Replies to post #331536 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

To Keep Putin Out, Belarus Invites the U.S. and China In

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"Lech Walesa on Why Democracy Is Failing: ‘There Is No Leadership’
[...]
FP: Finally, with your neighbor Ukraine so much in the news, do you have any thoughts about what’s gone wrong in that country?
P - LW: The point with Ukraine is they had been under communism much longer than Poland and other countries outside the USSR. … So it was much easier for us to introduce a new system and new regime. They had not a single living memory of what a regular world looked like, and they had been controlled by Russia much more than us and continue under this today. But certainly there is no freedom in Europe without Ukraine and Belarus being part of it. The trouble is that Europe is not integrated enough to make a decision."
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With Pompeo planning to visit, authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko is looking to play an old game with new players.

By Reid Standish | January 1, 2020, 8:00 AM


Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko attend a summit at the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing on May 15, 2017. Thomas Peter - Pool/Getty Images

MINSK, Belarus—Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus’s 65-year-old authoritarian president, is ratcheting up the geopolitical high-wire act he’s been conducting with Russian President Vladimir Putin by inviting China and the United States to exercise influence in his country as a way of forestalling political union with the Kremlin.

Lukashenko’s outreach is expected to deepen following a planned visit to Minsk by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, which was recently delayed due to escalating tensions in Iraq.

“We’re not going to cut off our ties with Russia, they are our neighbor and largest economic partner, but surrendering our sovereignty and independence is out of the discussion,” Vladimir Makei, Belarus’s foreign minister, told Foreign Policy in an interview. “There are already three or four generations of people born in the new, independent state of Belarus, and they will never agree with giving up any independence.”

Lukashenko’s new tactic is a response both to ramped-up pressure from Moscow and rising public sentiment in Belarus. Late this past year, the capital, Minsk, saw rare protests .. https://apnews.com/7db184a648933c0710c79d6fde384ba2 .. against integration with Russia, with demonstrators holding signs and banners that read “First Crimea, then Belarus” and “Stop Annexation!” The protests coincided with talks held in St. Petersburg between Lukashenko and Putin, which, like other sessions that took place in December 2019, resulted in a stalemate.

But growing frustration between both sides is evident. Putin recently tied .. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-belarus-union/putin-to-belarus-no-gas-discount-before-union-state-is-advanced-idUSKBN1YN1Y1 .. further energy discounts for Belarus to the condition that integration talks progress, while Lukashenko warned .. https://apnews.com/0ef06c716e331bd4411441a8b4b63af7 .. during an interview last month that any attempt to force Belarus to become part of Russia could trigger a war with the West.

In the face of this growing challenge, the Belarusian leader has inserted new variables into his tried formula of strategic hedging and in the process turned Belarus into an important front amid deepening rivalries and growing competition among Russia, the United States, and China.

“Belarus is looking for an exit from its current geopolitical deadlock,” said Arsen Sivitski, the director of the Center for Strategic and Foreign Policy Studies, a Minsk-based think tank. “In a way, this is the same game that Lukashenko has been playing and manipulating since the beginning, but it’s also quickly changing.”

Beijing has emerged as a growing political and economic force .. https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Asia-Insight/Belarus-buddies-up-with-China-as-an-alternative-to-Russia , with Belarus positioning itself as an important launching pad on the European Union’s doorstep for Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. China has become a growing patron for Belarus, opening up a $15 billion line of credit to Belarus’s Development Bank and providing .. https://www.rferl.org/a/belarus-to-borrow-500-million-from-china-as-russia-stalls/30325304.html .. a $500 million loan last month after a similar one from Moscow was held up amid integration talks. Relations with the United States have also begun to thaw. In August, then-National Security Advisor John Bolton visited .. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/08/26/trumps-national-security-advisor-to-visit-belarus-bolton/ .. Belarus, and in September, Washington and Minsk announced they would exchange ambassadors after a decadelong break in diplomatic relations.

