Category Eastern Europe

Well, week 11 in Belarus and no clear resolution. It looks like this could drag on for a while. They did put up tens of thousands (maybe 100,000) protestors on Sunday and did start strikes on Monday. It does not appear that the strikes are universal. To quote from a couple of accounts:

BBC News (bolding is mine):

“Workers at some state-run plants downed tools and chanted slogans outside the gates.”

“The full scale of the protests on Monday is not yet clear, partly because of the authorities’ media restrictions.”

“A source in Minsk…told the BBC that the strike was affecting some major state enterprises…but they had not been brought to a standstill.”

See https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54684753

ABC News (bolding is mine):

“But on Monday, while some workers did strike and a sizable protest took place in the capital of Minsk, it did not appear that strikers had been joined by significant numbers of workers at the massive state plants that are critical to Belarus economy.”

See: https://abcnews.go.com/International/belarus-opposition-calls-national-strike-key-test-protest/story?id=73842209

 

P.S. On the morning of 13 October Svetlana Tikhanovksaya, the main opposition leader, issued out a statement:

“The regime has 13 days to fulfill three prerequisites:

1. Lukashenko must announce his resignation.

2. Street violence must stop completely.

3. All political prisoners must be released.

If our demands are not met by October 25, the whole country will peacefully take to the streets with the People’s Ultimatum. And on October 26, a national strike of all enterprises will begin, all roads will be blocked, sales in state stores will collapse.”

P. P.S. The picture of the detained protestor is from last month, I just happen to like it (“Beauty and the Beast”). She was identified over twitter (@A_Sannikov) as Natalia Petukhova. The arresting officer has not been identified. Picture came from @svirsky1 via @XSovietNews

This coming week may get dramatic. On the morning of 13 October Svetlana Tikhanovksaya, the main opposition leader, issued out a statement:

“The regime has 13 days to fulfill three prerequisites:

1. Lukashenko must announce his resignation.

2. Street violence must stop completely.

3. All political prisoners must be released.

If our demands are not met by October 25, the whole country will peacefully take to the streets with the People’s Ultimatum. And on October 26, a national strike of all enterprises will begin, all roads will be blocked, sales in state stores will collapse.”

 

So, we shall see what develops over the next few days.

 

 

P.S. The picture of the detained protestor is from last month, I just happen to like it (“Beauty and the Beast”). She was identified over twitter (@A_Sannikov) as Natalia Petukhova. The arresting officer has not been identified. Picture came from @svirsky1 via @XSovietNews

Another week of protests in Belarus. Things are starting to take a more serious and darker turn. The EU has imposed sanctions directly on Lukashenko, Russia has put the Belarussian opposition leader (Svetlana Tikhanovskaya) on their wanted list, based upon charges against her by Belarus. She is currently residing in Lithuania, an EU and NATO member. Belarus is now threatening to use deadly force against the protestors and on Sunday detained/arrested over 700, which is more than they have done in the previous weeks. It appears that they are starting to get more heavy handed. I gather yesterday at least three Molotov cocktails were thrown by protestors. There were tens of thousands on the street Sunday and Monday (see picture above). The pensioners (older retired people) came out in force on Monday to protest. Some were tear gassed.

This is still not making a lot of the American news channels, which I think is pretty damn embarrassing.

The danger is that as Lukashenko ramps up the pressure on the protests, it is going to invigorate the protesters (which is what happened early in the protests, and why he backed off). This could get worse.

Meantime, the developments in the rest of the FSU (Former Soviet Union) include:

1. Continued protests in the Siberian city of Khabarovsk (pop. 618,150). They have a strong anti-Putin sentiment and have been going on for three months.
2. There has been a shaky cease-fire between Azerbaijan and Armenia and the Republic of Artsakh. We shall see how long this holds.
3. Continued protests and governmental disruption in Kyrgyzstan going into the second week..
4. Oh yea, and they don’t really have the Coronavirus under control, even with their Sputnik V vaccine (which is not approved for widespread use until 1 January 2021). They are reporting 13K cases for each of the last two days, the highest daily figures they have ever recorded (if you believe the reporting) and are now recording the fourth highest number of cases in the world (only exceeded by the U.S., India and Brazil).

Things remain interesting in the FSU.

 

P.S. It turns out that Svetlana Tikhanovskaya issued out a statement this morning. It says in part:

“The regime has 13 days to fulfill three prerequisites:

1. Lukashenko must announce his resignation.

2. Street violence must stop completely.

3. All political prisoners must be released.

If our demands are not met by October 25, the whole country will peacefully take to the streets with the People’s Ultimatum. And on October 26, a national strike of all enterprises will begin, all roads will be blocked, sales in state stores will collapse.”

Translation cribbed from retweet from twitter account @XSovietNews

It looks like this will be coming to a head in the next two weeks.

Well, the protests continue for another week. Another tens of thousands protesters in Minsk, another 300+ people detained/arrested. The Belarus police claim 10,000 protestors. Other groups claim nearly 120,000. The pictures seem to support a higher estimate and the police had to turn water cannon on them in Minsk (pictured above). The EU did sanction 40 Belarus officials.

Nothing seems to be moving quickly, one way or the other. They are at an impasse for now. The most likely scenarios are:

1. Protest slowly loose virility and Lukashenko settles in for his sixth term as president.
2. Protest continue, with Lukashenko so under-mined that he cannot continue and….
   1. He calls on Russia to support him.
   2. He arranges for negotiated power sharing agreement with some of the opposition leadership.
   3. His own administration decides to replace him with someone more acceptable.
   4. He is forced to step down and surrender control of the government.
3. There is confusion over the rulership of Belarus and Russia decides to intervene.

