From out of thin air: Belarus dissidents' fates

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Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. The residents of Goma, a provincial capital in the Democratic Republic of Congo, are still living in fear after Africa's most dangerous volcano erupted. Over the weekend, our correspondent meets with people picking up the charred pieces of their lives. And more and more musicians are ending up in court alleging their songs are being copied by other artists. At the same time, such claims are becoming harder to prove. We look at what those trends mean for the industry and for the music. But first, Belarus is facing mounting pressure over its detainment of dissident journalist Roman Protosevic and his girlfriend, Sofia Zapega. Last night, Ms. Zapega appeared in a video ostensibly confessing to publishing information about Belarusian officials, but looking extremely uncomfortable. On Sunday, the country's president, Alexander Lukashenko, had ordered the pair's flight from Greece to Lithuania to be diverted to Belarus capital Minsk, where they were arrested. Mr. Protozevich's mother, Natalia, has called on the international community to help. American President Joe Biden has called Belarus actions outrageous. And Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said there would be new sanctions on Belarus.

This is an attack on democracy.

This is an attack on freedom of expression. And this is an Attack on European sovereignty. And this outrageous behavior needs a strong answer.

But putting meaningful pressure on the regime won't be easy.

It was very clear from the beginning that this was ordered by Alexander Lukashenko himself, the president, the dictator of Belarus who's ruled it for 26 years.

Arkady Ostrovsky is the Economist's Russia editor.

To the international audience, they said there was a bomb alert. They received an email of a terrorist threat. So they instructed the pilots to make a U turn and land at Minsk airport. No explosives were obviously found because none were ever planted for the domestic audience. Interestingly enough, there was a different message a few days earlier. One of the security, security chiefs in Belarus said they were going to hunt down all the opposition leaders who they consider to be terrorists. And this was a very bellicose and obviously threatening message. And it seems that what happened on Sunday was playing out exactly that scenario.

And so that according to the regime in Belarus, Mr. Protozevich is one of those terrorists.

Yes, actually Roman Protosevic is a journalist and activist, 26 year old man, part of a new generation of Belarusians who clearly see their country as part of Europe. They want to live in a free and democratic state. And he is one of the people behind Nexter News Channel. It's a social media channel that gained extraordinary reach and popularity in Belarus. It's covered live the protests last summer and Lukashenko has put them on the list of extremists and terrorists.

But even still, that seems a pretty extreme way to go about bringing him into custody. I mean, can you recall anything similar in recent history?

Not really, but this is part of a very, very worrying trend of repression going basically transnational. We've had a lot of instances of Russian security services, Chinese, Iranian, reaching and hitting dissidents or those who they consider to be traitors abroad. Britain has been on the receiving end of it. We the use of Novichok used against these Kripals. We had assassinations in Germany by Chechen strongman. You know, we can recall the Bolsheviks actually hitting Trotsky in Mexico City. It's going back to that tradition. It's obviously a very worrying trend, not just for dissidents, but for the countries in which repressive leaders operate with complete impunity.

And to that end, we've already seen lots of protestations from Europe, from America, Western leaders generally about the arrest. What impact do you think that will have? What can the rest of the world do here?

Well, a lot of it is about messaging and imposing costs. Russia, which is backing Lukashenko, is watching Very carefully. And the response has been rapid and quite robust. The leaders of the EU have imposed bans on Belarusian aviation flying into European airports. They also advised European carriers not to fly over Belarus. Hopefully there will be some stronger economic sanctions on Belarus. Trying to basically show that this action is absolutely impermissible and does carry a massive cost. The message is partly, I think, intended for Russia. Vladimir Putin cannot afford and doesn't want to be a pariah. It's not a comfortable position for the Kremlin and it's a testing ground both for Russia and it's a testing ground for the EU, NATO and the US response.

And as we've said before, Mr. Lukashenko's rule and then the stability in Belarus is kind of still dependent on Russia's backing. Is that as robust as it was before? Does this threaten that?

