On March 19, Belarus released about 250 prisoners considered political prisoners in the West. The Minsk authorities have never released so many specified people in 1 attempt.
The dismissal was part of a wider diplomatic process in Belarus' relations with the US. Diplomacy for average states and politicians means exchange. Belarus gained crucial benefits in this exchange. The host U.S. peculiar Envoy for the country, John Coal, declared to Alexander Lukashenko the abolition of further sanctions – those imposed on 2 state banks: Bełinvestbank and improvement Bank, as well as straight to the Belarusian Ministry of Finance.
Equally important, if not more important, is the removal of sanctions against major state enterprises in the potassium fertilizer sector – Belaruśkalij and the Belarusian Potash Company. Belaruskalij is simply a maker of fertilizers and another potassium products, and BPC is simply a distributor of its production. This conglomerate is simply a global tycoon. Belarus accounts for about 20% of the planet marketplace for potassium fertilisers. In 2019, i.e. before the coronavirus crisis and before extended Western sanctions, Belaruśkalij achieved a net profit of up to $400 million, generating around 8% of the state's budget revenue.
But that is not the end. Coal's talks with the leader of Belarus and KGB head Ivan Tiertiel were to concern among others Lukashenko's visits to the United States – the first in past to challenge erstwhile attempts by Western states to isolate Belarus if it comes to this. Trump's second administration policy towards Minsk is consistently geared towards normalisation of relations. It is at the same time a experimental ground for relations with Moscow, but besides a tool of emphasis on it – a signal that Russia's closest ally can gradually become independent of this relationship.
Despite the broad motion of Lukashenko, even among about 250 released prisoners, there was no place for Andrzej Poczopbut, the opposition publicist and leading activist of the Union of Poles in Belarus Andeliki Boris. Let us stress that Andrzej Poczobut is not only a citizen of Belarus, but besides a citizen of Poland, which creates the formal obligations of Warsaw.
This situation shows 2 things. First, how strong the antagonism between Warsaw and Minsk is – so strong that Minsk even in this situation excludes an crucial prisoner from the agreement. Secondly, how limited is the stand of Poland towards Belarus, since it is incapable to influence the inclusion of Pochobut in exchange. This besides confirms how low Poland and its interests fall within Washington's policy agenda towards the russian East.
How do Polish politicians respond to the American-Belarusian standardisation process? At a time erstwhile the Lithuanian elite in a sophisticated way, through subtly built pressure, led to the departure from Vilnius the leader of the emigration opposition of Belarus, Svetlana Cichanowska, this 1 was greeted loudly in Warsaw. president Karol Nawrocki, who decided to meet Cichanowska last year in the halls of the UN General Assembly in fresh York on 13 January, took it at the Presidential Palace, declaring: “Poland will never leave you” – explaining that this is supposedly a paradigm of abroad policy common to all political forces.
The ideological democratic-liberal paradigm proves stronger in its environment than any component of rational thought. It turns out even stronger than equally dogmatic – and resulting from the same paradigm – frequently demonstrated by the PiS camp vassism towards the US. In this 1 case, this camp does not copy Washington's politics, does not advance it, and does not seem to even realize it.
On the same day, on which the U.S. peculiar Envoy concluded further arrangements with Lukashenko leading to normalization of relations, the erstwhile Deputy Minister-Coordinator of peculiar Services for the PiS and the advisor to president Duda warned that Aleksander Lukashenko had appeared on the border with Poland to initiate an unspecified “operation” against Poland.
While Washington negotiates and redefines the arrangement of forces in the region, Warsaw remains a hostage to its own rhetoric.
Krystian Kamiński
The author is b. MP at the Polish Parliament, associate of the National Movement authorities
Photo. president.gov.by
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