Dictator of the Month: Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus
After traveling to Swaziland in October, Equatorial Guinea in November, and Myanmar in December, the Dictator of the Month now moves to Europe to profile the only remaining official dictator in Europe, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus.
Profiled by BBC in 2007, Lukashenko has ruled Belarus since 1994, three years after the Soviet Union collapsed. He makes no secret of his authoritarian nature. This article mentions that Lukashenko had supported the coup attempt against Soviet leader Gorbachev in 1991, and that he disbanded parliament in 1996 when threatened with impeachment.
Since then, he has won elections with little opposition and also overturned a constitutional term-limit, just as Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez did recently. When facing the prospect of opposition to his rule, he described how be would handle his opponents: “We will wring their necks, as one might a duck”. Undoubtedly, the KGB (the former Soviet agency has not changed its name in Belarus) carries out his will.
At this point, we have no reason to believe that Lukashenko will be removed from office any time soon, barring an assassination or an act of God. This report indicates that his hold on power is very strong compared to that deposed leaders in Georgia, who could not defeat resistance leaders.
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Lukashenko has also spared Belarus the continuing horrors of neoliberalism after having to put up with it for a couple of years before he took over. It actually makes things, unlike Latvia where they do things the post-modernist way with speculation and paper values on real estate – Latvia collapsed last year. Belarus has turned into an East Asian-style export economy. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than what neighbouring countries have experienced. Lukashenko also has widespread support in Belarus because of this fact.
Oh, and let’s not forget that unlike one Boris N. Yeltsin, Lukashenko did not respond to a showdown with parliament by shelling it and killing hundreds in the streets and banning critical media. In that case, Yeltsin really was impeached, as confirmed by the Constitutional Court, but Yeltsin refused to accept it and used the army to stay in power. He promoted the incompetent generals who supported him who proceeded to promote and bungle the destruction of much of Chechnya.
I am intimately involved in Belarus; though, I am not at all a proponent of any authoritarian form of Government, and I loathe the Nazi/Communist experience that was thurst upon peoples, against their wills during the 20th Century, It is wholly unfair to characterize Alexander Lukashenko as a Dicatator; NOR is he a True Communist.
Since the restoration of and Independent White Russia, Belarus, President Lukashenko has skillfullly and honestly dedicated himself to insuring that Belarus NOT be a casualty of the errors and ambitions of his neighboring nations(Including Russia), from their former Soviet Union.
In fact, there is a considerable capitalist economy, and many Belarusians work abroad, and many chose to remain at home in their Belarus.
If he seems shrewd and “heavy-handed” or is characterized as such by the Western Media, as well as Russia’s media, it may be because he truly is dedicating himself to a truly independent, free from the European Union, and the perpetual ambitions of Russia, which frankly has had the same ambitions since Ivan the Terrible, on through the Czar, Bolshevist and even now-
My Hat goes off to President Lukashenko.
And, I am Pro-American, anti-Communist and truly Capitalist.
And I am married to a Belarusian woman, and she is not fond of him.
We simpy differ.