The Butterfly Effect

• Iryna Khalip
• 4.08.2017, 8:47

A bare butterfly runs about Drazdy in complete spiritual turmoil.

A few years ago I talked to a fellow traveler on a plane. He turned out to be a former Hungarian dissident. He served a punishment in a socialist Hungary, of course. We spoke all the way, compared dictatorships former and present ones, prisons of Hungary and today's Belarus, the Soviet KGB and the Hungarian UGB. And then the fellow traveler said thoughtfully: "Taxes ... The lousiest thing of a dictatorship is taxes."

I wondered why taxes, the KGB, prisons and tortures are worse! His answer was simple: "If you do not pay taxes to the dictatorship, you'll be imprisoned and presented as a criminal to the world. The civilized world does not like tax evaders. And if you pay taxes, you'll be imprisoned anyway, but you now know that they scoff at you at your own expense."

Now the accountant of the REP Trade Union Ihat Komlik is scoffed at at his own expense. And KGB officers played plumbers with the head of the Trade Union Henadz Fyadynich at his own expense. Because they paid taxes. (By the way, the REP Trade Union is officially registered and has been paying taxes and the rent). But they are now tried to be presented as malicious tax evaders. That Hungarian dissedent was right. But this scheme does not work anymore: no matter how many times they tried to expose Ales Byalyatski as a tax evader, it did not work. The world has changed since the Iron Curtain and has learned to recognize the KGB schemes which cause arrests and discremination of people who pose a threat to the regime. However, these schemes are all the same.

The Trade Union case has been compared to the Byalyatski case. And I want to remind you that in 2004 there was also the case of Mikhail Marynich, who was accused of taking over computers of the US Embassy. Those two ill-fated computers the embassy handed over to the public association "Business Initiative", headed by Marynich, for free use. Employees of the US Embassy even spoke in court - they explained that they had brought the office equipment themselves, there was nothing criminal. Nevertheless, Mikhail Marynich was found guilty and suffered a stroke in prison. In 2014 he died.

That was the retaliation for his intelligence and education, for presidential ambitions and chances, for a squeaky-clean reputation, for ties in international business community. That was the retaliation for December 2010. Everyone of arrested on December 19 had a high-skilled lawyer, at that, not every family could afford this.

What is the reason for revenge to the Trade Union? For everything. For the fact that the REP Trade Union has become an ulcer on the parchment body of a dying state. This is the organization with volunteers who provided assistance to political prisoners. It raised funds to help their families. It held press conferences of former political prisoners and other "anti-state elements" not allowed to other places. Lawyers and civil rights activists cooperated with the REP to abolish the tax on "parasitism". This "Trade Union of bullies" has become the center of organization of spring protests and autumn ones. (Do they really believe that it will prevent us from protests? Then they are even more stupid than rat-phobic Stsyapan Sukhoranka.)

And this kind of demonstrative criminal cases always mysteriously coincide in time with Western sanctions or polite refusals to help the regime. Arrest of Mikhail Marynich occurred during the preparation of the American "Act on Democracy in Belarus" and after point-blank denial to return the status of Belarus in the Council of Europe. The Byalyatski case occurred after mass repressions and Western counter-measures. The smash of independent Trade Unions is somehow close in time to the IMF's refusal to negotiate with Belarus on a new loan. Is this the butterfly effect? Is this the quality of chaotic systems? Has some Congressman said anything elsewhere, and we have problems?

Well, it sounds like some butterfly effect/ A bare butterfly runs about Drazdy in complete spiritual turmoil, beats against the walls and demands ravins. Other brainless butterflies run about the country to fulfill the order and smash everything they can lay their hands on. And someone watches them in a microscope and says: "Should we give a loan to them? One-celled ones? No way, they should challenge evolution. Or rather a revolution.

Iryna Khalip for Charter97.org