By Tom Arms
Up to 20,000 Middle Eastern refugees are stuck in a narrow strip of no man’s land as winter descends upon them. To the west—the dreamed-of destination—is a razor-wire fence and armed Polish guards. To the east are tens of thousands of armed Belarussian troops to prevent them from going back into Belarus proper.
These refugees have paid thousands of dollars to the agents of Belarussian dictator Alexander Lukashenko who are scouring the Middle East in search of displaced persons in search of a better life in Europe.
They collect their money. Tell them they are going to the promised land of Germany. The refugees are then put on flights to Minsk from Damascus, Dubai or Istanbul. In the Belarussian capital they are met by armed guards who herd them into lorries that transport them to the border with Poland, Latvia or Lithuania. They are unloaded and told to march west. That is when the dream becomes a nightmare.
The Belarussians are not providing food, water or shelter. The insufficient aid that is reaching the refugees is coming from mainly Polish aid agencies. The UN has called on Lukashenko to allow the Red Cross and other NGOs immediate access. Temperatures are dropping. So far, at least eight refugees have died of hypothermia. Expect many more.
Although many Poles are working hard to supply food, medical supplies and tents the issue of immigrants is the hottest of the country’s hot political potatoes. Poland is a charter member of the illiberal Visegrad Four. Their two main tenets are Euro-scepticism and anti-immigration. Latvia and Lithuania are pro-EU, but not keen on immigrants.
The refugees are pawns in the battle between Lukashenko and an EU attempting to unseat the dictator with sanctions and sanctuary for his opponents. The EU has threatened to increase sanctions on Monday. Lukashenko has said he would respond to any sanctions by cutting Russian gas supplies that pass through the Yamal pipeline that goes across Belarus and, with links to various offshoots, stretches all the way to the UK and nine EU countries.
Also on Monday, the leaders of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are meeting to discuss the crisis. Joining the meeting by video link will be Polish President Andrzej Dudas. The UN Security Council has condemned President Lukashenko for the “orchestration of the utilisation of human beings” for political purposes.
The refugee crisis has raised questions in other areas: Poland’s problems with the EU, The position of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Ukraine, The fragile balance of power in central Europe, the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad and the position of NATO and the US.
German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has strongly backed Poland’s decision to construct a fence and called on the EU to support the Poles. But at the same time, the Polish government is in bad odour with fellow Europeans over its refusal to accept the primacy of European law over Polish law and is facing the possibility that $200 million in European funds earmarked for 2021-27 may be held back.
Putin is unlikely to rein in the Belarussian dictator. Lukashenko is clearly trying to economically and politically destabilise the EU. A shaky Europe is to Moscow’s political advantage. If, on the other hand, Lukashenko is unable to make an impact then he will likely be forced into a closer relationship—maybe even political union—with Russia, a main foreign policy goal of the Russian president.
Then there is Ukraine. While the world public has been focused on Belarus, Putin has sent 100,000 troops to the Russian/Eastern Ukraine border. Washington fears that Putin may use the distraction of the refugee crisis for a final push to annex Eastern Ukraine. The Baltic states of Estonia and Lithuania are also worried about Russian troops on their border and Poland and Latvia are concerned about forces in the Russian Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad.
Up until the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, there was a sort of post-Cold War Central European balance of power. NATO and the EU had pushed its border about 500 miles to the East as former Soviet satellites left Moscow’s orbit to join the West. Ukraine and Belarus were left as buffer states. But their changing status vis a vis both the West and Russia threatens a reaction from either side.
If it is a military reaction then the West’s involvement will have to come primarily from the US. And here, Putin appears to again have the upper hand. Both the US and the NATO alliance are politically bruised after their embarrassing failure in Afghanistan and the American public’s appetite for foreign intervention is at a new low.
NATO may need to quickly rediscover its mojo and Washington may have to reassess the threat from Moscow if Lukashenko—backed by Putin—keeps pushing in a desperate attempt to keep the Belarussian dictator in power.
Tom Arms is the Foreign Editor of Liberal Democratic Voice. His book “America Made in Britain” has recently been published by Amberley Books. He is also the author of “The Encyclopedia of the Cold War.”
