Same Scene, Different Flag: No, it's not Kiev's Independence Square. This "revolutionary" crowd gathered in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi in 2003. Another of the so-called "Colour Revolutions", Georgia's "Rose Revolution" unfolded in a manner remarkably similar to the overthrow the Serbian government in 2000. The same elements were also present in the "Orange Revolution" which convulsed Kiev a year later in 2004 - and again, in 2014.
WHAT HAVE WE JUST SEEN? A revolution? It certainly looked
like one. There were crowds, vast crowds, singing patriotic songs in Kiev’s
Independence Square, their collective breath rising up like smoke in the
freezing winter air. There were Riot Police, too, naturally. Hundreds of them –
looking for all the world like Roman Legionaries lost in time and space. There
were even barricades – just like in Les
Miserables.
And did we hear the Ukrainian people sing? You bet we did!
At least, that is what we thought we heard – and saw.
We have such short memories now. Last year is already so last year. Expecting us to remember what
happened 14 years ago, in Serbia, would be completely unreasonable. You might
as well ask us to remember what happened a thousand years ago in Serbia.
It’s useful, this collective historical amnesia. Not to us,
but to the sort of people who stage-manage revolutions. If you’re that sort of
person, a fully-functioning historical memory is an extremely dangerous thing.
A fully-functioning historical memory would instantly recall
what happened in Serbia in 2000: the vast crowds; the riot police; the
barricades; the fall of the dictator; the flowering of democracy. It would also
remember what happened in Georgia three years later: the vast crowds; the riot
police; the barricades; the fall of the dictator; the flowering of democracy.
Heck! It would remember what happened in Ukraine itself, just ten years ago:
the vast crowds; the riot police; the barricades; the fall of the dictator; the
flowering of democracy.
If you’re noticing a pattern here – well done! And, if you
were wondering what to call it, try “coup d’état by crowd”.
Blows against the state were once delivered with a mailed
fist. In the Cold War period the iconography of “regime change” was very
different from what we have just witnessed in Ukraine.
A fully-functioning historical memory would recall vividly
the day General Pinochet unleashed the Chilean military against the democratic
socialist government of Salvador Allende. On 11 September 1973 the world looked
on helplessly as Skyhawk jets bombed the Presidential Palace, tanks rumbled
through the streets of Santiago and the national football stadium filled up
with bruised and broken political detainees.
It wasn’t pretty, but Uncle Sam recalled the Soviet tanks
that had rumbled through the streets of Prague just five years earlier and laid
claim to a rough-and-ready moral equivalence. “When it’s up against a regime
like that,” argued Uncle Sam, “only dictatorship can save democracy.”
Regime Change Cold War-style: When only dictatorship could save democracy, the USA was happy to see its enemies deposed by military force. Chile, 1973.
But, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of
the Soviet Union, the old excuses no longer washed. At what Francis Fukuyama
dubbed “the end of history” all the great geo-political conundrums were
resolvable only by free-market capitalism and liberal democracy. If Uncle Sam
wanted regimes to change in Christian lands he’d have to come up with a
solution that left a lot less mess than strike aircraft, tanks and mass
executions. (In the Islamic world, effecting regime change is still a blood
sport.)
Enter the “Colour Revolutions” of 2000-2005: regime changes
utilising methods that fell somewhere between a soft and a hard application of
American power.
But, like the proverbial iceberg, “revolutions” of the sort
we have just witnessed in Ukraine hide much, much more than they ever let us
see.
Long before the first student protester’s boot hits the
streets of the targeted capital, Uncle Sam has been busy for months. He’s
seeded the media with sympathetic journalists; bought and paid for reliable
polling agencies; stuffed sympathetic NGO’s bank accounts with cash; and
“advised” the armed forces high command (most of them trained in the US) to
keep the Government’s troops in their barracks.
Only then do the protest leaders, fresh from their “civil
resistance” training programmes, fully equipped with state-of-the-art IT and
communications equipment and chaperoned by the best and the brightest the CIA
can spare, step out to accomplish the
fall of the dictator and the
flowering of democracy.
