenko even further away from the West.
"Lukashenko will become an increasingly easy prey for the Kremlin," Alexander Klaskouski, an independent Minsk-based political analyst, told the Associated Press. "As a pariah country, Belarus will find it much more difficult to fend off the Kremlin demands for the introduction of a single currency, the deployment of air bases and access to lucrative Belarusian economic assets."
Source: Business Insider, John Haltiwanger, May 25, 2021
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