Belarus: Reading The Tea Leaves

BELARUS

Reading the Tea Leaves

During the Cold War, Kremlinologists grew a cottage industry out of analyzing the Soviet Union, where leaders operated without the hindrance of public scrutiny.

In Belarus – the so-called “last dictatorship of Europe – one still needs to read the proverbial tea leaves to hazard a guess about the country’s future.

Still, things are changing.

Agence France-Presse recently reported that a health-care scandal has so shaken the country that it has forced former Communist officials who still rule with an iron hand to give ground to critics. Doctors, pharmaceutical executives and others allegedly embezzled millions in funds from the state health system, hiking prices for struggling sick people.

“The existing system of procuring medical equipment and drugs created the conditions for corrupt practices,” said Valery Vakulchik, head of the Belarussian KGB security agency.

That acknowledgment stood in stark contrast with the authorities’ usual response to negative coverage of Belarussian society.

On Tuesday, the authorities detained three journalists from independent news outlets on suspicion of hacking the computer systems of state-run news agency BelTA in a move critics said was part of a government drive to muzzle the free press, Reuters reported.

Earlier, a blogger who raised questions about the potential environmental damage from a battery plant faced police harassment before being charged with disobedience for not letting cops enter his home, the Committee to Protect Journalists claimed.

Another journalist, Dzmitry Halko, faces four years in prison for allegedly assaulting police officers when they burst into his teenage son’s birthday party and accused him of operating a drug den and pornography studio. He claimed he was simply trying to block their camera from recording teens at the party. “You don’t get a fair chance,” Halko told Radio Free Europe.

Belarusian authorities “hit an absurd new low,” Amnesty International wrote, when they persecuted an activist for a solo protest on behalf of lesbians, gays and other sexual minorities. The activist, Viktoria Biran, posed alone with a hand-held poster in front of several government buildings and posted the photos on social media. A court convicted Biran of violating procedures for holding mass events.

Between health scandals and civil-rights unrest, one would think Belarus would be on the precipice of a revolution a la Ukraine or other former Soviet republics.

But Reuters reported that the country has been benefitting from sanctions against neighboring Russia, re-exporting Russian natural gas and gaining crucial foreign currency. It’s also been making deals with Iranians, a Ukrainian news website reported. And it’s batting its eyelashes at China also, says New Eastern Europe, based in Poland, where a lot of independent Belarusian media originates.

Meanwhile, some speculation could be useful.

The Jamestown Foundation, a think tank founded during the Cold War, argued in a blog post that Belarusian leaders’ recent decision to allow for 30-day visa-free travel in the country was a sign they wanted to open up to the world. The blog suggested that the move could be a sign of a difference in opinion between Belarusian and Russian leaders over the country’s stance toward the West.

Moscow’s Pravda news service, a Kremlin mouthpiece, meanwhile, ran a story saying that a “pro-Western coup” might be in the offing in Belarus. Russia was ready for “regime change” in the country, it said.

Judging by the civil-rights crackdown, Belarus’s regime is strong. Then again, the Soviet Union disappeared almost overnight. Lightning sometimes strikes twice.