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    Belarus - Opposition Call For 'Crippling General Strike' Fails To Reach Workers MOA Archived Message

    Posted by MikeD on October 27, 2020, 5:55 pm

    Belarus - Opposition Call For 'Crippling General Strike' Fails To Reach Workers

    On April 30 2019 some Random Guyaidó in Venezuela got snookered into a coup attempt which turned him into a laughingstock when the troops he had expected to support him failed to show up:

    The whole coup attempt was run within a 500 x 200 meter corridor with nothing of significance happening outside of it. A dangerous propaganda stunt but so far nothing more than that.

    This slight modification of the Guaidó/López picture above seems appropriate. These dudes are mere comic figures, wannabe fantasy heroes.

    bigger

    One would have thought that such a comical failure would have put an end to similar schemes of 'western' supported regime change attempts.

    Unfortunately it didn't.

    In June 2020 it became obvious that a U.S. directed color revolution was planned to unseat the President Lukashenko of Belarus. It happened as usual after the election results were put into doubt. But just a few days later it became obvious that the attempt had failed:

    While President Alexander Lukashenko claimed to have won 80% of the votes during last Sunday's election, the 'western' candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya claimed that she had won. (While the 80% is certainly too high it is most likely that Lukashenko was the real winner.) Protests and riots ensued. On Tuesday Tikhanovskaya was told in no uncertain terms to leave the country. She ended up in Lithuania.

    Lukashenko then proceeded to make a deal with Russia which promised him protection in exchange for progress in the creation of a Russian-Belarus Union State.

    Even the NATO lobby-shop Atlantic Council admitted that the coup attempt had failed:

    The author rightly concludes:

    [T]he resistance of the Lukashenka regime is strengthening by the day. With Russia now seemingly standing firmly behind Lukashenka, photogenic rallies and patchy strike action will not be enough to bring about historic change.

    It is over. The 'patchy strikes' were never real industrial actions. A few journalist of the Belarus state TV went on a strike. They were unceremoniously fired and replaced with Russian journalists. A few hundred workers at the MTZ Minsk Tractor Works did a walk out. But MTZ has 17,000 employees and the 16,500+ who did not walk out know very well why they still have their jobs. Should Lukashenko fall it is highly likely that their state owned company will be sold off for pennies and immediately 'right sized' meaning that most of them would be out of work. During the last 30 years they have seen that happen in every country around Belarus. There have no urge to experience that themselves.

    On Monday the leader of the earlier MTZ walk out, one Sergei Dylevsky, was arrested while he agitated for more strikes. Dylevsky is a member of the self-proclaimed Coordination Council of the opposition which demands negotiations over the presidency. Other members of the council have been called in for questioning by state investigators over a criminal case against the council.

    Meanwhile the rather hapless opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who falsely claimed to have won the election, is in Lithuania. She is supposed to be an English teacher but has difficulties reading the English text begging (vid) for 'western' support. She has already met various 'western' politicians including the General Secretary of the German Christian Democratic Union party of chancellor Angela Merkel, Peter Zeimiag, and the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun. Neither will be able to help her.

    Despite her obvious lack of popular support Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, like Juan Guaidó in Venezuela, was urged to make another attempt. Two weeks ago she had the chutzpah of giving Lukashenko an ultimatum to resign:

    Belarus's exiled opposition leader on Tuesday gave strongman President Alexander Lukashenko a deadline of two weeks to resign, halt violence and release political prisoners, warning he would otherwise face a crippling general strike.

    Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who maintains she was the true winner of an August 9 election, issued what she said was a "people's ultimatum", demanding Lukashenko quit power by October 25 and halt the "state terror" unleashed by authorities against peaceful protesters.

    "If our demands are not met by October 25, the whole country will peacefully take to the streets," she said in a statement released in Lithuania, where she is currently based in exile after leaving Belarus following the election.

    "And on October 26 a nationwide strike will begin at all enterprises, all roads will be blocked, and sales at state stores will collapse," she said. "You have 13 days."

    On October 25 there was indeed another medium sized protest in Minsk. But those who participated were again the upper middle class and better off people, not the industry workers and farmers who make up the majority of the Belarusian people.

    But the general strike announced for yesterday had few if any participants:

    “Today, the people’s strike begins – the next step for Belarusians towards freedom, an end to violence and new elections,” Tikhanovskaya said on Monday. “Belarusians know that the main task on 26 October is to show that nobody will work for the regime.”

    However, despite the sight of large columns of protesters in the streets again – and the sense that the protest has regained some of the momentum it has lost in recent weeks – there was no sign of significant numbers of workers at state-controlled plants joining the strike for any sustained length of time.
    ...
    At the Minsk tractor factory, one of the big plants that are the pride of Lukashenko’s neo-Soviet economy, most workers appeared to be clocking on as normal for the Monday morning shift. The leader of an earlier strike at the factory in August was forced to flee the country under pressure from authorities, and many workers fear reprisals for striking. At most, some workers briefly expressed support for the protest before or after their shifts, but did not actually refuse to work.

    A few hundred students at some university skipped their classes and walked in the streets. But the workers kept working. No roads were blocked. The shop traffic was normal.

    The workers in the state owned industries know very well that most of them will become jobless and poor should the 'western' supported neo-liberal opposition gain power in Belarus. Everything would be privatized for pennies and 'right-sized' by mass layoffs. They have seen that happen again and again in each of their neighboring countries.

    Juan Guaido declared a coup without having made sure that the soldiers he expected would show up. The soldiers knew that it was not in their interest to follow him.

    Svetlana Guaidoskaya declared a general strike without understanding that the workers she called on are nor interested in her neo-liberal schemes. That she, or her handlers, even attempted to urge for a strike shows how little they understand the real concerns the workers have.

    Belarus, like Venezuela, has a government and system that is supported by the majority of its people. Neither country can be regime changed without a military intervention from abroad. That will not be coming anytime soon.

    Posted by b on October 27, 2020

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