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What Are We Up to – in Ukraine? by Patrick J. Buchanan
In the 1940s, as Stalinists were seizing Czechoslovakia, ex-OSS agents were running bags of money to Italy and France to ensure the Communists were defeated in national elections.
In the 1950s, using a rent-a-mob, the CIA effected the ouster of an anti-American regime in Iran and the overthrow of Arbenz in Guatemala. In the 1980s, after Solidarity was crushed by Gen. Jaruzelski, Ronald Reagan secretly aided the Polish resistance.
Many of us applauded these Cold War means, as we believed that the ends – security of the West and survival of freedom – justified them.
But when news broke that South Africa was maneuvering to buy the Washington Star in the 1980s, this city was ablaze with indignation. How dare they seek to corrupt American media! In the 1990s, when China was caught using cutouts to funnel cash to the Clinton campaign, we were full of righteous rage.
Given this history, several question arise. Are we today using Cold War tactics in a post-Cold War era? Are we guilty of the same gross interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine, trying to fix their election, we would consider outrageous and criminal if done to us?
Are we Americans hypocrites of global democracy?
Consider what we have apparently been up to in Ukraine.
According to the Guardian and other sources, NED – the National Endowment for Democracy – and USAid, Freedom House, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and George Soros' Open Society Institute all pumped money or sent agents into Kiev to defeat the government-backed Viktor Yanukovich and elect Viktor Yushchenko as president. Allegedly in on the scheme is the supposedly objective and neutral Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The Guardian's Jonathan Steele describes how we put the fix in:
"Yushchenko got the Western nod, and floods of money poured in to groups which support him, ranging from the youth organization, Pora, to various opposition websites. More provocatively, the U.S. and other Western embassies paid for exit polls ..."
Those polls showed Yushchenko winning by 11, demoralizing the opposition and convincing most Ukrainians he was the next president.
But, on Election Day, Yushchenko, like Kerry, lost by three, as the populous eastern Ukraine delivered the same huge margins for favorite son Yanukovich as did western Ukraine for Yushchenko.
Into the streets came scores of thousands of demonstrators, howling fraud and demanding that Yushchenko be inaugurated. Engaging in civil disobedience, and backed by the West, the crowds intimidated parliament, President Kuchma and the judiciary into declaring the election invalid.
John Laughland writes in the Guardian of the double standard our media employ: "Enormous rallies have been held in Kiev in support of the prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich, but they are not shown on our TV screen. ... Yanukovich supporters are denigrated as having been 'bussed in.' The demonstrators in favor of Yushchenko have laser lights, plasma screens, sophisticated sound systems, rock concerts, tents to camp in and huge quantities of orange clothing; yet we happily dupe ourselves that they are spontaneous."
Laughland is saying the Yushchenko demonstrations may be as phony as that U.S-Albanian war in the Dustin Hoffman-Robert DeNiro film Wag the Dog. He calls Pora "an organization created and financed by Washington," like Otpor and Kmara, which were used in Serbia and Georgia to oust leaders Washington wished to be rid of. Pora's symbol, writes Laughland, depicts "a jackboot crushing a beetle."
If the United States has indeed been interfering in Ukraine to swing the election of a president who will tilt to NATO, against Moscow, we are, as Steele writes, "playing with fire."
"Not only is [Ukraine] geographically and culturally divided – a recipe for partition or even civil war – it is also an important neighbor of Russia. ... Ukraine has been turned into a geostrategic matter not by Moscow, but by the U.S., which refuses to abandon the Cold War policy of encircling Moscow and seeking to pull every former Soviet republic to its side."
Our most critical relationship on earth is with the world's other great nuclear power, Russia, a nation suffering depopulation, loss of empire, breakup of its country, and a terror war. That relationship is far more important to us than who rules in Kiev.
For us to imperil it by using our perfected technique of the "post-modern coup" – as we did in Serbia and Georgia and failed to do in Belarus – to elect American vassals in Russia's backyard, even in former Soviet republics, seems an act of imperial arrogance and blind stupidity.
Congress should investigate NED and any organization that used clandestine cash or agents to fix the Ukrainian election, as the U.S. media appear to have gone into the tank for global democracy, as they did for war in Iraq.
ANKARA, Turkey -- The West is trying to force its vision of democracy on the countries of the former Soviet Union, President Vladimir Putin said Monday, as he warned against foreign interference in Ukraine and its crisis.
In his first public comments since Ukraine's Supreme Court found the Nov. 21 presidential runoff fraudulent and ordered a revote Dec. 26, Putin said countries are welcome to help mediate in the crisis but should not meddle.
"Only the people of any country -- and this includes Ukraine in the full sense -- can decide their fate," Putin told reporters after meeting Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer.
"One can play the role of a mediator but one must not meddle and apply pressure," Putin said in a tacit reference to Western countries, which have been taking part in negotiations to defuse the Ukraine crisis.
On the eve of the Friday decision, Putin had ridiculed Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko's call for a repeat of the bitterly disputed runoff -- again staking his position very clearly on the side of Yushchenko's rival for office, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych.
Some Western countries had issued veiled criticism of Russia for what they said was meddling in Ukrainian politics. Last week, U.S. President George W. Bush said any new election should be free from outside interference -- in remarks apparently directed at Russia.
Putin rejected Western accusations, saying Russia acted "absolutely correctly" in disputes throughout the former Soviet Union. He suggested forces in the West were seeking to create new divisions in Europe for their political purposes. "I don't want, as in Germany, for us to divide Europe into westerners and easterners, into first-class and second-class people, where the first-class people have the opportunity to live by stable, democratic laws and the second category of people are those with, to speak metaphorically, dark political skin," Putin said.
