FRANKFURT, Germany, April 30 (UPI) -- Three events caught my attention this week. They took place in Belarus, Bulgaria and Iraq. They incensed me.
In Minsk, the capitol of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko ordered the arrest of four opposition leaders: Alexander Milinkevich (whom I wrote about March 30), Alexander Bukhvostau, Sergei Kalyakin and Vintsyuk Vyachorka.
Their crime: to have participated in a rally in Minsk a day earlier. It was peaceful. It had been approved by the city administration. KGB thugs sent on Lukashenko's orders broke it up. The rally, attended by many thousands, was called by the Belarus Academy of Sciences. It was held to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of Chernobyl.
In the early hours of April 26, 1986, sometime after 0100am, the nuclear power reactor in Chernobyl, 80 miles from Kiev (then the Soviet Union, now the capital of Ukraine) exploded -- causing the largest nuclear power disaster in history. On that day, 30 people were killed and 135,000 more had to be evacuated. Over the years, tens of thousands of people have been negatively affected by the fall-out. Large portions of Belarus were -- and still are-- contaminated.
"We will not wait until 2011 (the date of the next presidential elections). We will fight to remove Lukashenko from power. In one year, in two years, he feels us getting ever closer. Maybe it will occur quicker. Everything depends on us." Professor Milinkevich, my friend and colleague, said these words. He had called Lukashenko "a political Chernobyl." His opposition friends had nodded in support.
Quite the crime indeed.
Twenty-four hours later in Sofia, Bulgaria, the NATO foreign ministers met. No statement was released. No critique was offered. No call to action.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did not take the lead; neither did Germany's Frank-Walter Steinmaier, nor Britain's Jack Straw. They did not feel it necessary to condemn Lukashenko.
Disappointingly, not even my friends Cyril Svoboda of the Czech Republic nor Eduard Kukan of Slovakia issued calls-to-action. They had done so previously, but not on this occasion. I call on both of you to again take the initiative. Especially you, Eduard, you know the Belarusians, and this is a unique opportunity for Slovakia to define a geo-political role.
And the Russians?
A source close to President Vladimir Putin confirmed that he has also had in with Lukashenko. Putin, however, is concerned that the opposition is not able to run the government. He has asked the West to present him with a person or people who can manage regular government services -- the delivery of water, sewage management and waste disposal. Lukashenko has improved services and the general standing of Belarusians. Russia sees Lukashenko as a tyrant, but not as a genocidal maniac. And, he is not sponsoring terror outside his country. A big hurdle, according to this source, is the Polish governments unwillingness to recognize Russian authority over Belarus. Russia also sees a problem with the geopolitical balance.
Regardless, I again advocate shutting Lukashenko down.
While Lukashenko makes my blood boil, President Bush's decision to send Secretaries Rice and Rumsfeld together to Iraq makes my blood curdle.
I cannot remember the last time a president endangered the lives of a secretary of state and a secretary of defense together in this way.
It is a painful truth that 2-3 soldiers die per day in Iraq. It is a fact that over 2,000 young men and woman are already dead. At last count, over 20,000 service members are injured. This is creating a massive image problem for his administration. It would be scandalous to think that "image" should be the reason for the government to react.
Worse, some 2,000 maimed women -- women without arms and legs, partially devoid of limbs -- are a product of this war. Americans are used to war injuries, as painful as they are. They pain, but handle, young men coming home maimed. But the horror of maimed girls is too much for the average American.
Iraq is a massively unstable zone. Bombing and assassinations are a regular occurrence. Hundreds of thousands of Iraq's have died. Would the president and vice president be sent together on a trip to Iraq, or anywhere for that matter?
NO, of course not. NEVER!
A source close to the administration told me that the government, desperate to get U.S. Forces out of Iraq, is frenetically looking for an October Surprise. Sending Rice and Rumsfeld together was intended as a tag-team approach. This source claims that the government will allow Iraq to be split up. The idea is to have a major announcement before the 2007 elections, and to "get the boys and girls home" before the November 2008 elections; a small contingent would be left as a transition to the end of 2009. This would secure the election.
Is the government going to insult its soldiers by bringing them home before securing the peace? Never mind, that the war has been a failure, that there is no exit strategy and that it is wasting $50,000 per minute ($300 billion to date) without eliminating Osama bin Laden.
And let me be very clear, it is not the fault of our military and soldiers. It is Secretary Rumsfeld's disastrous and arrogant top-down decisions that have caused the Iraq fiasco -- a point I argued over a year ago in this column.
No matter.
Secretary Rice and Secretary Rumsfeld are 4th and 6th in line to the presidency.
Could elections really motivate a president to send them out together?
God I hope not.
But, none of it -- not one iota -- justifies putting them together in harms way.
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(UPI Columnist Marc S. Ellenbogen is chairman of the Global Panel Foundation and president of the Prague Society for International Cooperation. A Senior Associate at Syracuse's Maxwell School, he has had a long association with the United States Armed Forces. Based out of Berlin and Prague, he may be reached at [email protected])
