Today, Explained - Why Belarus hijacked a plane

Episode Date: May 26, 2021

The hijacking of Ryanair flight 4978 is a big escalation of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s attempts to hold on to power. It might also be his downfall. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained. Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit connectsontario.ca. It's Today Explained. I'm Sean Ramos-Verm. Belarus is situated right between Europe and Russia, and its politics are pretty much positioned that way too. Back in August of 2020, we published an episode titled The Dictator vs. The Homemaker. The dictator was Alexander Lukashenko, who had been running Belarus since the mid-90s. The homemaker was Svatlana Tikhanovskaya, who ran against Lukashenko last August in place of her husband, who had been imprisoned.

Belarusians believed Lukashenko had stolen the election from Tikhanovskaya. Protests had erupted all over the country. There was hope this might have been the beginning of the end for Lukashenko. And we spoke to a Belarusian journalist about it, Franak Vyachorka. At the time, he had just fled Belarus because he feared for his safety for reporting the truth. Me, my friends, and my team, we all work for giving people true information. Fast forward nine months, Frenak has now left journalism and is working for none other than Svatlana Tekanoskaya. And when we found out, we were like,

Frenak, you left journalism to work for a politician? How could you? It's a good question. I just think that we never had politics before in Belarus. And for the first time in my life, for my 32 years of my life, I realized that politics appeared. This is not the politics that President Lukashenko gave us with his ugly police officers, KGB,

Soviet symbols and anthems and rituals. But this is the real cool democracy. We'll hear more from Frenak about the future of Belarus in the second half of the show. But first, the present. Lukashenko is still in power. And it is still a terrifying time to speak truth to his power. Exhibit A, the plane he hijacked over the weekend. So the story begins in Athens, where this dissident Belarusian journalist, Roman Protasevich, was on kind of a working holiday with his girlfriend.

Amy McKinnon is a reporter at Foreign Policy. So, you know, these protests kicked off in Belarus in the fall of last year. And Roman was one of the co-founders who ran this Telegram channel on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, which was essentially coordinating these protests of 100,000 people in a dictatorship, which were met with really, really brutal, violent crackdowns. So extremely intense and rough year. Roman was living in exile in Lithuania, and he was in need of a vacation. Who wouldn't be?

So he spent a couple of weeks in Athens with his girlfriend, and on Sunday morning, they were boarding a flight to fly back to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. And he sent messages to some of his colleagues in a group chat they have and said, you know, there's these weird guys that are kind of following me. He's trying to take pictures of my passport. They're speaking to me in Russian. And just kind of like something was up. He got on the flight nonetheless. And it's not clear the nuts and bolts of exactly what

happened next. But as the flight entered Belarusian airspace, someone called in a bomb threat. And Belarusian air traffic controllers told the flight that it had to land in the Belarusian capital, Minsk. Tonight, it's being called a state-sponsored hijacking. This commercial Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania forced to land while flying over Belarus. A steep banked turn towards Minsk within minutes of Vilnius, Lithuania. Belarusian authorities, at the order of the president, scrambled a fighter jet to accompany this civilian airliner, Ryanair plane full of holidaymakers and business people down to Minsk for an emergency landing

because of this supposed bomb. Once that was announced on the plane, we've heard from folks who were on the plane with him that Roman started speaking to the stewards on the plane and was saying, I'm a refugee, we cannot go there, they will kill me. So Roman stand up, quickly open the, let's say, luggage door, He's been accused of terrorism by the Belarusian authorities, and that carries a death penalty in Belarus. So half an hour as the flight is

descending into Minsk, Roman knows that he is heading back to the capital of the country where he's from and he could conceivably face the death penalty. So the flight lands in Minsk and Roman and his girlfriend, Sofia Sapega, are arrested upon arrival. And the plane, which we now know, of course, was full of EU citizens, of American citizens, so bringing in an untold number of countries into this crisis, is held for several hours in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, and is finally allowed to fly on to its original destination, Lithuania. How unprecedented is all of this to scramble a fighter jet to bring down a commercial plane only to, you know, eject a political dissident? It seems insane.