He said the second-class people would be subjected to "a nice but stern man in a helmet who will show them under what political understanding they must live. And if, God forbid, the ungrateful foreigner resists, he will be punished with bombs and missiles, as it was in Belgrade. I consider this completely unacceptable."
Russia vehemently objected to the 1999 NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, Russia's ally, which badly damaged Russia's relations with NATO and particularly the United States.
Putin delivered his comments as European Union mediators, including EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, headed to Kiev for a third round of talks.
In Brussels, EU spokeswoman Emma Udwin said the EU was not seeking to create new divisions over Ukraine and hit back at accusations made by Moscow that the EU was unduly interfering there. "We are not meddling in Ukraine, OSCE observers were invited in. We thought to be helpful in facilitating the end to the current political crisis. We have not ever interfered in favoring one candidate over another. What we are in favor of is a free and fair electoral process," she said.
Putin suggested voters in Ukraine were now under pressure to support the pro-Yushchenko opposition.
"Of course, it is completely unacceptable for threats to be addressed to people that leave them with no choice, when one of the political leaders says that 'whatever happens, whatever the result of elections, we will take power -- including by force," Putin said. "This is not just pressure, it is scaring people.
"We in Russia cannot support such a development of events, even if somebody wants to call it democracy."
The Ukrainian opposition had warned repeatedly before the Supreme Court ruling that they were prepared to take "immediate adequate actions" -- an apparent hint at more radical measures -- if the government tried to drag out the political crisis.
In an interview with Britain's Sunday Telegraph, Yushchenko said: "If the old regime tries to interfere in any way and tries to defy the will of the people and of parliament, we will simply storm our way into the Cabinet office. This is what the people expect."
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said Monday it might double to 1,000 its number of observers at the revote. But Yushchenko envoy Boris Tarassyuk asked a meeting of OSCE foreign ministers for more, saying 1,000 to 2,000 international observers were needed. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were to join the meeting in Sofia, Bulgaria, later Monday.
In a sign that the situation in Ukraine is stabilizing, more government workers ventured into their office buildings past opposition blockades Monday, and Defense Minister Oleksandr Kuzmuk reaffirmed his promise that the military will remain neutral. Yushchenko supporters allowed about 60 low-ranking employees to enter office buildings -- the largest number since protesters blockaded the entrance late last month.
Yushchenko's ally Yulia Tymoshenko said Sunday that she wants to be prime minister in a Yushchenko government.
As Ukraine's Orange Revolution enters a twilight zone before what seems like an inevitable triumph for Viktor Yushchenko's candidacy for president on Dec. 26, the hundreds of thousands who demonstrated for a reversal of the original result should start thinking about what the victory of "people power" will really mean for the people.
Few would doubt that those behind the Orange Revolution learned a great deal from their predecessors in Georgia last year or in Serbia in 2000. Leaders of the Ukrainian opposition group Pora and other grassroots activists have said as much, and the flags of other people-power revolutions flutter over Kiev's Independence Square.
But what about the other side? Too often Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych's supporters are caricatured as dumb serfs led by the nose by Kremlin-supplied election technologists. Western Ukraine, because of its geographical position, is routinely reported as "reform-minded" and "Western-oriented," while eastern Ukraine is seen as backward and sunk in Soviet-style thinking. But if you ask people who actually voted on Nov. 21 why they voted for a particular candidate, easterners oddly enough cite classic economic reasons, while westerners invoke nationalism or other ideological criteria.
The westerners are not alone. For the last 15 years, the working class and members of the technical intelligentsia have repeatedly voted for economic suicide across the ex-Soviet bloc. Nobody eating the free food at pro-Yushchenko rallies seems to understand that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Whoever was sponsoring the street theater will expect payback.
While Western broadcasters showed striking Kiev workers calling for Yushchenko and privatization, tens of thousands of Donetsk miners were rallying against Yushchenko. They declared that Yanukovych had their support because Yushchenko would put them out of work. The eastern Ukrainian miners seem to have learned the basics of the market economy. They know there is no such thing as a free ride.
Lenin invented the term "useful idiot," but modern capitalists have marketed this role around the globe. The glitz and glamor of the EU and the power and glory of NATO are dangled in front of Ukrainians as a carrot, but shock therapy and economic disaster will be the price of an orange victory. Will Ukraine's Westward-leaning people vote for a free ride on Dec. 26? Or will westerners join easterners in recalling former U.S. President Bill Clinton's dictum: "It's the economy, stupid"?
Mark Almond is a lecturer in Modern History at Oriel College, Oxford. He contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.
SOFIA, Bulgaria -- U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on Tuesday rejected Russian charges that the West is engaging in political manipulation to expand its influence in Ukraine and other former Soviet republics.
He also challenged Russia to take steps to withdraw its military forces from Georgia and Moldova and expressed concern over restrictions in Russia on press freedom and the rule of law.
Powell addressed a meeting of the 55-nation Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe after hearing Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insinuate that the OSCE has used election monitors to fulfill political ambitions in Ukraine and elsewhere.
"We must avoid the ever more deleterious practice of double standards in evaluating electoral processes," Lavrov said. "We mustn't allow the OSCE monitoring to be turned into a political instrument. In the absence of any objective criteria, monitoring of election processes becomes an instrument of political manipulation and a factor for destabilization in a whole range of issues."