World Review
COP26 negotiators have as of this writing (Friday) entered the final stages of a draft agreement. It’s not great news for Planet Earth. So far the gathered pledges will reduce temperature rises from the current 2.5-degree level to 2.4 degrees centigrade—well short of the 1.5-degree limit which climatologists say is the maximum the planet can bear to avoid worldwide environmental disaster. There are, however, some streaks of silver in this dark cloud. One is that the negotiators have agreed to meet in Egypt next year in a bid to make further progress. Originally it was going to be another five-year gap. There has also been an agreement to stop deforestation. Coal has for the first time been singled for as the main polluter and many countries have promised to end its production and use. Although the US and China, the two biggest users, are dragging their feet. There has also been a greater recognition from developed countries that they have to further increase their aid to the developing world to finance green technology and deal with the impact of climate change. As part of this financial help, the developed world’s private sector is becoming more involved as is the World Bank. Also interesting is a bilateral agreement between the two biggest carbon emission emitters—China and the US—to work together on climate problems. This was a win for the Biden Administration which was keen to separate the climate issue from wider Sino-American relations. Not such good news is that the agreement (as of this writing) is long on promises and short on any mechanisms to enforce them. Also worrying is the fact the oil-producing countries, especially Saudi Arabia and Russia, have managed to keep oil and natural gas out of the communique. But the most worrying part of the final document is the get-out phrase that all pledges will “take into account different national circumstances.”
Britain’s Boris Johnson is doing his level best to move the UK as quickly as possible to a de facto presidential system of government. He is not the first to do so, the shift started in earnest with Margaret Thatcher and has been pursued in different degrees by each of her successors. But Boris has lifted the aspiration to new heights. Since 1689 Parliament—not the monarch and not any minister—has been the ultimate political power. The Prime Minister derives his power from the support of the majority of parliament. Johnson has repeatedly shown nothing but contempt for parliament, its rules, regulations and traditions. He attempted and failed to pro-rogue the legislature in an attempt to push through his Brexit deal. He effectively dismissed 21 Tory anti-Brexit MPs. After the 2019 election, he refused to accept the report of the Cabinet Office that Home Secretary and close ally Priti Patel was guilty of bullying officials in three government departments in which she served and faced down parliamentary outrage after his chief adviser Dominic Cummings broke lockdown rules (he sacked him later over other issues). But the latest issue has opened a can of worms of general sleaze and corruption in Conservative Party ranks. Conservative Brexiteer MP and former minister Owen Paterson were found by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards to have breached lobbying rules. He was due to be suspended by a vote in the House of Commons when Boris attempted to at the last minute change the rules to protect his friend and supporter. An outraged Parliament forced a U-turn but Johnson again showed his contempt for the chamber by failing to turn up for the emergency debate that followed. The Paterson case has morphed into charges of general corruption and sleaze in Conservative Party ranks which, so far, Johnson has simply ignored. The Prime Minister’s contempt is not limited to parliament. His disdain for international law is clearly demonstrated by his attempt to jettison the Northern Ireland Protocol which he negotiated. British domestic law is also under attack. In the Downing Street pipeline are plans to strip the Electoral Commission of some of its powers; change court rulings which the government thinks wrong and tighten rules governing judicial review of public bodies. In the nineteenth century, Britain led the world in fighting corruption. In 1883 it passed the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act and in 1889 the Corrupt Practices Act. But in recent years it has been slipping down Transparency International’s global corruption index.
The war in Ethiopia is spreading nicely to rest of the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia comprises a key element of the AU peacekeeping force in Somalia. Known as the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). It keeps Islamic Jihadist group Al Shabaab at bay and the airport and seaports open. Recently Ethiopian peacekeepers from rival ethnic groups attacked each other. While that was happening the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front started its march on Addis Ababa. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed withdrew thousands of peacekeepers in Somalia to protect the capital, adding to the thousands he withdrew at the start of the conflict a year ago. He has also started rounding up ethnic Tigrayans outside the province; arrested UN aid workers and tightened the blockade around Tigray, thus reducing the flow of medicines and food into the embattled province and insuring a horrific famine. As for Somalia, Al Shabaab, according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, is expected to use the departure of Ethiopian troops to revive and extend its operations throughout the strategic Horn of Africa.
Europe, according to the WHO, is again at the centre of the coronavirus pandemic. In fact, the World Health Organisation is predicting another 500,000 deaths by February. The cause is that too many thought that the introduction of the vaccines spelt the end of Covid-19. They reopened the economy, filled football stadiums, returned to the office, threw away their masks and stopped social distancing. The problem is that the vaccine is not 100 per cent effective and too many are refusing to take it. The result is that Austria, Switzerland, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Macedonia and Albania have reported over 9,000 new cases per million in a fortnight. Not far behind with 6,000 cases per million are Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, Ireland, Russia, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Serbia and Montenegro. Germany and Poland have reported 4,500 new cases per million in a fortnight while France, Spain, Italy and Sweden are managing to keep under 3,000 new cases but will probably catch up. The US is not doing much better. Covid deaths have smashed through the 675,000 deaths record set by the 1918 Spanish flu to reach 760,000. Worldwide, more than five million have died. With covid, diminishing energy supplies, worldwide transport bottlenecks, it looks like another tough Christmas.
