Understanding Repression in Belarus

from Worst of the Worst: Dealing with Repressive and Rogue Nations

On April 30, 2008, ten U.S. diplomats were expelled from Belarus. As U.S. State Department spokesperson, Tom Casey, told the New York Times, the diplomats were forced to leave as a direct result of the human rights and pro- democratic work that the U.S. has espoused in Belarus.

For an account of Belarus’s regime and its repressive hold on the country, see Robert I. Rotberg (ed.), Worst of the Worst: Dealing with Repressive and Rogue Nations (Washington, D.C., 2007). Below is a synopsis of a chapter from the book.

Alexander Lukashenko, Europe’s lone tyrant and president of Belarus, resembles Mugabe much more than Nguema in his postures and actions. As Margarita Balmaceda suggests in her chapter on Belarus, the Lukashenko regime poses a serious threat both to its own citizens and to Europe’s still fragile security system.⁴⁰ Moreover, even if Lukashenko has fewer political prisoners than other repressive regimes and has not starved his people in the North Korean, Cambodian, and Zimbabwean manner, his regime has institutionalized a strategy of repression with such force that contemporary Belarus closely resembles many aspects of the atrocious nation-state exemplars of  despotism.

Balmaceda characterizes Belarus as moderately high on a scale of repression. That is, Belarus no longer routinely imprisons or assassinates hosts of opponents. Instead, thugs (possibly police in mufti) working for the state systematically beat up opposition figures and sympathizers—even presidential candidates in 2006—thus successfully sowing fear. These same political non-conformers are subjected to serial arrest, release, and re-arrest—and prison conditions are harsh. In addition, the state harasses anyone with views antithetical to Lukashenko, often hounding them out of private jobs. Since 2004, officers of the state have been permitted to enter any home for any reason. The state severely limits freedom of expression, restricts access to independent thinking and education, and dramatically restricts the activities of international and local NGOs (as Burma and Zimbabwe also do). Self-censorship is ubiquitous. Judicial decisions are controlled by Lukashenko. Elections are rigged. The state limits permits for most kinds of economic activity and, through its control of commercial real estate, inhibits any kinds of independent initiative. Formal local political institutions exist, but Lukashenko manipulates them, and his subordinates, as if they were marionettes. As in most of the “worst of the worst” cases discussed in this book, the requests and criticisms of international organizations and the world’s big powers are largely ignored, thanks in this case to slavish backing (at least until the natural gas controversy of early 2007) from Russia. The regime’s harsh actions together create an atmosphere of repression that permeates “all aspects of life” in Belarus. Balmaceda concludes that in Belarus, “repression is a way of life.”