- Based on data collected by from only some polling places, there is a huge discrepancies in results comparing to official ones. Most poling places refused to post results. People, who demanded to post results (as the law requires), were arrested. You can read more about it at belarus2020.org
- A lot of journalists left state media. Replacements were brought from Russia's state's propaganda media.
- While police is involved in some cases, the bulk of arrests, beating, torture is done by special forces where most of them wear full head covering at all times. In the few episodes when such head covering is removed during the altercation, these enforces were running away hiding their faces with hands 1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zspZj5wPtaQ ; 2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj5cV8Dl7jA
- Often, special forces use plain clothes and act like criminals. The only suggestion that they are law enforcement - they often have a baton and full head covering. They never tell you their names, departments, etc.
- Last Sunday Belarus saw its first business glass door shattered as a result of protests (protests started on Aug 9th). That door was broken by special forces because some protesters tried to hide from beating there. People donated to the business owner to buy a new door and were standing in the line next day to buy a coffee from that place - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3I8dxAwybE
- To avoid beating by special forces, some running away protesters had to jump into the river. Water is quite cold. They were saved by the rescue team worked on the river, who brought them to the other bank of it. As a result, the whole rescue team was arrested - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqA3deW_-Yg
There is a lot more going on, just wanted to share a few things to explain the atmosphere of it.
> Based on data collected by from only some polling places, there is a huge discrepancies in results comparing to official ones. Most poling places refused to post results. People, who demanded to post results (as the law requires), were arrested. You can read more about it at belarus2020.org
Whatever country you're in, this is a good time to think about becoming a poll watcher. The exact arrangements vary but elections nearly always have a place for volunteers to watch the count somehow.
there were a lot of people who wanted to observe polls. many of them were arrested for "disrupting voting process", or were pushed all the way out of the polling place. Independent observer had to use a chairs and binoculars to try to see anything. Seriously.
It is important to understand who the poll watchers are and what their motives are. In the U.S. in the 1980's poll watching was used as a cover for voter intimidation when white males in combat boots and 10 gallon cowboy hats and even some with guns, many off-duty police officers, were recruited and sent to African American and Latino communities to stand near polling places with signs saying they are patrolling the area.
Oh definitely. I wasn't trying to imply this is the situation in Belarus and I apologize if it came off that way, just that poll watching (like most things) can be used for both good and for evil, so it important to make sure there are safeguards in place for the latter.
One of those safeguards is just having more poll observers.
Of course, most of the time in functioning democracies it's going to be a lot more boring than that -- in my personal experience you just say hi to your counterparts from other organizations and then watch in silence as everything runs smoothly according to the rules.
EDIT: it should without saying that observers not being allowed to bring weapons into polling places should be one of those rules!
While I generally agree, I'd like to point out the fact that observing the elections in a western democracy is nothing like observing the elections in a country like Belarus where the president has been in power since 1994.
The elections in Belarus can hardly be called that. There really isn't that much to observe besides the obvious. No number of observers could have changed the results.
I still think it is important to try to observe what can be observed.
For example, thanks to the independent observers we know that the number of ballots reported by the voting place were greater than the total number of people who visited the place during early elections days. Even pushed outside of the building, observers can count number of people walking in and compare to protocols published.
There is a reason that the word 'clandestine' exists. Opposing the government in the open works only when the government is not yet a dead zombie corpse.
In 1990, my brother observed the elections in Croatia that lead to the Yugoslavian war. Western Europe was recruiting young people to defend democracy and human rights across the continent. The bet was to stabilize all countries on the continent.
Pro-Serbian regime tried to fraud, but with the help of international observers, they got shutdown, votes have been reorganized when needed, and the sole presence of neutral observers acted as a strong deterrant.
Now Croatia is a prosperous country that we enjoy spending vacation to.
Because of this act of courage, my brother got hired by the UN. From taxi driver in 1990 to now diplomat in 2020. He served in Darfour, Afghanistan, Mexico, Guatelama, Irak, Senegal, Sudan, Tanzania. Saved countless refugees from certain death, negotiated with dictators, put pressure one step at a time.
I understand your concern, but don't take courage for foolishness. My brother is not a fool, he is an idealist and will probably have more lasting impact on the world than me.
Possibly heading for a civil war stoked by the country's president in both cases (one trying to paint his trickster self as a man of law and order, one trying to hold on to power after yet-another mock election). Though the parts of the protests we get to see from Belarus look far more civilized than the pictures coming in from the US.
The second US civil war only incidentally involves Trump. He happens to be the figurehead right now, but even if that changes we were on the brink before Trump and we will be on the brink after Trump.
The underlying cause is a mistake of our founding fathers. Because of the winner-take-all structure of our elections, our political parties are forced to be forkophobic. The fact that we can't have a real Tea Party, to say nothing of the Greens and Libertarians, causes our civil war proclivities.
A first step is a proportional House. In this proposal, every state stops drawing House districts, which also kills gerrymandering (although gerrymandering by itself does not cause our civil war problems). Instead, parties must register with the state with a list of N names, people in the state vote for the party rather than an individual, and after the election we first off exclude any parties who have not gotten at least 4% of the vote, then allocate the rest by the Webster method that we already use to allocate House seats among the different states. So a party has 10% popularity in California, that means they receive about five California seats, so the top five names off their pre-published California list go on to the House. Forking a political party is now possible, politicians have spines again at least in the House, and Washington starts working again, hopefully.
This probably does not require a constitutional amendment, just a federal law.
I have been saying for years that the US will never be free of the duopoly without proportional representation. Proportional representation rather than winner take all is the reason that other countries can have many parties. If 10% of the district are Pirates and 5% are Tea Party, then the government should reflect that.
Only... it's not to the advantage of the duopoly to implement something like that, so... entrenched party structure will always be the single choice allowed
The states are free to choose their way of allocating their House representatives so long as they are directly elected. I don’t know if Proportional Allocation would count as directly elected, and to force all states to go along with it you definitely need an amendment.
