The End of Lukashenkism?
On the Knife's Edge in Belarus
The uprising against Alexander Lukashenko may not have
a leader, but its goals are ambitious. After the first phase of shock and fear,
the people are now showing pride and self-confidence. Will that go far enough?
By
Christian Esch
21.08.2020,
18.39 Uhr
Maria
Kolesnikova hesitates before opening the car door. "Shall we?" she
asks, and then climbs out. A tall woman with short hair dyed blond, she isn't
initially noticed by the crowd that will soon envelope her in hugs, cheers and
selfies.
An icon of
the protests that have washed over Belarus, Kolesnikova is on her way to her
next appearance - a leader against her will, one both seasoned and overwhelmed.
She is an ersatz politician in a country that has to relearn what political
life actually means, because there has been no place for it under the
dictatorship of Alexander Lukashenko.
It's
Tuesday afternoon in Soligorsk, two hours south of Minsk by car. Around a
thousand miners have collected on the main square, while momentous words are
coming from the stage. It is time "to drive the last nail in the coffin of
Lukashenkism," cries an animated young speaker.
Soligorsk
is a socialist planned city, with prefab concrete structures in the center and
gigantic, red-and-white slag heaps on the outskirts. A fifth of all global
exports of potash come from Belarus, and a significant chunk of the country's
tax revenues depend on the potash combine here in Soligorsk.
That
explains why it is of decisive importance for Lukashenko, who is currently
engaged in a fight for his political life, whether the miners here support him
or not. And on this Tuesday, it looks as though many are more interested in
going on strike to protest against the electoral fraud that occurred during the
country's recent presidential election.
In
Soligorsk and in Minsk, in large factories and at the state-run television
broadcaster, on the streets and in people's hearts: The battle to determine
whether Lukashenko's 26-year rule will soon end is taking place everywhere. And
it is a battle that has not yet been decided.
The Face of
the Protests
Everyone
here knows Kolesnikova. She is one of the three women who led the campaign on
behalf of a trio of men. The others are Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who ran for the
presidency in place of her imprisoned husband and who fled to Lithuania following
the election. And Veronika Tsepkalo, whose husband Valery, a former diplomat
and tech entrepreneur, fled the country even before the vote to avoid being
arrested. She is currently in Ukraine. Kolesnikova, who heads up the campaign
team of the imprisoned banker Viktor Babariko, is the only one left who is both
in the country and not behind bars. She has essentially become the face of the
protests.
It wasn't
all that long ago that Kolesnikova was a flautist living in Stuttgart. There
are videos of her in a church filled in southwestern Germany with sea-blue
light as she imitates whale songs with her flute. Later, she led OK16, a
cultural center located in a closed down factory in Minsk, financed by Babariko
and his bank. She has, one could say, come from the post-industrial world to
Soligorsk, where industry remains a very real fact of life. The way she bows
slightly to all sides when she finishes her speech to the miners makes it seem
as though she has just finished a performance.
Kolesnikova
reads her speech from notes, stumbling here and there. She calls for her
listeners to overcome their fear and continue the strike. She calls Lukashenko's
regime a "clunker" and calls on the police to shift their loyalties
"to the side of good." She closes with: "Belarusians, I am proud
of you, I love you," something she always says.
But she
doesn't tell the people what precisely they should be doing, and she also
doesn't meet with the head of the strike committee. She spends 20 minutes
hugging people, answering questions, receiving flowers and posing for selfies
with locals. Then she jumps back into her car for the drive to Minsk, to her
next appearance, an event at which the protest movement's Coordination Council
will be introduced - of which she will become a member.
Belarus has
transformed since the presidential election on August 9 and the ensuing
protests. It seems as though people have woken up from a long period of
hibernation and are now trying to get their bearings.
Smiling
Faces
In the last
two weeks since the election, the Belarusian capital has experienced an
emotional rollercoaster. First came shock, stemming from the brazenness of the
electoral fraud, with Lukashenko claiming he had won 80 percent of the vote.
And fear, a product of the brutality meted out by the country's security forces
and the torturing of the protesters.
But then
came self-assertion and pride, and a weekend of euphoria, with one of the
largest rallies in the country's history, with honking and cheering and smiling
faces.
And
finally, after the weekend, the realization that this will be a long,
exhausting confrontation. Honking cars won't be enough to bring down this
dictatorship. Power must be taken from the autocratic regime piece by piece.
Thus far, not even fear has been completely conquered. Plenty of it still
remains.
Igor
Kvyatko's own body bears the marks of Lukashenko's repression. The back of his
thigh is a deep red, even though fully a week has passed since he was beaten.
Kvyatko, a 23-year-old railway worker, is currently on sick leave for another
five days. He has just returned from the polyclinic, where he showed his
injuries and received permission to miss work.
