Odd notions from Belarus

Somebody should teach President Lukashenka some history. He is in danger of repeating it, having learnt nothing from it, presumably, forgotten nothing except the outcome. According to this article in Business Insider "Belarus is planning to bring back serfdom".

Serfdom is rather a difficult concept as it means different things in different countries. The serfdom of the high European feudalism was not really like the serfdom in Russia where it went on till 1861. That was more like slavery as the peasants who had originally been tied to the land while their masters were tied to service to the Tsar until Catherine II freed them from it, became, by various gradations, those masters' property who could be bought, sold or gambled away. The difference between that and the slavery in the American South was that the Russian peasants (serfs or slaves) were still liable for military duty and were taxed through their village commune.

Is this what President Lukashenka has in mind? Well, no, not quite.

According to this blog in the Financial Times [you have to register to read it and other blogs but it is free]

Lukashenko has announced plans to introduce legislation prohibiting farm labourers from quitting their jobs and moving to the cities. “Yesterday, a decree was put on my table concerning – we are speaking bluntly – serfdom,” the Belarus leader told a meeting on Tuesday to discuss improvements to livestock farming, gazeta.ru reported.

The serfdom decree would beef up the power of regional governors and “teach the peasants to work more efficiently,” Lukashenko said. Governors who failed to ensure timely and efficient harvests in their regions would get the sack, he added.

What it really reminds one of is the position of the peasants in the Soviet Union after collectivization ( the ones who survived the process, the subsequent state induced famine and deportation). They were all members of kolkhozes (collective farms) and sovkhozes (state farms) but, unlike other citizens of that great country, they had no passports by which, of course, I mean internal passports since nobody had foreign ones. Without a passport you could not go anywhere in the country so the peasants were tied to the land. They could not leave their kolkhozes unless their turn for military service came or they were arrested for nor fulfilling their plan or making nasty comments or even jokes about it.

One can't help wondering whether the "Governors who failed to ensure timely and efficient harvests in their regions" would merely get the sack. If so, times have certainly become more lenient but the outcome from the point of view of production will be the same: a disaster.

What's sauce for the goose ...

There is a battle going on in the EU about sanctions to be imposed on Belarus and its unquestionably oppressive and kleptocratic government.

Mid-level diplomats will this week discuss who else to add to the Belarus sanctions list when EU foreign ministers meet in Brussels on Friday (23 March).

EUobserver understands the provisional roll-call includes oligarch Yuriy Chizh, several companies owned by another regime billionaire, Vladimir Peftivev and a handful of officials. Peftiev is already under a visa ban and asset freeze, along with three of his firms - a decision he is currently fighting in the EU court in Luxembourg.

"You wouldn't believe how many [people] have come through here," a senior EU official told this website on the queue of NGOs, diplomats and companies telling him in recent weeks why Peftiev should be let off.

The article lists various reasons why Peftiev probably should stay on that list if there is such a list but also mentions that among various organizations that are arguing for his removal is at least one supposedly "anti-Lukashenka" NGO.

"I have not seen any evidence that Peftiev should be on the list. It's the police, the KGB, and the judges that should be on it," a contact from one Prague-based 'anti-Lukashenko' NGO told this website. A Brussels-based 'anti-Lukashenko' NGO recently sent a letter to EU officials containing 25 names - including Peftiev - of people who it says were put on the register unjustly.

This blog's opinion is that it is probably best not to take sides in the murky dealings between government, NGOs and oligarchs unless there is clear-cut evidence one way or another. Certainly, Vladimir Peftivev seems to be up to his eyes in business that, at least, in principle we in the West do not approve of:

He is the majority shareholder and chairman of Beltechexport, the country's largest weapons manufacturer. It makes aircraft, armoured vehicles and small arms. But its main business is to act as a middleman between Russian arms firms and dictators in Africa, Central Asia, south-east Asia and South America. The US says it has sold weapons to Iran and North Korea.

