Ukraine

craner

Beast of Burden
...seems to me to ridicule certain critiques formulated round these parts.

The smart people want to go Westwards. They want to be part of NATO and the EU, not sucked into the orbit of Putin's authoritarian-bordering-on-neofascist Russia.

Apparently there were reports of Russian Special forces appearing in the Ukraine last week, until mass demonstrations caught the eye of Europe's free media.

5O million people rejecting dictatorship, demanding democracy.

It's like '89 all over again.

Who lost Russia?
 
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sufi

lala
like '89 again is right of course,
cooked up by the same neo-cons to knock down another oldskool socialist regime...

sorry to quote from the grunter, but this article is interesting:

US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev
...

Funded and organised by the US government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American parties and US non-government organisations, the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot box.

Richard Miles, the US ambassador in Belgrade, played a key role. And by last year, as US ambassador in Tbilisi, he repeated the trick in Georgia, coaching Mikhail Saakashvili in how to bring down Eduard Shevardnadze.

Ten months after the success in Belgrade, the US ambassador in Minsk, Michael Kozak, a veteran of similar operations in central America, notably in Nicaragua, organised a near identical campaign to try to defeat the Belarus hardman, Alexander Lukashenko.

That one failed. "There will be no Kostunica in Belarus," the Belarus president declared, referring to the victory in Belgrade.

But experience gained in Serbia, Georgia and Belarus has been invaluable in plotting to beat the regime of Leonid Kuchma in Kiev.

The operation - engineering democracy through the ballot box and civil disobedience - is now so slick that the methods have matured into a template for winning other people's elections.

...
it goes on...

interesting too, how street protests rejecting election results can be characterised as "demanding democracy" !!! :rolleyes: :D

the pictures were good, actually - and the analysis of the very modernist way that the yoof are mobilised using websites, snappy graphics and happy clappy slogans is fresh too...
i'll see if i can google up some images...
 

Rambler

Awanturnik
Lech Walesa was in Kiev saying how it reminded him of Gdansk in 1980 - he was offering the protesters tips on how to keep warm.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Yeah, it was pretty bad of them to engineer a coup deposing Milosevic's "old skool socialist" regime by forcing people to vote against state corruption and genocide. Will Western evil never end?

I'm sorry, this is just absurd. And didn't Milosevic refuse to concede - thereby annulling a fair election, hence the POPULAR uprising?

The neocons weren't even in, or near, power in 2000.

To attribute the demonstrations in Ukraine, the refusal of 50 million people, to neocon meddling - despite inflating neocon power to an absurd degree (that woiuld only flatter and please them anyway), and using a term so loosely as to be meaningless (i mean, as far as I know, Richard Miles isn't a neoconservative) - is breathtaking.

Street demonstartions rejecting a blatantly fraudulent and rigged election result is demanding democracy.
 

luka

Well-known member
you may be guilty of inadequate research here craner. i think eds a bit more up on the play.
by all accounts its not as innocent as you're making out.
 

Wrong

Well-known member
oliver craner said:
The smart people want to go Westwards. They want to be part of NATO and the EU, not sucked into the orbit of Putin's authoritarian-bordering-on-neofascist Russia.

I can't decide if you're trolling or not, but surely that's an absurdly over-simplified statement. About 50% of the population voted for a pro-Western oligarch, 50% for a pro-Russian oligarch. I don't see how you can read some kind of glorious democratic rejection of 'neo-fascist' (WTF?) Putin into that.

More here
 

sufi

lala
Milosevic, for whom i am NOT an apologist, was the last "oldskool socialist" leader in Yurp, and was closely allied with Russia, also with China (rememeber NATO bombing their embassy 'by mistake' oops!!), but Kostunica is a Mafioso with less popular support than Slobo

whether Kuchma (sounds like an african word for pussy) qualifies as Soshulist or not is another question, no doubt he's an old skool thug, along with Lukashenko nex door, and definitely within Russia's sphere of influence...

which 50m folk are you on about olly? i guess that includes the ones rejecting the western sponsored velvet dictatorship that's ignoring the results of this 'democratic' election.. :D
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Alright, look, hyperbole aside, which oligarch actually controls the Ukrainian Supreme Court and Parliamnet, both of which rejected last week's election?

Ed - I didn't think you were a Milosevic apologist, obviously you could smack me in the face for that. But the idea that the Milosevic regime was destroyed by a Western PR campaign and was somehow illegitimate because of it...

plus bracketing him as "old skool socialist": yeah, he was Soviet sponsored, but he was at core an opportunist. What exactly did his later brand of racist Serb nationalism have to do with Socialism?

Wrong, your link was right, and I was glad to read it. But you don't think there's something sinister about Russia's current political course? I do.

Also, another thing, outside of the tussle of oligarchs, the inner Rolex-like workings of post-Soviet politics, you all utterly deny the existence of an East-West tug that has been played out since before the collapse and break-up of the USSR?
 

sufi

lala
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sufi

lala
olly said:
plus bracketing him as "old skool socialist": yeah, he was Soviet sponsored, but he was at core an opportunist. What exactly did his later brand of racist Serb nationalism have to do with Socialism?

FRY was the last socialist country in europe, with or without slobo
unless you count nu labour of course

it's all about the 'east-west tug' - the sweet irony is that while many would say that pooty is a client of the US, in this case their competing for control of another proxy

y'know, i agree with most of your 1st post, tbh, just yr stats are a bit off ;) :D !
 

