On 8 October 2021 in Tallinn, Estonia, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Latvia, Edgars Rinkēvičs, took part in the United Nations Security Council’s Arria-formula meeting on the situation in Belarus. In his statement, Edgars Rinkēvičs drew attention to the last year’s presidential elections in Belarus.
“Instead of engaging with the civil society, the regime violently oppressed the peaceful protests. It used a method unheard of before – a forced diversion of a flight to arrest a political opponent, which can be described in no other terms but terroristic. Today we heard testimonies of brutal violations of human rights in Belarus. Latvia was one of the first countries to provide support to Belarusian people after the repressions started – medical aid, psychological support, legal assistance, scholarships, immediate help to journalists and other media workers. Thousands of Belarusians had to flee the country, many of them finding rescue in neighbouring countries, including Latvia,” Edgars Rinkēvičs said.
“Since the summer, we have seen the Belarusian regime organising the arrivals of people from third countries to Belarus, promising them easy access to the European Union. When these people realise that they have been lured into Belarus and the EU borders are protected, they face difficulties to return to their home countries. The regime is using threats and physical force to push them to cross the EU border illegally. The main goal of this is to destabilise the EU and the three neighbouring EU countries in particular. This is a clear retaliation for us being decisive in our support to Belarusian civil society, and for giving shelter and protection to Belarusian people demanding free and fair elections in their country,” the Latvian Foreign Minister underlined.
Edgars Rinkēvičs asserted that the Lukashenka regime is conducting a hybrid attack on EU Member States. It is organised not only to influence the EU, but also to gain financial profit from those illegal activities. In this respect, the actions of Belarusian authorities resemble the ones of people smugglers and organised crime networks.
“Moreover, the operation is accompanied by a massive disinformation campaign to discredit the neighbouring EU countries and to divert the attention from Lukashenka government’s brutality against their own people,” the Minister added.
The Foreign Minister of Latvia called on the international community to be firm in its demand to Belarus to comply with its international obligations, to stop the brutal human rights violations and the inhumane policy of instrumentalising people from third countries for political purposes.