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MINSK: Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko, dubbed Europe’s last dictator by Washington, seems more isolated than ever as his one-time mentor, Russia, snuggles up to his critics in the West.
Shunned politically and economically in the West because of his autocratic style, the 49-year-old former state farm boss appears even more lonely after a public fall-out with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Once an ally ready to go along with closer union and special ties, Russia is now signalling it will not back its small Slav neighbour unconditionally in the face of mounting Western criticism over Minsk’s blend of Communist and hardline policies.
Indeed, analysts say there are signs Putin, who has adopted a strong pro-Western foreign policy line since the September 11 attacks in the United States, is embarrassed by the friendship with Lukashenko he inherited from Boris Yeltsin.
“Russia is now focusing on the West,” Nikolai Statkevich, the leader of the Belarussian Social and Democratic Party, said. “Belarus, which was seen as Russia’s closest ally, has become an obstacle for Moscow’s movement towards Europe.”
Relations with the West have plummeted to a new low with his expulsion of senior diplomats from the 55-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) which accused him of rigging his re-election in September 2001.
It was Lukashenko’s much-prized idea of a union state between the countries which caused lukewarm relations between the two men to boil over into open row last week.
Speaking in unusually sharp terms, Putin said he would not go along with any venture which weakened the Russian economy.
“Trying to restore the Soviet Union at any cost, including at the expense of Russia’s economic interests, would only...weaken Russia,” Putin said of the union which would give Moscow access to key oil and gas transit routes in Belarus while offering Lukashenko some political capital.
“And who wants to be friends and live together with someone weak?” Putin said after meeting Lukashenko in St Petersburg.
First agreed in 1996 between Lukashenko and Yeltsin, the union state has been a pet project for Lukashenko.
Putin’s cool attitude to it has been a sore point for Lukashenko who, for a time, was once mooted as a possible president of a Russia-Belarus state.
Lukashenko, under pressure from the West, has used the prospective union to boost ratings in his country which sits on the fringes of an expanding European Union and Russia.
He has also used close ties with Russia as a way to ignore Western criticism of his re-election last year and of a referendum slated to take place later this year to extend his rule for another five years or even longer.
FURTHER ISOLATION: But Russia’s move closer to the West looks set to drive Belarus into further isolation and into the arms of other powers often criticised by the West, analysts said.
Belarus has previously courted Iraq, Iran and Libya.
In economic terms, Russia has little to gain from Belarus.
The Belarus economy, still run along the Soviet-era command line, is crumbling. Foreign investors stay away and even Russian investors are wary of putting money into Belarus where red tape and rigid state controls can turn even the simplest transaction into an exhausting marathon.
“Moscow made it clear to Minsk that relations between allies are important but Russia will not build them to the detriment of its own policies and even less to the detriment of its economy,” Izvestia said.
“Lukashenko’s general line is leading the situation to its logical conclusion. Friends and enemies are defined. The economy is in a shambles, the isolation from Europe is for everyone to see. He used to have an ally in the Kremlin, but no longer.”
The EU and the United States have backed the OSCE in its confrontations with Minsk authorities and Washington has asked Russia to use its influence to resolve the row.
The EU may also turn to Russia to help calm what could be a unstable country on the edge of a new expanded union.—Reuters
