“Self-proclaimed President of Belarus Lukashenko is at the same time a dictator, an impostor and a highwayman”, hammered Wednesday on franceinfo Nathalie Loiseau, MEP and former Minister for European Affairs, while the tension between Poland and Belarus is still very high. Poland has warned of an upsurge in attempts to cross its border illegally and pushes migrants back to Belarus, accusing the country of “state terrorism” at the source of a new migrant crisis in Europe. For Nathalie Loiseau, the Belarusian president “trying to destabilize the European Union”. She also accuses Russia of leading “a hybrid war by the instrumentalization of migratory flows created from scratch.”
franceinfo: Can we speak of human trafficking?
Nathalie Loiseau: Sure. The self-proclaimed President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko is at the same time a dictator who represses his people, he is an impostor, since he remains in power after losing the elections. And then, he is a highway criminal. You remember that a few months ago, he had hijacked a European plane that was traveling between European capitals to force this plane to land in Belarus and kidnap a Belarusian opponent and put him in prison. This time, he is organizing flights from the Middle East, but he brings in migrants from Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Turkey and even Venezuela, to mass them at the border with Poland, with the Lithuania, together with Latvia, to prevent them from turning back. The Belarusian military fired in the air to frighten these migrants. And to try to destabilize Poland, the Baltic countries and the European Union more broadly, because the European Union was firm and imposed sanctions on it.
What new sanctions can the European Union adopt?
We must really push back Lukashenko. We have to lean very hard where it hurts, on economic activities that Belarus continues to have with the European Union. It is also necessary to target the airlines which lent themselves to this macabre and cynical game and which transported, from Moscow, from Turkey, from Damascus, migrants to Belarus. Thefts which did not exist until now and which have multiplied in recent weeks. It is not normal that these airlines have lent themselves to this game of appalling cynicism.
Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, who dismissed all responsibility in the matter and told Europe to speak directly to Alexander Lukashenko. What do you think ?
It’s a smoke curtain. This is the very type of what is called hybrid warfare. Hybrid warfare is a war fought by non-military means and in which no one declares it. No one is saying, yes, I’m attacking you. And Russia is championing hybrid warfare through disinformation, through cyberattacks. And now, through the manipulation, the instrumentalization of migratory flows that are created from scratch. Because it is not comparable to what happened, for example, with the Syrian refugees. First, we do not know if these unfortunate people who are in the cold, are refugees, are migrants or are people sent to us. I am still troubled by the fact that some took off from Damascus airport, supervised by the Syrian army. So we don’t know who it is. This is unprecedented, because we do not spontaneously arrive in Belarus when we come from these countries. And it is these people who want to enter Europe. They obviously do not want to stay in a country which is an open-air prison and which is Belarus.
How to sanction Belarus without overwhelming the Belarusian people?
President Lukashenko simply needs to stop this manipulation. It is up to him not to overwhelm his people. It is up to him to understand the message which must be very firm which will be sent by the European Union. At the same time, the European Union is sending messages to the countries of origin of these migrants to describe what is happening and above all to tell them, don’t go, you are being manipulated. It started with Iraq this summer. Already, the European Union had sent a very clear message to Iraq to stop the flights and they had stopped for a while. And then there is another emergency, which is the humanitarian emergency. Because there are men, women and children who are literally freezing to death in a terrible place. The High Commissioner for Refugees must be able to access them, be able to come to their aid. I’m not saying we have to open our doors. We must do for those who truly qualify as refugees. And I don’t know if there is. But these people must be rescued. We need to know who it is. Also know if there are any that present security risks because it is also the responsibility of Europe. And then, those who were simply trying to enter Europe illegally, let them be escorted home, but all humanely and with dignity.