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Lukashenkas East-West Balancing ActLast year, Minsk decided to improve ties with the West after Russia’s yearly price increases on its gas and oil and reductions of imports from Belarus negatively impacted Belarus’ economy. The European Union and the United States indicated that they could respond if all political prisoners were freed and the upcoming elections were free and fair. President Lukashenka ordered the release of prisoners and the EU decided to go ahead with talks by lifting travel bans for the next six months on Lukashenka and 36 top officials. Although the elections held in September were basically as flawed as before, and the reforms negligible, the EU foreign ministers decided in March to lift the travel ban for another nine months.Belarus, a country of about 10 million people, located at the geographical center of Europe, finds itself between two competing giants, Russia in the east and the European Union in the west. It has again become an object of historical East-West competition. The territory of Belarus has always been at the crossroads of history. The early written records refer to its river system as the trade route between Scandinavia and Byzantium. Rulers from Scandinavia were invited to consolidate the various tribes, and later Eastern Christianity was brought in from Constantinople. The vast territory between the Baltic and Black Seas, became in the Middle Ages a multinational state known as the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Ruthenia and Samogitia, encompassing the Belarusian, Ukrainian and Lithuanian populations. The Grand Duchy was strongly influenced by European Renaissance, Reformation, and later, the Counter Reformation, accompanied by the growing influence of Poland and Catholicism. Meanwhile in the east, the Muscovite state was gaining strength, declaring itself the Third Rome, after the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453. The next centuries are marked with constant wars with the growing Russian Empire, leading to closer defensive relations with Poland, that finally resulted in the formation of the Commonwealth of Poland and the Grand Duchy. The wars and internal chaos eventually led to the three partitions of the Commonwealth between Russia, Prussia and Austria in the last quarter of the 18th century. All of the territory of Belarus fell under Russian occupation for more than two centuries. Napoleon’s drive to Moscow, and his ignominious retreat, followed by two major uprisings, had a further disastrous impact on Belarus. The last century was not any kinder to Belarus. World War I did not end here in 1918, as it did in rest of Europe, but continued with the Polish-Soviet war until 1920. The armistice line became the new border, dividing Belarus into two occupied parts, one by Soviet Russia, the other by Poland. The declaration of a short-lived independence in March 1918 was one positive event for the country. Stalin’s later purges and the back-and-forth World War II frontlines between the forces of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union left Belarus devastated and suffering the loss of a quarter of its population. It is small wonder that the Belarusian people are almost genetically averse to wars. The peaceful breakup of the Soviet Union was popularly accepted. In the summer of 1990 Belarus’ parliament declared sovereignty of the republic, following by the declaration of independence a year later. In December 1991, the three heads of state, Yeltsin of Russia, Kravchuk of Ukraine and Shushkevich of Belarus, met at a hunting lodge in Belarus where they signed an agreement dissolving the Soviet Union. A new constitution that provided for the office of presidency was adopted by the parliament, and election was held in June 1994. Aleksandr Lukashenka, a parliament member and a former state farm chairman, ran an unabashedly populist campaign and won decisively in a second round runoff against the nomenklatura candidate. Once in power, he dissolved the elected parliament and replaced it with one of his own choosing. Since then all the subsequent elections and referenda, including the constitution changes, have been rigged and Lukashenka has been ruling the country by edicts. While the West was shunning him, Russia embraced him. Lukashenka’s aim was to receive energy supplies at low cost and keep economic subsidies flowing. On top of that he was driven by a dream of one day occupying the Kremlin throne. To make this happen, he offered a plan for creating a Russia-Belarus Union state. Since Russia saw it as the first step in restoring the lost empire, a preliminary agreement was signed in1997. The outlook looked good for Lukashenka as long as the aging Yeltsin was in charge. With Putin assuming the presidency in 2000, the relationship with Russia started to visibly deteriorate. Soon, President Putin proposed that Belarus integrate as a province into the Russian Federation. Lukashenka turned this proposal down and Russia resorted to tightening economic screws in addition to political pressure. And the recent Russian incursion into Georgia, plus the world economic turmoil, made Lukashenka turn to the West — primarily to the European Union. Western Europe, dependent on Russian gas and oil supplies, had little or no interest in Belarus as long as Europe was getting the energy supplies, passing through Belarus, delivered — that is until Lukashenka turned the gas off in June 2007, which got EU’s immediate attention. On its part, the Belarusian opposition looked towards the West shortly after Lukashenka came to power in 1994 and started pulling Belarus toward Russia. The opposition sought contacts first with Belarus’ neighbors, Lithuania and Poland, then with the United States and later with the European Union. For example, opposition delegations met with world leaders, such as EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana in 2004, German Chancellor Merkel in 2006 and President Bush in 2007. As part of the renewed talks with the government in 2009, the International Monetary Fund agreed to provide a billion dollar loan, requiring nominal economic reforms. Many high-ranking EU functionaries have been visiting Belarus this year, including Javier Solana, EU’s High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy and Secretary General of the EU’s Council, on February 19. He first met with selected opposition leaders, then followed with two hour-long talks with Lukashenka and Foreign Minister Martynau. According to a Charter 97 report, Solana said he had “a very long meeting” with the president and “a very good meeting” with the Foreign Minister. He said his visit was the beginning of a deeper and closer interaction between the European Union and Belarus. The foreign ministers of the EU countries approved the Eastern Partnership Program, which includes Belarus and five other post-Soviet republics, in Brussels on March 20. The invitation of Lukashenka to the May 7 EU summit in Prague hasn’t been decided yet. According to Benita Ferrero-Waldner, European Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighborhood Policy, the level of Belarus’ participation in the program will depend on the progress of democratic reforms in the country. “If Belarus makes a choice in favor of reforms and greater openness, the EU is ready to give a positive answer and help Belarus in any way possible,” the commissioner said. It should be noted her visit to Belarus on March 12-13 has been suddenly rescheduled to take place in April. The reason for cancellation seems to be obscure. Most likely, Lukashenka made himself absent on purpose to delay meeting the EU commissioner by taking his vacation outside the country. And when the EU Partnership Program was close to accepting Belarus, there was a need for consultations with Russian President Medvedev, whom he met in Russia on March 19 to discuss economic issues and on March 21 foreign policy issues related to Belarus-Russia relations and Belarus-EU relations. Directly related to the ongoing Belarus’ contacts with the West may be Vice President Biden’s comment in February that the United States need to press the “reset button” in US-Russian relations. Such a changed policy may result in scaling back US relations with Russia’s neighbors and return to “Russia-first” policy in exchange for Russia’s cooperation on containing the Iranian nuclear threat. In the meantime, Russia rushed delivering all those promised loans and credits to Belarus, plus a new half a billion dollar loan in March. And if this financial support shouldn’t help keep Belarus in Russia’s orbit, then the pricing of its oil and gas, coupled with those military agreements that tie Russia and Belarus together, might come into play. The Belarusian people deserve better. But being located at a strategic crossroads in Europe makes Belarus an easy target for competing world powers. History without doubt places Belarus within democratic, civilized Europe, rather than in dependence on autocratic, expansion-driven Russia, which appears to have inherited her behavior from the Mongols, having been under their rule for three centuries. The world and the Belarusian people would benefit if Belarus were substantively aided to remain an independent, sovereign country and became a part of the democratic European community of nations. This article appeared in Belarusian Review, Vol. 21, No. 1 --------------------------------------------- Copyright 2009 Belarusian Review All rights reserved. belarusianreview@hotmailcom Joe Arciuch, Editor-at-Large
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