West raises pressure on Belarus leader with new sanctions

Pressure on Aleksandr Lukashenko's authoritarian regime in Belarus intensifies on the anniversary of the massive anti-electoral fraud demonstrations last summer. The United States, the United Kingdom and Canada announced new sanctions against Minsk on Monday. Washington approved to punish, among others, the Belarusian Olympic committee for its treatment of the athlete Kristsina Tsimanuskaia, who fled to Poland to avoid a forced return to Minsk, and key companies of the Belarusian economy. London, for its part, extended its sanctions to Belarusian airlines, certain financial transactions and the acquisition of some of the main exports controlled by the regime, such as oil, potassium and cigarettes. The aim is "to reduce the amount of income flowing to the Lukashenko regime."In a coordinated move, Canada also imposed new obstacles on the Belarusian economy.

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The European Union also threatens new measures against Lukashenko for continuing to “defy” international norms, now that one year has passed since the “fraudulent” elections with which the authoritarian leader remains in power and has unleashed a wave of repression and persecution of dissent, as denounced in a statement on Sunday by the High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell.

Several EU partners denounce that Minsk encourages illegal immigration into its territories.

The governments of Poland and Lithuania asked Brussels for help last week to cope with the flood of migrants from the Middle East that Belarus has allowed to pass through its border.

Brussels accuses Minsk of instrumentalizing people from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, among other countries, in order to allow them to enter the EU without control.

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis speaks of a hybrid war against the EU driven by Belarus with the sending of 10,000 migrants this summer and inaction in the face of trafficking in radioactive material.

The Latvian border authorities joined these complaints on Monday and the Government will even address the possibility of declaring a state of emergency.

Only during the day yesterday, 140 people who were crossing into Latvia from Belarus were arrested, Commander Kristine Petersone, head of communication for the Border Guard, told the EFE agency.

In the last four days, 218 irregular entries were detected, compared to the 278 registered throughout the year.

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Faced with increasing international pressure, Lukashenko was defiant yesterday at a press conference in which he threatened to cut off all collaboration in the fight against the trafficking of radioactive material.

"We will continue working on it for now, but I warn you: if you cross the red line a lot, we will not maintain any type of contact," warned the president.

"We have been forced to react," he alleged in the face of successive rounds of sanctions for the repression against protesting citizens and the opposition.

"What does this lead to?

Illegal immigration is an example, "he added provocatively.

Lukashenko, who has declared 2021 "the year of national unity", rejected the persecution of dissidents outside the country and accused the opposition of "inflating" their complaints. "Who is [Vitali Shishov] for me or for Belarus in general?" He said of the dissident exiled in Kiev who was found hanged last week. “He was nobody to us. What madman in Belarus would catch him and hang him there except if there is a dispute? It is elementary, they hanged one, tomorrow it will be another. Why is all this happening in Ukraine?

Lukashenko also despised the massive 2020 protests, harshly repressed by police forces. “Around 10% of the population has never voted for me. They are people for whom I am unacceptable from the first elections, "he declared before assuring that many" are nationalists, people who want independence, especially from Russia. And this in the best of cases. Its core is fascists ”. In another moment of the press conference, Lukashenko assured that his departure from power will take place "very soon" and that there are "15 or 20" people who could succeed him. In fact, he advanced that the first phase of the drafting of a new fundamental law has concluded and that he likes the model adopted by the new Russian constitution. Specifically, an article that puts its national legislation before international laws,including those that affect human rights.

Minsk has leaned on Moscow in the face of international sanctions and the negotiations for a hypothetical union centered part of the press conference. "Any integration is possible, but without losing either the State or sovereignty," Lukashenko stressed, while ensuring that both he and the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, have dozens of roadmaps on the table, but discard those that have "Political connotations". Again he ruled out a formal takeover of Belarus by Russia. The economic unit also seems difficult due to the uneven purchasing power of its citizens. "How can we integrate if natural gas prices are two or three times lower in Russia than in Belarus?" He argued. The secrecy of the negotiations is a matter of concern to the Belarusian opposition.