The provocation is clear, and the collusion probable. A reminder of the events of the last 15 months allows us to understand what is happening on the Belarusian-Polish border, with Russian as well as European strings.
Faced with a surge of protests following the grossly rigged elections of August 9, 2020, the regime of Alexander Lukashenko, a despot in power for nearly thirty years in Belarus (or Belarus), opted for the repressive headlong rush. A repression all the stronger as the opposition in this sleepy country, with an uncertain identity between Russia and Europe, had, last year, woken up, emboldened and organized as never before.
The repression, during which tens of thousands of people were arrested, some brutalized and sometimes killed, was right, with pandemic restrictions helping, the popular mobilization. Great opposition figures like Svetlana Tikhanovskaïa have taken the path of exile.
But the media coverage of the Belarusian democratic uprising was successful: a wave of global disapproval, accompanied by economic sanctions, followed.
Lukashenko hung on, relying in particular on the Russian “big brother”. Big brother scalded by the “color revolutions” (Georgia, Ukraine) in which, for twenty years, Moscow has only been able to see “the hand of the imperialists” (in a world where everything is always manipulated from the outside) , but never genuine social movements with internal, national causes.
With the help of Moscow, he therefore clung, but accuses the blow. The sanctions hurt. The old dictator was piqued in his pride and decided – with the probable encouragement of the “big brother” – to take revenge.
Here is the explanation and the probable origin, trivial and plausible, of this plan which consists in destabilizing the Polish neighbor, Member State of the European Union. By using migrants from third countries… if not as cannon fodder, at least as “destabilizing torpedoes”.
This plan in the form of revenge has consisted in bringing together thousands of nationals of desperate and desperate countries (Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan) where there is no shortage of candidates for exile, and who are ready to do anything to leave.
With accomplice smugglers in Damascus, Souleymanieh in Iraqi Kurdistan, or even in Turkey, they were enticed in return for payment (several thousand dollars per person). We brought them to Minsk – since the end of October, a crowded plane a day from Damascus! – to then transport them to the Polish border, telling them: “From there you will be in Europe and will only have to apply for political asylum.” “
If everything were so simple! There was unfortunately no shortage of “fish” in this cruel scam. Here they are today, by the thousands, crammed into the no-man’s-land below zero in the forest between Poland and Belarus, innocent pawns of a “hybrid war” of a new kind (“hybrid war”, “hybrid attack”: expressions used in Warsaw and Brussels).
Poland in there? It has a good role and excels in victimization, especially since, for once, it is indeed a “hybrid” and destabilizing attack, by a hostile state on its eastern front.
Which does not excuse everything: on October 14, its Parliament adopted a law – contradicting international conventions on assistance and reception to refugees – which authorizes dry and immediate dismissals across the border … including the night in a wild forest and in ten degrees below zero: inhuman.
We can also recall that Poland has been criticized for several years, in Brussels, for its anti-democratic drift, its enlistment of the media and the appointments of friends of the regime to the highest courts in the country.
Warsaw has also refused any sharing of migrants within the framework of the Union, as Germany and Italy have repeatedly requested after 2015.
Despite this antagonism, which has earned Poland the withholding of money transfers from the European Union, we have heard, in recent days, a concert of solidarity declarations from Brussels and other capitals …
Poland, the black sheep – along with Hungary – of supranational, democratic and liberal Europe as seen by the commissioners of Brussels… becomes in this episode an outpost of “free Europe” in the face of the assaults from Europe. East ! Ironic turn of events.
As for Moscow: its complicity with the Lukashenko regime is probable, including in the planning of the operation. Moscow has a strong presence in Syria, from where a large part of these Middle Easterners left on their way to Minsk.
This is true, even though Moscow and Minsk have their occasional disagreements, much like Kim Jong-un with his Chinese sponsors. But they nonetheless remain allies who, since the electoral crisis of the summer and autumn of 2020, have multiplied declarations of convergence and mutual support.
Moscow, in recent days, has shown firm support for Lukashenko, coupled with a denunciation – quite ritualistic – of pressure and sanctions from Europeans.
In the shadow of this crisis between Minsk and Warsaw looms the regional confrontation between Russia and Europe.
François Brousseau is an international news columnist for Ici Radio-Canada. [email protected]