"It would be a further blow to [Russian President] Putin's reputation to have Russia sell its own weapons directly to these regimes in violation of international prohibitions. So Belarus does it for him," Stanislav Shushkevich, a former Belarusian head of state, told EUobserver.

I am not convinced Soon-To-Be-President Putin cares all that much about his reputation about selling arms "in violation of international prohibitions". It is not as if there was any mystery about the fact that he sanctions the operations or, at the very least, shrugs his shoulders in a typically Russian way.

What has caused a certain amount of distress is the role of Latvia and Slovenia.

EU diplomats say Latvia has now joined Slovenia in trying to protect him.

The two countries are willing to agree to the new EU sanctions but only if selected Chizh companies, which do business with their own firms, are left alone. In one example, Chizh is working with a Slovenian company, Riko Group, to build a luxury hotel and electrical sub-stations worth €157 million.

Latvia is barely emerging from a severe economic crisis and there may be a feeling that economic sanctions against firms that are willing to invest in the country is not a very good idea. Slovenia may look with some trepidation at other eurozone countries.

No, this blog is not advocating dealings with clearly dishonest firms from countries where the overwhelming proportion of the economy is owned by an oppressive kleptocracy that passes for a state. On the other hand, it might be a good idea to look at the way other countries behave.

Belarus is not the only country with those problems; there is another one, a larger one slightly further to the east. Is Germany likely to participate in any kind of sanction against Russia? Is Britain, come to think of it?

We can see the answer to that, if we look at the appalling Magnitsky case (about which I shall write in greater detail). Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer for a British firm, tried to prevent its theft and the use it was put to to steal many millions of rubles from the Russian treasury by various members of the FSB and the Ministry of Finance. For his pains he was imprisoned, kept in confinement for a year, tortured and, finally, murdered. The names of the people who were involved in the theft and Magnitsky's murder are known and it would be easy to put them on a list of people who are not allowed into this country together with their immediate families. The FCO is refusing to do so because a move of that kind might prejudice Anglo-Russian business links.

I cannot help thinking that the expulsion of British businessmen, the theft of their company to be used for fraudulent tax rebate and the murder of their employee ought to prejudice those relations more but, apparently, the FCO thinks otherwise.

ADDENDUM: This, on the other hand, is inexcusable, no matter what decision our own despicable FCO might take:

Long before Lithuania and Poland handed over confidential information to Belarusian authorities which led to Bialistki's arrest, Natalia had begun preparing herself for what she saw as the inevitable day when police would drag him off.

Alex Bialitski is a Belarusian human rights activist, leader of the group Viasna (Spring), who is serving a four and a half year sentence of hard labour.

For the past 15 years, Viasna has provided practical support for families and victims of political oppression. It is one of the few voices that still makes itself heard in the cacophony and white noise of President Alexander Lukashenko's regime. Every year it publishes a book-length analysis of human rights violations in Belarus. Every year it gets longer.

It has a long history of run-ins with the KGB.

When it was banned from receiving international funding, it opened bank accounts under Bialistki's name in Lithuania and Poland. In March last year, authorities in both countries handed over those very bank account details to Belarus.

Ausra Bernotiene, the former head of the international law department at Lithuania's ministry of justice, who delivered the information, has since resigned and now heads the international relations unit at Lithuania's national court administration.

There are, apparently, people who think her decision had been a genuine mistake and she was made a scapegoat when the whole mess was uncovered. A mistake of that kind would indicate a complete inability to understand the international situation and a complete unfitness for any position to do with international affairs. Given the position Ms Bernotiene ended up with, scapegoat is not precisely the word I would use. Let us also consider the fact that her husband is partner in a legal firm that does extensive business with Belarus.

What are we to make of this?

RIANovosti (RIAN) and other outlets report that

Norway’s twin terror suspect Anders Behring Breivik trained at a secret paramilitary field camp in Belarus earlier this year, a Belarusian opposition politician said on Thursday, citing security sources.

