Belarusian publicly financed BelTA published a spree of pieces last week drawing attention to the EU’s alleged abuse of refugees that tried entering the bloc from their country. Those first-hand sources that were cited shared their experiences with fellow publicly financed Belarus 1 TV channel, while one of BelTA’s other relevant articles involve the Council of Europe’s concerns about Poland’s tactics. Readers can review five of them below, after which they’ll be analyzed in the context of this crisis:
* “Beaten by batons, attacked by dogs. Syrian refugees recount atrocities by Polish border guards”
* “Refugee women recount shocking abuse at Latvia’s border with Belarus”
* “Belarus’ Investigative Committee comments on mistreatment of refugees by European security forces”
* “Refugees brutalized by European law enforcers on border with Belarus write letter to UN”
* “Council of Europe accuses Poland of violation of migrants’ rights on border with Belarus”
Apart from the last article, the rest were part of Belarus 1’s “Inhumans” documentary, the timing of which coincides with Poland rebuffing Belarus proposal to resolve this crisis. Readers can learn more about that in this piece here, which links to five background analyses on this subject that readers should also review if they aren’t already familiar with it. Basically, Poland tried to coup Belarus in summer 2020 and still hosts anti-government militants, so Belarus turns a blind eye to illegal immigration to the EU.
Poland doesn’t want to resolve this issue since that would require it to politically neutralize or expel those aforesaid militants, plus entering into a formal dialogue with Belarus would amount to tacitly recognizing the legitimacy of the summer 2020 elections that it claimed were fraudulent. Accordingly, it’s exploited the crisis to improve its military-strategic position along the border, which Belarus and Russia consider to be preparations for a possible NATO-backed offensive if a hot war between them breaks out.
Belarus’ only recourse, apart from trying to get Germany to convince its junior Polish partner to de-escalate along the border in exchange for sparing the life of its mercenary who was just sentenced to death, is to expose the EU’s double standards. That’s why it’s amplifying refugees’ allegations of abuse so as to show the world that the West politicizes the use of force against foreign-backed rioters in rival states like Belarus but doesn’t care when its own border guards employ the same against refugees.
To be sure, there are certainly some in the EU like the previously cited Council of Europe representative and liberal–globalist “NGOs” who don’t have double standards towards this, but they’re powerless to meaningfully change anything on the ground so long as the elite benefit from this crisis. It serves as the perfect pretext for building the “EU defense line”, which will function as a new Iron Curtain upon completion, and continuing to fearmonger about the supposed threat from the East.
If the same standard was employed towards the use of force by the EU’s own border guards against refugees as against the use of force by rival states like Belarus against foreign-backed rioters, then Poland would already be sanctioned, yet that’s not going to happen for the reasons that were explained. These grand strategic interests override any ideological considerations, which is why Poland’s new liberal-globalist government is applying their conservative-nationalist predecessor’s hardline border policies.
