Over the more than 3 decades, Las Vegas regulations have been largely implemented in Belarus: what happened there has tended to remain there.
This is that of a closed economy with a neo-socialist formula and even a KGB to monitor its citizens. Little has been received of his appalling human rights record.
The impoverished country has been since the disintegration of the Soviet Union through Alexander Lukashenko, a strongman in the Soviet sense: unimportful, abrupt, but survivor. Think of Brezhnev, but with a more frightening moustache.
I entered Belarus from Lithuania on a night bus in March 2006 to oversee its presidential election. It was one of the first elections in which the use of SMS generation was tactically used to take others to the streets. There have been reports of fraud and thousands of Belarusians have invaded Minsk’s main square to protest, defying the weather and the snow below zero.
I think this could be the end of Europe’s “last dictator.”
What happened next will look familiar: once foreign media fled the scene, Lukashenko temporarily sent the police to brutalize and arrest the protesters. Crowds have become clearer and their regime survived some other challenge to his authority.
In the years that followed, Belarus tried to stay out of the spotlight, betting on Europe opposed to Russia, a balancing exercise that earned Lukachenka the wrath of both. His relationship with Vladimir Putin has cooled in recent years, as Belarus was reluctant to sign a formal union with Russia.
But the themes of Belarus for America. Beyond the ongoing humanitarian tragedy, thousands of demonstrators, joined by women and children, continue to block their weapons to protest what was a rigged election.
First, Belarus is a stopper state between NATO and Russia. Any traditional war opposed to the Eurasian continental mass would involve its territory, which is why Russia conducts army training there.
Second, Belarus is ready for a new, more representative government that updates the existing regime. It is a stain on European delight that a Soviet-style dictatorship is on its doorstep, giving a nod to Europe’s liberal ideas.
Of course, Belarus enjoys a larger corporation, while EU members like Poland and Hungary succumb to Lukashenko-style populism. Reversing this trend would gain advantages that the EU would delight as a total and provide a more powerful buffer than Russia.
Finally, the Las Vegas regulations of Belarus are gone. Just as Lukashenko denied the coVID-19 presence in his country, organizing hockey matches and concerts with little idea or attention if he wore masks, what happens elsewhere is spreading in Belarus and what happens in Belarus is not contained there.
I am the crowd of protesters who crowded in October Square in central Minsk in 2006, chanting slogans of “Long live Belarus!” It was an inspiring moment.
At the time, I was dismayed by the lack of organization. I didn’t realize how harmful and complicated it was to organize such disparate parts of an opposition motion in the days leading up to social media.
It is not transparent that Facebook or Twitter caused Lukashenko’s downfall. Belarusian Evgeny Morozov was surprised by the naivety and inability of cyber-utopianists to wait for how autocrats like Lukashenko would overthrow Internet search engines to monitor their other people and save them grassroots mobilization. His point of view was aberrant ten years ago; it’s now common.
I am the cat-and-mouse game that the protesters played with the government in 2006, when fake leaflets and flyers were distributed to tell the protesters to be displayed in various squares, where insurrectional police waited to arrest them. I also checked the plaingarments that the KGB had planted in front of my apartment, tracking each and every one of my movements.
I’m surprised, but I’m proud that the world is paying attention to this pocket of Europe. But to a large extent, it has ignored Belarus ever since.
The United Nations, the EU and the US government are expected to vote in unais on the country’s appalling human rights record. It also deserves to make the pro-democratic opposition more proactive.
The main opposition candidate, a 37-year-old housewife named Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, was forced to flee for fear of her family’s protection. She joined the race after her husband arrested and banned him from running for nominee.
It is the best time to send foreign election observers to claim the illegitimate vote and hold Lukashenko accountable to his people.
More than nine million Belarusian citizens deserve better. What happens in Belarus no longer remains in Belarus.
Lionel Beehner, a member of the USA TODAY Taxpayers Board, is a member of International Affairs of the Council on Foreign Relations.