Lavrov's comments suggested he believes the West is interested in a power grab in Ukraine, where a recent presidential runoff election was derided by OSCE monitors as fraudulent. President Vladimir Putin made similar remarks Monday.
But Powell rejected Russian suggestions that the OSCE has "double standards" and is concentrating its efforts in the former Soviet republics for political reasons.
"I categorically disagree," Powell said, adding that the OSCE is simply abiding by well-established principles in support of fundamental freedoms, democracy and the rule of law.
Mutual suspicions between Russia and the West, particularly the United States, have heightened recently after the Nov. 21 runoff in Ukraine. Putin has made clear all along his preference for the pro-Russian candidate, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, over his Western-oriented opponent, Viktor Yushchenko. Putin congratulated Yanukovych before he was declared the official winner and ignored findings by U.S. and European monitors of massive election-day fraud and abuse. A revote is set for Dec. 26.
In comments Monday in Turkey, Putin suggested that it was Yushchenko and his allies that were not playing by democratic rules. He said Yushchenko's forces are exerting pressures "that leave the people with no choice" but to vote for the pro-Western candidate.
At a news conference before his speech, Powell denied that the West was playing sphere-of-influence games in Ukraine in the name of democracy.
"The people of Ukraine are playing democracy in the name of freedom," he said. He said the people of Ukraine are saying: "'We want free, fair and open elections.'"
In his speech, Powell also took Russia to task for alleged violations of an international treaty by failing to acquire host country agreement to the stationing of its forces in OSCE member states.
"Russia's commitments to withdraw military forces from Moldova, and to agree with Georgia on the duration of the Russian military presence there, remain unfulfilled," he said.
Russia has about 2,000 troops in the Transdnestr region of Moldova, guarding giant Soviet-era ammunition depots and acting as peacekeepers. The military was deployed in the separatist province to end a 1992 war that killed some 1,500 people and left Transdnestr de facto independent. There are no precise estimates of the number of Russian troops in Georgia.
As for Russia's internal situation, Powell expressed concern about developments "affecting freedom of the press and the rule of law."
NEW DELHI Dec 3, 2004 Russian President Vladimir Putin sharply criticized the United States on Friday, accusing it of a double-standard in fighting terrorism and questioning whether any election in Iraq can be democratic when fighting is raging in the country.
Putin, who has been angered by U.S. and European denunciations of the Ukraine election as rigged unacceptable, began a three-day visit to the Cold-War era ally with continued criticism of Washington, saying it seeks a "dictatorship of international affairs."
"Even if dictatorship is wrapped up in a beautiful package of pseuo-democratic phraseology, it will not be in a position to solve systemic problems," Russia's Itar-Tass news agency quoted him as saying in a speech Friday night in New Delhi.
Putin, who has been critical of the United States for going to war without international approval, warned that the fighting in Iraq was threatening the possibility of a democratic vote slated for Jan. 30. "All this will definitely call in question the possibility of holding honest and democratic elections in Iraq early next year," he said.
Putin and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signed a joint declaration that called for ending "political expediency" in the global fight against terrorism. The declaration made no reference to any country. But in an interview in a Hindu newspaper, Putin said the United States and European nations practiced double standards by allowing into their countries some Chechen rebels whom Moscow considers to be terrorists.
Britain has granted refugee status to Akhmed Zakayev, an envoy for rebel leader and former Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov. lyas Akhmadov, a former Chechen foreign minister, has been granted U.S. asylum. "We cannot have double standards while fighting terrorism and it cannot be used as an instrument of a geopolitical game," Putin said at a public lecture.
Russia and India signed agreements on exploring peaceful uses of outer space, easing visa rules and India's inclusion in a Russian-promoted global navigational satellite system.
The two countries also signed eight other agreements that focused on cooperation in energy and banking, academic research, and cultural and economic exchanges between India's financial hub, Bombay, and Putin's home town, St. Petersburg.
"These decisions will make a significant contribution to the future of Russia-India relations," Putin said.
The countries, which have close relations dating back to the Cold War, also discussed new investment to commercially produce the Brahmos, an anti-ship missile developed jointly by India and Russia. The missile has a target range of 180 miles and can carry a 660-pound conventional warhead. It can be launched from ships, submarines, planes and land. Putin will fly to Bangalore, India's software capital, on Saturday.
The results of the third round of elections in Ukraine in which Viktor Yushchenko was proclaimed the final winner, far from being grounds for jubilation in Ukraine and beyond, ought to give concern for the future of Ukraine to many.
The recent battle over the election for president to succeed the pro-Moscow Leonid Kuchma in Ukraine was more complex than the general Western media accounts suggest. Both Russian President Vladimir Putin and George W Bush are engaged in high stakes geopolitical power plays. Both sides in Ukraine have evidently engaged in widespread vote fraud. The Western media chose to report only one side, however. Case in point: a non-governmental organization, the British Helsinki Human Rights Group, reported it found more vote irregularities on the side of the opposition Yushchenko in the contested November vote, than from the pro-Moscow Viktor Yanukovych. Yet the media reported as if fraud only took place on the side of the pro-Moscow candidate.
The Kuchma regime was indeed anti-democratic, and no model for human rights, one factor which feeds an opposition movement. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, economic conditions for most Ukrainians have been beyond deplorable, providing fertile ground for any opposition to promise better times. Yet the deeper issue is Eurasian geopolitical control, an issue little understood in the West.
