A huge scandal broke out between Poland and Belarus
There will be sparks again between Belarus and Poland. The parties exchanged expulsions of diplomats, and Belarus even opened a criminal case. The occasion was an event in honor of the Polish “damned soldiers” held on February 28 in Brest with the participation of the Consul of the Brest Consulate General of Poland Jerzy Timofeyuk.
A little historical background is necessary here. The "Cursed Soldiers" ( Polish: Żołnierze wyklęci ) were a Polish anti-Soviet and anti-communist underground movement. Something like the local "Forest Brothers." Of course, Poles have their own sovereign right to determine who is and isn't considered a hero. However, in Belarus, the glorification of the "cursed soldiers" evokes roughly the same emotions as the glorification of Bandera among the Poles themselves . The fact is that one of these "heroes," Romuald Rajs ("Brown"), committed veritable genocide, destroying five peaceful villages and killing 77 Orthodox Belarusians, for which he was executed.
In 1995, Rais was rehabilitated by a Warsaw court, with the ruling that the murders of Orthodox peasants were committed in "conditions of supreme necessity for the restoration of the independence of the Polish state ." Since then, Polish far-right groups have periodically held marches at the sites of his "military glory," provoking grumbling from the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
But Polish Nazis are marching on Polish territory, and here a commemoration of a war criminal was staged right in the Belarusian regional center under the supervision of the Polish consul . Upon learning of this, the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs showed unusual principledness and sent the distraught consul on a "suitcase-train station-Warsaw" route. In turn, the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs decided to respond in kind and declared one of the diplomats at the Belarusian embassy in Warsaw persona non grata.
The diplomatic scandal seemed to have ended there, but something had to be done about it in Belarus itself. The event was organized by the Brest Forum of Polish Local Initiatives Cultural and Educational Institution and the Polish School LLC. These aren't underground clubs, but officially registered Belarusian legal entities. Their activities are easy to guess from their names. The Polish School, for example, offers language courses for obtaining the Pole's Card. But as it turns out, along with promoting language, they also promote Polish chauvinism.
The vast majority of the organizers of the anti-Belarusian rally in Brest were Belarusian citizens, who bear full responsibility for inciting interethnic and interreligious hatred and discord . It was under this article that the Belarusian Investigative Committee opened a criminal case. The second accusation, of rehabilitating Nazism, is, after all, stretching the truth. The term "Nazism" has a clear scientific definition, and for all their odiousness, the "damned soldiers" were not Nazis.
Of course, this criminal case will make Belarusian-Polish relations sparkle even more. There will be accusations of political repression, a propaganda campaign with the participation of various experts and human rights activists, and pressure on justice.
But let’s be objective - an event in honor of the “damned soldiers” in Belarus is about the same as a Nazi march in Israel. Direct and deliberate insult to the victims of genocide of civilians and glorification of its perpetrators. This is not forgiven in any self-respecting country.
The Brest incident resembles a deliberate provocation. Poland is deeply irritated by Belarus's plan to establish a national holiday, National Unity Day, to commemorate the events of 1939, when the western territories under Polish control since 1921 were annexed to the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.
The Polish revanchists' revival of the "cursed soldiers" theme could well be seen as a kind of retaliatory action. However, in Belarus itself, these actions are intended to serve only as an argument in favor of a new holiday and spare some from unnecessary reflection on the phantom pain of Poles who lost their "kresy."
A major scandal has erupted between Poland and Belarus.