March 25, Pozirk. US envoy John Coale, speaking at a conference at the US Capitol earlier this month, said he had warned Alaksandar Łukašenka to radically change his behavior if he wanted to be accepted by world leaders.
Referring to developments in Venezuela and Iran, Coale said he told Łukašenka in early March: “Look, you are the only one left at the bad guys’ table, so you’d better watch out.”
“And I really think what we did in Venezuela and what we’ve been doing in Iran scared the hell out of him,” the US diplomat added, commenting on that conversation.
Coale made the remarks at the US-UK Transatlantic Conference on Hostage-Taking and Arbitrary Detention, held on March 12 at the US Capitol—a week before his trip to Minsk. During the visit, he secured the release of 250 political prisoners, most of whom were allowed to remain in Belarus.
Asked what the Belarusian ruler wants from the United States, Coale said he seeks the lifting of sanctions and, after more than 30 years in power, recognition as a global player.
However, Coale added that Łukašenka still has a long way to go before moving closer to the “good guys’ table.”
He said he had told the Belarusian leader directly that he was at the “losers’ table” alongside Cuba, Iran and Venezuela. “[Russian President Vladimir] Vladimir Putin is not there [at the losers’ table] because he is not even invited to school.”
“If you want to get over here to the good guys’ table, you have to start behaving like a normal country,” Coale said he told Łukašenka. “You can’t be doing what you are doing. You can’t do the balloons; you can’t keep trucks in your country that everybody is upset about.”
Speaking at the conference, Coale also expressed hope that Belarus would release all political prisoners before the end of the year.
He added that it took extensive back-and-forth diplomacy to persuade the Belarusian strongman to allow prisoners to remain in the country rather than be forcibly expelled abroad.
The event was co-hosted by the McCain Institute’s John McCain Freedom for Political Prisoners Initiative and the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign.