> to force all states to go along with it you definitely need an amendment
Not necessarily — Congress has vast powers under the Fourteenth Amendment. See the just-published "Abolish the Senate" by lawyer and well-regarded liberal commentator Thomas Geohegan [0].
It's been suggested that Congress could protect any given enactment by expressly stripping the Supreme Court and lower courts of jurisdiction to review the enactment's constitutionality — which Congress seemingly has plenary power to do under Article III, section 2, clause 2. [1]
Given that Republicans removing the filibuster for Supreme court nominations was preceded by Democrats removing the filibuster for lower court nominations and Cabinet appointees, we already have plenty of evidence of one side doing things for convenience that end up blowing up in their face later on.
The response to the slippery slope is not to keep on sliding.
You probably don't; a federal law is probably sufficient.
Article I section 2 is the relevant part of the Constitution; it makes absolutely no statements about "The states are free to choose their way of allocating their House representatives so long as they are directly elected" and indeed that is absolutely not true; in fact the restriction to single member districts is a federal law passed by Congress, 2 USC 1 § 2c [1], after gerrymandering was producing multimember districts that were not state-wide in order to disenfrancise minorities.
Like, I used to live in Kansas City, Missouri. I used to have exactly one representative I could go to, but his reelection is almost surely guaranteed as long as he wants to keep running. He has run the exact same campaign against the exact same opponent, Jacob Turk, since 2006, besting him by 10-20 points and taking the seat. One of the larger roads across the center of the city is named after Cleaver. With a proportional house I could instead be heard by 8 different folks.
More importantly, in a proportional house my vote can really matter to Cleaver. Maybe he is just a beloved politician and will be the top of the party list no matter what his party is: so maybe his re-election is always guaranteed no matter whether he runs a one-off race against Jacob Turk or not. But he still cares because my vote can be the difference between an extra ally in the House or not. So if I come to him and say “hey I normally vote for your party but we have had a ridiculous heat wave and the scientists are telling us this is our new normal under anthropogenic climate change” he is much more likely to think “oh yeah, I need to care about that because Missouri is being wracked by heat and droughts.”
They are not representatives in the sense of being people who serve on the house of representatives, the legislative body whose modification is being considered.
You're much more likely to get "your" representative in this model.
In geography-based districting, you only have a chance to vote for someone who represents your interests if they run in your district. Gerrymandering is often perpetuated under claims that we need to draw districts to group like voters so they can have representation.
Example: Black majority districts were drawn to allow for Black representatives, but also are used to concentrate Black votes and remove them from other districts. With no districts Black voters instead could still support black candidates across a state and get representation that way. Even better, with multi-seat districts they can vote for multiple candidates for different reasons, including policy; effectiveness; honesty; faith or lack-of; gender, race, sexual-orientation representation; etc...
Proportional representation allows voters to support representatives regardless of proximity, so even smaller minority groups - including minority viewpoints and parties - can effectively pool votes to get representation. If ~10% of the population is socialist, they'll almost never get a socialist representative with districts, but you could expect ~10% representation with proportional representation.
The problem is there's no way to draw the lines that's fair for everyone (although there are ways to draw the lines that are unfair for some).
At the same time that concentrating a constituency (such as black voters) into a district will make it more likely they get a representative that cares about their needs, it can also be used to reduce the total number of representatives that constituency would get in other instances.
For example, four districts with ~40% black constituents may be redrawn into one district of 85% black constituents and three districts of 25% black constituents, resulting in a representative that should be more responsive to the black constituents in that district. Conversely, four 60% black districts can be redrawn into two 80% and two 40% districts, resulting in likely fewer representatives that would cater to those constituents and their wants. The exact same strategy can be helpful or hurtful based on the specific makeup of the districts in question.
The problem with the proposed system is that you lose local representation, and you lose a level of definition in the views. If I live in the inner city, do I support the green party, or do I support the group that cares about inner city issues? I'm guaranteed me vote counts towards the group I put it towards, but I may be much less likely to find a group/candidates that actually encompass most my views and wants well (even if that candidate might not have been elected).
These systems aren't better or worse than each other, they're just different, and depending on who they are representing, they will do better or worse. It's entirely possible that if we could accurately measure how well people felt their views were represented and their will carried out a change could result in those going up, and a decade from now a change back to the current system could do the same (likely after a continuous drop in those numbers over years), because the groups and people represented are continuously changing and any assumption that a single system will work best in perpetuity is itself flawed.
I just don't know that an entire US state is the correct resolution to have multi-seat districts at. I feel like I would prefer in larger states to have a multi-seat district of one or more counties, but not really an entire state.
It's not like states are some auspiciously chosen grouping of counties with clear benefits.
No, but they are the smallest form of government who doesn't rely on some other form of government for its existence.
States exist because the Constitution (and one or two other things) say they exist. The US government cannot pass a law abolishing Missouri, even if everyone really wants to. Missouri, however, can change its county structure, abolish cities, etc. Because the very existence of those forms of government depend on the existence of Missouri.
By design, the US is a federation of more-or-less sovereign States. "Laboratories of Democracy" and all that.
It doesn't really make sense to have proportional representation at any level smaller (or larger) than the individual state.
With the exception of lobbyists that actually have a chance to make their case directly to representatives I doubt much would change as most people's way of contacting their representative is an email, letter or phone call, which pretty much is always answered by some random staff of the representative.
I've always had great luck visiting my reps, either at home or in DC. The rarely get visits from actual voters and they and their staff love getting someone who is not a lobbyist as a guest. If you do so, have an ask, and most importantly have a story about how you or someone close to you is affected by whatever you want changed. Every time I've got things to move in a positive direction, and never once was I asked to make donations.
You can absolutely make appointments to speak to your representatives (Senators included). You're more likely to get someone discussing an issue they're working on, or that one of their committees is working on, but they'll see you for anything.
You can ambush them in a hallway or at a fundraiser, and they'll talk to you, but you'll have just as much luck making an appointment.
RoW thinks Portland is borderline civil war anyway. Only a true American could conceive of hundreds of masked, rifle-bearing men marching around and clashing with other groups as a protest.
