MEP Rasa Juknevičienė has already announced on social networks that the expulsion of Cichanouskaja is one of Aliaksander Lukashenka’s victories and she, R. Juknevičienė, is ashamed of her country. And how do the politicians working in the Seimas of Lithuania, not in Brussels, evaluate S. Cichanouskaja’s departure?
S. Cichanouskaja has been living in Lithuania since the large-scale crackdown in 2020. she was forced to leave Belarus. Last year, Lithuania reduced her protection status – such a decision shocked the whole team, who began to doubt whether she is a welcome guest in this country.
S. Cichanouskaja in 2020 He competed with Aliaksandr Lukashenka in the presidential elections of Belarus. The opposition claims that it was the real winner of this election. The authorities of Belarus, which A.Lukashenka has ruled since 1994, have dealt with the protests, arresting thousands of people and forcing tens of thousands more to flee the country.
Most of the people left for Poland and Lithuania, and the opposition chose Vilnius as its headquarters.
S. Cichanouskaja’s team said that since Lithuania lowered its protection status in October, threats from the Minsk security service, the KGB, have increased.
She and her team will move to Warsaw in the near future, four people close to her and a source at the Polish Foreign Ministry told AFP. Her assistant Denis Kučinskis told reporters that S. Cichanouskaja’s husband, Siarhejus Cichanouskis, who was released from prison last year, is currently in the United States for security reasons.
S. Cichanouskaja met with Polish President Karol Navrockis in Warsaw last week.
Interview with member of the Seimas Committee on Foreign Affairs, former Minister of Foreign Affairs Audronis AŽUBALI:
Well, we should probably accept her S. Cichanouskaja’s decision with great respect. This is, so to speak, a political decision, so we should only wish the Cichanouskis all the best in their opposition activities after choosing their new state of residence.
– Will such a decision by S. Cichanouskaja not harm Lithuania’s international prestige, which R. Juknevičienė is so worried about?
– I don’t know what kind of prestige you are talking about here. Lithuania’s international prestige was and is. And we have always been consistent in our support for occupied countries or persecuted opposition organizations. That’s how we were and are. So I don’t see any trouble or problem here.
– Won’t we be blamed for lowering S. Cichanouskaja’s level of protection, so she became unsafe and had to leave?
– The protection level has not been reduced. Only a different level of protection was chosen, taking into account the security situation assessed by our special services. I really don’t see any, I would say, reason to feel uncomfortable about anything here.
– But S. Cichanouskaja received public criticism, pressure due to Litvinism – for not trying to criticize it.
– Well, I don’t know. I didn’t notice it. If we pressed, apparently not very much, because no official and detailed disassociation of S. Cichanouskaja from the pseudo-theory of Litvinism was ever done. So really, apparently, there was no pressure, because there were no statements.
– Is it likely that Poland will grant S. Cichanouskaja the same conditions that Lithuania has granted?
– I can’t say, but the Poles will probably provide the same level of protection as Pavel Latuška, the leader of the Belarusian opposition currently residing in Poland. I think that the level of protection will be very similar to the one that S. Cichanouskaja had in the state of Lithuania now.
– Will there be at least some significant Belarusian dissidents left in Lithuania?
– I would think so – sharing dissidents or oppositionists, in my opinion, is not serious at all. It is necessary to support them, the real oppositionists. Not those who return to Belarus from time to time, but the real ones. This is the duty of every democratic state and I think that Lithuania can do it. And whether they will stay in Lithuania or leave – this is their decision.
Interview with Aidus GEDVILU, a member of the Seimas National Security and Defense Committee:
Leaving is S. Cichanouskaja’s own business. I think we have been neither better nor worse since her presence. It was the shelter she needed and we provided that shelter for a long time. So, if a person has decided to leave, then, apparently, he has the appropriate motives for it. I think everything flows in its own way.
– For some reason, the Cichanouskis don’t seem to leave very grateful!
– Apparently, more descriptions could be said. And the behavior of Siarhejus Cichanouskis, covered by the media, really testified to the fact that those people lack gratitude and understanding. But maybe their further goals are not fully understood by us? I would think that there is really nothing for us to be sad about, to experience that the Cichanouskis are leaving.
– But R.Juknevičienė, Gabrielius Landsbergis will mourn!
– They somehow think about it differently than the whole of Lithuania. And if we look at social networks, we can see that the result of people’s opinion is not in favor of S. Cichanouskaja. And, apparently, the veil of secrecy that has always covered her maintenance, the privileges granted to her, and presupposes this situation that the majority of public opinion is not positive for her.
– Did her presence in Lithuania have any influence on A.Lukašenka? Maybe it scared you a lot?
– You must be joking. Since her arrival, I think it has just been a completely quiet time. If S. Cichanouskaja had been an active member of the opposition, she should have shown it. I don’t know what she did while traveling around other European countries, but if some of her statements were somewhat significant, it certainly wasn’t as much as we imagined. Apparently, now she chooses the country where she will be more comfortable.
For quite a long time, she used the privileges of Lithuania – both security and VIP flights, etc. All this shows that a person is more inclined to privileges, to comfortable conditions, but not to gratitude or, let’s say, to active work, which he had to take care of enough.
But this is probably not the first time that we have surprised the world with our foreign policy.
It would be good if the representatives of the government, who have all the information at their disposal, would tell us how much S. Cichanouskaja’s asylum cost us and conduct an analysis of the costs and the final political benefit.
