Matskevich: Facts must be admitted sooner or later

The political scientist has commented to Euroradio on the fact that Lukashenka admitted the illegal crossing of the border by a Swedish plane.

Euroradio: Why did Lukashenka decide to admit the fact of the illegal crossing of the border by a Swedish plane although neither state political scientists nor representatives of the Ministry of Defence had done it?

Uladzimir Matskevich: I think that it is no secret. It is just a standard malfunction of the order, the system of responsibility and decision making created by the current government, the current regime.

The thing is, most subordinates have very vague instructions on what to do in emergency situations. They have a clear vision of their plan of actions in standard satiations but there are no instructions for emergency situations. Of course, it is hard to prepare people for emergency situations even in democratic states. But people in democratic states are used to making clever decisions on their own no matter on what level they are. However, all non-typical decisions are taken by higher authorities in a dictatorship.

That is why ideologists had to react immediately - they do not have the right to elaborate ideological concepts on their own. State journalists and people from other governmental departments asked them to explain what had happened. They explained it using their own understanding of non-typical situations that had occurred in their lives or the way they imagined them.

But it was not a non-typical situation only. It was challenging and complicated. It revealed huge drawbacks of the whole system, the system Belarus sells to Russia. Joint air defence is the price Belarus pays for the Russian economic preferences. And then the whole world including Belarus' strategic ally, Russia, could see gaps in the system of air defence.

That is why it could not stay on the level of medium or minor ideologists or those who could explain how to behave in certain situations. Such things develop very slowly in the huge and slow system of the current Belarusian regime. A few weeks can pass before the whole system can decide on its attitude to the situation.
It turned out that it was impossible and needless to refute the fact. You can interpret it in different ways, but facts are stubborn. A fact must be admitted sooner or later. That's it.

Euroradio: Did Alyaksandr Lukashenka, being an element of the system, lack reactions?

Uladzimir Matskevich: Let me expand your question. There is a non-typical situation. How does the whole mechanism react to it? It is very slow and imperfect - almost two weeks had passed since the crossing of the border until the leader of the regime found time to admit the fact.

Let us recall the explosion in the metro in 2011. It was a non-standard situation too, the case was very loud and notorious. Nevertheless, the state leader arrived at the spot several dozen minutes later. The same happened on July 3, 2005 - the President was on the spot several minutes after the blast. No decision has been made in connection with the teddy bear case so far. How could they take a decision about the metro in three days? It only means that the Swedish teddy bear incident was unexpected for the whole regime while the blasts on July 3 and in the metro were not unexpected. If they had been unexpected, the authorities, the state and the security agencies would have reacted to them in the same clever way they are doing now. It means that the authorities use various means for manipulating the society. The means include terrorist acts. You should open your eyes and understand what is going on.

Euroradio: Will the recognition of the fact affect Basharymau and Surapin's sentences in any way?

Uladzimir Matskevich: Have you ever seen this state leader, this President admit his mistakes or correct the mistakes of his government when it was not advantageous (like lowering the prices for fuel in the past)? He never admits his or his satraps' mistakes. It is absurd, it is an impudent attempt to blame innocent journalists who depicted something that had fallen from the sky for the bad and unprofessional work of military men. The society should struggle with it instead of waiting for these impudent people to acknowledge their mistakes.