Belarus: Hoof-Beats of the Horse of History Stuff/Post-Election Events

[Scepticalscribe]

Ten years ago, I have never forgotten what one of the presidential candidates said to me, and his tone of weary resignation, when he observed that there would be a day of reckoning for the regime, that it was inevitable, that it would be explosive, a pent up wave of pure frustration and rage by a people humiliated beyond endurance, but that it wouldn't happen in that particular election, or in the subsequent section, "but it might happen in the election after that".

 

[Alli]

Ten years ago, I have never forgotten what one of the presidential candidates said to me, and his tone of weary resignation, when he observed that there would be a day of reckoning for the regime, that it was inevitable, that it would be explosive, a pent up wave of pure frustration and rage by a people humiliated beyond endurance, but that it wouldn't happen in that particular election, or in the subsequent section, "but it might happen in the election after that".

What these people have suffered is unconscionable. It is admirable that they are able to keep alive that spark of hope.

Listening to your stories is empowering.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

During an even earlier presidential election, while the authorities in the region where I was deployed adhered to their instructions reasonably faithfully, actually, frankly, matters could have been an awful lot worse.

The governor of the region where I was based at the time was a lot more helpful, or rather, a lot less unhelpful, than he might have been, had he chosen to interpret his instructions absolutely faithfully or literally.

Thus, after the election, after the results had been promulgated, after our 'preliminary report' (which condemned the election) had been issued (the final report was usually issued a few months later), but a day or so prior to my own departure from that region (for a few days of being debriefed in the capital, along with other colleagues who had been deployed in other regions, plus those who had been based in Minsk throughout, before flying home), I called to the governor, to say farewell and to thank him, and brought a bottle of whisky as a thank you gift for him.

In all of these countries, the governor's office is invariably to be found in a large, lavishly furnished, representational building, built in the sort of classical architectural style preferred by officialdom (and found all the way across the lands ruled by the nineteenth century Russian Empire, and indeed, in the Habsburg Empire, as well).

The office was large, well appointed (mirrors, marble, comfortable chairs, massive mahogany desks, parquet flooring in a herring bone pattern) and dominated by an absolutely enormous portrait of the president which dwarfed that part of the room.

Accepting my thanks and the bottle of whisky, the governor (who had studied history, and enjoyed talking about history with me, because he knew I had studied it, and taught it, and that I loved it, too), glanced at the portrait, then back at me, and remarked: "He (the capitalisation of the letter 'h' of the pronoun was obvious from the pronunciation) doesn't drink and He doesn't like us to drink. But, He is not here, and what He doesn't know won't hurt Him, or upset Him" - by now, the whisky had been poured into two glasses, and, as he lifted one, he gave a toast, "so, prost", and then added, a little wistfully, a slightly melancholic note to his voice: "Look: When all this is over, and maybe when I have retired, come back to visit us sometime, in summer, and we can go picnicking and mushroom hunting and barbecuing in the forest, and drink (here he raised his glass again) and talk about history."

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Earlier, towards the end of a lengthy meeting with a senior official, I had asked him what - or where - is the private space? Where do people go when the administration controls everything in the public sphere or space?

To my astonishment, not only did he not claim incomprehension, but he actually answered the question, in a dreamy, ruminative, thoughtful tone.

"Alcoholism. Suicide. Fishing. Sometimes, really fishing, sometimes, "gone fishing" is a euphemism for something else".

 

[lizkat]

I think all democracies are being exposed as a sham.

While I’d like to see more conservatives on here, I’ve felt for at least the past couple years that the usual debating points are a distraction and of little consequence in the bigger picture. We need to put aside our differences for a while and unite in our common interests and concerns. That scares the shit out of the ruling class and what is needed to get actual change. Otherwise it’s going to be a never ending parade of electing nutters to the captain’s chair until we get a world war that kills half the population.

Why stop at half on that estimate: the way the US and China and India are currently half-assing climate change mitigation and pointing the finger at each other as "you go first with bolder moves, why pick on us?", we'll still be reading down the road about the pros and cons of energy-intensive and elite half-measures like vertical farming in the Financial Times, while all around the world regular ol' farmers have long stared at the cracked mudfields of their former livelihood and committed suicide or else gone to join the lines at international food aid caravan stopping points. Oh and soon enough we won't be doing those handouts any more either.

