Gość: Scyticus
IP: 150.254.176.*
26.11.04, 18:52
Oto dlaczego należy zachować dystans i nie poddawać tej ogłupiającej
propagandzie, w której bolszewicy z GW się tak wyspecjalizowali.
www.guardian.co.uk/ukraine/story/0,15569,1360297,00.html
Comment
Ukraine's postmodern coup d'etat
Yushchenko got the US nod, and money flooded in to his supporters
Jonathan Steele
Friday November 26, 2004
The Guardian
Oranges can often be bitter, and the mass street protests now going on in
Ukraine may not be quite as sweet as their supporters claim.
For one thing the demonstrators do not reflect nationwide sentiments. Ukraine
is riven by deep historical, religious and linguistic divisions. The crowds in
the street include a large contingent from western Ukraine, which has never
felt comfortable with rule from Kiev, let alone from people associated with
eastern Ukraine, the home-base of Viktor Yanukovich, the disputed president-elect.
Their traditions are not always pleasant. Some protesters have been chanting
nationalistic and secessionist songs from the anti-semitic years of the second
world war.
Nor are we watching a struggle between freedom and authoritarianism as is
romantically alleged. Viktor Yushchenko, who claims to have won Sunday's
election, served as prime minister under the outgoing president, Leonid
Kuchma, and some of his backers are also linked to the brutal industrial clans
who manipulated Ukraine's post-Soviet privatisation.
On some issues Yushchenko may be a better potential president than Yanukovich,
but to suggest he would provide a sea-change in Ukrainian politics and
economic management is naive. Nor is there much evidence to imagine that, were
he the incumbent president facing a severe challenge, he would not have tried
to falsify the poll.
Countless elections in the post-Soviet space have been manipulated to a degree
which probably reversed the result, usually by unfair use of state television,
and sometimes by direct ballot rigging. Boris Yeltsin's constitutional
referendum in Russia in 1993 and his re-election in 1996 were early cases.
Azerbaijan's presidential vote last year was also highly suspicious.
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Yet after none of those polls did the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe, the main international observer body, or the US and
other western governments, make the furious noise they are producing today.
The decision to protest appears to depend mainly on realpolitik and whether
the challengers or the incumbent are considered more "pro-western" or
"pro-market".
In Ukraine, Yushchenko got the western nod, and floods of money poured in to
groups which support him, ranging from the youth organisation, Pora, to
various opposition websites. More provocatively, the US and other western
embassies paid for exit polls, prompting Russia to do likewise, though
apparently to a lesser extent.
The US's own election this month showed how wrong exit polls can be. But they
provide a powerful mobilising effect, making it easier to persuade people to
mount civil disobedience or seize public buildings on the grounds the election
must have been stolen if the official results diverge.
Intervening in foreign elections, under the guise of an impartial interest in
helping civil society, has become the run-up to the postmodern coup d'etat,
the CIA-sponsored third world uprising of cold war days adapted to post-Soviet
conditions. Instruments of democracy are used selectively to topple unpopular
dictators, once a successor candidate or regime has been groomed.
In Ukraine's case this is playing with fire. Not only is the country
geographically and culturally divided - a recipe for partition or even civil
war - it is also an important neighbour to Russia. Putin has been clumsy, but
to accuse Russia of imperialism because it shows close interest in adjoining
states and the Russian-speaking minorities who live there is a wild exaggeration.
Ukraine has been turned into a geostrategic matter not by Moscow but by the
US, which refuses to abandon its cold war policy of encircling Russia and
seeking to pull every former Soviet republic to its side. The EU should have
none of this. Many Ukrainians certainly want a more democratic system. Putin
is not inherently against this, however authoritarian he is in his own
country. What concerns him is instability, the threat of anti-Russian regimes
on his borders, and American mischief.
The EU should therefore press for a compromise in Kiev, which might include
power-sharing. More importantly, it should give Ukraine the option of future
membership rather than the feeble "action plan" of cooperation currently on
offer. This would set Ukraine on a surer path to irreversible reform than
anything that either Yushchenko or Yanukovich may promise.
Sceptics wonder where the EU's enlargement will end, but Ukraine is
undoubtedly a European nation in a way that the states of the Caucasus, of
central Asia and of north Africa are not.
The EU must also make a public statement that it sees no value in Nato
membership for Ukraine, and those EU members who belong to Nato will not
support it. At a stroke this would calm Russia's legitimate fears and send a
signal to Washington not to go on inflaming a purely European issue.
j.steele@guardian.co.uk