Igor spent
a day-and-a-half in police custody. Like the vast majority of the people you
talk to in Minsk, he voted for Tikhanovskaya, but he didn't take to the streets
on her behalf. On Tuesday evening, a couple days after the election, he was in
a taxi heading to a friend's place. The route led through the Serebryanka
district, where protests were currently underway, part of the guerilla tactics
being pursued by the anti-Lukashenko activists.
Igor was
dragged out of the car. He says he showed the police his callused, grubby hands
and implored them: "I'm a worker!" But to no avail. First, he was
beaten in the police van and then he was forced to kneel and stand for hours in
the police station, with his bound hands raised. But that was just the
beginning. "Guys, brace yourselves. You are now going to be turned over to
the death squad," a policeman told him the next day, as he was transferred
to the Okrestina Street prison. The name became shorthand for the horrors of
the violence meted out by police.
Igor spent
a day and a night in a fenced-in yard measuring six-by-six meters together with
124 other men. Right next to them, someone was being tortured. They could hear
punches and truncheon blows, along with the forced scream: "I love the
Omon!" The Omon is Lukashenko's special police force. By the time it was
over, all they could hear was heavy, labored breathing, Igor says. "It no
longer sounded as though it was coming from a human." Igor also heard
women pleading for mercy in a neighboring yard. There was almost nothing to
drink.
Now Is the
Time
Igor was
forced to sign a document that he was not allowed to read, and then he had to
lay down with everybody else to be badly beaten one final time. "Even some
men were crying," he says. When he left the prison, he was approached by
volunteer helpers, but he was too intimidated to accept. "If you talk
about what happened to you, then we'll come get you," he had been warned.
He limped off into the morning until someone picked him up.
Igor tells
his story with an incredulous smile on his face. "You start wondering: Are
we living here in a democracy or a dictatorship?" A puzzled look appears
on his face and he falls silent. It isn't a rhetorical question. Igor Kvyatko
really doesn't know the answer, or, rather, he has never really thought much
about the difference between dictatorship and democracy. Now, is the time to
find out.
On the day
after Igor's release, during a peaceful demonstration on Independence Square,
women approached Interior Ministry troops in front of the parliament building
and hugged them. It was intended as a symbolic message: We don't want any
violence and we are grateful that you are allowing us to demonstrate here.
"I was furious when I saw the images," says Igor. "First, they
beat you in a police van, and then they get a kiss."
Igor has
now begun attending the protests himself and has grown proud of the Belarusians
and their peaceful protests, but he would still rather leave the country.
According to official statistics, most of the 6,700 people who have been
arrested have since been released. But there are no precise numbers. In front
of the Okrestina Street detention facility, where Igor was abused, long lines
formed last weekend of men who had recently been released, all of them badly
bruised, waiting to get their possessions back. But the small clutch of tents that
volunteers set up to provide support for the detainees and the victims of
abuse, had begun to empty out.
The most
surprising thing currently on display in Minsk is the rebranding of the entire
country, with the flags having become the most visible symbol of change. The
official colors of Belarus are red and green, but Minsk these days is awash in
a sea of white-red-white flags, which has long been the banner of the
marginalized opposition. For many years, flying it has been cause for strict
punishment.
Retro Charm
The
changing colors are symbolic of the delayed farewell to the Soviet era. Belarus
actually introduced the white-red-white banner as its national flag in 1991,
just as Russia under Boris Yeltsin returned to its white-blue-red tricolor. But
then, Lukashenko - a popular, young president at the time – switched back to
Soviet symbols, with the support of the electorate. To this day, the country's
coat of arms includes ears of wheat, a Soviet star and the rising sun of world
revolution, its rays shining over a darkened earth. It has a certain retro
charm.
The entire
city of Minsk looks as though the Soviet era never really came to an end.
Having been destroyed during World War II, the center was reconstructed in the
Stalinist style. In contrast to 1990s Russia, the Soviet industrial heritage in
Belarus was not privatized overnight and divided up among ambitious oligarchs.
There was never the extreme division between rich and poor, as seen in Moscow
and Kiev, and the state continued to reliably serve its function, if at a
modest level. The break with the past was never as great in Belarus as it was
in neighboring countries.
But there
were significant developments beneath the retro surface. There are plenty of
casinos in Minsk for guests from Russia and an innovation park for the growing
IT sector. Belarus has a special economic zone that has attracted Chinese
capital, and even within state-run companies, the workforce is kept on its toes
with contracts that can be terminated annually, as though the country had
introduced turbo-capitalism. There are fancy cafés and close links to the European
Union, Russia and Ukraine.
On
television, Lukashenko likes to present himself as though he was still the
party secretary of a rural collective farm in times of perestroika. He can be
seen digging up potatoes, harvesting watermelons with female students at his
side, or inspecting lush wheat fields. If protests are shown on TV, they are
depicted as extremely violent affairs, held by bloodthirsty nationalists.
