The border conflict between Poland and Belarus

Over the last week, the media has reported on a new crisis related to mass movements of migrants. In this case, all eyes have been on the Polish-Belarusian border, although this is a situation with which they have been familiar on the Lithuanian-Belarusian border since the beginning of last summer. At the other end of the European Union we have also witnessed similar situations recently with waves of migrants trying to cross the Spanish-Moroccan border to enter Ceuta or Melilla. This is a mechanism in which migrants become an instrument of pressure from one country against another (or from one 'empire' against another) to the extent that these situations have been described as 'hybrid wars'. 

Both Morocco and Belarus know that in some economic and military respects they are inferior to the European Union, but nevertheless exploit their geographical neighbourhood to their advantage (one need only look at a map to see that Belarus is like a Russian 'knife' entering the EU) and the desire for migrants, especially from black Africa and the Middle East.  

In the case of the Polish-Belarusian border, and despite the difficulty of reporting on the ground (in Belarus there is no transparency of information and in Poland the area close to the border is simply inaccessible because it has been declared a high military risk area), everything suggests that the migrants are mostly Kurds. The images of adults warming themselves in front of makeshift fires and children holding signs in English asking to go back to school are somewhat artificial. A Kurdish migrant interviewed by phone by a specialised journalist acknowledges that he has already travelled from Minsk to the border (and back) several times. It seems clear that the Belarusian government facilitates the coming and going of these migrants, for whom returning to their country of origin is not an option, so that border pressure will increase or decrease depending on the escalating reactions of European leaders. 

The parallel between Morocco and Belarus also lies in the immediate causes of the conflict. In both cases the rulers are seen from the outside as undemocratic, even unhumanitarian. In the Moroccan case, there was much reaction to Spain's support for Brahim Ghali, leader of the Algerian-backed Polisario Front. In the Belarusian case, Lukashenko, in power uninterruptedly since 1994 - longer even than Putin (1999), which is saying something - has been repeatedly accused by Brussels of falsifying election results in order to get re-elected time and again. The EU has been timid in its support for anti-government protest movements, although the bitter experiences of the so-called 'colour revolutions' do not bode well. 

Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it should be remembered that many former Soviet republics at one time or another went through a popular movement aimed at overthrowing those who, coming from the former communist elites, had clung to power transformed overnight into fervent capitalist democrats. The best known was the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, which was intended to be a peaceful revolution, but was consummated years later in the famous 'Euromaidan' with which the mobs ended up forcing the flight from the country of Yanukovich, who, by the way, boasted like Lukashenko of having been the legitimate winner of the elections. 

We all know what that explosion of anti-Russian Ukrainian patriotism - a local product of modern Ukrainian nationalism that makes Russia the main enemy of Ukraine, rather than deepening the common past of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus - ended in. Do not forget that Russia was born in Kiev, that Belarus means White Russia and that Ukraine means something like 'border'. 

Nor should it be forgotten that no state today can play at going it alone in the world but must have the umbrella of some 'empire', and that the EU does not seem to have the capacity or talent to take either Ukraine or Belarus under its umbrella. Russia, however, is willing to do so as a matter of course. It should also be borne in mind that the EU's current tension with Belarus coincides in time with an escalation of the frozen and unresolved conflict in Lugansk and Donbass. Moscow and Kiev accuse each other of not respecting the Minsk agreements. 

So where do we go from here? Lukashenko has even threatened to cut off Russian gas supplies flowing to Europe via Belarus. This he will not do because it would be an economic disaster for Russia. But it serves to scare European public opinion and, incidentally, its leaders, who will probably make grandiloquent declarations of indignation and then subtly make some concession to Lukashenko that will keep him happy for a while so that the unpleasant images of terrified families with a bonfire on one side and a barbed wire fence guarded by soldiers on the other side will no longer appear in the news. 

Miguel Ángel Belmonte, Professor of Political Science at the Universitat Abat Oliba CEU/The Diplomat