So if climate change itself doesn't get us, or the inevitable wars over "no wall high enough" when starving people have had enough of watching corrupt rulers argue over whose banner should fly at the palaces, just the disruption to food supply of both climate change and malfeasance in government will polish us all off in the end.

But that's only if people don't rise up and seek common cause with good effect, before we're too weakened and concerned about a next meal to make rational choices and see to their implementation. I mean it's nice we can soon book travel on SpaceX rockets but it's not like there's a human-ready planet waiting for us to show up in the backyard of this solar system.

Sometime I admit I am less convinced in the wee hours of the morning than at other times when I argue that right now it's most important just to get Trump out of office. I know that Biden-Harris is a construction of the establishment Democrats and a DNC that didn't really sweep itself out, after Gabbard correctly enough resigned her post and pointed out the establishent thumb on scale as she left.

On the other hand we have to reboot somehow. What we have is a fucking shambles and giving this particular administration another go still strikes me as insane. It clearly has ZERO respect for rule of law, the Constitution or any sense of how that document intended flexibility for the executive but not a license to go rogue in self-dealing. I don't regard the 2020 contest as a 2016 do-over where "lesser of two evils" even pertains. Trump is beyond evil and into impaired mode with his chaotic sense of how to use his high office. Letting him have his way almost entirely has been an interesting experiment on the part of this version of the GOP, but they are no longer underwritten by sensible followers at this point. Time for the other top-of-ticket option in 2020. It's a plus in my book that even the utterly amoral Wall Street seems to be saying it's time for Trump to go. Markets like uncertainty for a minute now and then, it's how to make a buck, but what we have now in the TrumpZone is not uncertainty. He's in biblical barn burning rage mode, and they must be giving him some pretty good drugs that he still manages to get the veneer on most of the time for public appearances.

I think the real battles are going to be in 2022 and I hope things will have developed so those will not just be party vs party. You're right about a need to work from common ground. K street lobby lunch has been the common ground of both parties for too long.

 

[lizkat]

Ten years ago, I have never forgotten what one of the presidential candidates said to me, and his tone of weary resignation, when he observed that there would be a day of reckoning for the regime, that it was inevitable, that it would be explosive, a pent up wave of pure frustration and rage by a people humiliated beyond endurance, but that it wouldn't happen in that particular election, or in the subsequent section, "but it might happen in the election after that".

This is exactly where the US is headed a day at a time. Meanwhile we still sneer at Eastern European and Central Asian countries as not having their acts together. We are literally crumbling here while the aspects of kleptocracy and plutocracy grow amidst us like the stalagmites of limestone caverns... drip drip drip while we watch the detritus pile up around us and wonder wtf "they" up there are doing to us.

Here we are supposed by the Constitution to choose how we govern ourselves. Yet we have this horrendous and growing inequity now with behemoth companies calling the tunes. It will soon enough not be much about parties at all at this rate, and we will be more like the countries whose systems we have long mocked. The two parties are one party united in attention to oligarchic interests and the people are quarreling only because it's a convenient thing for the oligarchs to have the politicians of our "two major parties" set us about snarling at each other every time an election approaches.

There's already not usually much constructive shift in actual governance post-election, no matter who wins, and the people --well some of us-- are finally catching on because things have become more fragile and unsustainable at household levels. But we don't know how to snap the country out of "how it works" even when it clearly doesn't work to serve us, the people... any more than how it all turns out for the citizens of some of the countries where you have monitored elections. It never seems like it can end well, or in nonviolence, or end up with less corruption for very long.

There are exceptions or seem to be, and one holds breath for their ability to sustain it despite some setbacks. Tunisia comes to mind, for instance, in modern annals of people saying ENOUGH... and then managing to create space for both progress and political dissent without total corruption immediately swamping things again from top down. But then one looks at what is happening now in the Ivory Coast, modeling the difficulties of governmental transitions when people are unhappy and aware of power imbalances.

We need election monitors here in the USA... . but who the hell would want to try to monitor the 2020 one. Could be quite a mess.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

The EU heads of government held a meeting today about Belarus; while they condemned the election and made clear that they do not recognise Mr Lukashenko as President (because the election under which he claims his mandate is not deemed legitimate, free or fair), they stopped short of calling for fresh elections.

Russia, meanwhile, (and the EU have kept in close touch with Russia on the matter of Belarus) have expressed "concerns" about the elections.

