Hacker News Reader

Comment by alkonaut | Hacker News Reader

What sanctions are left to use? Asset freezes and travel sanctions weren’t enough.

Total export sanctions to the west? They sell some fuel etc. and EU is a large trading partner.

- Drop official relations to the regime in any capacity. Diplomatic, economic, sports. Exclude it from membership in any organization where Russia has no veto right.

- Recognize Tsikhanouskaya government as interim government in exile. Insist that this government is the official venue for any engagement (exports, imports, sport event participation).

- Ban all regime officials in all branches from entry.

Tsikhanouskaya has no government and cannot be recognized as a legitimate president, only as opposition leader. There are only indications that she may have got popular vote, but until there are free and transparent elections it is only a rumor - not enough for recognition by democratic standards. In this role the only topic that can be discussed with her is the peaceful transition of power and organization of new elections - until they happen, there is no recognized government and no negotiation party.

Active non-recognition can be a good option here: since there is no recognized government, in all applicable cases (events, elections in international organizations etc) it shall be decided that Belarus abstained from vote or was absent. Membership and contractual payments from Belarus can be rejected and considered not happening, resulting in suspensions, sanctions and cancellations and so on and so on.

Tsikhanuskaya has a competent skeletal crew that can be built into a government, that's just a technicality. And yes it absolutely can get recognized; historically governments were recognized with less. If democratic process is your only yardstick for recognition of world governments, I have bad news about a lot of places that are none the less recognized.

It is a matter of political will, which is the only thing that is practically lacking.

This won’t be an acceptable solution for EU. The core value of our Union is the rule of law and we must stick to it, taking the legalistic approach even if constraints of it feel too strong. The rule of law is currently being undermined by Russia and its satellites, exploiting every misstep of Western governments to demonstrate the internal weakness of our democracy. Lowering the bar would mean accepting their game, where laws can be bent and serve only as a formal coverup of lawless actions of the rulers.

EU member states have little problem recognizing regimes like Sisi's, post-crackdowns Iran or indeed Lukashenka's own right until the last summer. Neither of these recently were outcomes of democratic processes with statements from the monitoring institutions acknowledging that. There's hardly a room to lower the bar anymore.

It is hard to see requiring an alternative candidate (whose persecution blew up the country) register a victory in increasingly totalitarian place as anything but deflection. Bailing out on technicality.

Actually this tactics was tried once with Guaido in Venezuela.

You move to tactics that can cripple a country even if the country doesn't need international trade.

The focus shifts to cyber warfare where you take out infrastructure.

Borrowing from someone somewhere else in this thread, banning all air travel into and out of Belarusian air space seems appropriate.

Russia has military bases and radar installations in Belarus. What are you planning to do about them? Have NATO shoot down Russian aircraft over Belarus?

Ah, I meant from allied states. You'd probably refuse entry to planes that went directly Belarus airspace -> Russian airspace -> allied airspace as well, but you don't have the ability to deny Belarus airspace -> Russia airspace.

Poland is apparently really mad about this, and given that Ukraine is currently at war with Russia you can probably get them on board. Just those two are a pretty good "wall". Maybe add in a few states blocking northern routes (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia), or not as effectively (Germany, Denmark, Sweden) and they're really isolated from everything apart from Russia.

Anyways, idle speculation, I'm definitely not an expert on this type of politics. I'm sure that in reality a move like this would have all sorts of consequences that I can't predict.

Total isolation would be a start.

I would agree, but the problem is that such sanctions hurt the population the most. This is not a good choice in dictatorships as the population has no choice who to vote for. The regime top clique will keep eating well off smuggled imports, while the general population will starve.

> This is not a good choice in dictatorships as the population has no choice who to vote for.

The population voted for the opposition candidate, took to the streets when the results were rigged, but had no leaders willing to escalate the confrontation when the state had its pants down. The dictator has buckled his pants and has gradually reduced the opposition to posting memes in Telegram chats. And even this activity is no longer safe.

> but had no leaders willing to escalate the confrontation when the state had its pants down

Are we talking about military leaders who support the current dictator? What could the leaders of the opposition have done to escalate the confrontation further?

> had no leaders Leaders were either killed or forced into exile.

>but the problem is that such sanctions hurt the population the most.

