November, it seems, is all about revolutions in this part of the world. No, I’m not even referring to the Bolshevik Revolution, which began on Nov. 7, 1917, in Russia, nor the Ukrainian revolution launched on Nov. 1 in western Ukraine in 1918 after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
In November 2003, we had the Georgian Rose Revolution, which ended Eduard Shevardnadze’s rule and brought Mikheil Saakashvili to power.
In Ukraine, it was followed the following year by the Orange Revolution, which denied Viktor Yanukovych the presidency in favor of Viktor Yushchenko, and in 2013-14, the EuroMaidan Revolution, which ended Yanukovych’s presidency and led to the rise of one-term President Petro Poroshenko.
This month, Nov. 16 marked 100 days of revolt in Belarus against the Lukashenka dictatorship. After months of mass peaceful protests and strikes which have been met with brutal repression involving mass arrests, torture, killings, closure of borders, and anti-Western, and for that matter anti-Ukrainian, rhetoric, a key moment has been reached in the stalemate, perhaps even a turning point.
We appear to be seeing the beginning of a new phase in the standoff between the junta of dictator Alexander Lukashenko and the popular movement for democracy headed by the real winner in the rigged Belarusian presidential election on Aug. 9, Svitlana Tsikhanouskaya, and the Coordinating Council on the transfer of power which she has established and is based in Vilnius.
Lukashenko, relying on his inordinately large and well-equipped security apparatus, servile officialdom beholden to him for their positions, Russian backing, and the indiscriminate application of state terror, continues to make it clear that he is determined to cling to power, whatever it takes.
The Belarusian junta, as the population refers to it, has responded with a cold-blooded cynicism and brutality which has shocked the traditionally placid Belarusian people and external observers.
So far over 27,000 people have been detained since the protests began. Horrific accounts of torture and inhuman conditions in places of detention abound. Arbitrary, frequently brutal arrests continue, while Lukashenko’s state media, with the help of professional propagandists from Russia, have stepped up their Fake News in their “coverage.”
Children are being taken away from parents active in the revolt. State employees, workers, teachers, and even doctors – at a time when they are most needed because of the coronavirus pandemic – are being fired. The country’s leading cardiologist was not only sacked but saw his home burnt down a few days ago.
And in the very latest example of this institutionalized lawlessness, the inhabitants of the defiant Minsk district of Borovaia have had their water turned off and been effectively blockaded to prevent volunteers from providing them with alternative supplies.
The Belarusian population has been impressively heroic, resilient, and creative in its struggle. Mass protests have regularly brought hundreds of thousands onto the streets of the country’s cities and towns, especially to participate in thematic freedom marches in Minsk. Many workers and enterprises, but not all, have supported the calls for strikes. Students, women, doctors, IT specialists, and even pensioners have all played prominent roles in the resistance.
The regime has only intensified the repression. On Nov. 11, another democratic activist, 31-year-old artist Roman Bondarenko was beaten to death and became the latest martyr for the Belarusian democratic cause.
Last Sunday, Lukashenko did not hesitate to stage another obscene show of brute force to break up the protests and to destroy the improvised memorial erected in Minsk tribute to the murdered patriot. Over 1,000 people were arrested.
In short, the Belarusian democracy movement has been bloodied, terrorized, and traumatized, with many of its initial leading unofficial activists imprisoned. It is being increasingly blocked in its ability to mobilize hundreds of thousands of supporters to unite in columns and marches on the street as before.
The idea of using defensive methods employed during the Maidan, as some Ukrainian observers suggest (Molotov cocktails, barricades, burning tires, etc.) seems totally inappropriate in a situation where Lukashenka’s trigger-happy thugs are evidently waiting for “provocations” to crack down even harder. This is not another Maidan, and the situation and mindsets are considerably different.
Even after more than three months, the support the Belarusian democratic movement has received from sympathetic states, while important, has so far been restricted to expressions of understanding and solidarity, condemnation of Lukashenko, and talk of sanctions and investigatory missions being deployed to Minsk. Meanwhile, it has seen Russia reaffirm in recent days its recognition of Lukashenko as the legitimate president of Belarus and the importance of “maintaining order” there.
These difficult realities are forcing the leaders of Belarus’s democracy movement to review their tactics, organization, and capacity to generate more effective external support.
Initially, the revolt was aimed at securing new, genuine, elections, the release of political prisoners, and the end of the violence resorted to by the regime. But since then, it has come to focus on the lawlessness, inhumanity, terror, and isolation imposed on Belarus by the junta. And it is small wonder that the latter’s representatives are now being called Fascists.
Being a democratic insurrection, what is occurring in Belarus is simultaneously the political rebirth of Belarus as a modern would-be democratic European state. And it is not just about the restoration of the banned white-red-white national flag associated with the nation’s independence and recovery of its history and language, but increasingly about its geo-political and civilizational self-identification.
The appearance on the European scene of the Belarusian liberation movement as a political factor was unexpected for the West, Russia and even the majority of Belarusians themselves. Its leaders have been stuck, on the one hand, between the harsh realities of a neighboring predatory Russia and economic dependence on it craftily cultivated for self-serving ends by Lukashenko; and, on the other, the West, hitherto estranged from it because of the dictator’s authoritarianism and alignment with Russia.
But as the struggle with Lukashenko’s regime intensifies and risks turning even uglier, and with Russia apparently prepared for the moment to continue backing the dictator, even if it means losing whatever traditional support remains for it in Belarus, we may be approaching a defining moment.
If the European Union does indeed apply more severe sanctions against the Lukashenko regime, confirming also its support for the Belarusian democratic movement for the longer term, and the Baltic countries, Poland and Ukraine continue affirming their good-neighborliness, this will have an impact. And of course, if the new Biden administration follows up on initial declarations of support for, all this could cumulatively become a potential game-changer as regards mindsets and perceived options.
Russia appears to prefer playing a waiting game. Sitting it out until the Belarusian economy collapses and its enterprises are there to be grabbed, Lukashenka runs out of money and support within his own entourage, and in the meantime promoting political forces promoting a pro-Russian line.
Much will depend on how the leaders of the democratic movement adjust their tactics to sustain the efforts to remove the dictatorship and allow their country to exercise self-determination at home and abroad.
Their appeals to the army and the security forces to join the people will continue and probably more clandestine forms of resistance will be proposed to avoid the brutality and mass detentions being applied against open forms of protest and civil disobedience. Calls for strikes and efforts to paralyze Lukashenka’s system economically will also be reemphasized.
Stronger Western interest and engagement will be vital, including efforts aimed at deterring Russia from overturning the choice of the Belarusian people themselves.
And here, the exiled Belarusian democratic leadership had just received a major boost. Just as the resistance to the Lukashenko regime has swiftly created a new sense of unity and solidarity within Belarus itself, it has also had the same effect on the large and diverse Belarusian diaspora.
On Oct. 31 the representatives of Belarusian living in about 50 countries from New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the United States, Latin America, and Europe, met online and launched World Belarus Congress. For the first time, Belarusian communities around the world have joined forces to organize a forum on the most urgent issues confronting Belarus and its future, to support the Coordination Council, and to enhance coordination.
This development has been enthusiastically received in Belarus where the activists know that winter is fast approaching. With the deterioration of the weather and the arrival of snow and ice posing additional challenges, they are hoping that the new World Belarus Congress will generate more support for their cause and understanding of its broader significance.
