One Iraqi was killed three times
There was one known euphemism in Soviet times. When our gallant pilots or pevoshniki shot down a foreign plane – a border invader, the press did not talk about it in plain text. Instead, the wording was used: an alien plane “went ashore.” The informal championship organized by Lithuania and Belarus for the transport of illegal migrants from third world countries across their common border gave this completely unkind tradition a new touch. At the same time, he vividly emphasized the moral and political “physiognomy” of all parties to the conflict, who like to speculate about morality and high values.
Photo: president.gov.by.
As for “all participants”, I was excited. Alexander Lukashenko's moral and political face has been emphasized so long ago and so well that you won't find anything new there – no matter how hard you try. Instead, the current “spotlight” emphasized features of the Old Man that we had forgotten, such as his ability to find the most vulnerable place to the enemy and strike an asymmetrical but very painful blow.
A brief history of the problem. For some reason, for some reason, the small and proud country of Lithuania has suddenly decided that it is a political power obliged to contribute in all directions to the change of power in such “backward neighbors” as Russia and Belarus. The management of numerous “Free Russia Forums” for emigrants and the provision of a platform to Svetlana Tikhanovskaya as a platform for her activities as “legally elected President of Belarus” are just the clearest cute political pranks of Vilnius.
Moscow – apparently for lack of other alternatives – largely ignored these jokes. But the hot guy Alexander Grigorievich Lukashenko decided to show a creative approach. In a country that is de facto mono-ethnic (86.4% of its population are Lithuanians according to official statistics), crowds of illegal migrants from Africa and the Middle East have suddenly started flooding the Belarusian border. And Lukashenko answered and answers all questions and statements in style: I know nothing, you yourself invited them! And then something happened that had long been pushed by the relentless logic of events: the victim of the “hot death of Lithuanian hospitality” was an Iraqi citizen who had been shot dead as he “walked” across the border strip.
This tragic event became a pretext for a new powerful information war. Belarus's state news agency Belta: “The shocking murder of an Iraqi returning from Lithuania was immediately reported to the President of Belarus … The reaction was immediate. The Committee of Inquiry, under the control of the Public Prosecutor's Office, was instructed to open an investigation immediately. Interview including locals (they were the ones who reported about the beaten man who died in the arms of the border guard) … The investigation of the situation as a whole is under the control of the head of state. “
The thesis about” An Iraqi returning from Lithuania “sounds, as you can see, somewhat ambiguous. But everything else is very touching. You and I have always suspected that for Lukashenko, human rights are everything. And now we are finally convinced of that.
The reaction of Vilnius's top officials to the incident was also very curious. I quote the Lithuanian information portal Delphi: “Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte said:” I do not know of any excesses that took place on the border between Lithuania and Belarus. The Belarussian authorities are responsible for what is happening in Belarus. ” She added that previously “the Minsk regime spread various false stories to discredit Lithuanian officials.” I can only quote Lithuanian Interior Minister Agne Bilolaite: “This is nonsense, the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm!”
The Lithuanian state is now run by heavy women, you will not say anything. They do not say directly that there was no dead Iraqi. Only advice is made about this, which is then very easy to refuse. And no ritual words of regret, no condolences, no promises of investigation. Only one bare statement: they say that even if there is a dead Iraqi, it is a problem exclusively for Belarus. However, even more than the reaction of the Lithuanian authorities, I was struck by the reaction of the “mouthpiece of progressive humanity”, which I read diligently every day in the form of the British newspaper “Guardian”. A reaction that shrunk to the absence of any reaction.
The recent episode with runner Kristina Timanovska was presented by the Guardian as the main news of the day. But about this report – complete silence. I do not dare to blame the perfectly politically correct journalists of this medium for its prejudice against the citizens of third world countries. So the whole point is their reluctance to play with such a “villain” as Alexander Lukashenko. In short, everything is as old as the world: there are “we” – good people who, by definition, cannot do anything wrong, – and “foreigners” – villains whose arguments and statements are obviously an information waste.
All clear and logical, but also very sad – especially for those citizens of countries in Africa and the Middle East who will continue to try to get to hospitable Lithuania through even more hospitable Belarus. What is moral? Probably because that's how big politics is done. Woe to those who did not have time to get out of the way, and a warning to everyone else.