Actions to quickly overthrow the Belarusian authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko failed. One of the side effects of such a failure is that an authoritarian leader can pursue a policy that is very unpleasant for its neighbors, and if an authoritarian leader stays in power for a long time, Belarus's neighbors on the EU side will have to pay the brunt of the failed coup attempt.
Last week, Alexander Lukashenko announced that Belarus could block the transit of goods to and from China and Russia in response to EU sanctions, and promised to allow economic and political migrants from countries such as Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq to cross the Belarusian border freely into the EU. "We will not stop anyone," the Belarusian president said. Even before this announcement, Belarus was no longer stopping migrants from the Middle East from crossing the Lithuanian border in particular. In the first half of this year, more than 1,300 illegal migrants arrived in Lithuania. By contrast, in 2020, only 81 illegal migrants reached Lithuania. Due to the influx of migrants, Lithuania declared a state of emergency, asked the EU for assistance, began to extend and strengthen the border fences, and so on.
Paradoxically, it's the flow of refugees that was and is a peculiar weapon that the leaders of authoritarian states can sometimes use against democracies.
One of the most striking cases is the Cuban refugee crisis in Florida in 1980.
After Marxist Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, Cuban-US relations escalated to point of a possible war. The United States implemented an economic blockade against Cuba, and so on. It was not until the time of US President Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) that interstate relations began to slightly improve. In 1978, travel between the two countries was allowed in a limited form. A delegation of US congressmen visited Cuba, US citizens of Cuban origin were able to visit their homelands, and so on. However, the improvement in relations did not change the authoritarian nature of the Cuban regime. Many Cubans who were denied human rights by the Fidel Castro regime (political opponents of the regime, sexual and religious minorities) were not allowed to leave Cuba. In late 1979 and early 1980, Cuban dissidents began to use new tactics. They tried to break into foreign embassies in Havana, seeking political asylum. Latin American tradition states that the territory of embassies is extraterritorial, and while only a small number of asylum seekers were accommodated in embassies, diplomatic talks were held on the possibility for these people to leave Cuba freely. The situation was exacerbated when several thousand Cubans got into the Peruvian embassy. In the end, Fidel Castro conceded and allowed, subject to certain conditions, the departure of Cubans dissatisfied with the regime. Initially, the exodus was more or less organized, but in April 1980, as soon as the United States announced its readiness to receive several thousand Cuban political refugees, many Cubans went to the United States in fishing boats without waiting for permission from the local authorities. It wasn't particularly difficult, because to get from Cuba to the Florida peninsula in the United States, you only have to cross the Strait of Florida, which is about a hundred kilometers wide.
Meanwhile, the US presidential election campaign was already in full swing. The then President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, included the issue of Cuban refugees in his election campaign. In early May, in a speech at The League of Women Voters National Convention, the President of the United States declared that "ours is a country of refugees" and that the United States will continue "to provide an open heart and open arms" to those fleeing Cuba (Edward Walsh “U.S. Will 'Open Arms' to Cuban Exiles, Carter Says” “Washington Post” May 6, 1980).
Carter's speech in 1980 and its aftermath bear a certain resemblance to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's speech on August 31, 2015, in which she promised that Syrian refugees arriving in Germany would not be subject to the Dublin Convention (refugees would not be deported to the EU country from which they arrived in Germany).
Cuban leader Fidel Castro (1926-2016) was very irritated by Carter's speech and the response of the authoritarian Cuban leader was unexpected and asymmetrical. Fidel Castro said that anyone who wants to go to the United States will not be stopped. The unexpected opportunity to leave Cuba was taken by many dissatisfied with the regime, as well as persecuted minority groups. Homosexuals, Seventh-day Adventists, and other persecuted minority groups in Cuba moved to the United States. However, Fidel Castro ordered that recidivist criminals and patients in psychiatric clinics also be offered to move to the United States. In May and June 1980, more than 100,000 Cuban migrants arrived in Florida. When Americans realized that a contingent of migrants was coming to their country, that there were criminals and mentally ill people in refugee boats along with religious and political refugees, a state of emergency was declared off the coast of Florida. Cuban boats were intercepted to transport refugees to filtration points, etc. It is estimated that, in total, the US authorities identified about 2,000 dangerous criminals for whom the US did not wish to grant any asylum. As a result of both this and other political setbacks, in the November 1980 US presidential election Jimmy Carter suffered the biggest loss in the history of the US presidential election. His opponent, Ronald Reagan, won 489 electoral votes in the election, while Jimmy Carter won only 49. Ronald Reagan's (1911-2004) administration was desperate to get Cuba to take back the criminal elements that had traveled to the United States. Shortly before the end of his presidency, Ronald Reagan reached an agreement with Fidel Castro, and a small number of murderers and perpetrators in the United States were readmitted to Cuba.
The moral of the story is simple. Charismatic authoritarian leaders driven into a corner should not be underestimated, as their actions can be asymmetrical and unexpected.
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