Uladzimir Matskevich: The war cannot be won without war games beforehand

Game coordination of Belarusan, German and Polish sides’ actions about Belarusan transformation took place in Lvov with the participation of the observers from the third countries.

The people who are striving to be vox populi  leaders, as well as leaders of political opposition in Belarus ere very narrow-minded and have no idea about what happens in the country.

This opinion to the EuroBelarus Information Service shared the chairperson of the Interim Coordination Committee (ICC) of the National Platform of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum (EaP CSF) Uladzimir Matskevich upon the completion of the organization and activity game (OAG) “The development of the democratic transformation in modern authoritarian systems. The case of Belarus”.

The organizers of the five-day game were the parties to three countries – Belarus, Poland and Germany. The participants were represented by the active organizers of the transformation processes in different countries: Egypt, Syria, Serbia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Thus, one of the leading Egypt economists under Mubarack regime, as well as top-ranked officials from Germany played in the game. Chili, Uzbekistan and Moldova were also present. About half of the participants were from Belarus. According to Uladzimir Matskevich, Belarusan participants could be divided into three groups. “The first group was represented by the experienced participants of the Consortium "EuroBelarus". The second group consisted of people actively involved in the transformation processes. And the third category of people were all-knowing guys, who have explanations for every purpose”.

The current game started with planning and gathering of the participants together as far as the last autumn. And those Belarusans who were invited in the first place refused the invitation: “All political structures except BPF Party refused due to the reason stated as “we are not playing games”. It sounded like “while you are playing, we are working”. But organization and action game is a serious work. The closest analogy to such games are military exercise, when general staff runs exercise even during the wartime, role-playing different scenarios of how the actions on the battlefield can go. No war happens without it. Thus, organization and activity game resemble staff games, and those who do not participate in them lose the opportunity to know what happens in whole. Those who want to act rationally and positively should aim at participating in meetings of the general staff. And when people ignore such meetings it merely means that they got further entrenched and are not able to see farther than their noses. And that is thanks to OAG that the overall situation can be seen”.

Being one of the organizers of the game, Uladzimir Matskevich is satisfied with the results: “It was running actively from the beginning till the end. After the game we understand the demands that we should advance to our nearest partners in Poland much better. These demands became more specific under the game run. Weak and strong points of Germany stance towards Belarus became more clear, too. Now we have to think over how to do further work, what suggestions to put forth”.

Many of those skeptical about OAG always want to know the results of such games without participation in them. Uladzimir Matskevich dwelled upon it, giving a graphic example: “Imagine you are putting on a show in the theatre. And the rehearsal is the imitation of the show without the audience. During the rehearsals you will see what has to be improved, and you never know for sure how many rehearsals you will need. The more the better, perhaps. And the game that we played is something similar to such rehearsals”.

“If we manage to put in order, change and give some other, more constructive direction to the relations between the representatives of the Belarusan and the Polish civil societies, we can already state that the game was a success in this part. Now we only have to implement the groundwork done during the game”, - notes Uladzimir Matskevich.

The experts emphasized that the successful game doesn’t necessarily mean real success. “During the game we didn’t manage to coordinate many issues, - admits Uladzimir Matskevich. – But it is now that we have to do the real work, and we are more prepared for now. There is no doubt that the game was difficult and we didn’t overcome all of them. But they became visible during the game and it means that we will be better prepared for them in reality”.

Uladzimir Matskevich is not very disappointed with the rejection of the Belarusan political forces to participate in the game: “It is important that they take part in real actions. But there is no way we can do without exercise and rehearsals”.

Today’s refusal to participate in the game is the reflection of the real life where Belarusan political forces are mainly found out of the center of the events, believes the expert: “I am convinced that abstention from participating in the rehearsals will be revealed in reality. Those who are not participating in the war games lose in real life, playing ridiculously without even realizing that”.