[Marxism] Re: Ukraine

["eugene plawiuk" <eugene@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

HOW THE US AND BRITAIN ARE INTERVENING IN UKRAINE'S
ELECTIONS
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/LAU411A.html
by John Laughland
The Spectator 5 November 2004

A few years ago, a friend of mine was sent to Kiev by the
British government
to teach Ukrainians about the Western democratic system.
His pupils were
young reformers from western Ukraine, affiliated to the
Conservative party.
When they produced a manifesto containing 15 pages of
impenetrable waffle,
he gently suggested boiling their electoral message down to
one salient
point. What was it, he wondered? A moment of furrowed brows
produced the
lapidary and nonchalant reply, ?To expel all Jews from our
country.?

It is in the west of Ukraine that support is strongest for
the man who is
being vigorously promoted by America as the country?s next
president: the
former prime minister Viktor Yushchenko. On a rainy Monday
morning in Kiev,
I met some young Yushchenko supporters, druggy skinheads
from Lvov. They
belonged both to a Western-backed youth organisation, Pora,
and also to
Ukrainian National Self-Defence (Unso), a semi-paramilitary
movement whose
members enjoy posing for the cameras carrying rifles and
wearing fatigues
and balaclava helmets. Were nutters like this to be
politically active in
any country other than Ukraine or the Baltic states, there
would be instant
outcry in the US and British media; but in former Soviet
republics, such
bogus nationalism is considered anti-Russian and therefore
democratic.

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. Thus a story has been widely
circulated that
Yushchenko was poisoned during the electoral campaign, the
fantasy being
that the government was trying to bump him off. But no
British or American
news outlet has reported the interview by the chief
physician of the Vienna
clinic which treated Yushchenko for his unexplained
illness. The clinic
released a report declaring there to be no evidence of
poisoning, after
which, said the chief physician, he was subjected to such
intimidation by
Yushchenko?s entourage ? who wanted him to change the
report ? that he was
forced to seek police protection.

It has also been repeatedly alleged that foreign observers
found the
elections fraught with violations committed by the
government. In fact, this
is exclusively the view of highly politicised Western
governmental
organisations like the OSCE ? a body which is notorious for
the fraudulent
nature of its own reports, and which in any case came to
this conclusion
before the poll had even taken place ? and of bogus NGOs,
such as the
Committee of Ukrainian Voters, a front organisation
exclusively funded by
Western (mainly American) government bodies and
think-tanks, and clearly
allied with Yushchenko. Because they speak English, the
political activists
in such organisations can easily nobble Anglophone Western
reporters.

Contrary allegations ? such as those of fraud committed by
Yushchenko-supporting local authorities in western Ukraine,
carefully
detailed by Russian election observers but available only
in Russian ? go
unreported. So too does evidence of crude intimidation made
by Yushchenko
supporters against election officials. The depiction is so
skewed that
Yushchenko is presented as a pro-Western free-marketeer,
even though his
fief in western Ukraine is an economic wasteland; while
Yanukovych is
presented as pro-Russian and statist, even though his
electoral campaign is
based on deregulation and the economy has been growing at
an impressive
clip. The cleanliness and prosperity of Kiev and other
cities have improved
noticeably.

There is, however, one thing which separates the two main
candidates, and
which explains the West?s determination to shoo in
Yushchenko: Nato.
Yanukovych has said he is against Ukraine joining;
Yushchenko is in favour.
The West wants Ukraine in Nato to weaken Russia
geopolitically and to have a
new big client state for expensive Western weaponry, whose
manufacturers
fund so much of the US political process.

Yanukovych has also promised to promote Russian back to the
status of second
state language. Since most Ukrainian citizens speak
Russian, since Kiev is
the historic birthplace of Christian Russia, and since the
current
legislation forces tens of millions of Russians to
Ukrainianise their names,
this is hardly unreasonable. The continued artificial
imposition of
Ukrainian as the state language ? started under the Soviets
and intensified
after the fall of communism ? will be a further factor in
ripping Ukraine?s
Russophone citizens away from Russia proper. That is why
the West wants it.

OR COULD IT BE ABOUT OIL?
? Ukraine?s Plans to Transport Caspian Sea and Middle
East Oil to Europe
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/usazerb/412.htm


? Ukraine and the Caspian: An Opportunity for the
United States
http://www.rand.org/publications/IP/IP198/


? Oil Export Routes and Options in the Caspian Sea
Region
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/caspgrph.html


? New EU-Ukraine oil pipeline completed
http://www.eubusiness.com/imported/2001/08/55762


? U.S. expresses strong support of Odessa-Brody oil
pipeline
http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/2003/230308.shtml


? Ukraine sees itself as central player in new oil
transportation route
http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/1998/379802.shtml


? The 'Great Game' for Caspian Sea Oil
http://rrojasdatabank.info/agfrank/caspian.html


? The Oil Connection: Afghanistan and Caspian Sea oil
pipeline routes
http://www.newhumanist.com/oil.html
---
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