It's a very interesting question, Jason, because Russia has this very ambivalent relationship with Belarus. It's actually not unlike China's relationship with North Korea. Both regimes see liberal democracy, Western liberal democracy as a threat, but they're very mistrustful of each other. So part, partly what this whole story helps Russia to achieve is that it makes Belarus more dependent on Russia. Lukashenko has completely lost any semblance of legitimacy in his own country. In a way, the question of whether Belarus is going to be driven into Russia's hands is already sort of superfluous because it has been pushed in that direction by the actions of Lukashenko, who has surrendered the country's sovereignty along with his own legitimacy by behaving in this abhorred way. Russia would like to see Belarus obviously locked into its orbit against the West. It clearly brings Belarus and Lukashenko's regime much closer to Russia. And the violence in the two countries disregard for human rights is very much synchronized, I would say.

And what about Roman Protozevich? What do you think will happen to him in all this?

Well, to me, this is the hardest in a way, question. At the end of the day, it's the life of one 26 year old man and his girlfriend. He's been paraded on Belarusian television, making a confession which is clearly recorded under huge duress, whether he's been tortured or whether he's been blackmailed with threats against his girlfriend who's in detention. He's not the only one. There are 400 political prisoners in Belarus. People have been tortured, people have been killed in Belarus over the past year and before Lukashenko has hounded his opponents out of the country. You know, it's very easy to talk about big picture and geopolitics. But we have to be mindful that we're dealing with a Stalinist regime in the middle of Europe in the first quarter of the 21st century. And I think that standing up to that regime is as important because repression and abuse of human rights and international security are intimately linked.

Arkady, thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you, Jason.

Late on Saturday night, one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world erupted. Mount Nyiragongo is only around 15 kilometers from the center of the city of Goma in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. As molten lava began to flow into Goma's outskirts, many of the city's residents were caught unaware. Some were forced to flee for safety to neighboring Rwanda. Many others remain missing. Isador Calimira is the head of a local NGO that has a shelter for vulnerable youths. He's taken in nearly 50 children who have been separated from their parents and seen hundreds more families looking for their children.

On Saturday night at about 6:30, I was heading out for dinner and I started getting frantic messages from people saying that Nyiragongo volcano was erupting.

Olivia Ackland writes about Central Africa for the Economist.

The sky was glowing orange and filled with smoke, and people were running in different directions trying to get out of the city. Since the volcano first erupted, a lot of the electricity is turned off across town. A lot of the water supplies are cut off. Water pipes have been melted by the molten lava, and we're having very regular earthquakes about every 20 minutes. My house rattles. I've got various friends who've moved in who are living in taller buildings. I'm in a bungal, and we've all been advised to get out of tall buildings as the earthquakes seem to be getting stronger.

And what do we know about the human cost so far, anyway?

The current death toll is at 34. Around 500 houses have been flattened by the lava. And according to UNICEF, there are 100 children who are still missing and separated from their families. I went to one of the sites which was badly affected. It was this area called Buhane, and it had just been totally flattened by the molten lava. And where all of these houses used to stand, there were just smoking black rocks and this sulfurous smoke coming off them. And one man I spoke to, Charles Kambale, was picking amongst the rubble. He was picking up scraps of metal and these sort of burnt, scorched pans and pots. And he said, yeah, this is my house. And it had just been reduced to rubble. He was at A wedding when the eruption happened, with his wife and his two eldest children are okay, but his youngest children, ages 6 and 2, were staying in the house, being looked after by the neighbours and he hasn't seen them since. Also another thing to mention is that in Goma, most people keep all of their money in their houses. So you lose your house and you lose all of your savings and you've got nothing. Yesterday I was in various centres, the centers that were looking after children who had lost their parents, when everyone fled because it was complete chaos, people fleeing in all different directions. And I spoke to a four year old boy there, this very sweet boy at a Red Cross shelter, and he said that he had fled with his friends, but he didn't know where his friends had gone. So he was alone. And on Saturday night he'd walked for 20km to a nearby town with a group of children. And he'd been since rescued and taken to the shelter and was hoping to find his parents.