Sure, but this seems like something where the Americans have it right. Despite all the guns, Portland doesn't seem any more violent right now than, say, Paris during the yellow vest protests.
Do you mean the police in Belarus are acting way more civilized?
Aside from property damage I've seen over 1000:1 ratio of police brutality content to protestor violence content in the US over the last several months. Presumably the ratio is somewhat lower than that, but I imagine it still leans this direction.
As a specific illustration, in just a month police shot like 7 protestors' eyeballs out. The cost of these alone is incalculable.
Considering America is awash in guns, I don’t think it should be surprising. In the early days of the republic there were many armed uprisings... Not to mention the US Civil War.
The violence around protests has had remarkably little to do with guns, except maybe for police shooting protestors. A tiny handful of events when huge protests are taking place in basically every city is itself pretty remarkable.
Belarusians have a lot of hunting riffles on hands too. But these are tightly regulated. You can't wear it just because you want to. And people were jailed for possession a single WW2 era round found in the forest (Belarus had a lot going on on its territory during WW2 and as the result - a lot of stuff is still in the soil all across the country).
I think we should be pretty skeptical of these kind of broad generalizations. How do you know you're seeing a representative sample of protests in either country?
Well, Proud Boys are outsiders specifically entering Portland to cause trouble, further nuance can I guess be found in other hate groups that are coming in from outside Portland to stir the pot even more.
I just watched a video that included press, local cops, proud boys, KKK (labeled as such), and a single BLM protester (being beaten by the proud boy people).
Unfortunately, history tells us that almost all major gains in freedom come, at one point, through violent conflict/sacrifice.
If one side (an authoritarian oppressor) is not afraid to use violence, and the other is prevented from using any response, the oppressor will win. This is why major changes usually require civil war.
This is also why authoritarians definitely do not want their population to have access to weapons. (The U.S. couldn’t even control Afghan farmers with guns...)
> Unfortunately, history tells us that almost all major gains in freedom come, at one point, through violent conflict/sacrifice.
No, it doesn't. Recent history tells us exactly the opposite:
1) Rise of democracy in Latin America in the 70s and 80s (Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Brazil)
2) Collapse of communism on Eastern Europe in the 80s and 90s.
3) Democracy in Eastern Asia in the 80s (Indonesia, Korea, Philippines, Pakistan).
4) Nigeria, Spain, Greece
These were achieved through pacific means. The cases of dictatorships that became democracies through violence are very few: Portugal, Romania...
Prior history of violent conflict is precisely what led to dictatorships hardening (leftist guerrilla groups in Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Uruguay, tentative coup in Indonesia, etc.)
Also, violent reaction against dictatorships quite often leads to other dictatorships (e.g.: Nicaragua, Cuba, Iran).
Edit: again, my point is that violent reaction against oppressive regimes is foolish and leads to the opposite of freedom. Violence is the authoritarians' favorite game because it provides them an excuse to do what they do best: brutal repression. You are already loosing when you play their preferred game.
"The Dirty War (Spanish: Guerra sucia) is the name used by the military junta or civic-military dictatorship of Argentina (Spanish: dictadura cívico-militar de Argentina) for the period of United States-backed state terrorism[1][2][3] in Argentina[4][5] from 1976 to 1983 as a part of Operation Condor, during which military and security forces and right-wing death squads in the form of the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (AAA, or Triple A)[6] hunted down any political dissidents and anyone believed to be associated with socialism, left-wing Peronism or the Montoneros movement.[7][8][9][10]
Up to 30,000 people disappeared, of whom many were impossible to report formally due to the nature of state terrorism."
AFAIK it didn't have any death but it was sparked by a military coup d'état by lower rank officials. Later on the people on the streets supported the officials and demanded democracy.
So, when guys with guns depose a dictator it gets a little harder to argue that it is very peaceful.
However I thank you for bring up the fact that there was no blood.
The Yugoslav wars were mostly ethnic conflicts that happened after the collapse of communism, not exactly a democratic revolution.
I concede in Romania, but that is an atypical case. The overall case of collapse communism was peacefull: Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechozlovakia, Bulgaria, Albania, ...
No, the way to 1989 wasn't all that peaceful. For example there was the martial law and repressions against "Solidarity" during 198x in Poland. And you forgot the 1968. The resolve of the East Europeans in 1989 was pretty clear that if USSR brings in tanks the people will continue to stand up even in the face of the tanks, and it will be 1968 all over the place. The 1968 provided credibility to that. Thus the USSR and the regimes supported by it backed finally down.
We're falling into splitting straws on semantics here.
All repressive regimes repress, that's what makes them authoritarian. But a violent and successful reaction by the opposing/democratic forces implying a large number of deaths is actually quite rare. This is my point.
A key point that people often miss is that an armed population is extremely difficult to control even if the oppressor has vastly superior equipment and training. The citizenry has the advantage of living there all the time, of being able to hide in the buildings (their own homes), of overwhelming numbers, and of the fact that short of full genocide the oppressor actually needs some compliance from the oppressed to achieve their objectives.
Logistically, it is an absolute nightmare to invade a city of 25% armed and trained citizens versus invading a city that is 1% armed and trained citizens. Access to drones and missiles and tanks doesn't help nearly as much as many people would believe.
For me, this serves as a stark reminder to invest in barriers to oppression.
* General education (ideally, not state mandated)
* General self defense (fitness, martial arts, firearms training)
* Technological counter measures - TOR, crypto, crypto currency, and IMO we should be pushing for electronic voting systems (not shitty ones, but truly great ones) *
*Edit: By great ones, I mean ones that allow us to validate our vote was both counted and correct after the fact. There are crypto voting systems that do not allow anyone (including the government) to know if you voted or what your vote is (identifying you), but still allows tallying and validation.
> we should be pushing for electronic voting systems (not shitty ones, but truly great ones)
Experts in electronic voting systems are discouraging the use of this technology for high stake elections, even with state-of-the-art schemes:
https://www.belenios.org/faq.html
Right, by "pushing for" I mean we should be taking the academic discussion into the engineering realm to make it a reality. AFAIK there is no existing off the shelf product that satisfies the requirements.