The politician is Mikhail Reshetnikov, the head of the opposition Belarusian Party of Patriots and he gave his information to Gazeta.ru.

Reshetnikov also claimed Breivik had participated in “sabotage-terrorism drills” under a former Belarusian special service officer and that he had used a fake passport to enter Belarus.

“His codename in Belarus’s KGB was Viking,” he added. “Rumors say he also had a girlfriend in Belarus.”

“The theory that Belarus’ special forces were involved in training Anders Breivik seems, of course, far-fetched,” political expert Viktor Demidov was quoted by Gazeta.ru as saying.

“On the other hand, [Belarusian] President Alexander Lukashenko’s friendship with Muammar Gaddafi is no secret - neither is his fondness for Adolf Hitler.”

Norway is taking part in NATO operations in Libya and Gaddafi has threatened attacks against Europe.

If true or even half-true, this puts a slightly different perspective on the shooting and bombing. As Viktor Demidov points out, and as this blogger immediately recalled, Lee Harvey Oswald had also spent time in Minsk. [Here is the article in Russian.]

A different bail-out

This, one can't help thinking will have tougher conditions.

With an economy teetering on the brink of collapse and a nervous population standing in hours-long lines to buy foreign currency or gold, Minsk is going hat in hand to Moscow seeking relief.

The open question is: What price will Russia demand for bailing out Belarus and its authoritarian leader, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka?

Russia has long been pushing Minsk to sell off key state assets including oil refineries, chemical plants, oil and gas pipelines, and machinery plants. In addition, Moscow has been calling for Belarus to open its markets to Russian goods, tearing down barriers that exist despite the fact that the two countries are members of a unified customs zone.

By "selling off" Russia will not mean open privatization. After all, the equivalent of those industries are hardly private in Russia itself.

Two big questions here: can Russia afford to bail out Belarus for some nebulous benefits in the future and, secondly, does the Kremlin really want to tie the unpredictable Lukashenka to Russia?

Yet more graves, yet more bodies

Gazeta Wyborcza reports that

Remnants of murdered Poles have been discovered in an Orthodox cathedral in Hlybokaye in Belarus. The local prosecutor's office has refused to launch an investigation and blames the Nazis. But historians say it's an NKVD crime.

As one historian pointed out if it had been a Nazi crime an immediate investigation would have been ordered.

The likelihood is that theser are the remains (hardly bodies after all these years) of Polish officials, possibly some officers, and professionals who were arrested in eastern Poland after the Red Army's invasion.

The most mysterious chapter of that massacre was the death of at least 7,315 (according to other sources, over 8,600) Poles who were arrested by the NKVD in Poland's then-eastern territories. Some of them are certainly buried in Bykovnia near Kyiv (where remnants of Polish officers were recently discovered) and in Kurapaty near Minsk. The places were thousands more Poles are buried remain unknown.

The Poles were executed by special NKVD units sent directly from Moscow. Five such units operated in what is now Belarus. One of them, led by Lt Nikolai Kozhevnikov, operated in Vileyka near Hlybokaye.

There is, however, a problem. It is not that President Lukashenka denies that these arrests and executions had been carried out; it is simply that he does not see that there was anything wrong with that. The Great Leader, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was right.

Belarussian president Alexander Lukashenka is known to be an admirer of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the creator of NKVD, who was born in what is now Belarus, and of Joseph Stalin. Belarus is preparing today for grand celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union's invasion of Poland, which is to be a great display of the country's unity. In Brest, where the Wehrmacht and the Red Army held a joint parade in September 1939, a monument commemorating the 'bright day of 17 September' is to be unveiled.

Sounds like a great idea. They can invite all those Western academics. journalists and politicians who still refuse to acknowledge what really happened in Eastern Europe during the war. I can provide them with a list.