Belarus has been accused of ‘weaponizing’ migrants after a violent border clash on Wednesday which saw hundreds of people from third world countries attempting to cross the border from Belarus to Poland.
During the clash, migrants used sticks and rocks as weapons and make-shift ladders made of foraged forest materials to attempt to jump over the border and push back the Polish Border Guard.
Belarus, which is strongly allied with Russia and played a complicit role in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, is said to have had migrants shipped into the country and placed on the border to push them into Poland and Lithuania as a means of diversion and drain on the NATO nations’ resources.
The migrants come from such nations as Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Yemen, sub-Saharan Africa, China and even Cuba. Most of these nations have strong to decent relationships with Russia, especially after Russian President Vladimir Putin has made significant diplomatic overtures to numerous African nations to counter the Western international influence.
As more European countries have joined the NATO alliance and the horrific war in Ukraine drags on, Russia and its main European ally, Belarus, have sought to undermine the power and influence of the alliance in the wake of its expansion.
NATO countries like Poland and Lithuania are not the only European nations to accuse Russia or Belarus of “weaponizing” migrants, as Finland has also been dealing with this issue as well. The very recent addition of Finland to NATO has dramatically increased the front-lines of the volatile Russia-NATO hot zone, and Russia has vowed retaliation.
Of course, not every European nation has the same weak-spined response to illegal immigrant invasion as the United States. During the Syrian refugee crisis, which saw millions of Syrian men traveling in hordes across Europe from the Middle East, Hungary notably deterred the invasion with its military.
Likewise, nations like Poland and Finland are not weak-kneed when it comes to fighting back against such passive-aggressive tactics of using migrants as pawns of political and economic warfare, as they have also employed their military to aggressively push back against the migrant groups, knowing for themselves full-well what is at stake and what they are up against as nations.
Poland and Lithuania have even built hundreds of kilometers of border wall to act as a solid and enforceable barrier against the migrant invasions, to much effectiveness. Having an obvious political parallel to the United States’ own illegal immigration problems, it shows that border walls really do provide profound security and relief when properly utilized and supported.
On the Belarus-Poland border African & Middle East men try to enter. The Polish border police with riot shields & batons stand firm.
If only we acted like this. pic.twitter.com/foc5XjkWTs
— David Atherton (@DaveAtherton20) April 10, 2024
Nevertheless, human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch have condemned the nations’ self-defensive actions as contributing to the deaths of innocent migrants, including children.
While such deaths are tragic, it is not the nations that defend their territorial integrity that should be condemned, but the powers that put the migrants up to invading at all, who then apparently put them between a rock and a hard place as they intentionally prod them to the borders of the nations they want to punish by threatening them with their own aggressive and abusive force if they return back into the country.
Unfortunately, as the world continues to unravel under the watch of corrupt and inept leadership, both governments and ordinary citizens will continue to suffer as the political elites of international “swamps” continue to play games with the lives of simple people.
