Sunday, August 16, 2020

Message of solidarity with the people of Belarus and eternal hostility to Lukashenko, the "Fidel Castro of Europe"

 "It was never the people who complained of the universality of human rights, nor did the people consider human rights as a Western or Northern imposition. It was often their leaders who did so." - Mr. Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary-General

Hispanics demonstrate their solidarity with freedom struggle in Belarus
Presidential elections were held in Belarus on August 9, 2020 and official provisional results claimed that the "incumbent President of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko received 80.08% of votes, whereas his opponent Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya received 10.9%." Elections were marred by government "violence, unjustified detentions and falsification of election results."

Protests broke out across the country against Lukashenko, who has been the communist dictator of Belarus since 1994. Despite brutal repression and torture by government officials the populace has taken to the street to protest the latest stolen presidential election.
Pro-regime rally on the left dwarfed by opposition rally on the right on the same day
 We are approaching the 29th anniversary of Belarus achieving its independence from the Soviet Union after more than seventy years of occupation. Nevertheless, this day is not cause for celebration because for the majority of that time and currently Belarusians have been subjected to what today is the last dictatorship in Europe under the autocratic regime of Alexander Lukashenko.

Fidel Castro and Alexander Lukashenko: Birds of a feather
Belarus dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, is called the "Fidel Castro of Europe" and upon Fidel Castro's death in November 2016 he sent his effusive condolences to Raul Castro that give an insight into the Belarus dictator's character fawning over one of the great despots of the 20th century, and his close relationship with the current Cuban dictator.
 “It is with deep pain and sorrow that I have learned the news about the death of my Friend and your Brother,” the message of condolences reads." ... “Fidel Castro left his bright mark in history as a true patriot who dedicated his life to the selfless service to the Homeland and the ideals of the Cuban Revolution. ..." His wise ideas and advice are very important for me. I am convinced that this invaluable legacy will help me in state activities and personal life,” Alexander Lukashenko stressed. Addressing Raul Castro, he remarked: “Raul, we lost a close and dear person, and a unique thinker.”
One hopes that Lukashenko is not the Castro of Europe because after 25 years in power, he would still have another 22 years in power before handing the dictatorship to a close relative in a dynastic succession in 2042 as Fidel Castro did to Raul Castro in 2006 after he fell ill, and was unable to continue running Cuba's communist dictatorship after 47 years.
Raul Castro and Alexander Lukashenko

For anyone to remain in power for 25 years, much less 47 years, normally does not rely on the consent of the governed through a democratic process, but use a repressive apparatus and the willingness to punish, torture and kill those seeking a democratic change, even if they are pursuing it nonviolently. The Castro regime had secret police fire into marching protesters on August 5, 1994. There has been a report of at least one Belarusian shot by police during current protests against Lukashenko.

Andrew Roth writing in The Guardian on August 13, 2020 reported disturbing practices committed by the authorities against those already in custody.
Those detained in police stations, jails and makeshift prisons spoke of ritual beatings, up to 55 women being crammed into a cell meant for two people and men who were kept in stress positions for hours on end. Leaked audio files and other testimony has corroborated the reports of widespread torture as Lukashenko tries to hold on to power.
One 31-year-old builder from Minsk, who asked for his name not to be used, described being arrested at 6pm on Sunday evening, a few hours before polls closed, after he filmed a column of riot police in central Minsk.

For the first few hours, he was treated well, but was then moved to a notorious holding centre on Okrestina Street on the outskirts of Minsk, where he was placed in a cell meant for four people that eventually had 21 men inside as more and more were arrested during the evening.
After two days, in which he was given water but no food and could hear the screams of people being beaten in the courtyard, he was forced to sign a paper with false information about where and when he was arrested. He was then given an 11-day prison sentence in a makeshift trial inside the prison. A few hours later, at 3am on Wednesday morning, he was told he could leave.
“They called me to the exit, but then in the courtyard riot police with their faces covered told us to lie down on the floor and then they started beating us. They were smashing me with batons all over my body. Then they were smashing me with fists. Then they told us to stand up to see if we could stand up. I didn’t really know what was happening.”
Similar and worse practices have been carried out under the Castros since 1959 and in Belarus under Lukashenko since 1994. In addition to their brutality they have also played the race card. Black dissidents have died on hunger strikes in Cuba, black Cubans have been executed by firing squad for trying to hijack vessels to flee the island, and revolutionary police shot a young man in the back and regime officials prevented protests over the killing. Today, Lukashenko tried to rally his supporters using the race card declaring "they want to impose on us NATO forces... Including black and yellow soldiers. Not on my watch!!"

 Belarus and Cuba maybe thousands of miles apart with different languages and national histories but both share the ill fortune of having communist totalitarian regimes and their methods of repression are similar. The languages and customs may be different but the repression and human rights violations are the same, and so are their lies and denials. In addition the regimes in Belarus and Cuba have close bilateral ties.

In the early years of the Communist Revolution in Cuba when the Castros old compatriots had returned to the hills and mountains of the Escambray carrying out a guerilla struggle to achieve democracy, the regime brought in hundreds of Soviet counter insurgency experts to assist the Castro regime in crushing this democratic resistance in what Mary O'Grady in The Wall Street Journal in 2017 called a Soviet cleansing.

Today in Belarus it is a mass nonviolent movement of millions, and although the Soviet Union ceased to exist 29 years ago, its KGB agents are still in positions of power.
Lukashenko has a choice: listen to Belarusians demands and reach a democratic accommodation or appeal to the former KGB officer, now despot of Russia, Vladimir Putin to assist him in cracking down on the democratic aspirations of his countrymen.
It appears that repression tactics are universal which offers another reason why a universal human rights standard is not an idealistic abstraction but a concrete response to real world problems.

Finally, the close relationship between these two brutal dictators demonstrates once again the need for victims of repression to work in solidarity with each other. A Czech dissident who died under interrogation by state security over three decades ago called it the solidarity of the shaken. His name was Jan Patočka.

 This is why on the 20th anniversary of independence from the Soviet Union we joined in worldwide protests of solidarity, and it is why today we are speaking out for Belarusians experiencing repression and torture for wanting to be free. 
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