[North-NV-Greens] Fwd: USGP-INT another article on Ukraine

Sat Nov 27 15:54:17 PST 2004

>
>
>HOW THE US AND BRITAIN ARE INTERVENING IN UKRAINE'S
>ELECTIONS
><http://globalresearch.ca/articles/LAU411A.html>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>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/>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>http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/caspgrph.html
>
>
>? New EU-Ukraine oil pipeline completed
><http://www.eubusiness.com/imported/2001/08/55762>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>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>http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/1998/379802.shtml
>
>
>? The 'Great Game' for Caspian Sea Oil
><http://rrojasdatabank.info/agfrank/caspian.html>http://rrojasdatabank.info/agfrank/caspian.html
>
>
>? The Oil Connection: Afghanistan and Caspian Sea oil
>pipeline routes
><http://www.newhumanist.com/oil.html>http://www.newhumanist.com/oil.html
>---


-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand
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