This essay was
originally published in The Dominion Post, The Waikato Times, The
Taranaki Daily News, The Timaru
Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 28 February 2014.
Interesting comment Chris but it ignores the Russian input as well.
ReplyDeleteThe eastern side of Ukraina has been bombarded by propaganda from across the border for months, even to the point that Russian TV channels were jamming the local ones who were not on their side.
Our democracy took 700 years to develop into what we have now, along the way there were revolutions, some very bloody and even several civil wars, to get to where we are now. Yet we expect people to accept democracy who have never know what it is.
The people of Ukraina and Egypt for that matter, must find democracy for themselves. We can't force it onto them. Just because a President in "Democratically" elected doesn't make a true democracy.
In Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood led by Morsi were just as bad as Mubarak and Yanukovich was as bad as the previous Ukrainian Dictators. It matters little that he was "Democratically" elected. It's easy for us to be judgemental but elected or not, that system is all that they know.
The Ukraina "Revolution" had all the hallmarks of nasty CIA hobnailed boot prints all over it but that doesn't mean the Russia was stirring things up as well.
good observations
ReplyDeleteOne of the best sources about what is happening in Ukraina, watch Aljazeera, it doesn't have an axe to grind there. Whereas the BBC and CNN have a EU perspective and RT has a Russian one.
ReplyDelete"Long before the first student protester’s boot hits the streets of the targeted capital, Uncle Sam has been busy for months. He’s seeded the media with sympathetic journalists; bought and paid for reliable polling agencies; stuffed sympathetic NGO’s bank accounts with cash; and “advised” the armed forces high command (most of them trained in the US) to keep the Government’s troops in their barracks."
ReplyDeleteWhile I do not rule out that "Uncle Sam" (aka USA and CIA) have had some input in this, I doubt that what is happening in Ukraine is simply the result of EU or US infiltration or whatever you may see it as, dear Chris.
Ukraine has suffered at the hands of the "big brother" Russia for too long, where Russia (and that is and has especially been Russia under Putin) dictated the supply and price of energy and so forth.
It is also not new that there are tensions between Ukraine and Russia over the Crimean Peninsula, where Russia's Black Sea Fleet has its base.
The Crimean is of highest strategic importance to Russia.
The Ukrainian population in the west and centre of the country has a different cultural and political focus than the rest of the country, and it has been so for ages.
Such divisions in one country of the size of Ukraine can lead to ongoing issues, and that is what we have.
Of course the US has an interest in a weaker Russia, and hence Russian concerns can be understood. We must not forget though, that Russia has also bloodied its hands in various past conflicts, and the war in Georgia, which led to substantial territory going to Russia, is just one of them. Let us also not forget the conflict in Chechnia. yes, in many cases Russia was challenged by "radicals", by patriots or nationalists, and also in some places islamic radicals. But is such radicalisation not also the result of centuries of Russian dominance and oppression?
The Ukrainian nationalists will have similar sentiments and motivations, feeling they had enough of Russian dominance and pressure.
As things are now developing fast on the ground there, with Russia basically invading with troops, the whole situation may explode into a new major conflict, on the fringes of Europe.
I detect some slight bias in your writings on Ukraine, and it seems almost that you find reasonable explanations in whatever Putin does or may do, but on the other hand you suspect and accuse the US and EU of interference, where it may only be marginal.
Yanukovich seems to have been a rather corrupt and manipulating president of Ukraine, and he was really only voted in by the predominantly ethnic Russians, which means, he only really represented that side of the Ukrainian population.
Not surprisingly he is now in Russia and preparing with the help of Russia, to suppress that revolution in Kiev. This will not have a nice ending I am afraid, and Russia has at least as much to answer for as perhaps the US.
@ anonymous: "Yanukovich seems to have been a rather corrupt and manipulating president of Ukraine, and he was really only voted in by the predominantly ethnic Russians, which means, he only really represented that side of the Ukrainian population."
ReplyDeleteSince ethnic Russians comprise about 17% only of the Ukraine's population, this cannot be right. In fact, he had much broader support initially; he could not have been elected without it.