> There are crypto voting systems that do not allow anyone (including the government) to know if you voted or what your vote is (identifying you), but still allows tallying and validation.
Are they safe against "rubber hose cryptanalysis"? Such as forcing you to verify your vote while I can see you?
I’m not an expert, but couldn’t you keep a link between your public key and your vote while the election is open. Allow subsequent votes that will nullify votes associated with your public key. And when the polls close, this link gets deleted.
This way you can be intimidated to vote and verify a certain way, then after your intimidator leaves you alone, you simply cast another vote. And after the deadline passes any record that you personally casted a ballot have been erased.
Maybe as a further safeguard keep traditional in-person polling open, wherein showing up to you automatically nullify you previous crypto vote, and only your paper ballot counts.
There's still the problem that you can still coerce and verify then use surveillance and the fear of surveillance to keep people from changing their vote. Random rechecks the day the polls close would keep a lot of people from risking changing their vote after the initial check-in.
Even beyond any theoretical security measures one huge benefit of in person voting is it limits the available attack. With IPV to steal an election you have to find a way to either physically bring enough people to enough polling places to swing the election or corrupt the poll watcher system and steal it in the counting phase. With electronic voting anyone in the world has a chance to attack you. Anything that requires Joe/Jane Citizen to reliably or securely operate their computer is kind of doomed for a long time IMO.
I do think that voting should be as streamlined and easy as possible. If electronic voting becomes a thing, you should still be able to do an in-person voting at a poll both on election day, an in-person absentee voting at a designated place, a mail-in absentee voting, etc. in addition to the e-voting.
All of these (except for in-person voting on election day) should have a sealed timestamp and a public key/barcode attached so previous ballots can be nullified with a more recent vote by an other—or the same—means.
idk. It is already done quite successfully in many democracies, including Iceland and Estonia.
I’m guessing the vote is sealed with a key or a barcode, if a later vote arrives, a system will order a previous vote with a matching key/barcode to be destroyed. Finally on voting day, the link between any personally identifiable information is destroyed.
EDIT: Just to clarify, there should never be a time when a ballot is unsealed and a link between a barcode and a person exists in the system. A counter scans an absentee ballot before unsealing it, if the person voted in-person the scanner should reject the vote and order it to be destroyed the link could have been destroyed at any point between then and when the person showed up to the polling station. If they didn’t show up, the scanner will order the link to be destroyed, the counter will then pass this ballot on to be counted. Importantly the counter (nor any human for that matter) never has access to a link to a personally identifiable information, all the counter sees is the barcode.
EDIT 2: I don’t know if this is how counting is done in democracies that allow you to nullify a previous vote by voting again, but it is a system that could work, conjured up by a mere spectator.
That probably works better for smaller countries. Here in the US mail in voting kind of works that way in that the ballots are sealed until they're 'accepted' and then the ballots are removed and the identifying shell envelope is discarded. The big slow down is actually going through all the submitted votes and validating then counting, most in person votes here in the US are counted via machine immediately at the polling place.
Somewhere between 25-50% of votes depending on state are cast through some early mechanism and under this none of those could be counted until election day which is a large increase in the number of votes that need to be counted and makes them more difficult to count.
One other benefit of being able to count everything in person on the day it's cast is the votes don't have to move outside the polling place for initial counting which makes monitoring easier.
It's a nice and convenient idea but I don't see the small benefit of being able to change votes (how many people honestly want to change their vote?) vs the large increase in complexity.
Like previously stated being able to change the vote is crucial to limit the effectiveness of voter intimidation. You simply vote however your intimidator orders you, and then you change your vote afterwards.
It also has the benefits of allowing voters who in absentee vote early for a candidate that later drops out (i.e. Washington State voters who voted for Elizabeth Warren) to correct their vote based on this new information.
Regarding monitoring. Mail in ballots are sent to the polling place on election night for counting. They are counted just like any other ballots and can be monitored as easily as in-person ballots. I suppose e-votes could as easily be printed out and counted in the same place.
The voter intimidation problem only really comes out of adopting a new system where you can check your vote to begin with though.. Our current system only really suffers from that even being a possibility with mail in votes.
> It also has the benefits of allowing voters who in absentee vote early for a candidate that later drops out (i.e. Washington State voters who voted for Elizabeth Warren) to correct their vote based on this new information.
Maybe for a primary it's a useful feature but there are simpler options like ranked choice that could be used to do that. Though there are still uses for votes to people who are out of the race because it gives them voting power at the convention if there's not a decisive winner.
Also if we're letting things change that much primaries are never really over in a state. One of the reason for sequential primaries is that it lets smaller campaigns have a chance because they don't have to compete everywhere at once.
No cryptographic system can be resistant to this by itself, but the attack can be trivially defeated by keeping the existing concept of polling stations and having people cast their cryptographically-verifiable votes there.
>* General self defense (fitness, martial arts, firearms training)
The first two are relatively non-controversial, but also won't do much against security forces with tear gas and rubber bullets. I suspect the last would be controversial in the US as gun control/ownership is a very polarized issue.
Martial arts goes a lot further than I think most people realize. You gain pain tolerance, bodily self control, and a greatly increased awareness of your vitals and physical limits.
In the protests where you see people covering tear gas canisters with cones or hurling them back, more likely than not those are martial artists or other athletes who train regularly. Your ability to act decisively and correctly in a scary environment greatly improves.
I don't think the problem with Belarus is the lack of these but rather of external forces. Russia thinks that Belarus belongs to its control; and a democratic system will most certainly be US-friendly.
This is hardly a citizen revolt against dictatorship and is one of the several proxy-war these two guys (US/Russia) are playing worldwide.
It's a lot harder to kidnap citizens when they are armed and surrounded by other armed citizens, especially if all of those citizens have substantial firearms training.
I endorse bringing guns to peaceful protests in a state where unmarked officials are kidnapping people in broad daylight. That is exactly the sort of reason that the right to bear arms is planted deep within our constitutional rights.