And the residents of Goma must live in fear of this giant volcano on their doorstep.

Nyiragongo looms over Goma and it last erupted in 2002 and it was much worse. So hundreds of people killed and at least 120,000 people were left homeless. The volcano is one of the most active volcanoes in the world. I spoke to a volcanologist and he said it's the most dangerous volcano in Africa, partly because it's incredibly close to a densely populated city. It's only about 10km away from the outskirts of Goma, and the lava is also very fast flowing. He said that the lava was one of the fastest flowing lavas in the world.

And what about the residents who've been displaced this time around? What's happened with them? What will happen with them throughout the night?

On Saturday night, families were fleeing towards the Rwandan border, lugging their possessions behind them, lugging mattress and kitchen pots. I was actually at the border and there was just gridlock traffic for 500 meters and at some point people started to panic and run across the border and people were just running across the border there. But I think about 3,500 people crossed over that night. But for lots of people in Goma, sadly, it's not the first time they've had to flee. This region's been affected by conflict for over 25 years. There are lots of different armed groups hiding in the bush close to Goma. At the moment, there are around 5 million Congolese people displaced within the country as a result largely of conflict.

And how has all that displacement all that political instability affected Goma's preparedness for another eruption.

It's difficult to monitor the volcano. I spoke to volcanologists who said that often the equipment gets stolen from the top of the volcano. But unfortunately, that's not the only problem. The volcano center was funded by the World Bank. The funding term ran out in October 2020 because there were allegations of embezzlement within the organization, and the World bank didn't renew their funding. So the volcano center has received very little funding in the last seven months. They weren't monitoring the volcano, perhaps as as they would otherwise have been. The eruption came as a big surprise to most people. There were no warnings put out that this was something we should prepare for. Most of the people whose houses have been flattened are probably just going to have to melt into neighboring communities. There are no camps to go to, so it's going to be difficult for the host community to look after them because people in Goma are very poor. Most people survive on less than $2 a day. Congo's government is miles away in Kinshasa, the capital, which is more than 1,500 kilometers away. And it has a long record of neglecting its people in the EAs. I don't expect the people affected to receive a huge amount of support from the government.

So you say that Goma has been lucky until now, but it's not out of the woods yet?

No. So tremors are still shaking the city. On Tuesday, at around lunchtime, a building collapsed in the center of Goma. There are earthquakes about every 20 to 30 minutes and all the windows and doors in my house rattle. The earthquakes seem to be getting stronger, which could be a bad sign that pressure is building within the volcano. There's a fissure which has opened up close to the hospital, a small gap, and people are worri that lava could burst out of that and that would really be in the center of town. For now, the situation is very unpredictable and we're just trying to keep a close eye on what's happening.

Are you not tempted to evacuate yourself?

Not yet, but I'm ready to evacuate if I need to. I have my COVID test, so that means I can get across the border into Rwanda without too much difficulty if I have to. I also live in a house on the lake, so I've got a boat at the ready in case I need to float away, which is actually one of the best escape routes via the lake. So I've got a kayak and a paddleboard so my house, classmates and I can get into the lake if we need to.

Olivia, thank you very much for joining us. And stay safe.

Thanks, Jason.

For more analysis like this from our international network of correspondence, take out a subscription to the Economist. Get a great introductory deal@Equality.com IntelligenceOffer the link is in the show notes. Okay, here's a game of Spot the difference. First up, Childish Gambino's 2018 mega hit this Is America.

This Is America.

Don't got you slipping now. Next, Florida rapper Kid Wes and his 2016 track Made in America.

I'm making the mission, I'm made in America.

