The pen is still mightier than the sword

The power of communication, whether expressed through words written or spoken, can still apparently make socalled “strongmen” shiver. Fear of what a dissident critic or journalist might say and inspire can spur assassination plots, imprisonment, use of state weapons, and acts of piracy.

Knowing a motivation exists doesn’t make such actions easier to deal with, for both the people targeted and officials meant to protect laws and international norms.

Earlier this week Belarus diverted, on President Alexander Lukashenko’s orders, a civilian Ryanair plane flying over its airspace on the basis of an alleged bomb threat — widely considered by politicians in Europe to be a trumped-up excuse. The plane was escorted down by a MiG-29 fighter. No bomb was found but Lukashenko’s regime took the opportunity to arrest an exiled journalist on board, opposed to the man known as “Europe’s last dictator”.

Roman Protasevich, 26, was detained with his girlfriend Sofia Sapega. They both subsequently appeared in confession videos and face criminal charges.

Protasevich, based in Lithuania after fleeing Belarus in 2019, was a founding editor of Telegram blogging channel Nexta, which activists used to organise protests over Lukashenko’s rule last year. More than 35,000 people have been arrested in a crackdown. The opposition and foreign governments say last August’s election was rigged to ensure Lukashenko won.

Passengers, who expected to fly from Athens, Greece, to Vilnius, Lithuania, were essentially caught up in the internal politics of a state with a rogue regime which doesn’t tolerate dissent and wants dissenters outside the country to know it.

Plucking a plane out of the air to target an opponent would appear to be a breach of aviation rules. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called it an attack on European sovereignty. Other European leaders called it a hijack, air piracy and an act of state terror.

For once the European Union acted swiftly. Airports and airspace in the European bloc were closed to the Belarus national airline. Other airlines were urged to avoid the country’s airspace. That hits the Belarusian economy because the country gets payments for use of its airspace. A plane flying from Minsk to Barcelona was denied access to French airspace and turned back.

Lukashenko, who has ruled the former Soviet state for 27 years, insisted the bomb threat was real and claimed the West is waging a “hybrid war” against his country of 9.3 million.

He charged that Protasevich and others were working with foreign spy agencies to “organise a massacre and a bloody rebellion in Belarus”. And he had a thuggish warning for opponents abroad: “We know your faces, and it’s just a matter of time for you to be brought to account before the Belarusian people”.

For the EU, there was little choice but to act quickly. Unless the deterrence is tough enough, it may not be the last time it happens.

Regardless, an unwelcome element of doubt has settled in. It is not that long since an airliner, Flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down over Ukraine in 2014. Dutch investigators concluded it was hit by a surface-to-air missile supplied to pro-Russian rebels during the conflict there.

Shameless brazenness has become the international currency of autocrats who know democracies don’t usually have the stomach for more than verbal condemnations and sometimes travel bans and asset freezes.

The EU has particular problems of getting so many different countries to agree to a course of action. After wars, a pandemic, and economic rebuilding, who wants to play world policemen?

Shameless brazenness has become the international currency of autocrats who know that democracies don’t usually have the stomach for more than verbal condemnations.

Authoritarians have more leeway. Despite sanctions and disapproval, the conflict in Myanmar has already gone from protests to deadly crackdowns to people fighting security forces.

And some countries are, realistically, intimidating to take on or have to be worked with on other international issues. Belarus, a non-EU member and client state of Russia, is easier to punish for wrong-doing than Russia itself.

President Vladimir Putin’s regime has opposition leader, anti-corruption campaigner and blogger Alexei Navalny locked up after his poisoning in Russia with nerve agent Novichok.

It was the same type of chemical used to attack former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, although different to the polonium-210 used to kill former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006. Litvinenko had accused Putin of ordering the killing of reporter Anna Politkovskaya.

And Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince has survived the political fallout over the killing of dissident and Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 at a Saudi consulate in Turkey.

As authoritarians test out new ways of crushing critics, there will be a need for more wordsmiths and authorities prepared to support them.