&catherine

Well-known member
Two comments. Firstly, as regards Ukraine, I've been struck by just how explicit Western governments have been in proclaiming the elections fraudulent. The Australian government, for example - though they refused to even consider allegations that its allies (read: 'the U. S.') have been underhanded in any of their dealings in the 'war on terror', Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, et cetera - were nothing short of brazen in declaring the election results in the Ukraine to be bogus. Though this in itself is a more than defensible position to hold, I can't help but feel that if things had gone the other way, and the results had shown the West's preferred candidate to be ahead with evidence of electoral fraud, then no one would have kicked up a fuss. Not that this is really that surprising, but... I suppose I hold onto my old deluded belief that countries sometimes act purely for altruistic reasons. Alas. :(

Secondly, as regards the movement against Milosevic in 2000, I'm fairly sure that Western money went into the Otpor campaign, but I think Otpor was a well-established resistance group, who received money from a 'fostering democracy'-type fund, rather than from American government types. I could be wrong though. The overthrowing of Milosevic has always struck me as one of the nicest examples of America's influencing other countries' domestic politics - after the supremely fucked-up NATO campaign in Kosovo, it was reassuring to see Milosevic overthrown by a more or less non-violent campaign.
 

Wrong

Well-known member
oliver craner said:
Alright, look, hyperbole aside, which oligarch actually controls the Ukrainian Supreme Court and Parliamnet, both of which rejected last week's election?

Damn, oliver, your reasonable response makes me feel ashamed of my earlier intemperateness. Yes, you're right, it's not _just_ a clash of oligarchs; I guess I really wanted to point out that it's not _just_ a popular democracy movement either.
 
B

be.jazz

Guest
What I found odd in the way it was covered here (Belgium) is that we were all of a sudden presented with two people that (let's be honest) none of us had ever heard of before, one being a hero, the other a Cold War style puppet, immediately. Also, I've seen & heard plenty from the pro-Western side, nothing from the pro-Russia side, while being informed with a straight face that in the Ukraine, the state media isn't covering the demonstrations.
 

sufi

lala
Update:

I just got an email from my mate whose over there (fuck knows what he's up to??)

From Ukrain- Kiev;

I did not expect to witness such magnificent social event in this country. But life is full of unexpected and surprises. I am really admiring these moments here. The chance of feeling people’s victory was an exceptional opportunity. I was surprised, I felt people’s devotions, and I value their achievement. What ever happens in the future of this country for sure everybody will benefit from this historic event for better even if it was not the best. I cannot hide my admiration for the huge devotions that took place and the Cultural Revolution that changed the face of these people during the last 15 days.



With regards

S
 

sufi

lala
correspondence

sufi said:
Wow S
you star
you are making history again!

take care of yourself - don't let them make you be the president!

please write again to let us know what's up!

e
-----Original Message-----
From: M. V.
Sent: 06 December 2004 09:49
To: E
Subject: RE: The Ukraine


If they chose me you will be the first one to know. by the way give me your
personal email address please. thanks
sufi- wrote:


what is the feeling there? some of the press over here (guardian especially
of course) are saying it's very like serbia, georgia etc where the US have
'assisted' the velvet revolution? but then it's easy to be cynical from
london innit!!

i'll pass your greetings to those that deserve them!

e

xxx
Guardian is saying rubish. Its a real change of culture in people and in this sence it is a revolution even without the west. Its a confrontation between the past bearocrats and the progressive democrats. It feels great to see the huge movements of a social change. People were tired from criminal gangsters to decide their lives. It is most of all against the coraption and bearocratism.

Please give my regards and email address to whom want to contact me.
Cheers
S

anyone got any questions for our intrepid correspondent while he's on line?
 
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sufi

lala
some intelligent points from schnews

The majority went to the streets not to bring Yuschenko to power, but to prevent Yanukovych from seizing it. The feeling from the people is: “With Yuschenko – we’ll be in opposition; with Yanukovych, there’ll be no opposition”.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
I think Anne Applebaum's on point in last Wednesday's 'Washington Post':

Versions of this argument -- that pro-democracy movements are in fact insidious neocon plots designed to spread American military influence -- have been around for some time. Sometimes they cite George Soros -- in this context, a right-wing capitalist -- as the source of the funding and "slick marketing." Sometimes they cite the evil triumvirate of the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute and Freedom House, all organizations that have indeed been diligently training judges, helping election monitors and funding human rights groups around the world for decades, much of the time without getting much attention for it.

They seem a little odd in the Ukrainian context, given that President Bush has bent over backward to sound conciliatory and anything but anti-Russian (in notable contrast to his blunter but soon-to-be-retired secretary of state, Colin Powell). In fact, the United States has historically backed "stability" in Ukraine, which is another way of saying Russian influence. The current president's father once made a speech in Kiev calling on Ukraine to remain in the Soviet Union, mere weeks before the Soviet Union disintegrated. Nevertheless, these ideas have traction. Last weekend an Irish radio journalist angrily asked me why the United States is so keen to expand NATO into Ukraine: Didn't Russia have a right to be frightened? Yesterday a colleague forwarded to me an e-mail from a Dutch writer condemning the campaign that the "CIA and other U.S. secret services" have conducted across the former U.S.S.R.

This phenomenon is interesting on a number of accounts. The first is that it rather dramatically overrates the influence that American money, or American "democracy-promoters," can have in a place such as Ukraine. After all, about the same, relatively small amount of U.S. money has been spent on promoting democracy in Belarus, to no great effect. More to the point, rather larger amounts of money were spent in Ukraine by Russia, whose president visited the country twice to campaign for "his" candidate. If the ideas that Americans and Europeans promoted had greater traction in Ukraine than those of President Putin, that says more about Ukraine than about the United States. To believe otherwise is, if you think about it, deeply offensive to Ukrainians.
 
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