Most of the analysis of the situation in the Ukraine that I've seen is one-dimensional. It seems to me to have a "West right, Russia wrong" bias that is a hangover from the Cold War days.
In this household's view, Chris Trotter's take is a more sophisticated analysis of the underlying issues driving this conflict than anything we've seen in the New Zealand media thus far.
We've noticed that the key element most commentary seems to overlook is the central role in the Ukraine riots played by ultra-nationalist and neo-nazi militants. This has not been well reported by Western media.
We wonder if any of those commenting on blogs such as this one would know who Oleg Tyahnibok and Dimitro Yarosh are. We wonder if they know what the political parties "Svoboda" and "Pravy Sektor" stand for. We wonder if they know what chants such as: "Slava Ukraini, Heroyam Slava", so often heard from the Maidan crowds, actually signify.
Yanukovich was looting his country on a grand scale and turning it into an authoritarian autocracy. Even his own security forces turned against him. Read Timothy Snyder's blog in the New York review of Books, 1 March 2014.
ReplyDeleteActually, Chris, some of the events of the last few weeks have FSB (aka KGB)written clearly all over them.
ReplyDeleteThe standard brutal repression followed by a strangely swift collapse of the will to resist was the pattern across much of the Warsaw Pact in 1989, as the close-knit former proteges of Yuri Andropov dealt to the Apparatchniki who had flourished under Brezhnev and Chernenko.
Moreover, although there are some extremely unpleasant ultra-nationalists amongst the insurgents in Kiev, at least some of their alleged activities (e.g. the fire bombing of synagogues) might actually have been the work of Russian provocateurs. We simply don't know, just as we don't know the extent of the American involvement that you allege.
What we do know is that it was a Soviet tactic right through the Cold War to hype the menace of Fascism whenever a crackdown was deemed necessary somewhere in Eastern or Central Europe. And, such was the horrendous record of the Nazi epoch, that this tactic often proved highly effective. And we also know that "provocation" was a favourite KGB stratagem (not that they were alone in this).
But, of course, we're now into a new phase of the drama, with the integrity of a sovereign state threatened by a much mightier neighbour (i.e. the sort of scenario that Putin and Lavrov, quite rightly, spend a lot of time denouncing).
And again we can see tactics from the KGB toolkit in open and obvious use, including , most notably, the cry for help from a pro-Moscow "legitimate" faction, as occurred in Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Afghanistan in 1979.
Now I'm not saying that USAID, the State Department etc. have not been funding the fomenting of dissent in Ukraine. Nor am I denying that there's now an established pattern of how these things are done.
And nor am I denying the lack of constitutional propriety in the toppling of Yanukovych, the active role of fringe Fascist elements in his overthrow or the obvious US interest in foiling Putin's plan for the inclusion of Ukraine as the jewel in the crown of his projected Eurasian Union.
But the evidence of Russian meddling is, to my mind, even more apparent than that of meddling by the US or by any other western nation or organisation.
And, by the way, the means might be highly questionable but, as far as ends are concerned, I really don't see what's so terrible about trying to keep Ukraine out of the club of dictatorships, be they disguised (Russia) or open (Belarus and Kazakhstan).
Moreover, Joe and Jill Blow aren't just pawns on the chessboard of great power realpolitik. Real passions, hatreds, suspicions, fears, horrendous memories and strivings for a better future for their children and grandchildren are also at work here.
These are the raw materials that the assumed masters of the world try to manipulate. And the raw materials have a life of their own, as both Putin and the West have already found out.
Another very ineresting take which relects a Czech persepctive
ReplyDeletehttp://motls.blogspot.co.nz/2014/03/russia-can-hardly-allow-crimea-to.html
@ anonymous: "....turning it into an authoritarian autocracy."
ReplyDeleteNo doubt Yanukovich was corrupt, but he wasn't doing what you suggest.
He was elected with grudging support; the voters saw him for what he was, but in their view, the alternative was much worse.
An authoritarian leader would've machine-gunned the crowds without hesitation; Yanukovich, by contrast, tried to appease the protesters.
