DISINFO: The EU organised the migrant crisis in Belarus and will continue doing so in other countries
SUMMARY
Since 2015, flows of irregular migrants have been used as a political tools of reprisal against opponents and an excuse to impose sanctions domestically or externally. It is now happening now in relation to Belarus. There is little doubt that a human sacrifice victim, a migrant kid, will be brought soon.
Similar man-made crises will continue happening against other countries which the EU opposes. Russia can be one of them. Once the EU needs to destabilise it or introduce new sanctions, all of a sudden, large migration flows will be organised. Soon everyone will find out who will follow Lukashenka as another target of the EU.
RESPONSE
This article obfuscates the actual reasons behind EU sanctions against the Belarusian regime and promotes recurring disinformation narratives about the ongoing migration situation on the eastern border of the European Union with Belarus.
The EU has not used, and does not intend to use, irregular migration flows as a means of reprisal or an excuse for introducing sanctions against foreign states. This is groundless speculation which, by mentioning Russia as the next probable ‘target’, fits recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about Western anti-Russian activities.
The EU did not recognise the falsified results of the Belarusian Presidential election on 9 August 2020 or the new mandate claimed by Alyaksandr Lukashenka. On 19 August 2020, the European Council called the Belarus elections neither free nor fair and on 2 October 2020, the Council imposed restrictive measures against 40 individuals identified as responsible for repression and intimidation against peaceful demonstrators, opposition members, and journalists, as well as for misconduct of the electoral process.
The EU imposed new restrictive measures against the Belarusian regime to respond to the escalation of serious human rights violations in Belarus and the violent repression of civil society, democratic opposition and journalists, as well as to the forced landing of a Ryanair flight in Minsk on 23 May 2021 and the related detention of passengers, opposition activist journalist Raman Pratasevich and Sofia Sapega.
The article also obfuscates the actual reasons for the migration crisis at the Belarus-EU border by presenting the US as a beneficiary. There is plenty of evidence that the Belarusian authorities have instigated the ongoing migration crisis in Lithuania, Poland and Latvia. More information about Lukashenka’s role in the organisation of the current migration crisis can be found here and here and here.
On 15 November 2021, the EU broadened the scope for sanctions to tackle hybrid attacks and instrumentalisation of migrants. The EU will now be able to target individuals and entities organising or contributing to activities by the Lukashenka regime that facilitate the illegal crossing of the EU's external borders. This came amid the growing instrumentalisation of migration by the Belarusian authorities.
Earlier, President von der Leyen stated that the situation on the EU-Belarus border is "the attempt of an authoritarian regime to try to destabilise its democratic neighbours". Similarly, High Representative Borrell has highlighted that the Lukashenka regime is weaponising human beings as a tool for political purposes by giving migrants false expectations and putting them in a situation of extreme vulnerability.
See other disinformation cases concerning the ongoing migration crisis on the Belarusian border which allege that Lithuanian border guards use violence against migrants, including abandoning pregnant women, that migrants in Lithuania are kept in concentration camps in unsanitary conditions, and that the West plans to push thousands of illegal migrants to Belarus using force.
See our articles on the Belarus migrants situation here and here.