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The Political Crisis in The Ukraine
Key articles and essays
Global Research E-Monograph and Reports Series, No. 2, 2004
23 December 2004
Preface
The 2004 election campaign in the Ukraine has been built on a massive propaganda and public relations campaign, supported by the US, with money payoffs by Washington for political parties and organizations committed to Western strategic and economic interests.
In turn, US intelligence, working hand in glove with various foundations including the National Endowment for Democracy, has consistently supported this process of civil society manipulation.
Behind the presidential elections, there is a power struggle between pro-US-NATO and pro-Russian factions within the leading political establishment and the military.
The Ukraine is a member of GUUAM, a military alliance between the US and NATO on the one hand and five former Soviet republics (Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova) on the other. This military alliance was initially designed in 1997 by the Ukrainian National Security Services (NSBU) in close liaison with Washington. Its objective was to undermine the alliance between Russia and Belarus, signed between Moscow and Minsk in 1996.
The Ukraine also signed agreements with Poland and the Baltic states, pertaining to the control of transport corridors and pipeline routes.
GUUAM lies strategically at the hub of the Caspian oil and gas wealth, "with Moldova and the Ukraine offering [pipeline] export routes to the West." The objective of GUUAM was to exclude Russia from the Black Sea, protect the Anglo-American pipeline routes out of Central Asia and the Caspian sea.
The objective of the Bush Administration is to install a Ukrainian government which is firmly aligned with Washington, with the ultimate objective of displacing the Russian military not only from the Caspian sea oil basin but also from the Black Sea.
The objective is not democracy, but rather the further fracturing and colonization of the former Soviet Union under the brunt of "free market reforms."
Our objective is to bring to our readers a compendium of key articles, which refutes the Western media consensus, while also providing a broader understanding of Washington's geopolitical and economic interests in the former Soviet Union.
Michel Chossudovsky, 23 December 2004
Table of Contents
I OVERVIEW
The Ukrainian Elections: A Dangerous Fairy-Tale by Kole
The situation on the ground has been obscured in the main-stream press in order to confirm old Cold War stereotypes. The �fairy tale� of the Ukrainian elections is designed to legitimate attempts to reorder to post-Soviet space � through the agency of NATO, the IMF/World Bank, and civil society promotion outfits like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), USAID, the Open Society Institute, etc. - in ways that serve the geostrategic and economic interests of Empire.
In late November, more than 2.5-million people in the Donetsk region marched in support of the Yanukovych campaign, with 200,000 converging on the regional capital of Donetsk. Needless to say, this display of �people power� - which isn't funded by CIA fronts like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was completely omitted by the Western press. The regions people were simply erased from the global consciousness by a virtual �disappearing� act that neatly compliments the physical �disappearances� practiced by authoritarian pro-Western regimes against dissidents in a number of countries (including the dictatorships of Central Asia).
The Power Struggle in Ukraine and America's Strategy for Global Supremacy, by Peter Schwarz
With nearly 50 million inhabitants, Ukraine is, after Russia, by far the biggest of the successor states of the Soviet Union. Russia has about three times as many inhabitants. Ukraine is connected to Russia not only by a lengthy common history, extending back to the Kiev Rus in the ninth Century, but also close economic relations. Russia is by far its largest trading partner. During the past 300 years, the largest part of today's Ukraine was either Russian or Soviet national territory, or both. During this period a considerable exchange of population took place. Seventeen percent of the Ukrainian population are of Russian descent and nearly half the population speaks Russian. The heavy industry of the Eastern Ukraine, developed under the Soviet regime, is closely linked with its Russian counterpart. The dissolution of these links would have damaging consequences for both countries.
Geopolitics of the Ukrainian Breadbasket by Alfred John Mendes
It is first necessary to place this amorphous region known as the Ukraine within its historical context: the Catholic/Orthodox schism in the region around 1024 AD had led the newly-formed Jesuits of the 16th century (with not-a-little-help from the dominant Habsburg dynasty) to alleviate this festering wound in the side of the Roman Catholic church by creating the hybrid Uniate Church which would acknowledge the supremacy of the Pope - while retaining its Orthodox liturgy! This was blatant pragmatism. Now just another scapegoat in the struggle between Catholic and Orthodox, the Ukraine would be one of a number of other countries/regions stretching from the Baltic in the north southwards via the Black Sea, the Aegean, the Ionian into the Adriatic - later known as the �Intermare�.
I OIL GEOPOLITICS AND THE GRAND CHESSBOARD
Cold War Crisis in The Ukraine Control of Oil: Key Grand Chessboard "Pivot" at Stake by Larry Chin
The bitterly disputed Ukrainian presidential election, and the crisis that is exploding in the wake of the contested outcome, has re-ignited Cold War and a new round of East-West conflict over control of Eurasian/Caspian/Black Sea energy.
It is critical to view Ukraine within the framework of an energy-rich Eurasian corridor that has been increasingly militarized by the US and the West since the late 1990s, and even more aggressively by the Bush administration under the 9/11/ "war on terrorism" pretext.
IMF Sponsored "Democracy" in The Ukraine by Michel Chossudovsky
In the Ukraine, the IMF not only intervened in the implementation of the macroeconomic agenda, it also intruded directly in the arena of domestic party politics.
In 1993, Viktor Yushchenko was appointed head of the newly-formed National Bank of Ukraine. Hailed as a "daring reformer", he was among the main architects of the IMF's deadly economic medicine which served to impoverish The Ukraine and destroy its economy.
Following his appointment, the Ukraine reached a historical agreement with the IMF. Mr Yushchenko played a key role in negotiating the 1994 agreement as well as creating a new Ukrainian national currency, which resulted in a dramatic decline in the standard of living.