It was an incredibly audacious move and one which, frankly, I didn't think the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko had in him. I mean, to take a European flagged plane full of EU citizens flying from one EU country to another, European officials have called it a state hijacking, it is pretty much unprecedented. What is not unprecedented, however, is authoritarian states reaching their hands out beyond their borders to other countries to kidnap their opponents and their dissidents. That happens with pretty terrifying regularity. I used to live in Tbilisi, Georgia, and an Azeri journalist was kidnapped about two streets from where I lived and just

thrown in the back of a van and driven across the border to Azerbaijan where he was thrown in prison. There is an incredible Freedom House report earlier this year which looked at this issue of transnational repression and they found over 600 cases where authoritarian governments had been able to reach into other countries and cause some kind of physical harm to journalists, to opponents, to government critics in other countries. We're talking kidnappings, assassinations, this kind of thing happens with terrifying regularity. But the reason that it has gotten so much attention is, of course, the incredible audacity of doing it in the European Union. European leaders have agreed to sanction Belarus in response to its forced diversion of a Ryan

air flight and the arrest of a dissident journalist. Now reacting to what... So very quickly, we saw statements from European leaders of outrage, you know, as I said, describing this as a hijacking, as air piracy. And the pressure, I think, is really on Europe and the West at large to kind of make an example of this incident, you know, because if they don't, this is a terrifying precedent, which may start to look like an appealing option to other authoritarian leaders around the world. And so on Monday evening, the European Union met and they agreed to impose new sanctions, further sanctions on Belarus, economic sanctions.

Economic sanctions and travel restrictions will be imposed on a number of individuals linked to the plane's diversion. And a €3 billion EU investment package for Belarus will remain on hold. A lot of airlines actually voluntarily said, we're not dealing with this, we're not going to fly over Belarusian airspace. And very quickly following that, the European Union and the UK both called for airliners in the region to not fly over Belarus. And that's pretty incredible. That puts Belarus in a family with hostile nations and countries that are at war. So that's incredible to have that on the borders of the European Union and on the borders of NATO, to have that kind of precedent. Why did Lukashenko want to arrest this journalist, Roman? So he was the co-founder of one of the most famous telegram channels in Belarus, which is called Nekhta, which means like somebody. And during the protests last August, what was incredible about the protests in Belarus last August was there was no one clear leader. You know,

normally you see opposition figureheads, which are kind of calling the shots or coordinating protests or, you know, like in the case of Ukraine, there was a central square where everyone rallied. In Belarus, it was completely diffuse. It was just hundreds of thousands of people who decided they had had enough of what is widely regarded as a corrupt and rigged presidential election. And everyone just poured out onto the streets. And so Nechta was able to take that outrage,

take that very organic outrage, and kind of channel it into protests. That was met with a very quick violent crackdown. But people kept coming out day after day after day, week after week. It was several weeks of just huge, huge protests. And I think this tells you how afraid Lukashenko is. This is not a sign of strength. I see this as a show of weakness that, you know, young people running telegram channels have the capacity to coordinate mass unrest, which posed the biggest threat that his regime has seen in his 27 years of rule. He's afraid of them. He wants to silence them and he wants to shut them down. So

this is testament to how nervous he is, how insecure he feels, but also to the incredible power that these very brave journalists have. And what do we know of what happened to this journalist, Roman and his girlfriend? So on Monday, a video emerges of Roman on Telegram channels, which are known to be friendly to the Belarusian government. And a lot of people have likened it to the forced confessions that you saw in the Soviet Union. So highly scripted, Roman is essentially reading a statement and confessing to crimes of trying to unquote, crimes of organizing street protests. In the video, he appeared to be very shaken.

There was a mark visible on his forehead. And certainly his family, his colleagues, I mean, anybody who knows what the Belarusian authorities are capable of are very worried that he's going to be tortured, if he hasn't been already. Do we know what happens to him now? Officially, it depends on what he's charged with. If he is charged with inciting protests and unrest,

that carries a 15-year prison sentence, which is insane for protests, which in all democracies is a right and a civil liberty. The two scarier scenarios I think that most people are afraid of is that he is convicted of terrorism, which carries a death penalty in Belarus, or that he dies in prison. And there is unfortunately plenty of precedent for that. Last week, an opposition protester who was serving a five-year sentence for going to protest died in prison, ostensibly of a heart condition,

but his wife has told the media he had no previously known heart condition. So it's once somebody dies in the hands of the Belarusian authorities, it's very, very murky what happens to them. And so there are very, very real and unfortunately founded concerns that Romain might die. Belarus is fast becoming a North Korea

on the borders of the European Union. It is closing further and further in on itself. It didn't have the best ties with Europe to begin with. I think now all of those bridges are burned. And the other interesting dynamic is that the more alienated Lukashenko makes Belarus become, from Europe and from the West, the more he leans into Russia. And so this whole episode now gives Russia significantly more leverage, again, over a country on the borders of Europe and NATO. Thank you. designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket.

