BELARUS DIGEST

March 8 in Belarus: a celebration of emancipation has turned into its opposite. An article by one of this website’s authors on the occasion of the Women’s Day.

Some countries of the former Soviet Union and Africa celebrate March 8 as the International Women’s Day. This is perhaps the most “innocent” Soviet holiday which has not yet disappeared from our calendar.

February 23 (originally Day of the Soviet Army), which in recent years actively establishes itself as a male counterpart of March 8, or, even more, November 7 (Day of the October Revolution) are highly politicized holidays. Therefore the tradition of celebrating them will disappear as soon the government takes a rational view on what should be celebrated as the Day of the Belarusian army. An even bigger question is whether it is worth for Belarus to celebrate anniversaries of the October revolution at all.

March 8 is the only holiday which has no blood on it. It does not carry all these second-thoughts like holidays associated with the liberation of Belarus from Nazi occupation and the restoration of the Soviet dictatorship after that.

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By lhar Lalkou

Belarusian society is deeply split. Less than a decade after the establishment of an independent Republic of Belarus, one part of society is so radically separated from the other that if a casual observer were to overhear conversations and read articles by the two groups, it could be concluded that they live in different worlds. Of the parameters that identify a nation, place of residence is the only thing these two groups have in common. They differ by language, their historical memory, identity (despite the fact that both call themselves Belarusians, the meaning is completely different), relations with other nations (dose and distant), their vision of the country ’s future development, etc.

It sometimes seems that these two groups would feel more comfortable in two different countries. The two Belaruses already have two totally separate sets of national symbols. One set comprises the knightly emblem Pahonya (a knight on horseback against a red shield) and the white, red and white flag. The other set comprises’ a traditional Soviet shieldless emblem look-alike framed by a garland and a red and green flag with an ornamental pattern. The Pahonya was inherited by Belarus from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL), a state in which the ancestors of most Belarusians dominated during the greater part of their history (in the 13″‘-18″ centuries).

Together with the white, red and white flag, the emblem was adopted as the national emblem of the Belarusian People’s Republic (BPR), the first state to appear on these lands after the break up of the Russian empire. These symbols are still used by the BPR government-in-exile that had to leave Belarus in 1920 under the blows of Soviet Russia’s Red Army. These symbols were also the first state symbols of the independent Republic of Belarus between 1991 and 1995.

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On this day 70 years ago, on March 5, 1940, the politburo of the Communist Party of the USSR has passed the decision to kill several thousands officers of the Polish army. The killings are now known as Katyn Massacre, named after the first known place of where the executions have taken place. The Katyn Massacre is a historical episode where the role of Belarus is usually understated or, better said, ignored at all. This has its reasons.

Among the officers of the Polish army killed in Katyn there were many people from West Belarus that was part of the Second Polish Republic before 1939. In particular, one of two generals killed by the Soviets was Bronisław Bohatyrewicz from Hrodna, who had also been a commander of Belarusian national self-defence units in 1918-1919. According to historians’ estimates, about a quarter of the 14.5 thousands people killed in Katyn were Belarusians.

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The council of the Polish city of Kraków has declared Aliaksandr Lukašenka, the President of Belarus, persona non grata in the city. It is a symbolic gesture of solidarity with the Union of Poles in Belarus.

The city council has passed a resolution which appeals to the European Parliament to take all possible effective action against the Belarusian state to protect the rights of persecuted Poles in Belarus.

The conflict around the Union of Poles of Belarus is quite far from what it may look like at the first glance. The specific is that the conflict has no nationalistic background at all.

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In his newest blog entry Pavol Demeš of the Central and Eastern Europe program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States compares the last European dictator with tough chess player who frequently uses forbidden moves to win.

“Despite opposition movements, Russian punishments, EU and U.S. sanctions, and color revolutions around him, he remains comfortably ensconced at his palace while European commissioners, patriarchs, popes, and other presidents have come and gone,” says Demeš.

The author reveals the secrets of Lukashenka’s self-made practices in international relations through prism of recent crackdown on Belarus’ Polish minority and upcoming presidential elections.

Belarus’ Aleksander Lukashenko, European Chess-master
GMF Blog
Posted on March 4, 2010

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — When Aleksander Lukashenko, the authoritarian president of Belarus, began a recent campaign to intimidate and punish members of the country’s disobedient Polish community, he opened a new front not only with neighboring Poland, but also with the EU as a whole that must now meet that challenge head on.

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A loud scandal involving the foreign Minister of Israel and money laundering via Belarusian banks is unfolding. Ze’ev Ben-Aryeh, the former Ambassador of Israel to Belarus, provided Avigdor Lieberman, the Foreign Minister of Israel, classified information when they met in Belarus in 2008.

That information suggested that Lieberman had accepted bribes and evaded taxes using Belarusian banks. Israeli authorities were hoping to cooperate secretly with the Belarusian authorities, but their ambassador kept a copy of the confidential files for himself, and later shared it with his boss Liberman.

The Jerusalem Post reports:

According to the statement released by police, Israel’s former ambassador to Belarus, Ze’ev Ben-Aryeh, allegedly showed Lieberman classified information regarding his investigation by police on allegations that he had accepted bribes and failed to report income to the tax authorities.

The documents had been sent to Ben-Aryeh by the Foreign Ministry to hand over to the Belarus government, whose help Israel required in tracing money transfers from a local bank.

