No Friends But the Mountains – How Belarus Used Migrants and Refugees to Orchestrate a Border Crisis

By Lindsey Gergel

No friends but the mountains - this is a common proverb amongst those who are currently caught in the middle of Belarus’ most recent clash with the European Union (“EU”).[1] Thousands of migrants are currently stuck on the Poland-Belarus border, unable to enter either country as the harsh winter goes on.[2] The crisis came about when Belarusian president Lukashenko made promises that migrants would have easy entry to the European Union, promises that were not true.[3] Belarus also supplied migrants with wire-cutters, encouraging them to illegally cross into Poland.[4] Belarus is attempting to create this crisis in response to receiving sanctions from the EU for conducting a fraudulent election.[5] On December 21, 2021, the United Nations stated that the Officer for the High Commissioner of Human Rights urged both Belarus and Poland to follow refugee law and international law.[6]

As winter continues, the crisis gets more and more dire.[7] As of November 2021, eleven migrants had died due to the crisis.[8] The migrants are largely from the Kurdish Iraq, which is a Kurdish semi-autonomous region resulting from the American, French, and British Operation Provide Comfort, which was meant to protect the ethnic minority.[9] Currently, Turkey has set up military bases throughout the Iraqi Kurdish region, disallowing the Kurdish residents from carrying out their work or living in their homes and villages.[10] The Turkish government is fighting the PKK, which several nations consider a terrorist organization.[11] In the last few years, the Kurdish residents have been completely pushed out of 24 villages due to the violence from the conflict, many of them hoping to relocate in Europe.[12]

Lukashenko became president only three years after Belarus’ independence and has stayed in power for 26 years, causing Belarus to be known as “Europe’s Last Dictatorship.”[13] Lukashenko claims to have won the 2020 election, however, many, including the EU, suspect it was not a truly fair and free election.[14] Lukashenko has also been known to restrict human rights, imprisoning journalists, ordering police to raid news organizations, and criminally prosecuting activists.[15] Furthermore, this isn’t Lukashenko’s first brush with the European Union.[16] Lukashenko has been threatening this migrant crisis for years prior to 2021.[17] However, in 2021, that migrant crisis came to fruition.[18]

In response to the crisis, the UN Refugee Agency tweeted, “We have repeatedly said using refugees & migrants to achieve political ends is unacceptable & must stop.” Not everyone has been as concerned.[19] Political analyst Artyom Shraibman stated “it’s just thousands of people.”[20] He stated that the pressure is “not that significant,” going on to say “[i]t’s not like the million refugees that came to the EU in 2015.”[21] Despite the optimism, research suggests that countries using this political tactic often strategically increase the number of migrants over time.[22]

The ugly truth is using migrants and refugees to gain a political or wartime advantage is far from new.[23] Its common use has resulted in the strategy being termed, perhaps insensitively, weapons of mass migration.[24] Kelly Greenhill of Tufts University outlines four different non-mutually exclusive ways refugees and migrants are used for political or military gain.[25] First, there is dispossessory migration in which an actor dispels or brings in migrants for the purpose of either appropriating territory or eliminating certain groups, such as carrying out ethnic cleansing.[26] Second, there is exportive migration in which an actor expels political dissidents for its own gain or expels other adversaries in order to destabilize a foreign actor.[27] Third, there is militarized migration in which displacement is carried out in order to squander another party’s control.[28] Finally, there’s coercive migration, in which an actor forces migration (or threatens to force migration) for political reasons and “includes the propagandistic use of outflows (which are often generated by others) for their own benefit.”[29]

In terms of legality and consequences, the use of migrants and refugees may sit in a gray area.[30] The use of refugees as “human shields” is plainly a war crime.[31] The use of migrants and refugees to create a crisis is also a violation of international law.[32] Still, what are the consequences of violation of international law?[33] Dr. Greenhill suggests that state actors who are already viewed as illegitimate have less to lose in violating international law.[34] While war crimes are generally punishable with imprisonment or death, punishment for violating international law may include sanctions, which Belarus already faces.[35] Furthermore, the increased flow of migration usually creates fear and outrage, giving the actor creating the migration what he or she wants.[36] The consequences are small for a president with nothing to lose, and Belarus may have more to gain.[37]

As winter continues, the situation for these migrants becomes more dire.[38] If Belarus strategically increases the number of migrants on the border, as is a common tactic, the UN should not underestimate the pressure it will face.[39] If it can, Belarus may double down on the crisis for non-compliance, putting even more pressure on the EU.[40]

[1] See e.g., Dareen Shirnekhi, No Friends but the Mountains, Yale News (Oct 24, 2019), https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2019/10/24/shirnekhi-no-friends-but-the-mountains/ (discussing the Kurdish proverb “[n]o friends but the mountains”); see also Ellen Ioanes, Why Belarus is Using Migrants as a Political Weapon, Vox (Nov. 14, 2021), https://www.vox.com/2021/11/14/22781335/belarus-hybrid-attack-immigrants-border-eu-poland-crisis  (stating that the European Union considers the increase of migrants a “hybrid attack”); see also Lauren Said-Moorhouse et al, EU Accuses Belarus of Acting Like ‘Gangster Regime’ as Thousands of Freezing Migrants Camp on Polish Border, CNN (Nov. 9, 2021), https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/09/europe/poland-belarus-border-migrants-crisis-intl/index.html (stating that Poland accused Belarus’ president Lukanshenko of trying to cause a crisis on the EU’s border).

