Lukashenka’s Shuttering of Internet has Cost Belarus 833 Times More than Protests Have, Minsk Officials Concede

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 12 – Alyaksandr Lukashenka, like authoritarian leaders everywhere, has made much of the idea that protests have had real costs for Belarus. His and their claims get widely reported. But few focus on the fact that the steps he and others like him take to suppress dissent impose real and far larger costs.

            Viktor Belyayev, an analyst with the ThinkTanks.By portal, is a happy exception. He reports that Minsk officials say the protests in Belarus have cost the country 203,000 US dollars (thinktanks.by/publication/2020/08/12/uscherb-ot-protestov-v-minske-v-833-raza-menshe-chem-ot-otklyucheniya-interneta.html).

            That is not a small sum, but the losses Belarus has suffered from Lukashenka’s decision to block the Internet, Minsk officials concede, are far larger, an estimated 56,401,000 US dollars a day or 169 million US dollars for three days. That means that Lukashenka’s actions have cost the country in this way alone 833 time as much as the protesters’ actions have. 

            Such bookkeeping, of course, is problematic both in terms of its precision and its moral basis. But – and this is critical – to the extent that Belarusian officials recognize this reality, they will be less disposed to view the protesters as a threat to their incomes and more willing to recognize that Lukashenka is the real threat.

            Such a shift is how regimes disintegrate and how revolutions or coups begin, especially at a time when many officials in regimes like Lukashenka’s are only worried about their personal wealth rather than any broader and more important values.