Paul
Goble
Staunton, March 7 – The Belarusian
protests have crossed a Rubicon in recent days, Roman Popkov argues: Belarusians
taking part in them now view fighting the despotism of the Alyaksandr Lukashenka
regime as a patriotic act, a development that means they increasingly resemble Ukrainians
in 2013.
The slogans which bring people into
the streets may touch on socio-economic problems, democracy, and corruption,
the Russian analyst says. “But the main thing among both Ukrainians and Belarusians
is the struggle for the liberation of their country and nation and for a
renewed Daughter-Motherland under national banners” (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=58BD999DEF564).
In
both places, “resistance to tyranny is a patriotic act,” Popkov says.
Given
that more protests are scheduled over the next three weeks, that shift in the
mindset of Belarusians changes the calculus for all involved. For the
demonstrators, it means that their struggle is now a zero-sum one in which they
will only win if Lukashenka is ousted and replaced with a regime answerable to the
Belarusian people.
For
Lukashenka, it means that his room for maneuver is less than ever before,
especially since he can’t count on Moscow to intervene on his behalf or on the
West to overlook his dictatorial approach in the name of some broader
geopolitical game.
For
Moscow, it raises the specter of another color revolution, perhaps Putin’s
greatest fear, at a time when a massive Russian intervention almost certainly
would plunge Moscow into a new era of additional sanctions and increased
Western hostility.
And
for the West, which almost invariably prefers the stability it knows to the
instability of democratic movements, it represents a situation in which Western
governments appear to have little influence on the outcome but to be greatly
dependent on what occurs, a situation in which the balance in decision making could
rapidly shift from one extreme to another.
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