The Ukraine elections were not about Western-sanctioned democratic voting, as some magic formula to open the door to free market reform and prosperity for Ukrainians. They were 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 geostrategic background makes things clearer. Ukraine is historically tied to Russia, geographically and culturally. It is Slavic, and home of the first Russian state, Kiev Rus. Its 52 million people are the second largest population in eastern Europe, and it is regarded as the strategic buffer between Russia and a string of new US North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) bases from Poland to Bulgaria to Kosovo, all of which have carefully been built up since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Most important, Ukraine is the transit land for most major Russian Siberian gas pipelines to Germany and the rest of Europe.
Yushchenko favors European Union and NATO membership for Ukraine. Not surprising, he is backed, and strongly, by Washington. Former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski has been directly involved on behalf of the Bush administration in grooming Yushchenko for his new role.
As far back as November 2001, Yushchenko was reportedly wined and dined in Washington by the Bush administration, paid for by the US Congress-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Martin Foulner in the Glasgow Herald of November 26 reported the details of the meeting. NED, it's worth noting, was set up during the Ronald Reagan administration by US Congress to "privatize" certain Central Intelligence Agency operations, and allow Washington to claim clean hands in various foreign meddling. Ukraine is part of a wider US pattern of active "regime change" in eastern Europe and Central Asia.
Brzezinski is directly involved in Ukraine events, and has openly condemned the initial November election results, along with former US secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and Colin Powell. Brzezinski's entire career has been geared to dismantle Russian power in Eurasia since the time he was Jimmy Carter's National Security Council chief. If Brzezinski succeeds in getting his hand-picked man in power in Kiev, that will be a major step in the direction of US domination of all Eurasia. That, of course, is the aim, as Brzezinski makes explicit in his writings. It is useful to quote Brzezinski directly from his now infamous 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives:
Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire ... if Moscow regains control over Ukraine, with its 52 million people and major resources, as well as access to the Black Sea, Russia automatically again regains the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia. The states deserving America's strongest geopolitical support are Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine, all three being geopolitically pivotal. Indeed, Kiev's role reinforces the argument that Ukraine is the critical state, insofar as Russia's own future evolution is concerned.
And why Eurasia? Brzezinski replies:
A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa's subordination, rendering the Western hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world's central continent ... About 75% of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about 60% of the world's GNP [gross national product] and about three-fourths of the world's known energy resources ... Eurasia is also the location of most of the world's politically assertive and dynamic states. After the United States, the next six largest economies and the next six biggest spenders on military weaponry are located in Eurasia. All but one of the world's overt nuclear powers and all but one of the covert ones are located in Eurasia. The world's two most populous aspirants to regional hegemony and global influence are Eurasian. All of the potential political and/or economic challengers to American primacy are Eurasian.
Belgrade to Kiev to ...
There is a distinct pattern of US covert actions in changing regimes in Eastern Europe, in the context of this Eurasian strategy of the US, in which Ukraine fits the pattern. The Belgrade vote in 2000 to topple Serbian Slobodan Milosevic was organized and run by US ambassador Richard Miles. This has been well documented by Balkan sources and others. Significantly, the same Miles was then sent to Georgia, where he engineered the toppling of Eduard Shevardnadze in favor of the US-groomed Mikhail Saakashvili last year, another pro-NATO man on Moscow's fringe. James Baker III played a key role as well, as some noted at the time.
Now Miles was reportedly involved in Kiev, with the US ambassador there, John Herbst, former ambassador in Uzbekistan. Curious coincidence? The Ukraine "democratic youth" organization, Pora ("High Time") is a slick, US-created entity. It is modeled on the Belgrade youth group, Otpor, which Miles also set up with help of NED and George Soros' Open Society, USAID and similar friends. Pora was given a brand image, for selling to the Western media, a slick logo of a black-white clenched fist. It even got a nifty name, the "chestnut revolution", as in "chestnuts roasting on an open fire".
Before he came to power, Saakashvili was brought by Miles to Belgrade to study the model there. In Ukraine, according to British media and other accounts, Soros' Open Society, the US government's NED and the Carnegie Endowment, along with the State Department's USAID, were all involved in fostering Ukraine regime change. Little wonder Moscow is a bit concerned with Washington's actions in Ukraine.
A key part of the media game has been the claim that Yushchenko won according to "exit polls". What is not said is that the people doing these "exit polls" as voters left voting places were US-trained and paid by an entity known as Freedom House, a neo-conservative operation in Washington. Freedom House trained some 1,000 poll observers, who loudly declared an 11-point lead for Yushchenko. Those claims triggered the mass marches claiming fraud. The current head of Freedom House is former CIA director and outspoken neo-conservative, Admiral James Woolsey, who calls the Bush administration's "war on terror" "World War IV". On the Freedom House board sits none other than Brzezinski. This would hardly seem to be an impartial human-rights organization.
Why does Washington care so much about vote integrity next door to Russia? Is Ukraine democracy more important than Azeri or Uzbek "democracy"? There is something else going on besides what appears to be a vote count. We have to ask why it is that the Bush administration suddenly is so keen on the sanctity of the democratic voting process as to risk an open break with Moscow at this time.
Eurasian oil geopolitics
US policy, as Brzezinski openly stated in The Grand Chessboard, is to Balkanize Eurasia, and ensure that no possible stable economic or political region between Russia, the EU and China emerges in the future that might challenge US global hegemony. This is the core idea of the September 2002 Bush Doctrine of "pre-emptive wars".