Washington�s interest in Ukraine: Democracy or Energy Geopolitics? by William Engdahl
The Ukraine elections are not about Western-sanctioned democratic voting, as some magic formula to open the door to free market reform and prosperity for Ukrainians. It�s mainly about who influences the largest neighbor of Russia, Washington or Moscow. A dangerous power play by Washington is involved, to put it mildly.
A look at the geo-strategic background makes things clearer. Ukraine is the transit land for most major Russian Siberian gas pipelines to Germany and the rest of Europe.
III US INTERFERENCE IN ELECTION POLITICS
This preliminary report of the British Helsinki Human Rights Group (BHHRG) observers on the controversial second round of the Ukrainian presidential elections challenges the widely-disseminated media image of government-sponsored fraud at the expense of an untainted opposition on the basis of first-hand reporting. Ukrainian Presidential Elections - 2nd Round Preliminary Report
U.S. Money Helped Opposition in Ukraine by Matt Kelley
The Bush administration has spent more than $65 million in the past two years to aid political organizations in Ukraine, paying to bring opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko to meet U.S. leaders and helping to underwrite exit polls indicating he won last month's disputed runoff election.
Western aggression: How the US and Britain are intervening in Ukraine�s elections by John Laughland
It is because of this ideological presupposition that Anglo-Saxon reporting on the Ukrainian elections has chimed in with press releases from the State Department, peddling a fairytale about a struggle between a brave and beleaguered democrat, Yushchenko, and an authoritarian Soviet nostalgic, the present Prime Minister, Viktor Yanukovych. All facts which contradict this morality tale are suppressed.
Election Fraud in America. Comparing Mythologies: The US versus Ukraine by Michael Keefer
Imagine the sensation that would have ensued if a United States Senator had declared, less than three weeks after the 2004 U.S. presidential election, that "It is now apparent that a concerted and forceful program of election-day fraud and abuse was enacted with either the leadership or co-operation of governmental authorities." The story would have made banner headlines around the world. As a matter of fact, on November 22, 2004, BBC News attributed these very words to Republican Senator Richard Lugar. However, Lugar was speaking in his capacity as Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee�and he was referring, not to the U.S. presidential election of November 2, but to the Ukrainian presidential election of November 21, 2004.
Derniers d�veloppements de la crise en Ukraine. L'heure du compromis ? Jean Marie Chauvier,
Le Parlement ukrainien a adopt�, le 8 d�cembre 2004, la r�forme constitutionnelle voulue par le pr�sident L�onid Koutchma, rejet�e de longue date par Mme. Madeleine Albright, la principale inspiratrice am�ricaine de la "r�volution orange". Le leader orangiste, Viktor Iouchtchenko l'a accept�e, en �change du d�part, comme premier ministre, de son rival aux pr�sidentielles Viktor Ianoukovitch, qui se trouve ainsi un peu plus "l�ch�", sous la pression internationale. Une garantie de plus que le chef de "Notre Ukraine" pourra conqu�rir le pouvoir lors du troisi�me tour des pr�sidentielles le 26 d�cembre.
En substance, la r�forme limite les pouvoirs du pr�sident, l'Ukraine passe d'une r�publique pr�sidentielle � une r�publique parlementaire. Une telle perspective devrait r�jouir les "partisans de la d�mocratie". L'ennui, c'est qu'elle assure des possibilit�s plus �tendues aux d�put�s, donc � une majorit� repr�sentant les r�gions de l'Est et du Sud, les adeptes de Viktor Ianoukovitch, sans oublier le Parti Communiste d'Ukraine, tr�s marginalis� dans la crise actuelle o� il ne soutient aucun des deux camps, mais qui forme toujours le premier groupe parlementaire. La situation �volue et permet de nouvelles r�flexions.
L'Ukraine sur le Grand Echiquier par Yves Bataille
Pour ceux qui ont v�cu le d�roulement des �v�nements de Serbie ces derni�res ann�es, l'agitation actuelle en Ukraine a comme un air de d�j� vu. Comme hier � Belgrade une opposition entretenue et stimul�e par l'Occident met en avant une hypoth�tique fraude �lectorale et multiplie les manifestations dans la capitale pour faire pression sur les institutions et essayer de gagner par la rue ce qu'elle a perdu par les urnes.
UKRAINE PARTY POLITICS: THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Shadow of Anti-Semitism over Ukraine's Disputed Election by British Helsinki Human Rights Group
Western media and governments may have edited out the manifestations of extreme nationalism and anti-Semitism which disfigure the Ukrainian opposition�s rabble-rousing but history will record that in the run up to the disputed presidential elections, key opposition leaders, including Viktor Yushchenko, Julia Timoshenko and Alexander Moroz, defended anti-Semitic publications and accepted the backing of neo-Nazi groups as well as US and EU and so-called �civic society� NGOs
Neo-Nazi Organizations in the Ukraine by Liudmila Dymerskaya-Tsigelman and Leonid Finberg
The political parties and movements of the post-Soviet Ukraine developed their platforms during perestroika, when the processes that led to the subsequent breakup of the Soviet Union were unleashed. Both antisemitism and opposition to it became tools in a fierce ideological and political struggle.
US campaign behind the Turmoil in Kiev by Ian Traynor
With their websites and stickers, their pranks and slogans aimed at banishing widespread fear of a corrupt regime, the democracy guerrillas of the Ukrainian Pora youth movement have already notched up a famous victory - whatever the outcome of the dangerous stand-off in Kiev.
Funded and organized by the US government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American parties and US non-government organizations, the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot box.
Global Research E-Monograph and Reports Series, No. 2, 2004
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