[2] See Ioanes, supra note 1 (stating that both Poland and Belarus are rejecting the migrants); see also Said-Moorhouse, supra note 1; see also United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, Who We Are: An Overview, United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, https://www.ohchr.org/EN/AboutUs/Pages/WhoWeAre.aspx; see also Press Briefing Notes, UHCHR, Press Briefing Notes on Poland / Belarus Border (Dec. 21, 2021) (discussing recent urges to end the crisis).

[3] Said-Moorhouse, supra note 1.

[4] Ioanes, supra note 1 (citing Jane Arraf and Elian Peltier, Migrants Say Belarusians Took Them to E.U. Border and Supplied Wire Cutters, N.Y. Times (Nov. 18, 2021), https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/13/world/middleeast/belarus-migrants-iraq-kurds.html).

[5] Id.

[6] United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, Who We Are: An Overview, United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, https://www.ohchr.org/EN/AboutUs/Pages/WhoWeAre.aspx; Press Briefing Notes, UHCHR, Press Briefing Notes on Poland / Belarus Border (Dec. 21, 2021).

[7] See EuroNews et al., Families Mourn Young Migrants Who Died at Belarus-Poland Border, EuroNews (Nov. 16, 2021), https://www.euronews.com/2021/11/16/families-mourn-young-migrants-who-died-at-belarus-poland-border (stating 11 migrants have died during the crisis).

[8] Id.

[9] John Jenkins, A Blurred Distinction Between Refugees and Migrants is a Recipe for Chaos, The Spectator (Dec. 30, 2021), https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/a-blurred-distinction-between-refugees-and-migrants-is-a-recipe-for-chaos.

[10] Simona Foltyn, Turkey’s Expanding Militarized Zones in Iraq Raise Fears of Invasions, Frustrate Civilians, PBS (Dec. 30, 2021), https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/turkeys-expanding-militarized-zones-in-iraq-raise-fears-of-invasion-frustrate-civilians.

[11] Id; see also Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, The Daughters of Kobani, 153 (2021).

[12] Foltyn, supra note 10; see also Jenkins, supra note 9.

[13] The Economist, Why Belarus is Called Europe’s Last Dictatorship, The Economist (May 25, 2021), https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2021/05/25/why-belarus-is-called-europes-last-dictatorship; see also Iones supra note 1 (stating that both Poland and Belarus are rejecting the migrants).

[14] The Economist, supra note 13; see also Iones, supra note 1; see also European Council, EU Relations with Belarus, European Council, https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/eastern-partnership/belarus/ (stating that the EU sanctioned Belarus for not having a free or fair election).

[15] UN News, Human Rights in Belarus Continue Downward Spiral, Warns Bachelet, UN News (Sep. 24, 2021), https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/09/1101102.

[16] Iones, supra note 1.

[17] Id.

[18] Id.

[19] Iones, supra note 1 (quoting Artyom Shraibman saying “it’s just millions of people.”)

[20] Id.

[21] Id.

[22] Kelly M. Greenhill, Lead Article: Strategic Engineered Migration as a Weapon of War, 39 Transnat’l L. Rev. 615 (2016) at 622 [hereinafter Greenhill].

[23] Id. at 618 (discussing four ways migrants are strategically used).

[24] See Kelly M. Greenhill, Weapons of Mass Migration 9 (2010) (discussing how sanctions were pulled from Libya because of a migrant crisis).

[25] Tufts University, People: Kelly M. Greenhill, Tufts University, https://as.tufts.edu/politicalscience/people/faculty/greenhill; see also Greenhill, supra note 23, at 618.

[26] Greenhill, supra note 23, at 618.

[27] Id.

[28] Id.

[29] Id.

[30] See id. at 616, 631.

[31] Id. at 616 (discussing the use of migrants as human shields); see also Rule 97. Human Shields, IHL Database, https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_rul_rule97.

[32] See e.g. id at 631 (suggesting in the context of man-made migration that the consequences of violating international law is not severe); see also @Refugees, Twitter (Nov. 8, 2021), https://twitter.com/refugees/status/1457675686450065411?lang=en (suggesting the use of migrants for these purposes is “unacceptable”); see also Said-Moorhouse, supra note 1 (stating NATO told Belarus to “abide by international law”).

[33] Greenhill, supra note 23, at 631.

[34] Id.

[35] FindLaw Staff, War Crimes, FindLaw (Nov. 19, 2021), https://www.findlaw.com/criminal/criminal-charges/war-crimes.html; Frederic L. Kirgis, Enforcing International Law, American Society of International Law (Jan. 22, 1996), https://www.asil.org/insights/volume/1/issue/1/enforcing-international-law.

[36] Greenhill, supra note 23, at 633.

[37] See id at 631, 628-29.

[38] See EuroNews, supra note 7.

[39] See Greenhill, supra note 23, at 622 (discussing the common strategy of increasing the flow of refugees or migrants over time).

[40] See id.