The Belarusian Telegraph Agency reported in the summer of 2020, that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko revealed the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Lukashenko issued him a quid pro quo demand. He was offered $940 million in the form of ‘Covid Relief Aid’ in return he must impose an ‘extreme’ lockdown, tight curfews and enforce a police state and the wearing of facemasks and an economic crash.

The Cides believe that President Lukashenko was brave to speak out and to refuse the demands and wishes that the leaders of all nations had his integrity.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said through The Belarusian Telegraph Agency, in the summer of 2020, that the World Bank and the IMF offered him $940 million in the form of “Covid Relief Aid”. This, in itself, does not alert us to any wrongdoings, as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank are multilateral organisations that provide advice and financial aid to 190 member countries.

However, the funds that were offered came with a quid pro quo demand that the Belarusian President would not accept.

The COVID Response from the Multilateral Organisations

On March 2, 2020, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva issued a joint statement with World Bank President David Malpass announcing that they would help address challenges posed by Covid-19 with special attention to “poor countries” adding that they would use their available instruments to the “fullest extent possible” (IMF, 2020).

Their actions are what would be expected of the organisations, as the IMF alone states that they are "working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world. They are able to do this through contributions from countries which are pooled through a quota system allowing countries experiencing “balance of payments problems” to borrow money. The IMF has billions of dollars in their pool of funds, for instance in 2016, they had approximately 667 billion dollars which they say plays a central role in balance of payments difficulties and international financial crises.

The IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva

However, it is interesting to note here that Kristalina Georgieva, a Bulgarian economist has held senior positions in both organisations, she was appointed managing director of the IMF in 2019, and prior to that had been chief executive of the World Bank since 2017.

Yet, Georgieva’s honesty was in question from her days at the World Bank after they launched an investigation into its “Doing Business” 2018 report, led by law firm Wilmer Hale, which found Georgieva had applied ‘undue pressure’ to researchers to fraudulently boost China’s ranking in the publication.

Georgieva had denied the allegations of biased manipulating of data, but her job was under discussion at a meeting of the IMF’s 24-strong executive board (source).

Despite her alleged behaviour, the not-so-squeaky-clean Georgieva was able to remain in her role as head of the IMF during their COVID response and Belarus was just one country that was in line to benefit from that response when the IMF and World Bank offered President Lukashenka $940 million.

Putting People Above the IMF and World Bank Needs

The Belarusian president revealed that at a meeting with the Cabinet of Ministers, funds offered to Belarus through “quick financing’ for almost a billion dollars had conditionalities, “to do everything ‘like in Italy”.

In other words, the organisations required the President of Belarus to:

Impose “extreme” lockdown on the citizens
Force citizens to wear face masks
Enforce very tight curfews
Enforce a police state
Economic crash

From the video below and translation by google, Lukashenko speaks about the proposal and what he thinks of it:

“The chairman of the national bank and chief negotiator with the international monetary fund says how things are here, it is possible to provide Belarus with nine hundred and forty million dollars of so-called “fast financing”

“I want to declare that we will not dance to anyone! There are already demands: you say, in the fight against coronavirus in Belarus, do as in Italy! Listen, I don’t want the situation in Belarus to repeat itself as in Italy. I don’t want this. We have our own country, our own situation. And God forbid that we end up with this coronavirus as it is now. The World Bank is already ready to finance us 10 times more than it offered, for the fact that we are effectively fighting this disease. Even I have requested experience from the Ministry of Health. And the IMF continues to demand from us: you give quarantine, let’s isolate, let’s have a curfew! Listen, what nonsense!“

Declining the bid Aleksandr Lukashenko claimed that he was unwilling to consider such an offer and would “place his people above the IMF and World Bank needs.” Lukashenko should be commended for his loyalty to the Belarusian people.

The Economic Hitman

Bribing leaders seems to be standard practice according to John Perkins who was chief economist at a major international consulting firm. Perkins had a position where he advised the World Bank, United Nations, IMF, U.S. Treasury Department, Fortune 500 corporations, and countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. He exposed their practices in his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man where he says that in his job he was instructed by organisations to bribe leaders of certain companies with the promise of making them and their families very rich just by agreeing to their policies.

The Quid Pro Quo

Perkins also spent over a decade “pressuring the presidents of poor countries into signing exorbitant contracts” and says that in theory, “agreements were supposed to help underdeveloped countries but what these countries didn’t realise was that they had been sold a lie.” He continued “the money they made was never enough to pay back the massive loans they had agreed to, and they were left helpless as they watched the interest continue to rise and the money continues to leave.

The way the IMF and the World Bank work, is to put a country in debt, it’s such a big debt, and they can’t pay it, they offer to refinance that debt, so the countries have to pay even more interest. Alternatively, a Quid pro quo is demanded, which they call conditionality or good governance.

While this usually means that the indebted country will have to sell off their resources, including many of their social services, utility companies, etc to foreign corporations, are we now seeing conditionalities to adopt the COVID policies? Which begs the question, who did succumb to the bribes from the IMF and World Bank?

The video below is of John Perkins the “Economic Hitman” exposing the organisations and their tactics. It is well worth a watch.

A $940 Million COVID Bribe Refused by Belarusian President Lukashenko