The Rumas vs the Balabas

Officials still have a chance to just crawl away, to resign the office.

I was not introduced to Siarhei Rumas. I don't know what kind of person he is. He's probably not stupid if he managed to escape before they arrested him.

I take Rumas as a typical bureaucrat of the last two decades. The very official who let all this abomination appear in Belarus and remains on the nomenclature lists of the sick dictator.

Another official of the same system is Dzmitry Balaba, the chief of Minsk riot police, a punisher, a criminal, always ready for mayhem to toady.

They are quite intercomplementary and equally useful, even necessary for the regime. Rumas is dressed in civilian clothes, even though he is a graduate of the Yaroslavl Higher Military Finance School (earlier a college for the Workers and Peasants of the Red Army), and Balaba prefers to wear a camouflage jacket and cover his head with a black cap.

Of course, the chastener is a more physical figure for the dictatorship, but a manager and functionary is more useful. The more obtuse, mean and loyal a riot policeman is, the better. In return, the boss lets him ease indiscriminately, cover dirty business, and even rat. Managers wrap it mess up in a suitable package.

One needs the Rumas, who make it look like they run the government, rather than follow the orders of the ringleader. They have been playing on repeat about "certain shortcomings and difficulties of the transitional period," covering up an increasingly insatiable dictatorship.

The Rumas hate the Balabas as their servants, who for some reason are equal to them in rights, and who moreover watch over them, inform on them and can put anyone in jail.

The Balabas hate the Rumas for their desire to appear "clean", the ability to enrich themselves illegally in smarter ways than beatings and covering.

It's questionable who is more miserable. I remember that Rumas became "deputy prime minister" on 28 December 2010. It was the height of the punitive operation against the people of Belarus.

Perhaps, he did it in disgust. Maybe all these officials build cottages in Drazdy, sell out Belarus, help all kinds of crooks and strangle small and medium-sized businesses in disgust.

They are not doing it for themselves but their families, children.

The Rumas also hate the Balabas because they owe their position to them. The Balabas clear the way to nomenclature positions, being the forceful barrier of the dictatorship. They liquidate their boss's opponents, suppress protests against the system which let the officials to profit.

This is how they live, adapting in their own way.

The chasteners develop animal instincts and get rid of any unnecessary signs of humanity.

The officials probably first try to negotiate with the remnants of conscience, and then just try not to be caught.

Outstanding Yury Nikolaevich Afanasyev gave a sniper-like definition of such processes: "One can adapt to despotism only by increasing the degree of nastiness in one's environment."

All those who served and serve the usurper after 1999 (the year when Lukashenka's opponents were killed), were in the government, in law enforcement agencies, helped him in the West, created the semblance of a normal business environment in Belarus, urged to invest in the "Belarusian economic miracle" actively contributed to the most insane and cruel dictatorship regime in Europe.

There's a ground for Lukashenka's regime to go insane and violent. It has been like that for a long time. One just tried not to notice its insanity and aggression, increasing the "degree of abomination" among similar people. If they noticed atrocities, they tried to convince themselves that they could stand it. They somehow adapted again, compromised, and continued to steal from other families and children for the sake of themselves.

It won't work anymore. Today, the Rumas are required to become the Balabas. They, the "clean" ones, are being actively painted over with crimes. They are required to keep robbing and suppressing the people to save the regime. It is the very "red line" followed by the reckoning that will hit the families. It's inevitable.

There is one key difference between a chastener and an official: the latter were not involved in the bloodshed of civilians, with a few exceptions, like the Massandra lovers. One can still find redemption now. If one does not want to do it in public, one can simply crawl away, resign the office.

International organizations already call the actions of Lukashenka's regime crimes against humanity. These crimes have no statute of limitations. Those who were in office and did not resign will be tried and condemned for them.

Belarusians are kind people and know how to forgive. They write on the social networks that everyone must be jailed. In reality, if a person crawls away from the gang, everyone tries to pamper him, or even to list him as an opposition leader.

In general, if the Rumas resign, the Balabas will not replace them and will not help the blue fingers. The Rumas will help themselves and the people, the most generous in the world.

Andrei Sannikov, Facebook