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“It’s like a freight car that has come loose from the locomotive and remains on the rails long after the train has left.” This is what Lukashenko, a 24-year-old protester, described to me recently. He grew up under the Lukashenko regime and has never lived through anything other than a dictatorship, but until now he has not had to worry so much about the political situation. He, like many others I spoke to, suddenly grew weary when the presidential administration didn’t even bother to try to cover up the electoral fraud. By then, he had already forgotten about trying to protect his population from the coronavirus by first denying its existence and then joking about the deadly virus saying that it only takes a little vodka and a sauna to stay healthy. The citizens not only felt abandoned but also declared idiots. They realized they only had each other and took to the streets in an unprecedented community.
The big neighbor took the stage
After a few violent days shortly after the elections, the dictator appeared to lose control. Police in riot gear stormed a demonstration on Friday, taking hundreds of protesters away by truck. Lukashenko’s days seemed to be numbered. But then the big neighbor took the stage. Or rather behind the scenes as a competent prompter. According to the Belarusian media, about a hundred journalists, financed from the Russian state budget, are taking over the state-owned Belarusian television channels in Minsk. Russia Hoy itself claims that it has 32 journalists in Minsk and that another gang works for Sputnik. They are professionals in their field, they know how to produce elegant, easily accessible and compelling advertising. They are dusted off by concepts and phrases they use during the Euromajdan in Ukraine, they know that the very words they choose evoke associations about war, chaos and death. They go out and film addicts, the homeless and the mentally ill in a way that is ethically unacceptable and then portray them as opposition protesters, paid by the West to create chaos and bloodshed.
Know no borders
Some of the rhetoric is the same as Lukashenko’s old common propaganda, but the form is much more compelling. Belarusian journalists employed by state television have either left voluntarily or are no longer allowed to enter, despite the fact that the access cards are fully operational. Their desks have been occupied, their prizes withdrawn and those who challenge their bosses and comment on the situation arrested, threatened or sentenced to prison. Several have fled the country, others are hiding in the countryside.
A desperate dictator knows no limits. Retaining power can cost what you want. Mr. Lukashenko has shown that he is even willing to renounce his words of praise for independence and sovereignty. The interview with Lukashenko the other day, where he said that he had been in power for a long time, was well conducted and the words were not his own. It was a fact that this would be picked up by the western media. Everyone stopped listening and missed that he then said that he would definitely not quit.
On Monday he will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi. It has already been made clear that there will be no press conferences or joint statements afterwards. Either both parties are aware that they may not really agree as much as you would like, or it is clear that only one person will be responsible for communication with the outside world. When the actor has lost his lines, it all depends on the prompter. The question now is how viewers will react. A former Belarusian TV journalist rhetorically asked me “EU politicians repeat that they are concerned about the situation in Belarus, is it perhaps time to at least start saying that they are very concerned about the situation in Belarus?”