It completely boggles my mind that comments like these don’t get any pushback on HN. This insinuation that every citizen should own firearms just in case the state goes rouge is militant, irresponsible, and hilariously naive. A bunch of armchair freedom fighters who have no idea of the consequences of war think that their shiny “tactical” AR15 is going to stop a tank..
Let me ask you a direct question. Are you advocating for a full on civil war in Belarus in the middle of Europe? If a Belorussian read your comment, got a gun and killed a bunch of policemen/government supporters/Russians would you be content?
Don’t take this as a personal attack. I just think comments like yours are irresponsible given that the people of Belarus themselves chose the path of nonviolent resistance and protest - maybe they don’t want their country to end up like Ukraine or Syria.
What is worse, is that if someone insinuated on this site that for example people in the US should buy guns and start shooting policemen when they think that the police are oppressing them all kinds of voices would drum up and shut that down. I guess inciting violence in one of those “shithole countries” is ok, but god forbid if that kind of stuff happens in your own country.
A look from behind the southern border of Belarus: in 2014, Ukraine had had peaceful protests for more than two months before street violence started and ended. Then Crimea was annexed. Then the separatist war started, where most of weapons on the separatist side were supplied by Russia. Ukraine is a country with the same post-Soviet culture of "whoever owns weapons is suspicious", just like Belarus.
My point is that you don't "end up like Ukraine or Syria" by your own choice, and Belarus's only choice may well be between a "civil" war (i.e. proxy war with Russians) or being bent by Lukashenko to submit. I still hope that Belorusians will make it peacefully (Belarus is smaller and more unified than Ukraine), but I am afraid that it's not up to Belarusians to decide as long as Russia has the influence it has there.
> A bunch of armchair freedom fighters who have no idea of the consequences of war think that their shiny “tactical” AR15 is going to stop a tank.
This presupposes that the military will go along with firing on their fellow citizens. That was the case in Syria, but it's far from clear that American troops would do likewise — recent polling suggests that the U.S. military is getting tired of the current regime, er, administration. [0]
It is true that Russia has a lot of control over Belarus, but it is revolt against dictator. There is no talks about ceasing partnership with Russia simply because the country is too relying on Russia's market. The idea that people want to get rid of dictator to get away from the Russia is what is pushed by Belarus state propaganda media precisely to push Russia to support dictator.
If you're a Russian autocrat, you're probably terrified of a "color revolution" challenging your control over what you view as Russian territory. If people there get to make their own choices, they might do what the Baltic states did and align with the West.
The very idea of democracy threatens the power structure.
> Several international audits and inspections by EY and other reputable companies over the last years prove that the company adhered to all regulations and laws prevalent in Belarus.
I don't want to take away from the point of the article, but this made me chuckle.
Are we talking about the same "reputable" EY that has been auditing Wirecard for years and years while a giant scam reported on by the Financial Times was happening right in front of their eyes? They might not be held accountable financially, but I think we can and should stop calling them reputable.
My last gig we hired a team out of Minsk to help us with a project, brought them over to our US headquarters for about a month to help with planning and buildout.
When coronavirus took hold I got laid off and the team was cut loose. Not sure how they are holding up over there but damn I hope they are alright.
And fuck Lukashenko, I hope the man chokes on a cheeseburger.
I think it qualifies. It's about a community with some different standards than others. There's a different flavour of message-board with different content here.
It is. It calls out the fact that trying to say witty remarks to get "upvoted" to the top is going to drag down HN, just how it dragged down Reddit. Why not explain why Lukashenko is a bad person to somebody who doesn't know? That's too much effort. Might as well make a quick joke and get validation from peers.
As a European, I feel that we are too disconnected from this affair. Just as with the Ukrainian civil war and Crimean annexation, a big part of this conflict is a conservative, repressive, Russia/Putin sponsored regime at odds with a population that identifies more with European/EU values... especially younger people.
Russia see the dignity, prosperity and freedom of several nations as trivial relative to their "vital concern" of having a buffer between them and "The West."
I'm not saying that we can or should escalate recklessly vis-a-vis Russia. I am saying that they are our neighbors too, not just Russia's. We have our interests too, and more importantly our solidarity. The Lukashenko regime is anachronistic, brutal and failed.
This is not a foreign affair.
I understand and even sympathize with Putin's concerns on encroachment. He lays them out clearly enough. I will also admit that mistakes have been made, and the the US played its hand too aggressively in the 1990s. I also think that the EU (and NATO, if the US is willing) should negotiate a peace treaty that addresses these. I also genuinely believe this is possible.
For that to happen though, we need to take a much firmer stance. We need to be as interested in our neighbors as Russia is. The whole premise of the EU is peace and sovereignty. Those values need to be represented here.
Ukraine was abused because of their desire to join the EU, and we treated it as above our paygrade. Now, Russia is openly propping up Lukashenko. Next year it will be Lithuania, Estonia. Putin might decide to intervene on behalf of Victor Orban. We're in this one way or another.
Ukraine yes, Belarus youth don't seem to align with EU that much. They just want a freaking democratic country. Most favour Russian values over EU ones.
source: Current and previous gfs were Belarrusian and we had these discussions a lot (both before and after this whole thing)
edit: And both parents of both women voted for lukashenko btw, as well as some of their friends (not saying he won or anything, but it isn't also like 100% are opposed to him)
Whatever it means if you don't use the word 'values', basically they identify more with Russia than EU. The gp mentioned that they identify with EU values, and thus I used the same word.
Conflicts with what I've heard from Belarusians, but possibly a bias based on where those guys live (here in Ireland).
That said, I don't think it really matters what how the average Belarusian sees it. Russia (specifically Putin, and probably many of his generation) sees a democratic revolution as 1989 stuff, and as a weakening of their "buffer."
Nothing is ever 100% but I think it's likely that most want Lukashenko gone. We can't know for sure without a free election. That's the point.