Slightly
Unsettling
But those
taking to the streets in Belarus get their news from the messenger app
Telegram. It was the only one that continued to work even after access to the
Internet was blocked on election day. This is not a social media revolution; it
is exclusively a Telegram revolution. And one channel in particular has
profited: "Nexta Live," operated by a young activist from Warsaw, has
gained more than 2 million followers in an extremely short span of time - a
fifth of the Belarus population. The channel distributes videos and appeals.
It's goal is not the dissemination of reliable information, but the fall of
Lukashenko. You don't have to be an autocrat to find this new media power to be
slightly unsettling.
On Sunday,
half of the city of Minsk seems to be out and about. Without a leader, yet
coordinated nonetheless, around 100,000 people stream to the Minsk Hero City
Obelisk, the city's large monument to World War II. They smile as they give
each other the victory sign, pass out bottles of water to ward off the heat and
wave huge flags. There are no speeches, if for no other reason than the lack of
equipment, making it a bit like a Love Parade without music. Kolesnikova makes
a brief appearance at the obelisk, but hardly anyone can hear her.
Early
Monday morning, Lukashenko experiences what is likely the most challenging
encounter with his people in years. He has come to the MZKT plant, the heavy
vehicles factory in Minsk. Specialized vehicles are built here to transport
Russian Iskander missiles. As always, Lukashenko's youngest son Kolya is along
for the appearance. The handsome 15-year-old could easily be mistaken for a
member of a boy band. He was also with his father the day before, as the
Belarusian president spoke in the city center to a bused-in crowd of supporters
waving red-and-green flags. Kolya's older brothers are both advisers to the
president - all in the family in Minsk.
This time,
though, the appearance begins going wrong from the get-go. "We can spare
ourselves the effort of clapping," Lukashenko says magnanimously at the
beginning, and everyone laughs. None of those present is in the mood to clap
anyway. Instead, they begin chanting: "Leave!"
Lukashenko
plays a recording of a bugged telephone call intended to prove that agent
provocateurs are operating at MZKT. "We didn't understand at all what kind
of voices they were," says one worker who was present. It is an
aggressive, arrogant appearance for Lukashenko. "For as long as you don't
kill me, there will be no new elections!" he calls out.
"I Am
Who I Am"
Lukashenko
isn't a bad speaker, and the fact that he is willing to put up a fight is what
sets him apart from his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yanukovych, who put up
almost no resistance and fled into Russian exile. Over his years in power,
though, torpor has set in. "His only message anymore is: I am who I am,
and you just have to accept me," says political scientist Andrei
Kazakevich.
And that's
perhaps the most astonishing thing about Lukashenko's current downfall. From
the very beginning of this election season, he chose to rely completely on
repression, on preventing opposing candidates from registering and on arresting
them. He didn't follow the example of previous elections, when he went out on
the campaign trail to mobilize and expand his voter base, which Kazakevich
estimates was still around 25 to 35 percent this time. Now, he is in the
position of having to feverishly make up for all he failed to do before the
election.
While
Lukashenko is inside MZKT speaking, workers from the Minsk tractor factory are
striking outside the gates, trying to support their colleagues. Kolesnikova is
there as well. Using a small megaphone, she calls out that she is proud of the
Belarusians and loves them. Then she disappears again.
Pavel
Latushko, a tall man with a pleasant voice in his mid-40s, could be described
as the only visible link between the world of Lukashenko's elite and the
protesters on the streets. He served as the Belarusian ambassador in Warsaw and
in Paris, and he also had a stint as culture minister. In spring 2019, he was
appointed as head of the Yanka Kupala Theater in Minsk.
The
national theater is the oldest and most distinguished stage in the country and
is turning 100 years old this year. All of the plays it stages are in the
Belarusian language, which also makes it unique, given that people in the
capital speak almost exclusively Russian as they go about their daily lives.
Like the white-red-white flag, the Belarusian language was long viewed suspiciously,
a symptom of nationalism.
"I'm
Probably Being Fired"
Latushko's
troupe protested against police violence while the theater director himself
demanded the resignation of the interior minister. As he is speaking of the
incident inside the theater, he is interrupted by a telephone call. "I'm
probably being fired," he says dispassionately. He's right: The culture
minister is on the line and Latushko is dismissed, effective immediately.
Dismayed theater employees gather in the foyer and he explains the situation to
them - in Russian. They applaud, and a short time later, every single one of
them will hand in their resignation. The first supporters begin to collect
outside.
The very
next evening, on Tuesday, Latushko is already sitting next to Kolesnikova for
the announcement of the first new institution these protests have produced, the
new Coordination Council. It is to help with the transfer of power, as a kind
of citizens' platform, as Latushko describes it. The meeting takes place in the
campaign headquarters of Babariko, the banker, with a large photo of him
hanging at the entrance. But the council was initiated by Tikhanovskaya.
