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When the excitement subsides or a new political configuration emerges, Protasevich will be dumped into the memory hole like every other imperial agenda pawn.
Experience attests that imperial policy makers are anything but morally fastidious when selecting tools for implementing their designs in diverse parts of the world. A notable (and utterly abhorrent) recent example are the Takfiri head-choppers in Syria, who were drafted, daggers and all, to do noble work in that devastated country, spreading the light shining forth from the gleaming city on the hill. Another memorable example is the neo-Nazi scum in the Ukraine, mobilized (and amply funded) at the time of the violent 2014 coup.
A brilliant security operation was carried out by Belarus authorities on Sunday, 23 May, resulting in the apprehension on Belarus territory of Roman Protasevich, a Western financed and promoted agitator who played a major role in last year’s color revolution unrest in that country. Following his arrest, the hitherto obscure Protasevich was turned into an instant hero in all the mediatic and political outlets controlled by his outraged sponsors. The “Guardian” and the “New York Times” competed with each other in heaping praise on the baby-faced Belarussian seditionist, stressing tear-jerking details while carefully editing out the main story, which would have given the whole game away. Baby-face Protasevich is, in fact, a hardened neo-Nazi operative with front-line experience, even at his tender age, fighting alongside his ideological comrades on the Ukrainian battlegrounds.
These facts are featured in an extensive exposé posted on the German analytical website “Moon of Alabama.” The hagiographical account in the “all the news that’s fit to print” “New York Times”, the German analyst says, is noteworthy primarily for the key facts that it omits. It turns out that, far from being an innocent young democracy activist and precocious lyceum student who could not stomach the restrictions imposed by President Lukashenko’s government, as misrepresented by the Western media, Protasevich is in fact an experienced agitator with long-standing ties to the neo-Nazi fringe in the neighboring Ukraine.
In the “New York Times’” sanitized account it is claimed that “prior to the Sunday incident Mr. Protasevich stayed put in Warsaw, becoming a key opposition figure along with Mr. Putsila at Nexta, posting regular reports on the social media site Telegram. Mr. Putsila described their work as ‘activist journalism,’ but added that Mr. Lukashenko had left no space for traditional journalism by shutting down any outlet inside Belarus that did more than parrot the government line.” However, the blithe suggestion that Protasevich was no more than a sweet, aspiring young journalist whose ambitions were frustrated by the iron-fisted Lukashenko regime is utterly demolished by the evidence posted on the German and other serious research sites.
Some of that evidence derives from FOIA Research, an outfit that “aims to identify intelligence projects that created, or instrumentalized existing, far-right groups for various political and paramilitary purposes, mainly by way of analyzing intelligence documents declassified under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).” So there is nothing arcane about it. It is basically just a matter of perusing and putting together the data that Protasevich’s own sponsors have themselves declassified and provided to the public. Is that beyond the abilities of “New York Times” staff writers? In its summary of the Belarussian agitator’s career, FOIA Research says:
“Roman Protasevich is one of the key regime change operatives in the Belarusian color revolution of 2020. His name appeared in the context of a Telegram channel called Nexta that overnight was made the voice of the Belarusian opposition.”
It does not take much political sophistication to deduce that in Protasevich’s milieu nobody becomes anything important casually and overnight, without being carefully groomed and whetted beforehand.
Further on, quoting Protasevich’s excited social media impressions after his Washington trip:
“On April 12, 2018, he arrived in Warsaw, Poland. On April 20, 2018, he flew via Brussels to Washington. On April 23, 2018, he posted a picture with the subtitle ‘The most important week in my life begins.’ The same day he posted a picture of himself inside the US State Department, stating ‘Never had so many important and interesting encounters in my life. Tired but very pleased.’”
Another high point in democratic hero Protasevich’s life, as reported and documented on The Canada Files analytical site, was his membership in and service as a press officer for the neo-Nazi led Azov battalion during the war in Donbass. Here he is, debonair in his military gear on the front cover of Azov publication “Black Sun” (notice the suggestive, but cleverly downplayed, almost-but-deniably-and-not-quite Hakenkreuz logo):
The State Department visit, following which Protasevich waxed so poetic with excitement, was apparently more than just sight-seeing and was quite productive. The Canadians report that:
“Protasevich was a 2017-18 Vaclav Havel Journalism fellow in Prague for US funded regime change outlet Radio Free Liberty/Europe … Four months after a week-long tour of the US State Department, in April 2018, Protasevich began working for USAID funded Belarus Euroradio.fm on August 31, 2018.”
One wonders what official media sources might have found so terribly unsuitable for public viewing in Protasevich’s actual biography to have felt compelled to edit out so many telling details. But it is a safe bet that his downfall will be milked for maximum propaganda advantage. When the excitement subsides or a new political configuration emerges, he will be dumped into the memory hole like every other imperial agenda pawn.
Originally published on 2021-05-27
About the author: Stephen Karganovic is the President of the Srebrenica Historical Project.
Source: Strategic Culture Foundation
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.
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