ANALYSIS/OPINION:
In spring, 1987, two representatives of the Polish Solidarity trade movement, Jerzy Malewski and Liz Wasiutynski came into Paul Weyrich’s Stanton Meeting to ask conservatives for moral and financial support.
I was tasked to raise money to help rebuild Solidarity. Which we did.
And, from that, a continuing alliance between anti-Communist dissidents in Eastern Europe and Movement Conservatives flowered.
In the end, the Soviet bloc had collapsed. 25 current U.N. members did not even exist as independent nations in 1987, but were brought into being partly as a result of conservative efforts. Another five countries have fundamentally different forms of government than they did then.
Of the 30, Belarus has been a conspicuous disappointment, and has continued to sink into a deeper and deeper hole of Stalin-style kleptocracy and repression.
Last summer, hundreds of thousands of Belarusians flooded the streets in protest to what surely was the stolen reelection in the 27-year-old reign of dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka.
They were gassed, hit with water cannons, and stun grenades. And even the government concedes that 6,7000 were arrested or detained, some with charges as serious a “terrorism,” which carries the death penalty. That figure was to climb to 25,000 by mid-November.
This number included opposition candidates and their supporters, who were arrested or forced into exile.
Then, on May 23, a Belarus MiG-59 forced down an international flight from Greece to Lithuania for the purpose of arresting a self-exiled activist and journalist, Roman Protashevich. Lukashenka then lied about the hijacking — citing a “bomb threat” which was sent only after the flight was diverted.
The following week, Stepan Latypov, another activist — under pressure to plead guilty to crimes like resisting police (carrying a 15-year prison sentence) to avoid the imprisonment of his family and neighbors — stabbed himself in the neck with a pen in open court.
Why should conservatives care? Because most of the movements that could have transformed the world over the past 75 years fizzled. for lack of support.
The Hungarian uprising of 1956, Prague Spring, the Polish labor strikes of 1980, the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, and recent protests in Hong Kong. All of these could have made the world a better place, but were suppressed because a world patterned on the U.S. model will be happier, more prosperous, and safer.
Countries that were once part of the Soviet Union are now strong American allies. We conduct military operations out of Asian Republics, while the Baltic States house refugees from Lukashenka’s tyranny.
In 1987 through 1991, for a brief moment, we achieved something historic. Conservatives led, but we set aside partisanship in order to bring freedom and independence to much of the Soviet bloc. We can finish the job now if we want to.
• Michael Hammond is the general counsel of Gun Owners of America and a former executive director of the Senate Steering Committee.
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