The shooting of protesters, as shown on TV here, was in fact a response to militants among the protesters firing on the police first, killing 10, injuring 100, with 67 captured. Not only did the police not have the authority to return fire,they hadn't even been issued with live bullets. It wasn't until the next day that they were issued with live ammunition, and authorised to fire in self-defence.
The reportage on the Ukraine that we're seeing here is, unfortunately, a version of the truth.
And I wouldn't rely on Timothy Snyder to elucidate the situation; his commentary seems to have the same flaws as much of that coming from other Western commentators.
From what I can gather, Russia might be able to take the Crimea, but probably would find it difficult to keep it. Apparently most of their water and just about all their electricity comes from the Ukraine. Plus they have the problem of the Krim Tartars who been filtering back since being exiled by Stalin. It's going to be one to watch, and not in a good way.
ReplyDelete@ Victor: "some of the events of the last few weeks have FSB (aka KGB)written clearly all over them"
ReplyDeleteWrong. As an internal security force, the FSB would not get involved in activities of this sort, which are in the purview of the SVR or the GRU.
There's no evidence of either SVR or GRU involvement in the Ukraine. On the other hand, there's ample evidence of American involvement: do you remember the American diplomat Nuland? She was caught out talking on the phone about these activities with the US ambassador to the Ukraine.
There is also the small matter of a procession of US diplomats and dignitaries turning up at Independence Square and shouting their support for the protesters' cause.
Senator John McCain himself recently met with Dr Oleg Tyahnibok. I wonder if you know who Dr Tyahnibok is?
"But the evidence of Russian meddling is, to my mind, even more apparent than that of meddling by the US or by any other western nation or organisation."
What evidence is this? Claims of Russian meddling are a bit like the existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction: endlessly asserted, but never found.
"the means might be highly questionable but, as far as ends are concerned, I really don't see what's so terrible about trying to keep Ukraine out of the club of dictatorships, be they disguised (Russia) or open (Belarus and Kazakhstan)."
Good grief! You don't really believe that, do you? Before Yanukovich was toppled, Ukraine was a democracy. For the nazis now controlling the streets of much of the Ukraine, democracy will be the furthest thing from their minds. Ask Dimitro Yarosh about his views of democracy. Or Aleksandr Muzichko.
The US involvement here seems to me to mirror CIA activities in Central and South America not so long ago. I doubt the US cares a flying fig about democracy in the Ukraine. All it cares about is having what it sees as a pliant polity between Europe and Russia.
Truly, we live in a cynical age...
ReplyDelete"It wasn't until the next day that they were issued with live ammunition, and authorised to fire in self-defence."
ReplyDeleteSnipers firing from a safe distance is not "self defence".
Upon second thoughts, you may be right, Chris. But wrong examples.
ReplyDeleteI refer you to the "Fightback" blog. Check out the top story; http://fightback.org.nz/
Crowd indeed!
Apparently Russia has a letter from Yanukovich asking them the send troops to "stabilise" Ukraina. If that is the case, Yanukovich didn't have the authority to do that, it would have had to be ratified by the Ukraina Parliament.
ReplyDeleteIf the interim Govt. has any authority it must dis-arm the extreme groups using the police and/or the army. Establish and maintain law and order.
Peggy is right that the US in not interested in Democracy. "Bringing democracy" is a cute buzz phrase used by the US Admin to pacify the Yank people.
Whether or not some people in Ukraina are ethnic Russian, they are Ukraina citizens and if they don't like what is happening then they can move back to Russia.
The endless accusation of "Fascists" is the same argument that Mugabe used to blame the UK for his country's problems.
Peggy
ReplyDeleteFirstly, let me apologise if I’ve got my acronyms wrong.
Secondly, yes I do know who Oleg Tyahnibok is and agree it was both morally wrong and ill-advised for John McCain to meet with him. But, as you will be aware, McCain lost the 2000 US Presidential elections and can’t therefore be assumed to speak for the current administration.
Thirdly, I’m also aware of Ms Nuland’s leaked conversation. It shows the US doing what all countries of any significance try to do, viz: pick useful players, shore up influence over them and make an impact. Does this mean that the US masterminded the February coup. Not in itself, although, as previously stated, I don’t exclude the possibility.
