BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

01/06/2009

Lukashenko's Achilles' Heel

By Jeffrey Gedmin

One of the questions I was repeatedly asked during a recent trip to Minsk was whether President Barack Obama's administration would opt for greater pragmatism at the expense of idealism in foreign policy. Both the government and opposition in Belarus have a vested interest in the answer. As early as this week, the United States will decide whether or not to continue sanctions against the country known as "Europe's last dictatorship." The European Union faces fresh choices as well.

NATO sees Belarus as a potential threat to Lithuania. Russian tanks stationed in Belarus can be in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, in about 90 minutes. Belarus can threaten in other ways: 20 percent of EU gas imports from Russia pass through the country.

Belarus also remains a notorious human rights abuser. In its press freedom index, Freedom House ranks Belarus 188th out of 195 countries. Transparency International rates Minsk as more corrupt than Moscow. Minsk can feel like a time warp: Main avenues in the capital are still named after Lenin, Marx and Engels.

On my trip, I attended a dinner with leading oppositionists in a private room at a local restaurant. It was private except for the two minders who were stationed about two meters away from us. At a meeting of former political prisoners at the U.S. Embassy to celebrate the 55th anniversary of Radio Liberty broadcasts to Belarus, I met a former trade minister who had served two years for breaking with the regime. Another young, charismatic businessman had spent six years behind bars for his pro-opposition views.

President Alexander Lukashenko is severe. In 1995 he had his air force shoot down a hot air balloon that had strayed into his air space, killing two Americans.

The United States and the EU need to consider two issues in their relations with Belarus. It is only through a coordinated approach that we will make progress toward reform.

The first issue has to do with democratic development. The heady days of the 1990s, when it appeared that freedom was on the march around the world, have given way to a decade of democracy recession. The most troubling developments have taken place in Russia and its periphery.

Democratization in countries such as Belarus, Georgia and Ukraine will almost certainly help to curb Russia's imperial appetite. Faced with neighboring democracies, Russia would be forced to take greater stock of its affairs at home. Garry Kasparov, the chess champion turned opponent of Vladimir Putin, thinks of an inside and an outside game if you want to support Russian democracy today. Kasparov argues that the outside game -- what happens in Russia's neighborhood -- may be as important as what's happening inside Russia.

Let's encircle Russia with states that provide a powerful model for democratization. It has been 20 years since George H.W. Bush gave his "Europe, Whole and Free" speech in Mainz, Germany, and the project is only half complete.

Second, the prospects for political change in Belarus may not be as bleak as some believe. True, the opposition is weak. For his part, Lukashenko never fails to disappoint. Despite all evidence to the contrary, the regime calls into question the fact that the mass graves on the outskirts of Minsk are the work of Stalin's henchmen. And Lukashenko is the only ex-Soviet leader to have proudly retained the name "KGB" for his security services.

Yet every dictator has his Achilles' heel. For the authorities in Belarus, theirs may be the economy. The Russians, with whom Lukashenko has a "close but dysfunctional relationship," as one EU diplomat puts it, have reduced their economic support for Belarus in the last couple of years. Moreover, Belarus has not managed to remain immune from the global financial crisis. According to that same diplomat, some 25 percent of state-enterprise employees are now working on reduced hours. Lukashenko is in trouble if his social pact begins to seriously fray.

What to do? The civil society leaders I met were in agreement that the recent release of political prisoners was the result of U.S. and EU pressure. That pressure must be sustained. The United States should consider lifting sanctions only on the basis of strict conditionality. Washington should not give in to the temptation to accept the return of the U.S. ambassador, who was expelled last March over U.S. sanctions, as sufficient. Belarus must be pressured to have more independent media, to investigate the cases of missing dissidents and to end the practice of jailing oppositionists. For its part, the EU should insist that any economic assistance be closely tied to political reforms and respect for human rights.

This will be slow, tough going to be sure. But now is exactly the wrong time for a short-sighted realpolitik approach.

Jeffrey Gedmin is president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Source:

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/1016/42/377581.htm

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