In taking control of Ukraine, Washington would take a giant step to encircle Russia for the future. Russian moves to use its vast energy reserves to play for room in rebuilding its political role would be over. Chinese efforts to link with Russia to secure some independence from US energy control would also be over. Iran's attempts to secure support from Russia against US pressure would also end. Iran's ability to enter into energy agreements with China would also likely end. Cuba and Venezuela would also likely fall prey to a pro-Washington regime change soon after.
Washington policy is aimed at direct control over the oil and gas flows from the Caspian, including Turkmenistan, and to counter Russian regional influence from Georgia to Ukraine to Azerbaijan and Iran. The background issue is Washington's unspoken recognition of the looming exhaustion of the world's major sources of cheap high-quality oil, the problem of global oil depletion, or as the late American geologist M King Hubbard termed it, of peak oil.
Over the coming five to 10 years the world economy faces a major new series of energy shocks as older fields from the North Sea to Alaska to Libya and even major fields in Saudi Arabia, such as the giant Ghawar field, peak and begin to decline. Many large fields already have peaked, such as the North Sea, perhaps one reason for the British interest in Iraq. And no new fields of a North Sea size have been found to replace them.
It was clearly no accident of politics that former Halliburton chief Dick Cheney became vice president, with quasi-presidential powers, in the current Washington administration. Nor that his first job was to oversee the Energy Task Force. In late 1999, as chief executive officer of Halliburton, Cheney delivered a speech to the London Institute of Petroleum. Halliburton, of course, is the world's leading oilfield services and construction group. Cheney presumably had a pretty good picture of where there was oil in the world.
In his speech, Cheney presented the picture of world oil supply and demand to fellow oil industry people. "By some estimates," he stated, "there will be an average of 2% annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead, along with, conservatively, a 3% natural decline in production from existing reserves." Cheney added an alarming note: "That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional 50 million barrels a day." This is equivalent to more than six Saudi Arabia's of today's size.
He cited China and East Asia as fast-growth regions, and noted that the oilfields of the Middle East were, along with the Caspian Sea, the major untapped oil prospects.
Oil pipeline politics are also directly involved in the fight for control of Ukraine. In July 2004, the Ukraine parliament voted to open an unused oil pipeline to transport oil from Russian Urals fields to the port of Odessa. The Bush administration vehemently protested this would make Ukraine more dependent on Moscow.
The 674 kilometer oil pipeline, completed by the Ukraine government in 2001, between Odessa on the Black Sea and Brody in western Ukraine, can carry up to 240,000 barrels a day of oil. In April 2004, the Ukraine government agreed to extend Brody to the Polish Port of Gdansk, a move hailed in Washington and Brussels. It would carry Caspian oil to the EU, independent of Russia. That is, were Ukraine to become dominated by a pro-EU pro-NATO regime in the November vote.
The stakes were big. George Bush Sr made a quiet trip to Kiev in May to meet both candidates, according to the British New Statesman of December 6. Former US secretary of state Madelaine Albright flew in to Kiev as well.
Last July, the Kuchma government suddenly reversed itself and voted to reverse the oil flows in Brody-Odessa, in order to allow it to transport Russian crude to the Black Sea.
Commenting on the significance of that move, Ilan Berman of the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington remarked at the time, "Kremlin officials understand full well that Odessa-Brody has the potential to deal a fatal blow to Russia's current near monopoly on Caspian energy." Berman then added a telling note, "Worse still, from Russia's perspective, the resulting European and US economic attention would all but cement Kiev's westward trajectory." The pipeline to Poland, a three-year project, would make Poland a major new hub for non-Russian, non-Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries oil as well, Berman notes.
The decision to reverse the pipeline last July would greatly weaken that westward shift of Ukraine. The next government will have to tackle the issue. Ukraine is a strategic battleground in this geopolitical tug-of-war between Washington and Moscow. Ukrainian pipeline routes account for 75% of EU oil imports from Russia and Central Asia, and 34% of its natural gas import. In the near future, EU energy imports via Ukraine are set to expand significantly with the opening of huge oil and gas fields in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Ukraine is a key piece on Brzezinski's Eurasian chessboard, to put it mildly, as well as Putin's.
William Engdahl is author of the book A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order, recently released by Pluto Press Ltd, London.
Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, left, Powell and Havel attending inauguration festivities in central Kiev on Sunday. Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters
KIEV -- Viktor Yushchenko was sworn in as president of Ukraine on Sunday, calling his inauguration a victory of freedom over tyranny and declaring the country was "now in the center of Europe."
Two months after massive protests over his loss in a fraud-plagued election plunged the nation into political crisis, Yushchenko took the oath of office in a solemn ceremony at the Verkhovna Rada parliament, placing his hand on a copy of the Constitution and on an antique Bible.
With his hand on his heart, he joined in singing the national anthem. Some deputies cheered after the oath and chanted "Yushchenko!" but others stood stonily not applauding, an indication of the deep political tensions Yushchenko faces as leader.
Heading then to Independence Square, where his supporters had protested for weeks, Yushchenko was greeted with louder chants of approval from a huge orange-clad throng that had waited for him for hours in freezing temperatures.
"The heart of Ukraine was on Independence Square," Yushchenko told the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd, which police estimates put at more than 100,000. "Good people from all over the world, from far away countries, were looking at Independence Square, at us."
"This is a victory of freedom over tyranny. The victory of law over lawlessness," he said, standing in the Independence Monument's rotunda, backed by a banner of orange, the campaign color that led to the demonstrations being dubbed the "Orange Revolution."
"Ukraine has opened a new page in the history of Europe," the Western-oriented reformer said, his voice firm. "We are now in the center of Europe."
