The border clash between Poland and Belarus worsens with the pressure of hundreds of migrants at the gates of the EU
The Polish government warned on Monday of the massive arrival of immigrants at the border with Belarus. Hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers headed towards the Polish border and tried to cross into European territory, according to the Polish Border Guard. “The group is under the control of armed Belarusians. It is they who decide the direction they take, ”warned Stanislaw Zaryn, spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior, in a message through his Twitter account. The situation has also provoked the reaction of the president of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, who has demanded that the Minsk regime "stop putting people's lives in danger". "The instrumentalization of migrants by Belarus is unacceptable", continued the head of the Community Executive.
Countries bordering Belarus and the European Union accuse the Minsk regime of orchestrating human trafficking in response to sanctions imposed by Brussels. And it seems that these sanctions will not stay here. Von der Leyen announces in a statement issued late in the afternoon that she "is talking with the leaders of the member states to extend the sanctions on the Belarusian authorities." In addition, the presenter has warned that she is exploring “how to sanction, including through blacklisting, third-country airlines that are actively involved in human trafficking.”
Different videos published by the Polish authorities showed the hundreds of immigrants gathered at the foot of the barbed wire fence that separates the two countries. On the Belarusian side, the cry of migrants and refugees could be heard. On the Polish side, amid the growing tension, policemen and soldiers looked at those in front of them. In one of the videos, an object crossed the wire fence and landed between the security agents, who protected themselves equipped with shields and weapons. The Polish Border Guard reported this Monday that due to the situation at the crossing between the two countries, the passage through the Kuźnica post was closed from early Tuesday.
"Very disturbing information coming from the border," spokesman Zaryn posted. “A significant group of migrants has gathered in Belarus, near the border with Poland. […] They will try to enter Poland en masse, ”he warned in the morning. "Polish services are prepared for any eventuality," said Deputy Interior Minister Maciej Wasik. The videos, also posted on Twitter by the Belarusian opposition network Nexta, showed hundreds of people dressed in warm clothing to avoid the cold and backpacks as they walked along a road. According to the France Presse news agency, one of the recordings was made near the border town of Bruzgi, in Belarus, 1.2 kilometers from the border with Poland.
The situation has not only provoked verbal reaction from the European Commission. Von der Leyen has also announced that in the coming days Vice President Margaritis Schinas "in coordination with the High Representative, Josep Borrell, will travel to the main countries of transit and origin [of migrants] to ensure that these countries prevent their citizens so that they do not fall into the trap of the Belarusian authorities.”
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Meanwhile, the Lukashenko regime is intensifying its campaign to blame Poland for the migration crisis unleashed on its borders. The Bélaya Rus platform, created by the president in 2007 to support his figure from civil society, ensures that Minsk fulfills all its obligations. In its territory, he assures, "there are no problems with migrants", while this platform accuses the Polish Government of violating "totally the values and obligations that it undertook to observe when it joined the European Union in 2004". "I want to recall the Dublin agreement, by which the Polish side should not use force or the army, but accept the applications of migrants and analyze to what extent they meet the criteria to provide them with refugee asylum," said Piotr Petrovsky, a political scientist. of the platform, to the Belta agency.
“New hybrid form of international terrorism”
The head of the Belarusian state border committee encourages migrants brought from the Middle East to enter the community bloc. "All these people, including women and children, do not represent a threat to security, they behave well," added Anton Bychkovski, who also hinted that Poland "can invent a provocation to justify the use of force" against migrants.
The use of foreigners as a weapon of pressure dates back to the summer, when the Lukashenko government began to bring immigrants from the Middle East by plane to send them to Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, countries with which Minsk is at odds. However, the opposition body Popular Anticrisis Directorate considers this a mistake by the regime. This committee, led from exile in Poland by former minister Pavel Latushka, believes that the crisis will increase pressure on the dictatorship, since Lukashenko "uses human lives instrumentally to achieve his political goals." "It is time to ask the democratic world to recognize Lukashenko as an international terrorist," Latushka told EL PAÍS.
This use of foreigners "is a new hybrid form of international terrorism" whose ultimate goals "are the preservation of power and the destabilization of the European Union," adds the former minister. “Instead of calling an ambulance, everyone is waiting for the planned hospitalization of the patient,” laments Latushka, referring to the international inaction against the regime after the suppression of the demonstrations for electoral fraud in the summer of 2020.
“Lukashenko goes to a local military conflict on the border of the European Union, but he will sell it to the whole world with the image of a humanitarian crisis blamed on the Europeans. This is a type of Nazi-era propaganda,” he adds. According to opponents, the solution is for the international community not to recognize Lukashenko's government, which has been in force for 27 years, and impose very harsh sanctions "for the hybrid attack unleashed."
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