It does not appear that he is going to ramp up the level of police crackdown. It is clear that he does not think that he can easily suppress the protests, or is concerned that an outbreak of violence and instability opens the door for Russia to intervene.

Now, what I have never done is any systematic analysis of protests. So, I do not know if extended protests have a higher chance of success or a lower chance of success as they continue. The successful Euromaiden protests in Ukraine in 2013/2014 lasted for three months.  The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests lasted for 7 weeks until they were abruptly ended by tanks. How long can this continue with a 100,000 protesters and several hundred detained each week?

Meantime, there are some interesting developments in the rest of the FSU (Former Soviet Union).

1. In response to the 4 October parliamentary election, protesters in Kyrgyzstan stormed the “White House,” the Supreme Council building, and other government buildings and have freed the former President from jail. The electoral authorities of Kyrgyzstan have annulled the results of the recent election. Not sure what is going to happen next. This is not a precedent that is particularly appealing to Lukashenko or Putin.
2. Their have been continued protests of thousands of people in the Siberian city of Khabarovsk (pop. 618,150) that have now dragged on for three months. These also do not appear to be going away.
3. There is a war going on between Azerbaijan and the Armenian supported Republic of Artsakh.

Things are getting interesting in the FSU.

Yesterday was the 50th day of protests. Through various twitter accounts one can see all the protests throughout the country. They are widespread and the protesters are clearly dawn from all parts of society and all age groups. Lots of large protests in small towns. News reports are saying “about” 100,000 protesters in Minsk and protests in nine other cities. The videos I am seeing are showing protests in some pretty small towns, so not sure where that count comes from. It was clear from the videos that there are tens of thousand of protesters in Minsk, but it may not have been a hundred thousand. The weather was not great this weekend. Another reported 350 or so people detained or arrested on Sunday.

Lukashenko has taken the oath of office for his new term, so it appears that both sides have dug in.

Now, what I have never done is any systematic analysis of protests. So, I do not know if extended protests have a higher chance of success or a lower chance of success as they continue. The successful Euromaiden protests in Ukraine in 2013/2014 lasted for three months.  The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests lasted for 7 weeks until they were abruptly ended by tanks. How long can this continue with a 100,000 protesters and several hundred detained each week?

 

P.S. The picture of the detained protestor is from a week ago. She was identified over twitter (@A_Sannikov) as Natalia Petukhova. The arresting officer has not been identified. Picture came from @svirsky1 via @XSovietNews

 

Well sizable protests continued this weekend in Belarus, although they may not be as big as before. May have been less then 100,000 people. News reports are saying tens of thousands, while one opposition paper is claiming 150,000. The Belarus police claim 20,000 protestors all over the country. As both sides are expected to over/under estimate crowd sizes the real number of probably somewhere in between these two estimates. I suspect the protest in Minsk was less than 100,000. There may have been 200,000 protestors a couple of weeks ago. There were also protests in Brest, Gomel and other places.

Lukashenko’s police were a little heavier handed than in the last two weeks, detaining or arresting over 400 people on Sunday.

Not sure I know what was decided in Lukashenko’s meeting with Putin last week, but so far nothing significant has happened.

It does appear that this is turning into a waiting game, where Lukashenko is trying to ride out the protests and hope that over time they loose virulence. This is all being done in an environment of the coronavirus and what is certainly a declining economy. In the case of the coronavirus, it is reported for Belarus (population: 9.4 million, 80K square miles of area, GDP 63.6 billion, per capita income $6,744 or $21,233 PPP) that they have 75,898 cases and 785 deaths. Just to compare to the U.S. state of Virginia (population 8.5 million 42K square miles of area, GDP 476.4 billion, per capital income $56,047), Virginia has 141,022 cases and 3,019 deaths. There is reason to suspect the accuracy of Belarus’ statistics. See the two graphs below.

It is hard for governments to stay in power in a declining economy (although Venezuela manages) and between protests and coronavirus (and declining population and potential “brain drain”), it is hard for this economy to anything other than decline.

This may go on for a while.

 

P.S. Population of Belarus over time:

P.P.S. The Belarus coronavirus graph:

In light of the all the protests and the lack of social distancing efforts by the government, it is hard to believe that the number of cases have declined from their peak and have not rebounded.

P.P.P.S. The Virginia coronavirus graph:

P.P.P.P.S. The detained protestor was identified over twitter (@A_Sannikov) as Natalia Petukhova. The arresting officer has not been identified. Picture came from @svirsky1 via @XSovietNews

This story remains invisible in a lot of the U.S. news, but there were another 100,000+ protestors on the streets of Minsk on Sunday. According to the French 24-hour News this was a little bit smaller protest than last week. The Belarus police arrested at least 250 people yesterday. Still, this level of activity is much less than it was in the first two weeks of the protests, where thousands were arrested. This appears to be a waiting game… or a waiting out game.

Meanwhile today, the president of Belarus, Aleksander Lukashenko was in Sochi meeting with Vladimir Putin, president of Russia. This has got to an interesting and awkward discussion.

It still appear that the protests are not going away, Lukashenko does not want to bring in Russia to help put down the protests (Putin has offered), and……