29 March 2024, Friday, 11:19
Support
the website
Sim Sim,
Charter 97!
Categories

Bankers, Hide Your Umbrellas!

26
Bankers, Hide Your Umbrellas!
Iryna Khalip

Invest in the revolution.

One pursues bankers again. It already sounds like a weather forecast: "it's cloudy and raining in the city". The common weather, a common business. When they need money, they come. However, it's not the weather, it's the climate.

When one lives in a rainy climate, one needs an umbrella, waterproof shoes, and a raincoat. If the regime goes with the rain then an umbrella won't help any more. Even a can of gas or a bottle of hairspray in your bag will unlikely save one from robbers. In this case, one needs to settle with the neighbours, unite and kick scums out of the block. The vast majority of Belarusians have already realized that and are taking all security measures within their yards and neighbourhoods. On the other hand, bankers still hope to fend the bandits off with an umbrella.

It's been almost twenty years since the head of Minskkompleksbank, Jauhen Krautsou, was arrested. He was arrested for the state-owned borrower Horizont not to return the money to the bank. The easiest way was found by the state at that time: it is enough to jail the head and no debts will exist. Jauhen Krautsou was a unique person. In the nineties, when no one ever thought of banking charity, Jauhen financed Jar of Comics TV show (or rather he invented it), gave money for the first album Lyapis, helped a talented artist Vasil Pochitski. The bank's employees could gather to see a strange man wearing Dutch wooden shoes, an overcoat, and a flight helmet walk into the CEO's reception room. It was Vasil Pochitski's daily dress code. The banker opened a recording studio with equipment that no one else in Belarus had. Moscow and Kyiv bands arrived in Minsk to record in Krautsou's studio. When the authorities jailed Jauhen, his colleagues whispered indignantly, "Such a talented man, so respectable. How could they arrest him?" But no one said it out loud.

Jauhen Krautsou was sentenced to nine years behind bars. He served six, was released in 2008. Four years later, he died of cancer. He was 48 years old.

When Krautsou went to jail, "jailing" of bankers became routine. Mikalai Rakau (Belpromstroybank), Aliaksandr Tatarintseu and Siarhei Bliznyuk (Gem Bank), Andrei Markouski (Belarusian Exchange Bank), Vasil Barseghyan and six more top managers of BelBaltiya, Aliaksandr Nelin (Golden Thaler), Uladzislau Kotsarenka (Belarusian Industrial Bank), Anatol Bahovik and Henadz Haspadaryk (Belarusbank), top-managers of Sombelbank are just those whose names appeared in the headlines. No one has counted how many bankers are still on the run.

Viktar Babaryka and his colleagues from Belgazprombank are going to be tried, while last Wednesday law enforcers came to Belagroprombank. Although one calls the detention of several top-managers the "Rumas case" - he is allegedly the core target and, therefore, he ran away abroad - likely, it is not about Rumas at all. They just came to another bank. They are just going to rob.

It has become a part of the landscape, a climate pattern, a sort of landscape, as the bankers have never fought back. They didn't try to defend themselves and protect each other. Instead of it, they preferred to negotiate, buy off and rely on the state "backing" - the very backing that takes the money with one hand and greedily signs arrest warrants and court verdicts with the another. There's no point in negotiating with the Belarusian government. It will cheat and imprison anyway. Experience shows that one doesn't have to be Viktar Babaryka and run for the presidency for it to happen.

Of course, the picture where the bankers protest together with Yelena Leuchanka and hold the banner "Sportsmen with the people!" looks naive and utopian. Or when the heads of banks are carrying banners "Belagroprombank with the people!" or "Priorbank with the people!" Well, stay at home. However, one should finally realize that your umbrellas can hide you only from the rain. The destruction of this insane regime is the only way to save you from arbitrary arrests, extortions, backings and humiliation. It doesn't have much time left, but it still has time to put a couple of dozen bankers in jail. So you'd better invest in the revolution. Otherwise, you will soon have to invest your money only in iron weights.

Iryna Khalip, especially for Charter97.org

Write your comment 26

Follow Charter97.org social media accounts