Lithuania is cautious regarding sanctions against Minsk

  • 2011-06-01
  • By Rokas M. Tracevskis

VILNIUS - “The Belarusian people will live poorly, but not for long,” Belarusian populist strongman Alexander Lukashenko said in 1998. This slip of the tongue sounds quite macabre now. On May 23, the Belarusian ruble was devalued by 56 percent. Long lines wait in front of currency exchange booths in Belarus because hard currency appears there rarely. On June 27, after just a few months’ absence in Lithuania, British singer Sting will give his concert again in Vilnius (in the Vingio Park; www.bilietai.lt for tickets’ purchase). This concert was scheduled to take place in Minsk, but Sting has been forced to change his travel route due to the economic turmoil in Belarus, caused mostly by a rise in the price of Russian oil supplies. The shops in Belarus, which sell TV sets and fridges, are empty – locals in panic invested their savings in those goods. As if it is not enough, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski tries to convince EU state leaders to introduce economic sanctions against Belarus. Lithuania, as well as Latvia, shows no enthusiasm in supporting his idea.

On May 23, after having a joint lunch in the Lithuanian presidential palace, President Dalia Grybauskaite and Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius gave a joint short briefing to journalists. They mentioned the Belarus issue as well. “My position remains the same since the presidential election in Belarus [on Dec. 19, 2010]: we agree with the direct sanctions against personalities [EU introduced travel restrictions for numerous top officials of Minsk’s regime] but not against the state,” Grybauskaite said, adding that such sanctions would be “a hit below the belt” to residents of Belarus.

“Our interest is the following: Belarus should be a sovereign state,” Kubilius said. There is quite a consensus among Lithuanian political analysts that the current Western attitude towards Belarus can cause the end of the existence of Belarus as a semi-independent state, which balances between the West and Russia, resulting in the fall of Belarus into complete dependence from Moscow. Now Minsk cannot expect loans from the IMF due to political reasons while loans from Moscow can come with demands which will undermine Belarus’ sovereign existence. Even if the opposition would take power in Minsk, Russia will have total control over the policy in Minsk, in case the Russians take control of the package of shares sold in exchange for money loans) in the Belarusian-state owned companies of gas transportation, production of fertilizers and truck construction. Lithuania also has its own interest in contradicting the economic sanctions: one-fourth of the profit of Klaipeda port and one-fifth of the profit of Lithuanian Railways come from deals with Belarusian companies.

The problem of the West is simple: having no clue about the Belarusian situation, it based its assessments on the expertise of Sikorski, who naively thinks that he has such a clue. Vilnius, due to historical experience, would be a much better expert in this case. Audrius Baciulis, political analyst of the magazine Veidas, wrote that “the ears of Moscow and two of its best friends, Berlin and Warsaw, were obviously protruding” behind the attempt of revolution in the streets of Minsk (those, who listened to the live broadcast of the Belarusian-language Radio Freedom from the squares and streets of Minsk on Dec. 19, 2010, heard that the opposition leaders announced the creation of an interim government and the next presidential elections after a couple of months). Such revolutions require much more people on the streets than the Belarusian opposition was able to attract via its leaders’ live calls on Belarusian state TV (they were allowed to use that tribune then), urging them to come to the streets of Minsk on Dec. 19, 2010.

Lukashenko already suggested that he may release those who were arrested after the events of Dec. 19, 2010 to please the democratic world. He conducts such a ritual of arrests and releases them after each presidential election in Belarus to balance the existence of his regime amid pressures from Moscow and the West.