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In Belarus, security forces are cracking down on protests, although hardly any of them are happy to serve, experts say. Why is Lukashenko’s apparatus of violence so stable?
By Jasper Steinlein, tagesschau.de
In the summer before the election, “Sascha’s three percent” was a popular internet gag in Belarus: it was referring to Alexander Lukashenko, who only achieved a three percent approval rating in an online poll, and without Yet he was the beloved in state media. “Father” could be cheered without even objecting. “This willingness to support or tolerate the regime no longer exists,” Andrei Yeliseyev, head of research at the Warsaw think tank “EAST”, said in an analysis. Yeliseyev attributes three pillars to Lukashenko’s ability to stay in power: support for the Kremlin, vertical power in politics and administration, and the huge security apparatus.
Because since the summer, two groups have clashed weekend after weekend: thousands and thousands, mostly women, street protesters, and masked and uniformed people who drag people into cars, abuse, beat and torture people. In fact, the situation within Belarusian society is more complicated, experts emphasize. “The security forces have limited power since the spring,” says Belarusian political scientist Andrei Kazakevich, director of the Vilnius-based Belarusian research institute “Palitychnaja Sfera”. “Before that there were other centers of influence: the banking sector, ministries, business circles, etc. Only through this political crisis did they become such a powerful force within the state.”
More “siloviki” than other European countries
All the post-Soviet space knows uniformed people, who may act outside the law and order, but who refer to it: there they are often summarized under the term “siloviki”, from the Russian word sila, which means “force” or “transmitted” violence. “medium. Also in Belarus they have been part of everyday life, so to speak, since Lukashenko took office in 1994: in addition to the regular police called” Milizija “, there are also OMON, the SOBR special working group, the anti-terrorist unit “Almas” and the paramilitary internal army During their actions, the protesters also saw army soldiers, border guards and secret service employees, specifically KGB agents and the presidential guard.
Observers estimate that the number of police officers per 100,000 inhabitants is many times higher than in neighboring European countries; the state of Belarus itself does not publish complete data on the number of employees. OMON is known to have around 1,500 emergency services and another 12,000 for the Interior Army. The security forces are not making an effective weapon against the 9.5 million Belarusians in numerical terms, but rather their notorious willingness to use violence: the brutality with which they have been attacking the opposition and demonstrators. Since August, already the people who believe they are, it is being used by the Belarusians themselves described as unprecedented in their national history.
The state security apparatus has yet to crush the protests with its terror, but it has led the opposition to a six-week test of strength. According to experts, what drives the special units to take rigorous action against their own population is partly their own lack of prospects, partly the cynicism of long experience with a fraudulent system of pretense. “What does democracy mean to an ordinary OMON special police officer? To him, it consists of only a few institutions, all of which are ‘bogus,'” says Kazakevich. Loyalty to Lukashenko within the special forces is also low, although there are also strongly ideological “convicts”.
For most of them, a career at OMON is more of a career opportunity: if you only have a certificate of completion, physical fitness, and completed military service, the emergency services can earn around a thousand rubles a month. (about 330 euros, editor’s note) – not an unattractive salary in a state where, according to the Ministry of Labor, the minimum wage is 375 rubles and an average pension is 456 rubles. In addition, there are bonuses for good leadership, subsidized housing, and cheap loans. This means that even a young man from the country can afford an apartment in the capital Minsk.
Solid bodied spirit or indifference?
But the reinsurance that the Lukashenko system still has to offer to security forces due to its stability is shrinking, and his brutal actions have been discredited in society. The previously neutral or suspicious attitude of Belarusians towards all “siloviki” has turned into real hatred, especially towards the OMON special unit, says Volha Tscharnysch, professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Kazakevich also believes that the pressure on people in uniform is increasing.
Images of young protesters hugging armed men in disguise went around the world, but hardly anyone left the service or showed solidarity with the protesters. Experts give different answers as to why: “I imagine there is a strong esprit de corps between them,” says Tscharnysch. Kazakevich says, “Most of them just do their job and see no other option,” even if they are no longer as “motivated” as they were at work a month ago.
Blackmail through your own past offenses
Analyst Jelisejew emphasizes that their cruel actions are now forcing the special forces to continue: Lukashenko had made them commit crimes against humanity, and therefore flagged them and stole all exits. He also sees that these blackmail tactics work in the vertical of power, in which dirty tasks such as electoral fraud are transferred to the loyalists. So they become accomplices and are interested in maintaining the system themselves so as not to lose everything.
According to MIT professor Tscharnysch, the KGB secret service also uses related methods: “KGB recruits as soon as people have been arrested in opposition demonstrations, we know in many cases from public confessions activists themselves. The tactic is effective because it sows mistrust and creates a wedge between opposition leaders. “
Whether this works is up to the Belarusians themselves. Leading opposition representatives publicly emphasize that they have resisted the blackmail attempts. On the other hand, none of them have so far offered the security forces an amnesty to persuade them to “defeat.” Kazakevich currently considers it unlikely that OMON and the Interior Army will oppose Lukashenko’s system on their own, if other orders of rigor do not force them to make a decision at some point.
