The Missing Prime Minister
- Iryna Khalip, Novaya Gazeta
- 6.02.2021, 13:26
Perhaps it's not just Rumas.
The journalists have been looking for the former Prime Minister of Belarus Siarhei Rumas for three days already. Whether the security forces are looking for him is another question to which no one has an answer yet.
The ex-prime minister last appeared in messengers at five in the morning on February 3. In the afternoon of the same day, it became known that several top managers of Belagroprombank, which Siarhei Rumas headed from 2005 to 2010, were summoned for interrogations to the Financial Investigation Department of the State Control Committee. Some Belarusian telegram channels reported on the arrest of Rumas and that the interrogations of the bank's employees were connected precisely with his activities - in particular, with the issuance of loans to the Turau Dairy Plant.
The KGB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Investigative Committee did not confirm the information about the arrest. The KGB, however, unlike other security agencies, neither confirmed nor denied. The wife of Siarhei Rumas Zhana, whom the journalists of the newspaper Nasha Niva were able to call, said that her husband was not at home. A few hours later, she announced that Siarhei Rumas was abroad. It is not known where he really is.
In general, the post of prime minister in Belarus is not subject to execution.
Only Mikhail Chyhir, the first head of government appointed by Aliaksandr Lukashenka immediately after the presidential elections (the very ones in 1994 that he really won), spent some time in custody. But he is the only one who himself resigned, and not for health reasons, but in protest before the 1996 referendum, which completely destroyed parliamentary powers in the country and turned deputies into clerical clerks whose task is to receive and register correspondence from Lukashenka... All the other prime ministers (and there were nine of them in 26 years), after Lukashenka dismissed them, quickly and with relief moved into the comfortable chairs of obscure structures of the EEC or EurAsEC. There, they were awaited by a sinecure with a negative amount of responsibility and a very positive amount of income. So there are no offended among the former prime ministers.
Perhaps, this time, it is not at all about Rumas. It's just that we need money once again. And this almost always in Belarus meant the emergence of new criminal cases of corruption.
Belarusian businessmen, bankers, and heads of enterprises have always been fattened up for slaughter in their homeland.
Then they were imprisoned and waited until relatives, partners, and the arrested themselves began to offer ransom amounts. Those who did not agree were given sentences. It's a simple and clear scheme.
Simultaneously with the Belagroprombank case, another potentially high-profile criminal case appeared this week: GUM General Director Aliaksandr Krapak was detained for a bribe. And last week, the Investigative Committee announced that it was investigating a corruption case against officials of several large enterprises at once - the Minsk Wheel Tractor Plant, BelAZ, the Minsk Tractor Plant, and the Forge Plant of Heavy Forging.
If in Belarus, against the background of the economic crisis, in one short period of time, several corruption cases suddenly appear out of nowhere, it means that money is really badly needed.
And one more symptom that testifies in favor of the fact that it is not about Rumas, but about money. The head of the Minsk Investigative Committee's department, Siarhei Paska, said that, during the investigation of the "case of mass riots," it became clear that administrative fines for participation in unauthorized events were often paid not by the fined themselves, but by "third-party organizations." And now, with the approval of the prosecutor, an arrest has been imposed on this money, and those who were awarded fines will be obliged to pay a second time, now from their own funds.
According to the IC, "the principle of individual responsibility, provided for by administrative law, means the need to execute the punishment directly by the person who is brought to justice. Otherwise, the importance of the institution of personal responsibility is completely leveled."
Someone really helped to pay the fines; however, it was not "third-party organizations" but BY_help's initiative, that is, the Belarusians themselves. Fundraising for payment of fines and assistance to the repressed was carried out through Facebook. They donated kopecks, rubles, dollars, and thousands of dollars. BY_help volunteers transferred the required amounts to the bank cards of the marchers subjected to fines. Actually, the Belarusians simply helped each other - neither foundations, nor organizations, nor any legal entities took part in the fundraising. And now, those who were detained at the protests and fined will be required to pay the fine again. According to the human rights center Viasna, Belarusians paid 1.8 million Belarusian rubles in fines for five months of resistance. This is 760 thousand dollars. But when money is really needed, it can be repeated, because a half million dollars is better than 760 thousand.
The investigation may then find out that the protesters used the help of relatives, friends, or work colleagues to pay the fines. And this negates the importance of the institution of personal responsibility - and to make them pay for the third time. Now the secret meaning of the phrase "we can repeat" is clear: it turns out that this is not about war at all.
Iryna Khalip, Novaya Gazeta