When the Window of Opportunity Opens, We Must Have a Scenario
- Admin of the NAM
- Jul 21
- 3 min read
During the VI "TUTAKA" Festival of Belarusian Culture, held in the Baryk area near Gródek in the Podlaskie Voivodeship of Poland, the National Anti-Crisis Management organized a panel discussion titled "The Round Table in Poland in 1989: Is Such a Scenario Possible in Belarus?"
The discussion was attended by the deputy head of the United Transitional Cabinet, head of the NAM, Pavel Latushka; the speaker of the Coordination Council of Belarus, Artsyom Brukhan; the deputy director of the Office of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Stanislava Hlinnik; the head of the Belarusian Union in Poland and head of Belarusian Radio Racyja, Yauhen Vapa; the former Ambassador of Poland to Belarus and Georgia, Mariusz Maszkiewicz; and Belarusian and Polish historian, professor Aleh Latyshonak.
"We see that in the near future a window of opportunity may possibly open. And when it opens, we must have a scenario. Jaruzelski in Poland was not ready to hold a round table, but was forced to go for it — Lukashenko today is not ready. But it's not known what will happen when this window of opportunity opens," noted Pavel Latushka.
"When we talk about a round table, I would agree with the thesis that you can't simply take Poland's historical experience and transfer it a hundred percent to Belarus. The situation has changed, technologies have changed, the political and geopolitical context — everything is different, but it seems to me that in all peaceful transitions — the round table in Poland, the round tables in the GDR, the transfer of power in Spain — there was always one important thing: the readiness for it among the political elites, both the opposition and, primarily, the nomenklatura," emphasized Artsyom Brukhan.
"Our task is to be ready for various scenarios. I personally choose the round table as the thing that will most quickly help preserve the lives of Belarusians. This must be our consistent path to democracy. It is probably the longest, but it is also the least costly for people," noted Stanislava Hlinnik.
"A round table must, I believe, be a broad public consensus. It must be an agreement of the entire political opposition for this to even start. And the question, once we get down to specifics, is where it should take place. In Poland, the round table took place in Poland. The question is: where should the Belarusian round table be held?" stated Yauhen Vapa.
"The speed of development and transformation of Polish politics, economy, everything in Poland was not what we wanted from the very beginning. Why? Because we gave the communists too much. The problem is not that we haven't reached democracy, that we're now in a bad situation. No. Poland, fortunately, is the best example in this region of Europe of a positive transformation from dictatorship to democracy, but it took us 10–15 years," noted Mariusz Maszkiewicz.
"Everything that has happened in history during my lifetime was unexpected for me, and so I try to imagine every scenario, with the round table being one of the scenarios, but there can also be others. Every option is possible, and one needs to at least morally prepare for each option," emphasized Aleh Latyshonak.
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