Do you think they sound similar? Well, Kid Wes and his legal team certainly do. They filed a complaint earlier this month in a New York court.

This complaint against Childish Gambino, which is the stage name of Donald Glover, is just the latest in a long run of copyright claims against American musicians.

Tom Wainwright is the Economist's media editor.

The American courts are seeing more and more of these claims, and it's partly because of legal precedent and partly because of changing technology.

Okay, and what are the precise claims that Kid Wes and his legal team are making here?

There's a few elements to this supposed infringement that they claim. One is obviously the lyrics. This is America. Made in America. Fairly similar. They use the same rhythmic flow as well. They both use a pair of triplet beats. So this is America. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. Made in America. 1, 2, 3,. 1, 2, 3. Finally, he says that there's also similarity in the subject matter. So both songs cover themes like gun violence and racism, that sort of thing. Most of the experts I spoke to thought that this claim was fairly thin. The triplet flow is not unique by any means. It's become quite popular recently. Made in America is not the kind of phrase that one can copyright. And thematic similarity is not copyrightable either. So the claim seems to have not very much basis, as far as I can see.

And you mentioned this is just the latest of the prominent copyright complaints around music. Why are these things cropping up more often?

In past years, you might have seen two or three of these in a typical year. In recent years, we've seen as many as 20. And I think there are a couple of reasons, really. One is a legal one. There was a case in 2015 which I think changed the way that a lot of people saw these cases. And that case was when the family of Marvin Gaye brought a complaint against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams, claiming that their song Blurred Lines. Was copied off Marvin Gaye's song Got to Give it up from 1970.

The.

Argument of Marvin Gaye's descendants was there was no individual element in these songs that was individually copyrightable, but there were several non copyrightable things which together formed what they called a constellation of similarities. And so there were things like they used the same instruments, they both had crowd noises in the background, they had a similar kind of beat. And you can tell that one song is influenced by the other. What people hadn't really thought until then was that that kind of shared feel, that kind of shared vibe, as some people put it, would be enough to win a copyright claim. But in this case in 2015, it proved that it was. And I think a lot of people saw this and thought, oh, you know, it seems that the bar for copyright infringement is a bit lower than we thought. And so I think that's encouraged some people to make more claims. The second thing that I think has made these claims a bit more common is technology. In the past, a def that artists could use against copyright infringement was that they didn't have what lawyers call access. In other words, they hadn't heard the original track that they would claim to have copied. Now, of course, anybody who's got a smartphone and access to YouTube can hear any song that's been published. And so that defence is a lot harder to pull off than it was.

So given that there's now this more frequent litigation, how is that affecting the music industry more broadly?

Well, if you're an artist now, you're looking at all these legal cases and you're worried and you know, even if you're being honest and not copying your music off anybody else, as far as you know, you could have two concerns. One is that you may subconsciously have copied something, and the other is that they're concerned that they may just accidentally come up with something which by sheer coincidence is similar to another work. And so to protect themselves against this, they're hiring experts known as forensic musicologists, who they get to listen to their tracks before they're published. And so they might listen to this new song and go back and research music in the same kind of genre and see if there's anything in the past that is sort of dangerously similar. And if so, they might go back and suggest that, you know, a couple of bars might be changed, that some of the lyrics might be tweaked here or there, all to make sure that when the track eventually is released, the chances of a copyright claim are minimized.

And where do you think that leaves the industry as a whole?

Obviously you don't want artists to be copying others stuff that's dishonest and unfair on the person who got there first. But if you've got a situation where people are unwilling even to admit that they were influenced by other people, then I think that kind of stifles creativity. You know, the history of music and the history of art is such that people were influenced by each other. And so I think it's probably a good thing if these cases arraigned in a bit in such a way that allows people to be openly influenced by and pay tribute to former artists in a way that doesn't immediately get them into legal hot water.

Tom, thanks very much for your time.

Thank you.

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. If you like us, leave us a rating and a review and see you back here tomorrow.