How Belarus persecutes our brothers.

last updated 8 January 2015

Poland

Jerzy Haszczynski

Belarus is targeting its Poles, said Jerzy Haszczynski in Warsaw’s Rzeczpospolita. For the past year, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the former Soviet republic’s paranoid dictator, has become increasingly convinced that the next “color revolution” in the region will be aimed at him. Now that he has “persecuted the opposition” almost out of existence, his paranoia has seized on the Polish minority. Lukashenka decided that the half-million ethnic Poles in Belarus are a “fifth column, under orders from Warsaw and bankrolled by Washington.” To combat this “enemy within,” he’s begun unleashing his police on the Polish community. Last week, cops raided a Polish community center in Grodno. At the same time, police refused to investigate the murder of an elderly Polish activist who was stabbed to death in her home. “Poland must respond resolutely.” So must the E.U., which so far refuses to intervene on the grounds that these crimes are “a bilateral matter.” Such a stance “is unacceptable.” Protecting minorities is the duty of all Europeans, “not just the Poles.”