As I said, I do think mistakes were made in the past. Ukraine's simultaneous moves towards NATO and the EU were a bad idea, for world peace. That did not justify Russian intervention though, and it does not justify it now. It may even be for the best if the US stays at arms length. The EU, imo, should not. This concerns our interests and security just as much as it concerns Russia's.
Yes, in general the ones that left are more pro EU than russia (though the ones that left for Moscow are more pro Russia).
And I agree that EU should put more pressure on the whole subject. I see the eastern countries like Lithuania, Poland and Latvia trying to make waves/raise concerns, but central and western Europe not so much (ask a Portuguese where Belarus is, and he won't know) and are more invested in the BLM issues than what is happening at the EU borders (in Portugal, most don't event know what is going on there when I talk with them.
I wish all the best to the belarussian people, and they have shown to the world their desire but also their alues by their way of correctly and peacefully way to protest and demand change. I hope it is not for nothing.
"are more invested in the BLM issues than what is happening at the EU borders"
Very frustrating. I believe in solidarity, and I sympathize with US causes as well. But, Belarus is in need of our solidarity. I'm not sure americans even noticed it.
When we see that nations are hostages of their criminal governments - what real mechanisms are there for helping those nations? e.g. what would be the outcome of targeting specifically Lukashenko, Putin, Kim Jong-un along with their inner circles respectively?
Usually(last 50y) US and EU would initiate sanctions, if it doesn't collide too greatly with their own interests, that would put pressure on respective government by putting their economy in peril.
Lately US has stepped down from that role, and openly started diplomatic hostilities towards the EU. EU isn't powerful enough alone, plus they deal with their own economic and social issues which make them not stable enough to afford sanctions.
Trade concerns are not really a huge issue with Belarus. This isn't Russia, or even Iran. Pipelines would be the main issue.
I disagree about why the EU isn't a major player in this. Economically, and even militarily the EU is quite powerful. In terms of political stability, the EU is on par (or perhaps even better, at this particular moment) than the US. Certainly more stable than Russia.
The issue is that the EU does not see itself as a polity, in this sense. I do think it's starting though.
A big problem is that it's hard to be effective. Sanctions rarely work.
One aspect that I find often overlooked is that when countries or agents within countries decide to take this sort of action, they have already factored in this sort of international response, which makes it obvious that these are not enough.
And if you mean "diplomatic hostiles" in that the US is angry at the EU for not cooperating with the sanction process against targeted countries or meeting their military obligations so that they qualify to vote in international politics, then I guess you're right.
Come on, really? Any cursory search of news, international wires, and related would clearly show numerous hostile statements and non-cooperation towards EU on numerous previously shared fronts. Not to mention Germany needing to constantly step up in what was previously the US's traditional role as advocate of liberty/justice on an internal stage (ex. recent Russian poisoning).
If you can't find an overwhelming abundance of literature to back up the previous poster's claim, I'll search and update this thread with a representative set.
Venezuela? Iran? All you have seen is a change towards friendliness to Russia. Its not a change in the policy of using sieges without declaring war to starve and kill populations to somehow punish leaders (I refuse the word sanctions because it is a weasel word). That practice is alive and well and worse then ever; the only change is in who its weirded against.
I just linked the State department's actual list of sanctions and their stance on sanctions and you call me wrong and link the daily frick'n beast and "The hates Trump more than cancer Guardian" to refute original sources?
I mean I'm sure their opinions are good representation for how they feel, but should they refute facts as reported by the bureaucrats which actually enforce the sanctions? I mean come on, this is ridiculous levels of gas lighting.
Lol, first I didn't say the UN, which is ridiculous. And second if you think the Philippines has as much say in if China takes over the South China Sea as the US has, then you are under a severe misunderstanding of how the world works.
Also it's ridiculous to think the UN has any real say in these things.
They can be targeted with economic sanctions, as Lukashenko and many of his government officials have been. If they're willing to pay the cost of the sanctions... that's pretty much the extent of the options, as long as their wrongdoing stays within their borders. The principle of sovereignty ultimately means a government doesn't have to be a free democracy if it doesn't want to.
As an ordinary person, solidarity is important. It may seem wishy washy, but history has shown many times that solidarity can matter. If we could replicate the same solidarity European cities saw in support of the George Floyd protests, it would put some wind behind Belarusian democrats.
In terms of government/official action... I think the priority should be to discourage Russian intervention with any diplomatic clout available. The UK and France are in the most important position, IMO. France primarily, as a member of the EU which borders Belarus.
Vladimir Putin recently wrote an article about the importance of the Security council. To put this in his own (kinda) words, Russian security intervention on behalf of Lukashenko is entirely not acceptable to three council members. In the interest of world peace, keep your troops inside your own borders.
That is not to say Russia should be treated as an enemy. They are a party, and their concerns need to be heard too.
Ideally, Russia and the EU (not NATO, imo) should negotiate a framework for peaceful transition.
First you must define what you mean by "nations are hostages of their criminal governments". Only very few countries are considered "full democracy", with some other considered "flawed democracy", but the majority can be said are worse or better dictatorships.
Democracy Index compiled by the Economist[0] places 76 countries into the 'democracies' pile, a further 23 into 'hybrid regimes' pile, and the other 68 are autocracies of various types, with Belarus at #150 of 167 on the list.
The economist is a very dubious source for defining "democracy", given their hyperliberal free market ideology that, for example, believes that vast corruption of media for the interests of the wealthy is good and normal. Its a media empire founded in supporting slavery and imerialism, and hasn't changed much.
It’s not a media empire (that’s Pearson, if the FT and Economist are an “empire”), it wasn’t founded to support slavery (wrong by about 50 years for the UK, and supported the Union in the Civil War, https://www.economist.com/united-states/1865/04/22/the-fall-...) and I doubt very much it has ever claimed anything like “vast media corruption is good and normal”. Please don’t post without doing basic fact-checking.