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An attempt to influence the Belarusian regime through the Eastern Partnership has failed. At least so far, at least the first attempt of it. Russian newspaper Kommersant reports that the negotiations between a delegation of the European Parliament and the Belarusian officials on Belarus’ participation in the parliamentary assembly of EU and its Eastern neighbours (EURONEST PA) were unproductive.

It is now likely that the Belarusian delegation will be formed from the opposition parties and NGOs, Kommersant quoted MEP Justas Paleckis.

This means that once again the democratic opposition is likely to represent the country at an international forum. It would be virtually the same as if on such forum during the Cold War the USSR would be represented by the Soviet dissidents. The dissidents were brave and dignified individuals but they were neither politically influential nor representative of the whole country.

Belarus has been under authoritarian rule over 15 years. All these years the opposition has practically been deprived of any opportunities to influence on the government’s policies let alone representation in the parliament. The opposition has now practically transformed into a semi-dissident movement. It is able to give a picture of what is going on in Belarus and give advise to the EU in what policy to pursue with Belarus – but these consultations and even some financial and organizational support to Belarusian NGOs can hardly be considered a realistic policy.

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Stay off the potash is the title of Edward Lucas’s recent article in the Economist, where he reflects on effectiveness of trade boycotts. Although the piece is on trade boycotts, the same logic applies to economic sanctions in general. As to Belarus, the point is well-taken – the more Europe isolates Belarus, the stronger will be its dependence on undemocratic regimes such as Russia or China:

Penalising weak-kneed European countries is hard enough. It is even more difficult when trying to put pressure on the source of the problem. If you want to boycott Belarussian goods, say, because of that government’s persecution of its Polish minority, you are unlikely to change your lifestyle much, unless you use industrial quantities of potash or need a lot of cheap tractors.

For countries like Belarus, a trade boycott is outright counterproductive. The more Belarus trades with the rich industrialised world, the weaker will become the ties binding it to Russia. It may be reasonable to try to take custom away from companies that owe their existence to commercial ties with sleazy politicians. But such bodies tend not to sell anything that a normal consumer in the outside world is likely to buy directly. You may not like the fact that some pennies from your fuel bills eventually trickle into the coffers of Kremlin cronies, but there is not much you can do about it.

Indeed, there were good reasons for the European Union to introduce economic sanctions, but their effectiveness remains questionable. Belarus has not become more democratic, despite some promising rhetoric of its government and strained relations with Russia.

This suggests that different approaches are needed. Spreading uncensored information in Belarus and supporting Western-educated Belarusians to return home are likely to be the most effective.

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BBC features Ivonka Survila, the President of the Council (Rada) of the Belarusian Democratic Republic in a special broadcast on governments in exile.

According to the program author, Clive Anderson, the Rada is the longest-serving government in exile in the world. The Belarusian Democratic Republic’s independence was declared on March 25, 1918 during World War I, when Belarus was occupied by the Germans according to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

After the Germans retreated from the territory of Belarus and the Russian Red Army started moving in to establish the Socialist Soviet Republic of Belarus, in December 1918, the Rada (Council) of the Belarusian Democratic Republic moved to Hrodna, which became the centre of a semi-autonomous Belarusian region within the Republic of Lithuania. During the subsequent 1919 Polish invasion, the Rada went into exile and facilitated an anticommunist struggle within the country during the 1920s.

The BBC program examines interesting examples from around the world, which vary from the serious to the apparently ridiculous.

Clive Anderson examines one of the potentially strangest corners of international politics, the lesser-known governments or rulers in exile – a paradoxical area of international relations and surreal part of international law.

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For those who are still not sure about Belarus privatization plans, there is another sign that the Government is serious about it.

Moscow Times reports that President Lukashenka invited the Rothschild Group to advise the government on evaluation of enterprises. Apparently, Belarus would not have invited the Rothschild Group to privatize small state-owned companies. Rothschild has been at the center of the world’s financial markets for over 200 years. It provides Investment Banking, Corporate Banking and Private Banking & Trust services to governments, corporations and individuals.

The Rothschild talks suggest that we may see something big on the privatization plate in the near future. Belarus authorities already have experience working with Rothschild. In 2009, Rothschild was involved in sale of one of the leading Belarus banks – BPS Bank, which was acquired by Russian Sberbank for $280,7 million. Moscow Times reports:

“We not only want to receive your [price] estimates of privatized companies, we would like to learn a lot from you,” Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka said at a meeting with top executive of the financial services group. “It would suit us very well to work with your specialists. If you agreed we could soon delegate several projects and work on them seriously.”

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A senior ideologist Mikalaj Čarhiniec, who had proposed to impose censorship restrictions on a concert of the German industrial rock band Rammstein, has demonstrated what the ideology of the current political regime in Belarus is.

Official ideology of today’s Belarus can be described as post-Soviet left-wing conservatism. The Belarusian government is principally averse to democracy and civil liberties. Therefore it also has a very negative attitude towards any cultural or social phenomena like drugs legalization or the LGBT rights movement.

Belarusian bloggers and foreign media have been actively discussing the prospectives if the concert’s cancellation. However, Andrej Hiro, Ambassador of Belarus to Germany, pointed out today that members of Rammstein had all received visas for Belarus and that the proposal to impose censorship restrictions on the concert had been “a private initiative”.

A scandal of this kind is nothing new for Rammstein. It could only increase the popularity of the band, which is probably more famous in Belarus than in Germany itself. In show business there is no such thing as bad PR after all.

Not content to oppress the country’s democratic opposition or rail against Western imperialism, the autocratic regime of Belarus has declared the German industrial rock band Rammstein to be an enemy of the state.

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