Fourthly, I agree that there’s no ‘smoking gun’ pointing to Russian involvement in the events in Kiev (Crimea is, of course, another matter). But there’s a considerable amount of circumstantial evidence of Russia’s hand, in a pattern of events that strangely parallels the way Moscow has dealt with previous crises. I think it’s not unreasonable to put the absence of a smoking gun down to the professionalism of Russia's security services.
Why did I concentrate on this pattern of events rather than the ethical, strategic, legal and diplomatic issues that actually I think are more important? Because Chris has insisted on a contrasting narrative and series of comparisons that, rightly or wrongly, I found uncharacteristically facile, misleading and blinkered and which I believed required countering.
On the subject of Ukrainian democracy, I accept that it’s been breached by the coup, am disturbed by that breach and horrified by the ultra-nationalists who are now playing an enlarged role in Ukrainian affairs.
Russian concerns over the safety and fair treatment of Ukraine’s ethnic Russian population are certainly not unfounded. Nor is Moscow’s concern over the security of its Black Sea fleet in Crimea.
But nor, however, are the fears of those Ukrainians who see closer association with Russia as likely to restrict their own democratic development and saw Yanukovich as (latterly)taking Ukraine in that direction. Obviously, I'm not including the local Nazis amongst their number.
Concern over the longer term future of Ukrainian democracy does not justify the February coup or any US involvement therein. But it would, to my mind, place any such involvement in a different light to , for example, US support for General Pinochet’s coup, which imposed an iron dictatorship on Chile for the best part of two decades. I think it's fair to say that the "colour" revolutions don't tend to lead to that kind of result.
However, if you re-read my post (plus some earlier ones on this site), you will notice that I don’t subscribe to the notion that the whole Ukraine imbroglio is ultimately reducible to either US or Russian plotting. The diverse and conflicting hopes and fears of ethnic Ukrainians, ethnic Russians, Crimean Tartars etc. are also key driving forces, along with Russia’s understandable concerns for its security.
I think that both sides need to stop spinning conspiracy theories and look to ways to reconcile these divergent interests. If they don’t, the consequences could be catastrophic.
Davo
ReplyDelete"Whether or not some people in Ukraina are ethnic Russian, they are Ukraina citizens and if they don't like what is happening then they can move back to Russia."
Although I agree with quite a lot of what you write over Ukraine, I really must take exception to this comment.
The Kiev government's decision to remove the official status of the Russian language is a disgrace and an ominous sign of the intentions of the regime's ultra-nationalists.
Let's assume that Te Reo was the language of , say, 55% of New Zealanders and the rest of us spoke mainly English. How would we respond if it was suddenly announced that all our official forms and dealings with government institutions had to be in Maori?
Would it be reasonable to say to us that,if we didn't like it, we should go back to the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Croatia, Hong Kong, Samoa or wherever our (possibly quite remote) ancestors came from ?
And how could we possibly trust a government that behaved so arrogantly and disdainfully towards us, to keep us safe from whatever the equivalent in this scenario would be of Ukraine's truly awful Fascists (small minority though they might be)?
Would I, in such circumstances, petition David Cameron to send a couple of gunboats and seize a series of English-speaking enclaves such as Christchurch and Auckland's North Shore?
Probably not. But I'd be tempted.
It is very sad that you do not recognise Russia's desperate desire to have a permanent warm water port ever since it first had a Navy. (Oh was that last year?).
ReplyDeleteCrimea and Syria are central to this
To suggest that US involvement was responsible for the unrest in Kiev is drawing a very long bow indeed.
Russian imperialism over many centuries is well established.
Ask the Georgians and "Ossetians".
With your interest in history I am surprised that you have not noted any of the above.
That you suggest that the unrest in Kiev came about because of US meddling is absurd.
It is about the same level as the Arab/Muslim attacks on Sochi that you posted.
The US WANTS to pick a fight with Russia.
I do not think so.
The USA has more than enough problems of its own without looking for more.