I'm sure there's a couple people reading about this and other events in Belarus and wondering why Russia is so involved with Belarus like this. I thought I'd add a little bit on context. Like Ukraine, Belarus serves as a buffer between NATO and Russia, and was once a part of the Soviet Union. But Belarus is especially important to Russia because of Kaliningrad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaliningrad . It's a part of Russia that is completely separate from the rest of the country, on the Baltic Sea wedged between Poland and Lithuania. Kaliningrad is heavily militarized, and in any NATO-Russian conflict Kaliningrad would play a vital role. And the country of Belarus is directly between Kaliningrad and the rest of Russia. Any Russian war plan would hinge on being able to move troops through Belarus. I would expect Russia to pull out all the stops to defend their interests here
EDIT: sorry, Belarus does not directly connect to Kaliningrad, there is a gap of about 50 miles with Lithuania and Poland on either side. But the general point still stands
I just want to clarify Belarus does _not_ border Kalinigrad. You'd either have to pass Lithuania or Poland.
If that happens, the Baltic states should be worried.
In my opinion, it won't though. It's neither a threat nor a direct strategic advantage. It won't connect Kalinigrad. Belarus is landlocked. The population did not and is not asking for Russia assistance in any way, only Lukashenka did. While not super friendly, they're friendlier than to the EU bloc. I think it's just not worth the trouble and an eventual net-loss.
In an a NATO-Russian conflict, having free movement of Russian troops through Belarus means you only have a 50 mile gap to fight through to link up with Kaliningrad, as opposed to over 300 miles directly from the rest of Russia. At 50 miles Kaliningrad and Russian forces fighting from Belarus could have overlapping SAM cover and MLRS artillery support, it's well within the combat radius of attack helicopters, etc. And there are railway lines around that corridor that, once seized, would enable efficient transport of material.
This is a bit off topic but since there are likely some people in this thread familiar with the happenings in Belarus, does anyone know what's happening with Vitali Shkliarov? I know he was arrested a while back and his lawyer has made some public statements but I haven't seen much about him recently
Do not have business with any company that pays taxes in Belarus. We must deprive Lukashenko of money. Many IT companies are attracted to Minsk because of the low cost and here we are.
Well, as far as I know, monstrous things are happening in this country right now. What is the cost of a complete disconnection of the Internet throughout the country? I can't even imagine how many millions of dollars it cost the authorities. I also heard that people are afraid to follow the news through the Telegram channels, because it is simply not safe. https://utopia.fans/tools/clash-of-the-titans-telegram-vs-wh...
There was only huge problems with internet for the first few days of protests. Now they only censor specific websites, but internet is more or less working around the country.
nobody on the US end seems to give a shit that local companies are facilitating dictators
Slightly fewer than half the electorate in the US is excited to vote for an authoritarian president in their own country who has repeatedly talked about not giving up power due to term limits [0] or election results [1], a guy who praised Xi for just naming himself president for life and said he'd like to give it a shot [2].
It follows that a lot are indifferent to dictators abroad.
Exactly. It's annoying when people think you're being hyperbolic or "too political/left/anti-Trump" when you point out how uniquely dangerous Trump is. He openly talks about his autocratic desires frequently and a lot of Americans frankly don't care about an American president being an open self-admitted threat to democracy.
We're in a really bad situation when a simple statement like "Presidents shouldn't talk about extending term limits and suspending elections" gets any reaction other than strong universal condemnation from all sides of the political spectrum.
to be honest I've seen it as his form of jest, where he's constantly tryin to rile up his opponents. And he can get away with it because he knows his supporters have all the guns (at least amongst civilians). We'll see what the military does and if that institution is solid.
I don't see it as jest because I see he's purposely riling up his base to commit terrorist attacks on his behalf against fellow Americans like that mail bomber Cesar Sayoc.
Like his undermining of mail-in voting right now, it's obvious that he's doing it so that when/if he loses, his base will "defend" him as he disputes the legitimacy of the results and rejects a "coup".
Am I concerned that he actually would remain in office after losing? No. But I am concerned elements of his base will commit more terror attacks in the name of "preventing a coup".
That's why I don't see his undermining of institutions and democracy as funny or trolling to "own the libs". I think by now he's smart enough to be aware there are violent members of his base ready to use violence against perceived opponents and prevent a "deep state coup", and he is purposely trying to rile them up to commit violent acts against Americans by making them feel like they are "under attack/coup" by the deep state/left.
But we're supposed to pretend like a President "trolling" about term limits, illegitimate elections, coups, assassinating opponents, and civil wars is normal. This really shouldn't be a left vs right thing. In a normal world, these would be things everyone agrees are bad.
But I'm being too political/biased/left/Trump derangement syndrome for rejecting his undermining of democracy and fomenting violence so I'll get downvoted for my unfair pro-democracy anti-violence bias.
>because I see he's purposely riling up his base to commit terrorist attacks on his behalf
Both our positions are just presumptions. Only time will tell the facts.
> In a normal world, these would be things everyone agrees are bad.
I never said it was good or bad, but that I think he is aiming for jest.
IMO, which no one actually cares about, a president would be virtuous, rabbinic and self sacrificial... But that would require us to bring athens, israel and the new testament back into the class room.
The problem is that your political opponents say similar things. They're convinced - perhaps wrongly, but as far as I can tell honestly - that anti-Trump politicians are encouraging political violence and will commit more terror attacks in the name of preventing an authoritarian takeover. They point to James Hodgkinson the same way you point to Cesar Sayoc. As someone who's extremely opposed to political violence but not strongly partisan, how can I avoid splitting the difference here?
* James Hodgkinson wasn't motivated by a politician's platform or speeches. This is the material difference that makes me wonder if you're asking this in good faith or not. No mainstream politicians suggested violence against standing Republican congressmen. None of Trump's opponents are saying they are going to ignore the results of any election.
* The politicians Hodgkinson supported immediately condemned his actions in no uncertain terms. There were no half measures. No "both sides" talk.
* This is one unprompted (see point 1 above) incident compared to dozens of cases of violence or threats motivated directly by Trump & his speeches [0]. Trump supporters specifically have this history of violence.
* Among right-wingers, this history of violence is not specific to Trump [1], [2].