Pompeo’s visit to Minsk is part of a wider tour that will take him to Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Cyprus. While Washington’s interest in Belarus is in many ways cursory and focused on rebuilding ties—and U.S. President Donald Trump has often avoided offending Putin—the country’s strategic location has seen it become more prominent among U.S. policymakers. Like many of the other former Soviet countries that will be visited, the United States is focused on Moscow’s intentions toward Minsk, but also on curbing China’s growing influence in the country—and elsewhere across the former Soviet Union—since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

“Crimea and the war in Ukraine was a Rubicon moment that set up much of what is happening today,” Sivitski said. “It upended relations between Minsk and Moscow, and it also led to a growing Chinese presence being welcomed to Belarus.”

Over the course of his 25 years in power, Lukashenko has cemented his reputation as a sly negotiator and political survivor, balancing his country of 9.5 million people between Moscow and the West and weaving between their competing interests. In the process, Lukashenko, who relies on Russian loans and subsidized energy, has strengthened his weak hand by making overtures to the West in order to gain concessions from Moscow, consolidating his power at home and emerging unscathed from the Kremlin’s coercion. But the recent pressure has changed Lukashenko’s calculus and put the leader’s balancing act under strain.

Read More
Belarus May Be Key to Solving NATO’s Problems with Russia
Tensions between Moscow and Brussels have led to a dangerous
militarization of Eastern Europe. But Minsk is showing an
alternative.
Argument | Vitali Shkliarov
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/12/03/tensions-russia-nato-eastern-europe-militarized-belarus/

At the heart of the Kremlin’s efforts is an attempt to fully implement an ill-defined treaty signed in 1999 that planned to create a joint state between Belarus and Russia. The two countries have since eliminated immigration and customs controls for each other’s citizens, but the common legislature, currency, and military envisaged in the proposed merger were never enacted. But putting the treaty into force is once again high up on the Kremlin’s agenda amid speculation that Putin could use the creation of a leadership post atop the new superstate to extend his reign past 2024, when he is required by the constitution to step down.

Belarus’s current bind is emblematic of the geopolitical tug of war taking place across the countries of the former Soviet Union. From Eastern Europe to the Caucasus to Central Asia, countries that remain Russian allies on paper have become weary of its intentions, leading them to deepen partnerships elsewhere in the hope of gaining more room to maneuver. As for Lukashenko, he has managed to leverage growing friction with Moscow into a rekindling of relations with Washington and steady flow of investment from China. While Belarus remains a member of such Russian-led groups as the Eurasian Economic Union and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Moscow-dominated military bloc, it has created room to rebuff advances from Moscow. Belarus has so far averted Kremlin pressure to host .. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-belarus-airbase/russia-complains-over-belaruss-refusal-to-host-air-base-idUSKBN1WB1NT .. a Russian military base, refrained from formally recognizing Crimea as part of Russia, and pressured Moscow to withdraw its ambassador after Minsk accused .. https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-dismisses-controversial-ambassador-to-belarus/29913179.html .. him of treating Belarus as a Russian province.

Still, Belarus remains highly dependent on Russia, with Moscow operating as Minsk’s largest creditor. Belarus’s key export today is derived from products made from subsidized Russian oil. But with Moscow set to scale back its loans and subsidies over the next five years—and Belarus set to lose a potential $12 billion in revenue as a result—Lukashenko has said he aims to cut Russia’s share of trade from half to one-third. While Washington is keen to rekindle relations with Minsk and support Belarus in the face of Russian pressure, Western investors still remain squeamish about the country’s economic climate. This has led Lukashenko to lean on China to lessen his financial dependence on Russia. Unlike Washington, Beijing also makes no demands to ease repression at home—or to surrender control over certain state-owned entities, as Moscow has called for.

“The Chinese don’t want to antagonize Russia, but they do want to make inroads and look after their own interests,” said Olga Kulai, a Minsk-based expert on Chinese-Belarusian relations.

In recent years, Chinese money has financed new roads, factories, a luxury hotel in Minsk, rail links with Europe, and a sprawling 28,000-acre industrial park on the outskirts of the capital that has already drawn in more than $ 1 billion in investment from 56 foreign companies, including Chinese technology heavyweights such as Huawei and ZTE. The park itself is still a work in progress, with factories still under construction and its wide boulevards mostly empty. But the initiative has come to represent Beijing and Minsk’s growing partnership, with lampposts draped with Chinese and Belarusian flags and offices hanging photographs of Xi’s visit to the park.

