Foreign Mercenaries Arrested For Plotting Coup Before Presidential Election
Foreign mercenaries have entered the country just prior to the presidential election. They are suspected of being in place in order to execute a coup, and seize power if the election doesn’t go the right way. Of course, this isn’t the United States election, but the 2020 presidential elections in Belarus.
It’s probably best to start with a bit of background. The current president of Belarus is Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko (amazing name, right?), who is the first and only president of the Republic of Belarus. He was first elected in 1994, which means he has been in power for 26 years. The original constitution called for a term limit, but I guess when you have all the power you can do away with those pesky rules. Now in my experience, the countries with the least amount of human rights are the same countries that have the longest serving heads of state. His tenure lines up with other wonderful locations like Iran, Turkey, Cambodia, Uganda, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, etc. (okay, the last one actually changed presidents in 2019, but I left it in because the previous guy had been there 20 years, and the names being almost identical is funny to me).
Back to our buddy Alexander. So things aren’t going so great in Belarus. Surprisingly, a lot of people are against the authoritative, quasi-dictatorship they have found themselves, and they want change. Enter Sergei Tikhanovsky. Sergei is just a guy that started a YouTube channel to document his life on his new farm. He wanted a place to document all the hurdles he faced in dealing with different officials. He began to interview others with the same struggles, and came up with ideas on how their country could be improved. Turns out Sergei was a pretty big fan of democracy, was not big of the current administration, and could reach a lot of people with his ideas. On May 7th he announced his candidacy for president, and was promptly arrested on May 9th.
Although his stay in jail was somewhat brief, the committee that oversees the election refused to allow him to be nominated to run for president. So meet our next player, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. And yes, Sviatlana is the wife of Sergei, and was somehow allowed to run for President in Belarus. I suppose they thought that some teacher with no popular following would be a challenge for our buddy Alexander. But they problem was that the populace saw in Sviatlana the same thing they saw in Sergei. Here was a person dedicated to democracy, someone that would fight to end the corruption of the current government, and restore human rights. The rallies in support of Sviatlana saw huge turnouts, and she appeared to be mounting a real challenge to Alexanders reelection campaign.
But 10 days before the election, a weird story started circulating on the news. 32 Russians mercenaries were arrested at a resort in Belarus. They claimed to have missed their plane, although the final locations they said they were going differed from person to person. Alexander immediately claimed that these mercenaries were an attempt by Sergei and Sviatlana to seize control. After the elections (too much to get into here, Alexander won with 80% of the vote, but everyone knows he rigged everything. Sviatlana says she actually ended up with 60%) Alexander decided the mercenaries were just guys hired by those pesky Ukrainians, and allowed them to leave.
So WHO THE HELL WERE THEY? I would think you can’t just make the wild claims of a coup and then say it was all a misunderstanding. These mercenaries were just here for a nice vacation, a week before a huge presidential elections?
Option 1: Sergei and Sviatlana hired them.
This one seems unbelievable. I don’t think you can run on a pro-democracy ticket and also bring in outsiders to forcefully seize control. If the people weren’t behind them from the beginning, what change would actually occur. Also, Belarus has 48,000 troops, so a handful of mercenaries wouldn’t be that helpful.
Option 2: Alexander hired them.
Maybe he saw the handwriting on the wall, maybe he was afraid of his people turning on him, maybe he thought he needed a team in place to get him out of the country in a hurry. Again, it doesn’t seem right. Even if he loses, you would have to think he would have factions in the army loyal to him in case he needed protection. You would also think you would instruct you subordinates to not arrest these guys in the first place and bring attention to their presence.
Option 3: the Ukrainians.
According to the current story put forth by the Belarus government, the men were lured to Belarus by Ukrainian spies (with an assist somehow from the U.S. government?). Once they left Belarus, they would be booked on flights to places that were to the south. Important, because that would fly them directly over Ukrainian airspace. The Ukrainians would find some reason to force their plane to land, then arrest them for the roles in the never-ending fighting between Ukraine and Russia. But what were the mercenaries told they were there for? Did they think it was coincidence they were sent to a turbulent country the week before a presidential election?
Maybe the official story is true. Maybe they had nothing to do with what seems to be a giant moment in the history of Belarus. Maybe all of this changes nothing and the protests in Belarus die down and Alexander stays in power forever.
Or maybe things change.
-Kip
