The Guardian reports that the representative of the EU Council of Ministers has said:
The people of Belarus have the right to determine their own future. To allow for this, violence has to stop and a peaceful and inclusive dialogue has to be launched. The leadership of Belarus must reflect the will of the people. There should be no outside interference.
Meanwhile European Heads of State and Foreign Ministers are actively making statements in support of the opposition candidate (who is being harboured and given a platform in a neighbouring state – Lithuania), decrying the elections as “fraudulent” (“without any evidence”) and generally supporting the opposition.
They really are unaware it seems that all this constitutes “interference” of the first order. It turns out of course that “interference” means Russian interference whereas their interference is something else again.
The UK Foreign Secretary’s comments on the election are in the same vein. [2] While on the one hand calling for an “independent” investigation into the elections Mr Raab it seems has already decided that the election was “rigged”. You can’t have it both ways; if you are serious about an “independent” investigation then you can’t prejudge the results – that’s what “independent” means. But in simultaneously calling for an “independent” investigation and pre-announcing the results of that investigation Raab does nothing to alleviate the impression that the West treats international bodies (the OSCE in this case) as tools of its power. So much for the “rules-based” world order.
The fact is these people have a kind of mono-vision of International Relations. Their point of view is the only valid one. They just can’t get it that other people have different points of view. They fail the first test of maturity; “I respect your right to have a point of view which is different from mine; let’s discuss it”.
Once again the only people Western liberals can see in another country are the ones who they can relate to – those who think like Western liberals or who aspire to live like Western liberals. The millions of Belarusians who did vote for Lukashenko are, as are the Russian speakers in Donbass, simply discarded.
Notes
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/19/belarus-crisis-eu-leaders-emergency-talks-lukashenko-protests
- https://uk.news.yahoo.com/uk-does-not-accept-result-074743109.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALQe97vAREWSfHnu2lmPlK6ZgxCz_bWrWvge1Agp_jozOnH3noJMOf2DC_TLhXyiVSauygaDV-i1ll–lu0p4g8k3VHy2nwDlzAff2VR9CbbOTLQ2pCb0a3Kd70-AUmeJ8b9_4phjfedqiq8HWprkbrAkpAS5CkvvxR6Mn4DHqur
[Image: Максим Шикунец / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]