BelarusDigest, a project providing non-partisan analysis of Belarus-related events written by Belarusians specifically for an English-language readership, has two main reasons why Belsat TV should continue to receive support from the Polish government.
“Firstly, the closure of Belsat TV will further delay the democratisation of Belarus and hinder its movement towards the West. Belsat, as well as other projects, plays a large role in supporting Belarusian national identity, and Belarusian identity remains the basis for the existence of a Belarusian state.
Belsat remains for Belarusians the only TV alternative to the official views propagated on Belarusian and Russian television. While the station cannot democratise the country alone, Belsat’s journalists play an important role at a grassroots level. For example, in 2016, a corrupt official from Slonim came under investigation thanks to Belsat.
Now, even the Belarusian authorities are feeling the heat of Russian nationalism. Just this week the Belarusian Foreign Ministry officially protested statements by Leonid Reshetnikov, the Kremlin-linked head of the influential Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, who claimed that Belarus remains a part of Great Russia.
It seems that nowadays Lukashenka’s regime has more problems with Russian TV broadcasts than with Belsat. The authorities are no longer seriously afraid of a pro-Western colour revolution, but are more concerned about the threat from the East. Incidentally, the Russian-backed Sputnik.by welcomed the possible closure of Belsat calling it “a remnant of the past”.
Secondly, de-funding Belsat will deprive Poland of its most important instrument of influence in Belarus, into which it has already invested around $40m. Furthermore, Poland will lose its moral credibility. When Polish politicians first launched Belsat TV, they gave speeches about solidarity and alluded to the help Poland received from the Western countries during the communist times.
Poland certainly has a right to set its own foreign policy priorities, but compromising its values and abandoning such a huge project will make Warsaw less credible and predictable to many countries. Diplomats from other Western countries have privately expressed to Belarus Digest their concern over the possibility of such a sharp U-turn.
Over the course of Lukashenka’s rule Poland had 12 different foreign ministers. Some of them believed that they could engage Lukashenka and others wanted to isolate him. However, never has the Polish Foreign Ministry come this close to abandoning the long-term moral commitment of Poland to support Belarusian statehood, democracy, and independence.”
Read the full article by Ryhor Astapenia “A U-Turn In Poland’s Policy Towards Belarus?”
On December 18, Witold Wazczykowski, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland, voiced the ministry’s plans of Belsat TV transition to a web mode and its journalists’ transfer to TVP Polonia.
- Belsat TV Director makes statement on channel’s future
- What is ‘Belsat’ and how many Belarusians watch it?
- Poland’s Foreign Ministry plans to reform Belsat TV into web portal
There is an online petition to support “Belsat” on the Internet. To sign it, you need to follow the link.
Belsat.eu
