BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

09/10/2008

Why we need Belarus

Alexander Lukashenka may be Europe's last dictator, but Belarus' geopolitical importance is too great for the US to ignore

Belarus held a parliamentary election last week and nobody in America paid any attention. In fact, Belarus rarely registers a blip on our radars, except to serve as a punch line, as it did when John McCain chastised his adviser Phil Gramm after calling us a "nation of whiners" and that the former senator "would be in serious consideration for ambassador to Belarus, although I am not sure that the citizens of Minsk would welcome that".

All ribbing aside, should Belarus matter to Americans? That is, should we be doing more to reach out to a country Secretary Condoleezza Rice once described as "Europe's last dictatorship"? The answer is a no-brainer: Yes. And there are signs Belarus may be pulling out of its post-Soviet hibernation, or at least recalibrating its pro-Russia orientation.

Among the positive signs: Belarus' erratic president, Alexander Lukashenka, has begun releasing political prisoners, many of them detained after the opposition's aborted peaceful revolution in March 2006. While the OSCE said the recent elections were neither free nor fair - no opposition candidate won any parliamentary seats - they still showed minor improvements from previous polls. Lukashenka refused to bend to pressure from Moscow to recognize the independence of Georgia's breakaway provinces Abkhazia and South Ossetia. And the former collective farm boss even hired a British public relations firm, Bell Pottinger, to polish his and his country's image in the eyes of the west (first piece of advice: shave the creepy mustache).

Sceptics will say this is nothing but a ruse for Belarus to continue rigging elections and arresting dissidents, while strategically playing its European and Russian neighbors off one another to wrest more concessions - aid, cheaper energy, lifting of sanctions - from both. They say that Lukashenka is not having a Qaddafi-like moment and awaiting his invitation to the White House. After all, this is the same guy who gave the boot to America's embassy staff in Minsk last spring.

But he may be amenable to making Belarus a more open and investment-friendly place even if it means allowing more dissent and curbing human rights abuses. A dictatorship on Europe's doorstep was partly the same rationale for intervention in the former Yugoslavia a decade ago. While nobody is seriously talking about military regime change in Minsk, some are waking up to the fact that Belarus' relationship with Russia - on political, military and energy matters - is not all it's cracked up to be. The image of Russian tanks moving into Georgia can't sit well in Minsk. And once Belarusians start paying for higher prices at the pump, they may start cursing Putin with the same intensity as they curse Bush.

The question is: What can the west offer Belarus? Of course, a blanket lifting of sanctions would only reward Lukashenka for rigging the recent election. But making more conciliatory overtures to Belarus, especially with winter approaching and higher energy prices on the horizon, would be a step in the right direction. "If Europe makes one step forward in political and economic cooperation, we will make three steps," Lukashenka recently told reporters. But even more security cooperation would be helpful. Belarus will not be joining Nato anytime soon - even though it arguably is more qualified for membership than Georgia, given its recognized boundaries - but nor should we assume Belarus is just some extension of Russia, or a beachhead for its expansionism westward.

In 2006 I traveled throughout Belarus, talking to locals about their concerns, needs and wishes. Of course, they want higher salaries but they appreciate the fact that their streets are clean, their cities are safe and their lives are predictable, even if a tad dull. Many desire closer cooperation with Washington and Brussels but are not for joining EU or Nato. Even the plainclothes policemen who tailed me everywhere on my trip probably would have enjoyed chatting me up over beers about US-Belarusian relations.

The next president of the United States should not ignore Belarus. It is the buffer zone between Nato and Russia, a vital transit route for Europe-bound energy supplies, and a state with an appalling human rights record. The next president would be wise not to consider its ambassadorship to Belarus as some outpost to punish wayward advisers like Phil Gramm.

Source:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2008/oct/09/usa.belarus.russia.diplomacy

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