While it sounds a note of grim irony to learn that Russia has clear "concerns" about the election, that fact that they have chosen to express such "concerns' publicly, also serves to confirm just how outrageously egregious an example of fraud these elections actually were.

Nevertheless, while - to my mind - Mr Putin is hedging his bets, as, firstly, he does not want to be caught on the wrong side should matters escalate further and the country manage to rid themselves of Mr Lukashenko, yet secondly, he most certainly does not want someone who wishes to tilt towards the west to replace him.

My sense is that the outcome Mr Putin would most welcome would be the survival of Mr Lukashenko, but in a way that leaves him almost fatally wounded and weakened politically.

 

[yaxomoxay]

The EU heads of government held a meeting today about Belarus; while they condemned the election and made clear that they do not recognise Mr Lukashenko as President (because the election under which he claims his mandate is not deemed legitimate, free or fair), they stopped short of calling for fresh elections.

The EU can't act, ever. If the building were to be on fire they'd die while making a decision on what to do, with the clear understanding that they should never commit to any decision whatsoever.

Russia, meanwhile, (and the EU have kept in close touch with Russia on the matter of Belarus) have expressed "concerns" about the elections.
While it sounds a note of grim irony to learn that Russia has clear "concerns" about the election, that fact that they have chosen to express such "concerns' publicly, also serves to confirm just how outrageously egregious an example of fraud these elections actually were.
Nevertheless, while - to my mind - Mr Putin is hedging his bets, as, firstly, he does not want to be caught on the wrong side should matters escalate further and the country manage to rid themselves of Mr Lukashenko, yet secondly, he most certainly does not want someone who wishes to tilt towards the west to replace him.
My sense is that the outcome Mr Putin would most welcome would be the survival of Mr Lukashenko, but in a way that leaves him almost fatally wounded and weakened politically.

Most likely; I don't think that Putin wants to intervene, between Covid and other issues it might not be the right moment to make a mess in Belarus. However, Mr. Putin might also be trying to buy time before engaging in some sort of actions.

 

[yaxomoxay]

Developing: Putin to send troops to Belarus.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Developing: Putin to send troops to Belarus.

Ouch.

Is that an actual fact, or merely something he has offered to do if requested?

The BBC report that he (Mr Putin) has agreed to form, or has already formed, a "police reserve force" to intervene in Belarus "if necessary", and that he had done so in response to a request from Mr Lukashenko, but that the pair of autocrats have agreed that this force would not be used "until the situation gets out of control", a point which they both concur "has not been reached yet".

 

[yaxomoxay]

Ouch.

Is that an actual fact, or merely something he has offered to do if requested?

The BBC report that he has formed a "police reserve force" to intervene in Belarus "if necessary", and that he had done so in response to a request from Mr Lukashenko, but that the pair of autocrats have agreed that this force would not be used "until the situation gets out of control", a point which they both agree "has not been reached yet".

Yours might be a better situation report, at the time I got only the basic info. The political message, however, is very clear.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Yours might be a better situation report, at the time I got only the basic info. The political message, however, is very clear.

Yes, the political message is that Mr Putin is prepared - under certain circumstances - to offer support to his fellow autocrat. I suspect that he has concluded better the untrustworthy autocrat he knows, than someone who is neither answerable to, nor sympathetic to, him, which would be the case should the opposition take power.

Note, this does not mean not sympathetic to Russia's interests; to my mind, whoever takes power - irrespective of whether Mr Lukashenko retains power, or the opposition manages a transfer of power, - will go to considerable pains to ensure that Russian strategic interests are taken into account - that does not necessarily mean met, but certainly, they will be taken into consideration when formulating policy.

The population of Belarus is extraordinarily homogenous and instinctively, and culturally, very pro-Russian; notwithstanding that, they simply do not wish to be ruled by Russia.

However, given the history of their - that is, Mr Putin's and Mr Lukashenko's relationship - long and fraught previous relationship (Mr Lukashenko is adept at thwarting, and frustrating agreements or not meeting what the Russians argue are his commitments under such agreements), I'd be surprised if this assistance didn't come with a few conditions.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Just reading that a number of journalists (from the BBC, and Radio Liberty among others) have had their accreditation withdrawn "with immediate effect" which means that they will have to leave the country.

That suggests to me that a (possibly very violent) crackdown - with unwelcome witnesses removed, thrown out of the country, or otherwise expelled - may well be on the way.