Many
protesters refer to Tikhanovskaya as the winner of the election, but the claim
can't really be proven. A recount is impractical since many ballots have been
destroyed. From exile in Lithuania, she has thus refrained from calling herself
president, preferring the term "national leader" and saying her duty
is purely to attend the transfer of power.
"Back when I was still a minister, Lukashenko
once told me on the phone: 'If you betray me, I'll strangle you with my own two
hands.'"
Pavel Latushko, former government minister
But it has
become apparent that there really isn't anybody who could actually represent
the people. Lukashenko has subdued and splintered the society. There are no
structures, no institutions left that could help to distribute responsibility.
Since the crushing of election protests in 2010, there has not only been an
absence of opposition, but also an absence of politics as such.
Belarus
doesn't have the kind of oligarchs seen in Ukraine, who have their own parties
and television stations. There isn't even a simulation of democratic politics,
as allowed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, with different parliamentary
groups. In Belarus, public politics isn't even imitated.
The
Coordination Council won't be able to credibly fill the void. it is a
collection of around 70 people, with many of them intellectuals. It is
reminiscent of the perestroika period, when the intelligentsia payed a
significant role because there were no genuine politicians. Literature Nobel
laureate Svetlana Alexievich is a member of the executive committee. Will
workers, whose participation is key, feel represented by such a council?
Russia's
Interest
Lukashenko
himself has warned that along with his rule, Belarusian independence is in
danger. Paradoxically, he's right. Though the argument would be more convincing
if he himself hadn't brought foreign help into the country. Within a period of
just a few days, he repeatedly asked Vladimir Putin for support, claiming that
his country was under threat from the West. This week, a plane used by the head
of Russian domestic intelligence was in Minsk. A convoy of unmarked vehicles
belonging to the Russian National Guard was seen driving in the direction of
Belarus. Rumors have been making the rounds in Minsk. Russian journalists are
said to have replaced tech personnel at the Belarusian national broadcaster.
"But we don't believe that is the case," says an employee of the
station.
What is
clear is that Putin, in contrast to the EU, has never criticized election fraud
and repression in Belarus - and that he isn't a fan of autocratic leaders being
toppled by protest movements. After losing Kiev to the West, it would be a
nightmare for him to lose Minsk as well. That is one of the reasons why he
sought to drive forward further integration with Belarus even before the election
– against resistance from Lukashenko.
On the
other hand, Russia isn't interested in betting it all on a single card. The
opposition, in any case, isn't anti-Russian. Banker Babariko, the most
consequential opposition candidate, has spent almost his entire career working
for a subsidiary of the Russian state-owned company Gazprom.
"When I was in Germany, I was surprised at how
often the music teacher would offer praise. That's not common here."
Maria Kolesnikova, opposition activist
"An
orderly transfer of power would also be in Russia's interest," says the
discharged theater director Latushko. If Putin starts playing policeman for a
failed autocrat, he will lose quite a bit of sympathy in Minsk and back home.
But
Lukashenko is gripping tightly to power. "Back when I was still a
minister," Latushko says, "he once told me on the phone: 'If you
betray me, I'll strangle you with my own two hands.'" Latushko had hardly
joined the Coordination Council before he received a fresh slew of threats.
"On Wednesday, I received five threats of physical violence and three
recommendations that I leave the country. I was even offered a charter
plane."
On
Thursday, state prosecutors followed through with a threat that Lukashenko had
issued. They classified the establishment of the Coordination Council as an
attempted overthrow and initiated criminal proceedings. Members of the council
face up to five years in jail.
Group
Psychotherapy
Indeed, if
the pressure from the streets doesn't continue, the pendulum could swing back.
Following the euphoria of freedom on the streets of Minsk over the weekend,
Lukashenko is now trying to tighten the screws – by suppressing the strikes and
promulgating fear.
Russia is
providing de facto support for the effort, and is nonetheless pointing its
finger at the West. Europe is only interested in geopolitics, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed recently. Indeed, the emancipation of the
Belarusian society from "father," as Lukashenko likes to be called,
threatens to become the victim of outside interests.
It remains
unclear how things might end. Maria Kolesnikova doesn't know either, even as
she courageously travels from protest to protest to tell Belarusians how proud
she is of them.
She says
she learned how important encouragement is from her time spent in the West.
"When I was in Germany, I was surprised at how often the music teacher
would offer praise," she says in the car on the drive back from visiting
the factory workers in Soligorsk. "That's not common here. But it boosts
your self-confidence. The same thing is happening here. Suddenly, the
Belarusians are smiling and are proud of themselves."
Does that
mean that we are essentially seeing a kind of group psychotherapy?
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