Again, your political opponents say the same thing. They tell me that their leaders immediately and definitively condemned Sayoc, tell me that your leaders did not condemn Hodgkinson to their satisfaction, and show me lists [0] of citizens being threatened or assaulted for wearing Trump campaign gear. There may well be obvious and numerous differences - I tend to agree with you that there are! - but you're not getting a complete picture if you're seeing political violence as a one-sided phenomenon.
He's remarkably frank about his ambitions, and people have been warning about him for years. You can rely on trump to lie about the past on almost any subject, but his dreams of the future (like those of many dictators to be) are quite clear.
Contextually it means more "remember who the sociopath really is when their mask slips" essentially. If a man lets it slip that they "want to beat the shit out of their wife for some peace and quiet" or a desire to commit genocide they aren't joking - they really are an abuser or genocidal monster wearing the mask of a decent person.
> They were also used to censor the web in Egypt but nobody on the US end seems to give a shit that local companies are facilitating dictators
Why would they bother? Money from their US taxes is already being used to kill people overseas. I don't think that preventing some Belarusians to use Instagram is worse than that.
Recently even Lukashenko recognized limits of his power against the social media:
In Russian: https://t.me/rt_russian/44353 (translation below is mine, ask Google Translate for the skipped parts and/or for a better translation :)
"... I warned my senior friend and brother Putin - it is impossible to fight against.
Why? - How are you going to fight Telegram channels? Do you have a capability to block the channels? Nobody has such capability, even the ones who created all that web. Americans. You see what is happening there. And telegram-channels are playing the main role there too. [...skip...]
To remove the Internet and like that ... Even if Internet is removed today, the telegram-channels will be working from Poland. So, don't you get relaxed. You also have some specific political events coming, and may be right out of the blue..."
The protesters look to me as against Russian interference, propaganda, and the perspectives to become a Russian province. The protesters are not against common Russian people and culture,they are for being good neighbours. It's reasonable, that the more Russia interferes and helps Lukashenko - the more negative the attitude of Belarusian becomes.
The protest is driven by naitonalism. They symbol of the movement is the a flag that thoroughly separate Belarus from the soviet past and Russia. Anti-Russia is built into the movement.
Before all this Putin was making noises about integrating the two countries anyway:
> Moscow offered Minsk economic benefits in December if it complied with a 1999 deal that envisioned a union state with a common currency, legal system and a joint defense and foreign policy.
> The Russian-Belarussian economic confederacy entails the creation of a single tax code, civil code and list of foreign trade rules, in addition to unified oil, gas and electricity market regulators, by 2022, Kommersant reported Monday.
> Protesters say they are pro Russia - but in my opinion this is a grave mistake, and Belarus will soon find itself as a Russia-controlled state.
If the protesters said they're against Russian influence, they'd be shot down hard by the Russians (with Lukashenka's assent, obviously) to preserve Belarus as a buffer zone towards the West. If they are pro-Russian / pro-status-quo as far as foreign affairs are concerned, there is at least a (slim) possibility of Putin not keeping Lukashenka in office by any means. But considering previous Russian engagements, it seems extremely unlikely Putin will allow anything other than what he'd consider "stable authoritarianism", because the foreign attachments of a democracy (even a bad one) would be too fluent and thus too risky for him.
Whereas this is monstrous, one has to ask if PandaDoc leadership is acting recklessly by criticizing a foreign dictatorship from afar, while their employees and assets are still at risk. At least Bill Browder had the foresight to get most of his employees (and his money) out of Russia before he started going after Putin...and yet Magnitsky still paid the ultimate price. This is a dangerous game that they're playing and I really hope for the safety of the PandaDoc team.
Edit: Updated to reflect that company was founded in Minsk and later relocated to SV. Still dangerous.
PandaDoc was founded in Minsk, belarus, so not so much foreigners I guess?
... In 2012 company was founded by Mikita Mikado and Sergey Barysiuk in Minsk, Belarus. In 2014 company headquarters were moved to the Silicon Valley...
I'd suggest that no one has to ask if PandaDoc's leadership is acting recklessly by speaking. Because the alternative is complicity. It is absolutely dangerous to speak, though, you're right about that. The danger exists regardless of whether their leadership speaks. The difference is timing.
Yes, it is dangerous. But the party making it unsafe is the fascists. Outrage should be directed there.
It was the founders who were supposedly acting against the Belarusian government, and the employees who are paying the price. The founders are safe in San Francisco.
My outrage is certainly directed at Lukashenko, but the commenter above us may have a point about whether it was responsible to be acting against a dictator while your employees are subject to his government. It's a tough situation.
"authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, as well as strong regimentation of society and of the economy"
Pretty much spot on except "ultranationalism". The amount of nationalism varies from time to time depending on the current needs. When dictator needs to get something out of Russia, he would either claim nationalism, or goes other way, depending on circumstances.
- Based on data collected by from only some polling places, there is a huge discrepancies in results comparing to official ones. Most poling places refused to post results. People, who demanded to post results (as the law requires), were arrested. You can read more about it at belarus2020.org
- A lot of journalists left state media. Replacements were brought from Russia's state's propaganda media.
- While police is involved in some cases, the bulk of arrests, beating, torture is done by special forces where most of them wear full head covering at all times. In the few episodes when such head covering is removed during the altercation, these enforces were running away hiding their faces with hands 1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zspZj5wPtaQ ; 2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj5cV8Dl7jA
- Often, special forces use plain clothes and act like criminals. The only suggestion that they are law enforcement - they often have a baton and full head covering. They never tell you their names, departments, etc.
- Last Sunday Belarus saw its first business glass door shattered as a result of protests (protests started on Aug 9th). That door was broken by special forces because some protesters tried to hide from beating there. People donated to the business owner to buy a new door and were standing in the line next day to buy a coffee from that place - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3I8dxAwybE
- To avoid beating by special forces, some running away protesters had to jump into the river. Water is quite cold. They were saved by the rescue team worked on the river, who brought them to the other bank of it. As a result, the whole rescue team was arrested - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqA3deW_-Yg
There is a lot more going on, just wanted to share a few things to explain the atmosphere of it.