"Our place is in the European Union. My goal is Ukraine in a united Europe. Our road into the future is the road on which a united Europe is headed," said Yushchenko, his face still swollen and scarred with lesions from his dioxin poisoning in September, which he has said was an attempt to kill him.
He promised to turn the country around after years of corruption, poverty and oppression, and pledged to safeguard freedom of speech.
"We will create new jobs. Whoever wants to work will have the opportunity to work and get an appropriate salary," he declared. "We will fight corruption in Ukraine. Taxes will be enforced, business will be transparent, ... we will become an honest nation."
In a promise clearly aimed at appeasing the country's large native-Russian-speaking population, who widely opposed him, Yushchenko said, "Everyone can teach his children the language of his forefathers."
In the hours before the inauguration, 35-year-old spectator Bohdan Mysorsky had waited in the square and exulted in Yushchenko's achievement. "This is the end of the big game. After this, with Yushchenko Ukraine has the opportunity to become a real state, a real nation -- not Russia's backyard," he said.
Yushchenko was declared the loser of a Nov. 21 election that international observers said was badly tarnished by vote fraud. Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators poured into Kiev's streets to protest the fraud and demonstrations went on for weeks.
The Supreme Court annulled the election and Yushchenko won a Dec. 26 court-ordered rerun, beating Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, then the Kremlin-supported prime minister, by 8 percentage points. Yanukovych raised a series of legal challenges to the rerun of the vote, the last of which was rejected by the Supreme Court on Thursday.
Yanukovych has vowed to take his complaints to the European Court of Human Rights. The court has no enforcement mechanism, but such a move could be a shadow on Yushchenko's intentions to push for Ukraine's closer integration with the European Union and NATO. NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer was one of many dignitaries, including representatives of more than 40 countries, who came to the inauguration.
Vaclav Havel, the main figure of Czechoslovakia's 1989 "Velvet Revolution" that peacefully overthrew communism, also was in Kiev to watch Yushchenko take office.
Also there was Georgian Parliament Speaker Nino Burdzhanadze, a leader of the 2003 protests that forced a government change in her country and that became a model for Ukraine's demonstrators.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell met with Yushchenko on Sunday before the inauguration.
"The United States wants to do everything we can to help you meet the expectations of the Ukrainian people after this turmoil," Powell said at the start of the meeting.
In contrast, Russia sent relatively low-level representation -- Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov.
U.S. President George W. Bush called Yushchenko on Saturday to congratulate him on his election and on "democracy's victory" in Ukraine, White House spokesman Brian Besanceney said in Washington.
Among the challenges Yushchenko faces is likely to be substantial opposition in the country's east, the stronghold of support for Yanukovych, who had been expected to move Ukraine closer into Russia's sphere of influence.
Viktor Yushchenko has taken the oath of office as Ukraine's new president, ending a bruising election marathon.
Mr Yushchenko then addressed hundreds of thousands of supporters in Kiev's Independence Square.
The president, who has pledged to move closer to the West, told the crowd: "Our way to the future is the way of a united Europe."
Mr Yushchenko beat Moscow-backed Viktor Yanukovych in a re-run of November's disputed poll.
The 26 December repeat run-off was held after the Supreme Court ruled that the original vote - officially won by Mr Yanukovych - had been rigged.
Independent election observers said the re-run had been much fairer than earlier rounds.
At Sunday's inauguration ceremony, Mr Yushchenko stood hand on heart as the national anthem was played.
In taking the presidential oath of office, he said he would defend the unity of Ukraine.
'Orange Kiev'
The swearing-in was watched by eight heads of state, along with US Secretary of State Colin Powell.
After meeting Mr Yushchenko, Mr Powell said: "I want to assure you that you will continue to enjoy the full support of the American government and the American people."
Russia, which had backed Mr Yanukovych, was represented only by the head of the upper house of its parliament, Sergei Mironov.
The date for the inauguration was set only this week after the Supreme Court dismissed a final appeal by Mr Yanukovych against the result.
The gathering in Independence Square allowed Mr Yushchenko to thank those who took part in what has been called the Orange Revolution - after the colour of Mr Yushchenko's camp.
The president told the massive crowd: "This is a victory of freedom over tyranny. The victory of law over lawlessness."
He added: "We are not on the outskirts of Europe, we are at the centre of Europe... Forever our blue and yellow flag will fly."
Symbolic oath
The bitterly fought election exposed deep splits between south-eastern regions, where support is high for Mr Yanukovych, and western and central Ukraine which largely backs Mr Yushchenko.
On the eve of his inauguration, Mr Yushchenko urged Ukrainians to overcome divisions.
He was speaking at a ceremony on Saturday marking Ukraine's Unity Day.
Mr Yushchenko also took the symbolic oath of hetman, or leader of Cossacks - the historic defenders of Ukraine against foreign oppression.
"I am convinced that... our forefathers were also dreaming of seeing a democratic Ukraine with free people," Mr Yushchenko said in front of a crowd of some 200 Cossacks.
The day after Sunday's inauguration, Mr Yushchenko is due to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in what will be his first foreign visit.
Later in the week, Mr Yushchenko will also embark on a series of visits to Europe.
Jews put in charge of media and defense. Alleged Jewess named prime minister.
The new President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, has appointed multi-millionaire "dual citizen" Yevgeny Chervonenko communications minister. The 45-year-old holds an Israeli passport and is vice president of the All-Ukraine Jewish Congress. As communications minister he will exercise complete control over the development of Ukraine's media. His department will issue all operational and frequency licenses for radio, television, Internet and satellite communications.
