GROSS: So you were just at the border of Belarus and Poland to witness what was going on there. And he's going to disregard them as much as possible. And what he's doing by playing this game is showing that he doesn't care about those things. Remember that his opposition wants democracy. His goal is to cause instability and to simultaneously frighten his own opposition and his neighbors. His goal is to show that democracy doesn't work, that human rights is a - is just a slogan. As I said, the leader of the Belarusian opposition now lives in Vilnius. His goal is to upset Poland and Lithuania, the two countries that have taken quite a number of Belarusian dissidents. His goal is to make leaders of the European Union negotiate with him. His goal is to cause instability along his border. This is his response - or it's one of his responses. In response to that, Lukashenko's neighbors in Europe and also in the United States sanctioned him - economic sanctions, personal sanctions, other kinds of sanctions. He forced the main opposition leader outside of the country.
But instead of losing - instead of giving up power, he arrested his opposition. Why has Belarus lured migrants to that country and then tried to force them across the border to Lithuania, to Poland? What's the point?ĪNNE APPLEBAUM: Last summer, the dictator of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, lost an election. Anne Applebaum's latest book is called "Twilight Of Democracy: The Seductive Lure Of Authoritarianism."Īnne Applebaum, welcome back to FRESH AIR. But once they spent a small fortune and endured a long, grueling trip, Belarus security forced them, often at gunpoint, to the Polish border and made them try to cross over. Belarus lured people from Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria who were seeking asylum. She just returned from the polar side of the Belarus border, where she says Belarus has weaponized human desperation. One focus of that article is Belarus, which she thinks represents a new form of authoritarianism and illustrates new ways in which authoritarian countries are helping each other in ways that will help each of those authoritarian rulers preserve their individual power and wealth.
Her article, "The Autocrats Are Winning," is the cover story of the new issue of The Atlantic, where she's a staff writer.
My guest, journalist Anne Applebaum, has devoted years to writing about authoritarianism and for the past few years has been warning about its growth in Europe and the U.S.
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