source: The Atlantic

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya

Probably won the 2020 presidential election in Belarus

  • Immediately afterward, Alexander Lukashenko forced her out of the country
  • Her husband, Siarhei Tskhanouski, is imprisoned in Belarus

the campaign

Siarhei ran for president because he was frustrated with bureucracy and corruption. The regime ended his campaign and imprisoned him. Sviatlana ran in his place

  • the campaign was about ordinary people standing up to the regime
  • two prominent opposition polititions endorsed her campaign (their campaigns were blocked)
  • She continued dispite death threats

Results of the election

officials announced that Lukashenko won 80% of the vote (no one believed this). Right afterward:

  • the internet was cut off
  • Sviatlana was detained by police and forced out of the country
  • Mass demonstrations across Belarus

Sviatlana thought that the regime would give way to pressure, but it didn’t

Sviatlana in the EU

she wants to pressure the regime

  • sanctions, democratic unity
  • anything that makes it expensive for Lukashenko to stay in power

She met with Merkel, Macron and Biden. They broadened sanctions on Belarus

Stayed in Lithuania, which was proud to host her dispite the trouble at the Border

She now has the entire free world backing her, but it’s not enough to

Lukashenko’s rescue package

When protests first broke out after the election, he didn’t have a plan, but he got help from Moscow

FSB: Russian security services

  • flew from Moscow to Minsk - helped Lukashenko quell the dissent
  • shift to a more sophisticated, more controlled way to repress the population

Russian television journalists replaced some Belarusian journalists

  • portrayed demonstrations as the work of America

Russian police supplemented Belarusian police

  • mass arrests are unnecessary if you can jail, torture or murder the right people

Russian companies offered markets for Belarusian products that had been banned in the democratic west

This rescue package was very similar to the one Putin sent Bashar al-Assad in Syria six years earlier

Why did Putin do this?

the Arab Spring (and the fall of the Berlin wall) made it clear that democratic revolutions are contagious

regime change means death, imprisonment or exile in an authoritarian country

If Putin can influence Belarus to remain authoritarian, regime change in Russia is less likely

Lukashenko’s brazen & illegal actions

he’s active as if he was untouchable

  • In May 2021, Belarusian air traffic control forced an Irish passenger plane to land in Minsk
    • this was in order to arrest Roman Protasevich, a young exiled dissident
  • In August, Vitaly Shishov was hanged in Kyiv park
  • Lukashenko’s regime tried to destabalize its EU neighbors by forcing streams of refugees across their borders
    • lured Afghan and Iraqi refugees to Minsk with tourist visas
    • Forced them across the borders of Lithuania, Latvia and Poland at gunpoint

Networks of despots

Modern autocracies are not run by one bad guy. They’re run by sophisticated networks of:

  • kleptocratic financial structures
  • security services (police, surveillance, military)
  • propagandists

These networks are often international and do not have a unifying ideology. There is no leader and they’re connected by economic deals

  • this eases the pressure sanctions and makes everyone rich

In theory, Belarus is an international pariah. In practice, it’s a member of Autocracy Inc

  • China is working on a large development project there
  • Iran has expanded its relationship with Belarus
  • Cuban officials have called for an end to “foreign interference”

Venezuela is in a similar position. The United States, Canada, the EU and many of its neighbors have sanctions against it. Millions of people protest in the streets

  • Russia and China invest in Marudo’s Regime
  • Turkey helps with an illicit gold trade
  • Cuba provides security advisors and technology

If Venezuela’s regime were acting alone, it would fall, but it’s receiving help from other autocracies

Impervious to Criticism

The leaders of the Soviet Union cared deeply about how the world perceived them, but today autocracies don’t care about criticism

  • this enables them to use aggressive tactics against mass protests

the Maduro Model of governence means that autocrats are willing to pay the price of becoming a totally failed country

  • means economic collaps, isolation and mass poverty
  • but the autocrat stays in power
  • might be what’s in store for Belarus
  • The west won’t provide money, so they depend on China, Pakistan, Russia and Saudi Arabia

This might explain the pathetic reaction to the fall of Kabul

Uyghurs

50,000 exiled Uyghers live in Turkey. In another era, these exiles would have sympathy from the Turkish government

  • in 2009, Erdogan called Chinese repression of Uyghurs a genocide
  • He has strengthened ties with China since becoming president
  • recently, the Turkish government has surveilled and detained Uyghurs on bogus terrorism charges. Deported some to China

In late 2020, a delayed shipment of covid vaccines from China looked suspiciously like a ransom for Uyghur extridition, even though both governments deny it

Surprisingly, Muslim countries are turning a blind eye to Uyghurs in China

Pakistani Primi Minister accepts the Chinese version of events

Saudis, Emiratis and Egyptians have all arrested and deported Uyghurs

  • all these countries have purchased Chinese surveillance technology

It’s as if these countries agree to accept China’s action on Hong Kong, Tibet, Uygurs and human rights in exchange for investment and equipment

It happened here

We didn’t learn much after 2016 Russian election interference

The United Front

an influence projet for the CCP. Meant to shape global opinion about china

  • faculty in American universities tried to shape academic debates in China’s favor. This was in the context of calligraphy courses

Chinese democracy activists in America are harrased by Chinese agents

  • some have had strange car accidents

American Industry

lots of personal, financial, business links to China and Russia

Hollywood and sports appeal to CCP

Liberal Democracy vs Authoritarianism around the world

Srdja Popovic democracy activist

  • says democratic movements are becoming better organized

We’re not doing too well

The diplomatic tools we used to use against autocrats don’t work anymore

  • Sanctions don’t have the same impact

Democracy assistance America spends money on this, but it’s not a lot in comparison to what the Authoritarian leaders will spend

  • We still have American foreign-language broadcasters

Russia spends billions on state media, seen all over Europe

China spends billions on media globally

We don’t have an answer to:

  • the silk road initiative
  • the United Front
  • Russian disinformation

Actions to take today

Biden hosted a summit for democracy Dec 9-10 (The Economist focused more on who was invited than the content)

  • means very little

Real actions we should take:

  • shut down tax havens, enforce money-laundering laws
  • Stop selling surveillance tech to autocracies
  • Divest from vicious regimes
  • figure out how to respond when autocracies commit crimes outside their borders

How America’s doing now

Our actions on the global stage have been declining. So has global respect for American democracy

Trump seems okay with global autocracy, and he eroded rules and norms that strengthen democracy in the United States

The American left has become dissolusioned with democracy at home

  • focused on America’s problems, convinced that democracy doesn’t work, or that it’s not working here
  • When protesters in Hong Kong asked for help, American activists didn’t do much