“China is growing, and Moscow isn’t used to it here, but the reality is still that Belarus is still very Russia-dependent and there is no real way to completely replace it,” Kulai said.

While a rising China has altered the classic foreign-policy dynamics in Belarus, many analysts note that Russia does not regard China’s growing economic heft in the country—and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union—as necessarily problematic. Still, Beijing’s growing presence has at times encroached on Russian interests. After Moscow refused to sell its Iskander missile system at a discount, Minsk turned to Beijing, which played a key role in helping Belarus build its own missile system, the Polonez, which was completed in 2015 and interpreted as a move by Minsk to strengthen its own defenses against Moscow following the annexation of Crimea.

“Moscow is not happy about China becoming a counterweight against Russia for Lukashenko,” said Alexander Alesin, a prominent independent journalist and military observer based in Minsk. “But Moscow is also seeking stronger ties with Beijing, so for the moment the Kremlin is biting its tongue.”

With Moscow and Minsk still engaged in prolonged and increasingly tense talks on integration, Lukashenko’s modified balancing act looks set to continue. According to Kenneth Yalowitz, who served as U.S. ambassador to Belarus from 1994 to 1997, Lukashenko proved long ago that he is a “skilled manipulator” who knows how to “take advantage of Belarus’s strategic location.” While Russia’s deep ties are in many ways unshakable, the Belarusian leader will likely continue to find ways to stall negotiations with Moscow in 2020 and find new avenues for leverage from external players such as the United States and China.

“Lukashenko is not a sophisticated strategist, but he knows how to stay in power and survive,” Yalowitz said. “I’d expect him to keep finding ways to survive.”

January 1: This story was updated to account for the delay in Pompeo’s planned visit to Belarus.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/01/belarus-lures-us-china-to-forestall-putin-russia/

[fuagf]

Wife of murdered Polish mayor takes on hate speech

"Lech Walesa on Why Democracy Is Failing: ‘There Is No Leadership’"

Opposition politician’s widow plans to use her platform as an MEP to spread a simple message: ‘No hate.’

By Zosia Wanat and Iga Lis

8/2/19, 5:00 AM CET
Updated 8/5/19, 3:14 PM CET


A photograph of murdered Gdansk mayor Pawel Adamowicz | Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Magdalena Adamowicz is upset. She's forgotten the pin she wears wherever she goes — it has “Imagine there’s no hate” written on it.

Adamowicz's husband Pawel, the mayor of Gdansk, was stabbed to death .. https://www.politico.eu/article/gdansk-mayor-pawel-adamowicz-killing-highlights-poland-deep-divisions/ .. in January. Since then she has made spreading that anti-hate message her motivation in her new job as a member of the European Parliament.

“If we answer hate with hate, we just drive the vicious circle," she said. "One day we’ll just reach the bottom, the hell, and what then, we all just kill one another?”

Pawel Adamowicz .. https://www.politico.eu/article/gdansk-mayor-dies-after-stabbing-pawel-adamowicz/ , 53, was a high-profile liberal critic of Poland's ruling right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS) and an advocate for gay rights and accepting asylum seekers. The man who killed him blamed the main opposition Civic Platform — the mayor's former party — for the time he had spent in prison.

The murder shocked Poland, was condemned by national authorities and sparked a debate about how hate speech can lead to violence. But the aggression hasn't stopped. In July, the first Pride march .. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-poland-lgbt/polish-police-detain-25-after-attacks-on-equality-march-idUSKCN1UG0GH .. to be held in the eastern city of Bialystok was marred by violent attacks on those taking part. Days later, a right-wing magazine .. https://www.politico.eu/article/lgbt-rights-polish-paper-dismisses-court-ruling-on-lgbt-free-zone-stickers/ , Gazeta Polska, gave away “LGBT-free zone” stickers in defiance of a Warsaw court order.

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“It’s really easy to insult someone in everyday life … [but then] I think:
OK, no hate” — Magdalena Adamowicz, widow of late Gdansk mayor
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“People who commit these excesses feel certain consent and impunity,” Magdalena Adamowicz, a 46-year-old lawyer who was elected to the Parliament in May as an independent and sits as part of the center-right European People's Party .. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/197490/MAGDALENA_ADAMOWICZ/home#mep-card-content , told POLITICO.