 

[Alli]

E.U. Failure to Impose Sanctions on Belarus Lays Bare Its Weakness (Published 2020)

E.U. foreign policy moves require unanimous support from the member nations — a rule that continually undercuts the bloc’s bold ambitions for global influence.

www.nytimes.com

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the Belarusian opposition leader who was forced to flee to Lithuania, went to Brussels Monday morning, before the foreign ministers’ meeting, to plead for sanctions and “bravery.” She went away with neither.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Mr Lukashenko was sworn in as president (again) at a secret ceremony a few days ago.

 

[Alli]

Mr Lukashenko was sworn in as president (again) at a secret ceremony a few days ago.

That was mentioned. I am actually surprised that Ms. Tikhanovskaya is still free to roam the globe. Obviously Belarus has not yet caught up with Russia.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

That was mentioned. I am actually surprised that Ms. Tikhanovskaya is still free to roam the globe. Obviously Belarus has not yet caught up with Russia.

Belarus doesn't have the resources to murder its enemies abroad; as a small, poor enough country (I cannot count the number of currency devaluations - adding three zeroes to - or subtracting three zeroes from - the currency I have experienced on trips to, well, between trips, to, that country) it has more than enough on its hands repressing its population at home. Thus, exile and imprisonment are its preferred solutions when dealing with those who actively oppose the administration that runs the state.

Besides, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland (and Ukraine) border it, as well as Russia; these are not friends, not even Russia, - Russia would be a reluctant ally - and the diaspora from Belarus would be most disinclined to do the state's bidding by way of carrying out murky murders abroad; instead, they would be much more likely to work for the overthrow of the administration.

 

[lizkat]

Protests against Lukashenko continued in Belarus on yet another Sunday.

Over 100,000 march in Belarus against authoritarian leader

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — More than 100,000 people marched in Belarus' capital on Sunday to protest against the country's authoritarian leader, who won his sixth term in office in an election widely seen as rigged.

apnews.com

Government tried to suppress the latest demonstrations by using water cannon but protesters were not intimidated.

One video from the rally showed a group of protesters approaching a water cannon vehicle, opening a hatch on its side and removing pieces from inside the vehicle. Media reports say the water cannon malfunctioned after that and drove away.

Looks like typical moves are being made to suppress reporting.

According to the Belarusian Association of Journalists, 11 Belarusian reporters were detained Sunday in several cities. Last week, Belarus’ Foreign Ministry rescinded the accreditation of all journalists working for foreign news outlets and said they must apply for new credentials.

 

[lizkat]

AP has reported various sanctions and diplomatic moves by Belarus, Russia, the EU and Belarus neighbors Poland and Lithuania. The latter two countries have offered support to elements of the Belarusian opposition, in the aftermath of a popularly discredited re-election of Lukashenko, with Belarusian opposition asserting the election was rigged.

Belarus announced recall of its ambassadors accredited to its two neighbors on Friday, and suggested the two do the same, which recalls were then issued. These moves followed an earlier issuance of sanctions by the EU, a retaliatory list of sanctions by Belarus and a Russian statement it would "automatically" follow the Belarusian sanctions.

Belarus, Russia announce retaliatory sanctions against EU

Belarusian authorities have announced they are imposing sanctions against the European Union in response to the EU agreeing to sanction several dozen Belarus officials accused of falsifying presidential election results and leading a crackdown on peaceful protesters.

apnews.com

[Belarus foreign minister Anatoly] Glaz also said Belarus would impose reductions on diplomatic staff from Canada and Britain, which earlier this week announced sanctions against Lukashenko and other officials.

Poland, Lithuania recall ambassadors from Belarus

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland and Lithuania have recalled their ambassadors from neighboring Belarus, where hundreds of people have been detained during massive protests against the authoritarian president who won a sixth term in office in an election widely seen as rigged.

apnews.com

Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau tweeted late Monday to say that “in coordination” with EU bodies “we’ve made a joint decision to recall for consultations some of the ambassadors accredited to Belarus.”

Rau thanked “EU partners for an unequivocal expression of solidarity with Poland and Lithuania. Support for Belarusians and their efforts to democratize the country remains a priority to us.”

Poland and Lithuania are hosting some leaders of the Belarusian opposition and are taking steps to win EU and international support for efforts toward a democratic Belarus.