Maryia Sadouskaya-Komlach is a Belarusian journalist and program coordinator at Free Press Unlimited.
WARSAW — There’s no reason to believe that targeted sanctions will solve the problem in Belarus.
Nearly every vote in Belarus since 1996 has been followed by EU sanctions — and yet President Alexander Lukashenko’s repressive regime remains in place, once again deploying violence in order to steal an election.
As the European Council turns to the same playbook once again, it’s worth looking at why targeted sanctions have failed to spark real political change in Belarus — and why they’re unlikely to assist the millions of Belarusians calling on the man once known as “Europe’s last dictator” to step down.
The European Union first suspended bilateral relations and halted international assistance to Belarus in 1997, after Lukashenko dissolved parliament and used a referendum to give his presidency nearly unlimited power.
Lukashenko knew all he had to do was wait for the mood to change among EU leaders.
But as new member countries joined the EU in 2004, most of the aid was restored and bilateral contacts on the ministerial level were gradually reintroduced, with Belarus becoming a member of European Neighbourhood Initiative.
That pattern — crackdown, sanctions, rapprochement, relaxation — continues to repeat itself to this day.
It was as the EU lifted its ban on foreign aid that the first round of targeted sanctions were imposed in 2004. These targeted officials allegedly connected to the disappearance of politicians and a journalist, and were later extended to those involved in election fraud and repressive measures against the opposition. More sanctions were promised if Belarus did not hold free and fair elections in 2006.
That election was, of course, neither free nor fair, and the EU broadened its list of individuals targeted by visa sanctions to dozens of people. It also introduced an asset freeze in partnership with the United States. But then, after Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, the EU suspended some of its sanctions as an attempt to bring Belarus closer to the West.
The biggest hope for a peaceful transition of power — or at least a civilized dialogue between Lukashenko and his main challengers — took place ahead of the 2010 presidential election.
Just before the vote, Lukashenko hosted Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski and his German counterpart Guido Westerwelle. The two men suggested that Belarus would receive some €3 billion in assistance if it committed itself to democratic reforms.
The gambit didn’t work. The walk-up to the election featured beatings, arrests and intimidation. Two presidential candidates were thrown in jail, along with hundreds of others. Authorities continued arresting peaceful protesters for months, as a three-fold devaluation of the Belarusian ruble in January 2011 triggered so-called silent protests across the country.
Once again, the EU turned to its familiar playbook. More than 220 people and entities were put under various sanctions, including Lukashenko and his sons, as well as state officials, judges, police officers involved in violence, businessmen allegedly close to the regime, and representatives of the state media.
Lukashenko’s response: more arrests, including of political prisoners, and harsher limitations on free media. He knew all he had to do was wait for the mood to change among EU leaders.
He didn’t have to wait long. After the relatively peaceful 2015 presidential election, which observers said did not meet international standards, Lukashenko released some political prisoners, and the sanctions were quickly lifted.
The EU announced it would pursue a policy of “ critical engagement,” recognizing the “constructive” role Belarus played in the region. “This decision is not taken under the illusion that Belarus is changing overnight,” said German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko | Siarhei Leskiec/AFP via Getty Images
As events have shown, he was right. Lukashenko not only remains in power; he has good reasons to believe he can continue to act with impunity, despite another incoming round of sanctions.
To begin with, he knows Belarus’s strategic importance. When Russia annexed Crimea and supported separatists in eastern Ukraine, he was quick to offer Belarus as a home for the peace process. The same EU leaders who used to condemn his harsh repressions came to see him in a newly built Asian-style presidential palace where they reportedly were served “terrible sandwiches.”
The Belarusian president is also counting on the fact that several members of the EU, including the Netherlands, will oppose measures that would hurt the general population. And since a large part of the population is employed by the state, there is little chance that big state-controlled enterprises will lose their markets in the EU. Lukashenko’s trade income will continue flowing in, and if it’s disrupted, the EU will be accused of harming “common people” in Belarus.
Russia has also proven willing to prop up Lukashenko. As the EU’s Institute for Security Studies reported in 2015: “Factors which normally increase the impact of sanctions — starting with significant bilateral trade and investment volumes — have been offset by Moscow’s subsidies (including cheap energy).”
COVID-19 regulations are already preventing hundreds of thousands of Belarusians from fleeing, even temporarily, to EU countries unless there is a special review of their cases.
Finally, Lukashenko knows that the EU rarely accompanies targeted sanctions with meaningful support for the people who dare protest his rule.
The European Endowment for Democracy — created in 2013 with the aim to never again allow a slow EU response to cases like the Arab Spring or the 2010 election in Belarus — has kept silent, other than a single tweet by its director, for 10 days as Lukashenko has cracked down on political protestors. This sends a clear signal of indifference to the protesters, many of whom are dependent on the state for their daily wages and who fear for their family’s security.
There’s also reason to believe that targeted sanctions will prove even less effective this time around.
COVID-19 regulations are already preventing hundreds of thousands of Belarusians from fleeing, even temporarily, to EU countries unless there is a special review of their cases by specific member countries (Lithuania and Poland are taking cautious steps toward introducing such a procedure but the EU as a whole is not). That allows the authorities to argue that it’s not just regime officials who are unwelcome in the EU.
Then there’s a fact that Belarusian officials have grown accustomed to being put on (and taken off) sanctions lists.
Take the example of Lidziya Yarmoshyna, the long-standing head of Central Election Committee. In 2008, when asked about her inability to travel to Europe, she said she dreamed of reading Hemingway on a Paris terrace. Twelve years later, when she was asked in July about the prospect that she would be banned from Europe once again, she was dismissive.
“I’ve already been to Paris,” she said, adding that for her “the main thing is freedom of spirit, and not freedom of movement.”
Anyway, since the death of her son, she said, she only visits Russian-speaking countries.