DISINFO: The EU adopts sanctions against Belarus to manage its own internal contradictions
SUMMARY
An upcoming new EU package of sanctions against Belarus coincides with heightened internal contradictions in the EU. It was apparent from the very beginning of the sanctions policy that the EU policies towards Belarus are skillfully used by political technologists to cement the EU countries' unity and to manage internal contradictions among them.
Earlier the EU treated migrants from the Middle East as 'right', now that they get to the EU through Belarus, they are regarded as 'wrong'. In both cases the actual source of the migration crisis is the EU, which had been actively using destabilising technologies abroad for its geopolitical and economic interests. Once the EU realises that irregular migration flows stem from its irresponsible policies, it will quickly overcome its internal crisis. The EU has stopped being the source of European values from a Christian standpoint.
RESPONSE
This publication obfuscates the actual reasons behind EU sanctions against the Belarusian regime and promotes recurring disinformation narratives about European values and the ongoing migration situation on the eastern border of the European Union with Belarus.
The EU did not recognise the falsified results of the Belarusian Presidential election on 9 August 2020 or the new mandate claimed by Alyaksandr Lukashenka. On 19 August 2020, the European Council called the Belarus elections neither free nor fair and on 2 October 2020, the Council imposed restrictive measures against 40 individuals identified as responsible for repression and intimidation against peaceful demonstrators, opposition members, and journalists, as well as for misconduct of the electoral process.
The EU imposed new restrictive measures against the Belarusian regime to respond to the escalation of serious human rights violations in Belarus and the violent repression of civil society, democratic opposition and journalists, as well as to the forced landing of a Ryanair flight in Minsk on 23 May 2021 and the related detention of passenger, opposition activist journalist Raman Pratasevich and Sofia Sapega.
At present, the EU is discussing new sanctions on Belarus over its deliberate policy to bring thousands of irregular migrants and send them towards the EU Member States.
Belarusian authorities have instrumentalised migration. According to EU Commissioner Ylva Johansson who said, inter alia: “The authoritarian regime in Belarus is exploiting human beings for political reasons: this is completely unacceptable." See also this statement.
More information about Lukashenka’s role in the organisation of the current migration crisis can be found here and here and here.
See other disinformation cases concerning the ongoing migration crisis on the Belarusian border which allege that Lithuanian border guards use violence against migrants, including abandoning pregnant women, that migrants in Lithuania are kept in concentration camps in unsanitary conditions, and that the West plans to push thousands of illegal migrants to Belarus using force.