This sort of coexistence has been attempted and patently failed.

It's their population, not ours. An important distinction.

We (rest of the world, but particularly Europe) need to get stricter.

What does that achieve, though?

Pressure to stop pulling this kind of bs if they want to remain a viable economy in Europe.

Honestly, I wish the next step would be for NATO to step in and restore the country to a legitimate government. Between this, Syria, Lebanon, Ukraine, China, Israel, the world has been way too conivent with the destruction of democracy.

Sanctions only achieve that if they punish the illegitimate government (hopefully without punishing the rest of the population). Being tough for the sake of being tough without having a clear model for what leverage you’re getting is just political posturing.

Belarus is in military alliance with Russia (Collective Security Treaty Organization). Any military action against Belarus will be met with Russian army defending its territory.

Also I think that the more sanctions are put from West to Belarus, the closer it gets to become another Russia state. I'm not sure if that's the outcome West wants to see.

And military action from Belarus against an EU civilian aircraft should be met with what?

Belarus was within its bounds. They did not shoot aircraft, they released aircraft and all EU citizens shortly afterwards, they have legal reasons to do so (which was likely fabricated, but one can't prove that). It's a bad accident, but it's not a war.

I’m appalled. Just because they didn’t kill anyone (yet, as one passenger is on their way to the firing squad) this should be fine?

This is plain and simple hijacking of an international flight and not “within bounds” at all. Laws are to be followed in principle, not just technical merit, these are not computer games.

Are you seriously describing this as a "bad accident"?

Belarus airspace - Belarus rules. If EU civilian aircrafts doesn't like it they are free not to enter that airspace.

>if they want to remain a viable economy in Europe.

About half of Belarus's trade is with Russia. All this would accomplish is making it 90%+ and deepen ties with Russia. Might as well suggest having Russia annex Belarus as a response to the situation.

> if they want to remain a viable economy

What a country wants is not in general what those in power want.

Yeah, you have such a great legacy when defending democracy all over the world even in cases where you were absolutely dominant military power that this one would be walk in a park - Russia would just stand down, peacefully looking NATO invading its ally on its doorstep. Fortunately no-one in NATO has such illusions.

I know what I will write will sound like I don’t have any empathy but… hitting population hard, to the starvation even, will make them go after Lukashenko. This is why communism in Poland was defeated by the workers. They had no bread so they had to rise. Again, I would like to underline that this is not a solution that I support but history showed us this is how u make a revolution and real change

Maybe decades ago, but there was no uprising in North Korea despite famines and food rationing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_famine

That's about the worst idea possible. Many people work in neighbouring countries and cross the border regularly to see their families.

Such a move would affect them the most.

That's the point, to rile up the population so much that the regime must either cave to whatever is being demanded of them or face an uprising.

Will it work? Very iffy - often the only thing worse than an autocratic regime is whatever fills the power vacuum its fall creates. Disorderly transfers of power are bad business.

Belarussian population has been admirably fired up for quite some time. There have been multiple uprisings.

But when they're up against armed militia and police, they can't do much (this is why so many Americans are adamant about the 1st Amendment).

Targeted sanctions are the only ethical option at this point. Don't make the population suffer like we did for Iraq.

People of Belarus had enough arms in hands to start armed uprising. It was their deliberate choice to refrain from violence.

They had not. And now even hunting gear has been confiscated from those few that had it.

It's easy to call for a Hail Mary strategy from afar. Protest is becoming more common[1], but protests that successfully topple regimes remain rare.

I could swear I saw recent research indicating that the fraction of protest movements that lead to regime change has fallen over time, but I can't find it now.

[1] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/03/10/politica...

I don't mean to call for anything, just pointing out that sanctions mainly hurting the population may be the intended effect.

That's fair. I'll soften my point, to say merely that the call is often made, not that you were making it.

Ultimately it's the people's responsibility to form a functional government that doesn't abuse it's neighbors or fellow citizens. Punishing the entire country is punishing the responsible party. If they have little power at this point to fix it at this point it's their fault for arriving at this point and they may need to pay the long term cost in blood for letting it get that bad.

Isn't the regime a responsibility of the society? I think people should bear the consequences of the regime they decided to keep having.

Well, Germany could build a gas pipeline through Belarus, too.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com