After privatization, Chervonenko gained control of a variety of businesses, including two large bottling plants, supermarket chains and a pharmaceutical firm. In 2004, in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, he complained of "anti-Semites" in the opposition coalition, noting that he accosted one of them, Vassily Chervoni, in a washroom in the Parliament building. Chervonenko said, "I put his head in the sink and told him, 'One more bad word about Israel and I'll really mess you up.' "
(Chervonenko was head of candidate Yushchenko's security detail, and bragged to the AP that he personally tasted all of Yushchenko's food when asked about the alleged poisoning. He blamed the poisoning on the "anti-Semitic" opposition who fed his man during a private government meeting to which he did not have access.)
Media mogul Pyotr Poroshenko, also a Jew, has been appointed secretary of National Security and Defense, despite having no experience whatsoever. Not even Ukraine's heavily Jewish Communist Party can believe it. After hearing of Poroshenko's appointment, they issued this statement: "When national security and the activities of law-enforcement are entrusted to a businessman whose actions have often contradicted the law, and who has been caught falsifying State budgets, one can hardly believe in pre-election promises that all the criminals would be jailed."
Oligarch Poroshenko owns Channel 5, the television channel that during the "Orange Revolution" turned from a relatively objective news source into a fountain of opposition propaganda.
44-year-old billionaire Julia Timoshenko, who is believed to be Jewish, has been appointed prime minister, the nation's second most powerful position. This despite an international arrest warrant. Timoshenko is under criminal indictment in Russia for fraud and bribing government officials. In 1996-97 Timoshenko sucked billions from the Ukrainian economy through the re-sale of gas under the protection of her robber-baron patron, former prime minister Pavel Lazarenko.
(Pavel Lazarenko is serving a prison sentence in California after being convicted of extortion, money laundering, conspiracy, fraud and the transportation of stolen property. Lazarenko was also convicted of money laundering in Switzerland and is wanted for murder in Ukraine. His American criminal defense lawyer is well-known television legal commentator Daniel Horowitz. During his San Francisco trial, Horowitz introduced secret recordings of former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma that include anti-Semitic cursing and rants against Lazarenko. The idea was to convince the jury that Lazarenko was the victim of an anti-Semitic political vendetta by Kuchma. It didn't work.)
The new prime minister's native language is Russian, not Ukrainian. Timoshenko admits she only learned the Ukrainian language in 1999. She has absolutely refused to provide a biography, and, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, even her maiden name is a mystery. However, local Jews have repeatedly boasted of her Jewish ancestry.
(Image: Jews Chervonenko, Poroshenko and Timoshenko.)
Ukraine, which parted from Russia in 1991, has never achieved a true independent state. Just like in Russia, or even 80 years earlier in the Weimar Republic, a tribe of vultures descended upon the body of the nation.
by Vladimir Borisov
In the early 1990s, backed by the financial power of international Jewish bankers, the vultures bought for pennies, and plainly seized, all major enterprises previously owned by the state. Including the biggest factories and entire sectors of the newly “privatized” national economy.
According to the 2001 Ukrainian census, there are 103,000 Jews in Ukraine, which is 0.2% of the total population. Out of 130 nationalities in the Ukraine, the Jewish minority numerically is behind Bulgarians (204,000), Hungarians (156,000), Romanians (151,000) and Poles (144,000). However, as one might expect, the Jewish “oligarchs” were the ones who happened to seize all positions in mass media.
(Pictured clockwise: Billionaire media moguls Gregory Surkis, Victor Medvedchuk, Vadim Rabinovich and Victor Pinchuk.)
Professor Vasyl Yaremenko, director of the Institute of Culturological and Ethnopolitical research at Kiev State University, released an article in 2003 entitled, “Jews in Ukraine today: reality without myths.” In it he says the following:
“Ukrainians need to know that the mass media is completely in the hands of Jews, and everything that we watch or read is the product of Jewish ideology…”
He then reviews the situation in regards to Ukrainian network television and cable broadcasters:
"First National Television Channel UT-1" is owned by the president of the Social Democratic Party, led and dominated by chief of staff Viktor Medvedchuk.
"Inter TV" and "Studio 1+1 TV" have been Ukrainian national broadcasters since 1996, they are available in English, Ukrainian and Russian languages. They are owned by Viktor Medvedchuk and Gregory Surkis.
"Alternativa TV", "TET Broadcasting Company", and "UNIAN (Ukrainian Independent Information & News Agency)" are also owned by Viktor Medvedchuk and Gregory Surkis.
"STB TV" and "ICTV" are owned by the Viktor Pinchuk, the wealthiest man in Ukraine, with an estimated net worth of $3 billion.
"Novyi Kanal (New Channel) TV" is owned by Viktor Pinchuk with a group of Jewish oligarchs from Russia called “Alpha Group.”
Zionists control all of Ukrainian television media!
According to Professor Yaremenko, all major newspapers are also owned by Jews:
The publishing house of Rabinovich-Katsman owns the newspapers Stolychka, Stolichnye Novosti, Jewish Review (in Russian), Jewish Reviewer, Vek, Mig, and Zerkalo.
Jed Sandes, an American citizen and a Jew, publishes Korrespondent and Kiev-Post.
Gregory Surkis publishes Kievskie Vedomosti and the weekly 2000.
Jew Dmitro Gordon publishes Bulvar.
Viktor Pinchuk publishes Facts and Commentaries.
The Donetsk Group (Jewish-Russian oligarchs) publishes Segondnya.
Who are these “Ukrainian” oligarchs?