She pointed out other examples of hate speech and violence in Poland in recent years, including the burning of effigies of Jews during Catholic festivities and the printing of fake death certificates for mayors who took in refugees. (The nationalist All-Polish Youth group issued a “political death certificate .. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10205779433680962&set=a.3217985544432&type=3&theater ” for Pawel Adamowicz two years ago).


Poland’s ruling party will exploit Gdansk murder
Maciej Kisilowski
https://www.politico.eu/article/polands-ruling-party-will-exploit-gdansk-murder/

Murder of Gdansk mayor highlights Poland’s polarization
Jan Cienski
https://www.politico.eu/article/gdansk-mayor-pawel-adamowicz-killing-highlights-poland-deep-divisions/

“These situations that are typical examples of hate speech, radical, dangerous behaviors, have been downplayed by the authorities, the proceedings [against the perpetrators] have been discontinued, people who committed these actions didn’t suffer the consequences. These groups feel unpunished,” she said.

Following the violence in Bialystok, police detained 25 people and Interior Minister Elzbieta Witek described ..

Funkcjonariusze nadal analizują zgromadzony materiał i wizerunki kolejnych poszukiwanych osób będą publikowane na bieżąco. Ci, którzy dopuszczają się ataków na inne osoby ze względu na ich odmienne poglądy to zwyczajni zwyrodnialcy i tego typu zachowania zasługują na potępienie.

— Elżbieta Witek (@elzbietawitek) July 22, 2019

.. the people who carry out such attacks as "degenerates." Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said .. https://www.tvn24.pl/wiadomosci-z-kraju,3/premier-mateusz-morawiecki-o-marszu-rownosci-w-bialymstoku,955137.html : “In Poland there is a place for everyone, but there is no place for barbaric treatment of other people.”


Thousands of people gathered in Warsaw under the slogan "Stop hatred" last January, shortly after the murder of Pawel Adamowicz | Janek Skarzynski/AFP via Getty Images

Other PiS officials took a different line. Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro told the right-wing weekly Sieci .. https://wpolityce.pl/polityka/455999-ziobro-platforma-podsyca-zamach-na-wartosci-polakow .. that the opposition is fueling a “creeping attack on Polish values” and “supporting Christianophobia and intolerance,” while Education Minister Dariusz Piontkowski told .. https://www.tvn24.pl/wiadomosci-z-kraju,3/dariusz-piontkowski-minister-edukacji-o-marszu-rownosci-w-bialymstoku,954671.html .. TVN24 that “perhaps it is worth thinking whether those type of events should be organized since they arouse enormous resistance.”

[ Insert: Well Trump refused to condemn the Charlottesville anti-sematic marchers, instead he said "there are good people on both sides".
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=153512592 ]

Everyone's a target

Adamowicz said she stood as an MEP to tackle the roots of hate crime and hate speech: disinformation, exclusion and social fears. And she added that it's not just minorities who are targeted. “I am Catholic, I’m white … I’m not very ugly or very pretty, not too tall, not too short … but I’m also targeted by hate speech. Not a Jew, not a black person, not a lesbian — today it concerns everyone,” she said.

Her goals include: creating a ‘’European Hate Speech Guide” that will detail the relevant laws in every EU country; forming a cross-party group of MEPs on hate speech and disinformation; getting a legal definition of hate speech in the EU; clarifying the distinction between hate speech and free speech; making internet providers more responsible for removing hate speech; and drawing up a list of sanctions for offenders.

She has already met with Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, and with representatives of Google, where she lobbied for the introduction of an identity test before people can set up online profiles.

Adamowicz acknowledges the difficulty of introducing regulation into "things concerning [civil] liberties." She also says the task she has set herself "requires a lot of work, a lot of patience, mindfulness, strong nerves, because I’m only human and in certain situations, sometimes, I feel like telling someone off."

"But more and more often I think about it, and I work on it, to suppress it,” she said. “It’s really easy to insult someone in everyday life … [but then] I think: OK, no hate.”

https://www.politico.eu/article/wife-of-murdered-polish-mayor-takes-on-hate-speech/

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