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I'm Franek Večorka. I'm senior advisor to Svatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Belarus' democratic leader. And Franek, the last time we spoke to you, you were a journalist living in exile. Where are you right now? I was a journalist and I had to flee because of a good friend of mine who was detained and I just had a few hours to pack. I moved to Kyiv, but then in Kyiv I felt that I can do more, that I cannot just watch and report, I have to participate in this. So I wrote the message to Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya, our elected president, who was forced to leave

Belarus, that I'm ready to help. So I took the flight from Kyiv to Vilnius, actually flying over Belarus. And a few hours after I landed, I already was on the meeting with prime ministers of Scandinavian countries. So it was quite a cool beginning of my political career. The last time we spoke to you, protests had sort of exploded all over Belarus. This was back in August. What's happened since? Oh, I remember. I remember it was very dramatic. People were protesting every, every single day and the violence did not stop

them. People died. We counted victims. 35,000 detained. 3,000 criminal cases opened, and zero investigation on violence and torture in prison and in police. So basically, we found out ourselves in a very new reality. It's a new quality of Belarus society, but it's also new Belarus. Belarus with no freedom, with no democracy. Country ruled by military guys with the supreme leader on the top who loses feeling of reality. Are there still protests? There are, there are. But you know, there are no big marches. Remember

big protests on Sundays when people were bringing flags, posters. We saw how many of us are in this country. Before we were living in our small halls, in our small apartments, and we thought that, oh, I'm alone, what I can do alone? But last fall, we realized that we are millions, we are majority of the people of Belarus. But right now, people were suppressed. I have a friend who is sentenced to 15 years in prison. I have four friends who might be sentenced to death penalty.

You know, in Belarus, we still have death penalty and they didn't execute anyone, things got yet. But they accused in terrorism almost every single blogger in Belarus. What did this hijacking on Sunday represent to you? What does it mean to other Belarusian dissidents living in the European Union and abroad? It means that you can't feel safe anymore. Even if you are in the European anymore, even if you are in the European Union, even if you are in a democratic country, that KGB can reach you everywhere. When I saw on news, I understood that it's a special services operation in order to detain our friend. Because I was with Roman, I was chatting with him just a few hours before he got on board,

and he said that someone was following him, but in a few hours before he got on board. And he said that someone was following him, but in a few hours he will be in Vilnius and he will tell more. I didn't believe him because I was thinking he's paranoic, that KGB is everywhere, blah, blah, blah. But suddenly this happens. It's like in a Hollywood movie. You know, they took the fighter jet, fighter jet forced commercial aircraft to land in Minsk and everything because of Roman. 26 years old guy, the blogger, stopping the airplane

and coming into international scandal just because Lukashenko wanted to arrest blogger dissident. Do you think this could be the nail in the coffin for Lukashenko? Was this an overreach that he'll now finally have to answer for? I will make sure it's a nail in the coffin. You know, I was six years old when he came to power. I spent all my life living under Lukashenko.

I didn't see other politicians except Lukashenko and now Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya, who is the leader. And I will do all possible, you know, to end this horrible story, this horrible movie, this horrible Netflix show Lukashenko prepared for us. His time is over.

He's the man from the past. My generation and younger people, they don't want to live under his rule anymore. So this is the chance for us, but we need international support. We need the strong solidarity from outside. Belarusians want to protest, but peaceful protest. And it will be possible only if the world will stand with us. We were never so close to changes. We were never so close to democracy. And I realized how spoiled Westerners are. I realized how tough to get back democracy and how easy to lose freedom.

I'm sure that when the story will end, Belarus and people will be mature and they will appreciate and they will value what they have and they will never let dictatorship or any dictator come to power again. As for me, I also was never involved in politics. You know, I used to think as all Belarusians, I can't change anything. And, I don't know, accidentally, because regime underestimated me and Belarusian people,

they allowed me to participate, like, allowed me to participate in these elections. I got huge support of Belarusian people. And I won this election, but the elections were stolen. But people are not giving up. People continue to resist under these difficult circumstances. They have to be creative in fighting this regime, but they will not stop. Thank you. you