Jew Victor Pinchuk is the son-of-law of Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma [Kuchma was placed into office by Jew George Soros]. He is the owner of several oil, gas and energy import/export companies. He also owns the nation's largest steel mill and a chain of banks. His group has very strong ties with other Jewish organizations in Ukraine, as well as in the U.S. and Israel. He is a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, an adviser to the president, and one of the leaders of the Labor Ukrainian Party.
Jew Vadim Rabinovich is a citizen of Israel. In 1980 he was charged with stealing state property and spent 9 months in a jail. In 1984 he was arrested and sentenced to 14 years in prison for his black market activities . He was released in 1990. In 1993 he became a representative of the Austrian company “Nordex” in Ukraine. The company received exclusive rights to sell Russian oil from president Kuchma . In 1997 Rabinovich became president of the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress, and in 1999 he was elected head of the United Jewish Community of Ukraine. Also in 1999, Rabinovich created the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine. That same year the Associated Press estimated his wealth as $1 billion. Rabinovich owns Central Europe Media Enterprises, which controls television stations in seven East European countries.
Jew Victor Medvedchuk is Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma's Chief of Staff. The Medvedchuk-Surkis cabal controls Ukraine's energy sector (8 regional energy companies), oil and gas market, alcohol and sugar production, shipbuilding, and athletic organizations. He is a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, and a leader in the Social Democratic party of Ukraine (SDPU).
Jew Gregory Surkis is second in command of the SDPU. He owns a soccer team, Dynamo-Kiev, and is a president of the Professional Soccer League. He is CEO of Slavutich, a company that controls several regional energy companies (KirovogradEnergo, PoltavEnergo, etc). He too is a member of the Ukrainian Parliament.
Professor Yaremenko points out that out of the 400+ members of the Ukrainian Parliament, 136 (possibly 158) are Jews. That is more than in the Israeli Knesset. Who voted for them, asks professor Yaremenko. Who paid for costly election campaigns? -- 90% of Ukrainian banks are owned by Jews.
Ukraine is the perfect example of so-called Democracy - “democracy” where the rule of a tiny, ethnic minority is disguised under the cloak of the will and rule of the majority. By controlling mass media and skillfully manipulating the opinions of the Ukrainian electorat, these “fat cats” as they’re called in Ukraine -- these liars and corrupters, are the real masters in this beautiful country.
Does it surprise anyone to see the rise in “anti-Semitism” around the world, and in Ukraine in particular?
"Jews in Ukraine: Reality Without Myth" was published on Sept. 30, 2003, and was the article that prompted the Ukrainian Jewish Congress to file a lawsuit asking the court to shut down the newspaper Sel'skie Vesti, which published it. Sel'skie Vesti had a circulation of over 500,000 and was the largest in Ukraine.
On Jan. 28, a court in Kiev, Ukraine, ordered the closure of the daily newspaper on the grounds that it was publishing "hate literature," a crime in Jewish-owned Ukraine. The newspaper was found guilty of publishing "anti-Semitic" materials, and promoting ethnic and religious hostility.
A well-known Ukrainian Jewish community leader and anti-Zionist, Eduard Hodos, has come to the defense of the newspaper and the articles' author, Vasily Yaremenko. In the course of his speech intended for a hearing of the Appellate Court of the City of Kiev (scheduled for May 25, 2004, but delayed indefinitely for reasons unknown), the author denounces the Talmud as "monstrous" and defends Mel Gibson's 'The Passion of the Christ', which has come under attack by 'human rights advocates' everywhere. You can read it here: http://oag.ru/views/love.html
Prior to being shut down, the newspaper published the following letters from readers, which were reprinted by Jewish organizations and used as "proof" of "anti-Semtism."
...Today the Jewish community in Ukraine is not experiencing the rebirth of a national minority but is in the process of legalizing its dealings as an apolitical and economic structure, which is well planned, organized and financed. This so-called minority exhibits extreme aggression. It poses an elevated threat to the national security of Ukraine. As a foreign political body that practically oversees international trade, national finances, mass media and publishing, it must be placed under strict government and sate control, and must be regimented and regulated.
...90% of Ukrainian banks are run by Jewish "specialists." In other words, Ukrainian finances are in Jewish hands. As a Ukrainian citizen and an ethnic Ukrainian, my origin forces me speak up and ask: “Is this normal?”
...In the 1930s, all Ukrainian gold that had been passed down from generation to generation ended up in Jewish wallets after the famine organized by Jews [the author earlier writes that 99% of PCIA members––Stalin’s secret police––were Jewish] and Ukrainians had to reach deeply into their pockets. However, Jews were not able to enjoy those stolen goods as German fascism changed the course of events. Today the gold of Ukrainian Jews, these gold diggers of the Ukrainian Klondike, is in banks in Switzerland.
...It is not safe to write about Jews not because the writer will automatically be accused of xenophobia, but because every Ukrainian, if not openly then secretly, is an anti-Semite ready to participate in a pogrom.
...Ukrainians must know that Ukrainian mass media is in the hands of Jews and that we absorb information and food for the soul from a Jewish ideological kitchen.
...Jewish publicists deny the fact that [Jewish people] organized the Ukrainian famine in 1933. However, eyewitnesses claim otherwise.... Not one Jewish person died from starvation in 1933.
...We are not anti-Semites. However, we believe it is dishonorable and demeaning to stay quiet when Zionists are taking over the political and economic spheres of our country. We must let people know the truth about the doings of Zionists in Ukraine.
...He told the truth about the vicious activities of Zionists in Ukraine.