A megalomaniac like Putin understands this better than you do.
I usually respect your blogs but I am sorry you not only have missed the boat but you do not know where th timetable is on this issue.
Sorry, I've made an obvious error
ReplyDeleteIt was, of course, the 2008 Election that McCain lost.
@ Davo Stevens: "The endless accusation of "Fascists" is the same argument that Mugabe used to blame the UK for his country's problems."
ReplyDeleteYou're quite right about that.
But in the Ukraine, despite the fact that the majority of the protesters were ordinary people, they were joined on the barricades by far right and ultra-nationalist groups, from whom much of the violence against police came.
Now, with the riot police force having been dissolved by the interim government, these far-right groups largely comprise the militias designated by the government as de facto police.
These militias patrol the streets of Kiev and elsewhere; it will be very difficult for the government to put that particular jack back in the box, especially given that some members of these groups have obtained ministerial posts in the government.
It isn't an exaggeration to talk about fascists and neo-nazis being in control of the streets. The BBC has also discovered this - belatedly, some might say. Go look on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SBo0akeDMY
@ Frank: "Snipers firing from a safe distance is not "self defence"."
Using snipers is standard police practice worldwide in situation such as this. What did you expect them to do: offer themselves up as standing targets for the violent far right? You first, professor....
I'm guessing that, were any of those riot police your offspring, you'd prefer them to be protected by sniper fire.
In addition, it's important to remember that the identity of at least some of those snipers is uncertain. This is because those scenes were filmed after some of the riot police had been captured by protesters; it's very likely that some of those police uniforms had been taken by members of the far right groups.
Victor; My words previously were a bit strong and could have been worded differently.
ReplyDeleteThe problem that the ethnic Russians in Ukraina have got is that they are Ukraina citizens and not Russian citizens. If they wish to be such then they must apply for Russian citizenship as separate people. That is the difficulty tht they fsce.
As an analogy, I was born in Canada and came out here as a boy. I am a Canadian citizen by birth and by birthright but I am also a loyal Kiwi. I would defend NZ at any time.
I get info supplied to me by several friends I have in Ukraina both Russian and Ukrainian and I get their personal perspectives of what is happening around them.
It behoves Putin to keep Ukraina within his fold for obvious reasons, not all geographic either. So he would have been in action in the background to try to keep Yanukovich in power.
The general consensus of opinion of many Ukrainians was they had simply had enough of the cronyism and corruption of Yanokovich who was handing state contracts to his friends at grossly inflated prices.
Yes, I agree that the removal of Russian as an official language there was completely over the top but it's understandable considering the history and repression the Russia imposed on Ukraina over the years. For many years Ukrainian was suppressed by Russia and this is just tit-for-tat.
That raises an interesting question; is Russian a dialect of Ukrainian or the other way around? In fact Ukrainian is closer to the original Vagaric/Tocharic language than Russian (which is mostly Noble Latin).
No argument from me Peggy.
ReplyDeleteProtests can go one of two ways, they fizzle out or turn into a revolution.
The problem in Ukraina is that there was no real control of the protest and no command structure so right wing thugs were able to get control of it. Groups like "Prava Sektor" (Right Sector) who claimed they were the ones who stole the guns from the Police.
Yes, snipers have a purpose, they can pick off the armed thugs amongst the rest. Sadly the Police also opened up with machine guns and that was over the top. Too many have died on both sides now and those wounds will take a long time to heal.
I can understand the passion of the people there, they simply had enough of the nepotism and corruption of the Yankuvich bunch and wanted him out before he destroyed what was left of the country.
Most of the protesters just want what we all want; a benign Govt. that cares about it's people, is honest and genuine. I hope that they will get that but it's going to be a rough road until they do.
BTW: please excuse the occasional typo, I am nursing two broken fingers and it makes typing a bit difficult.
@ Victor: "Concern over the longer term future of Ukrainian democracy does not justify the February coup or any US involvement therein."
ReplyDeleteAgreed. Nor would it justify Russian involvement, if evidence is found that that is the case. I'm no cheerleader for Putin or the Russian government generally.
However, the US has unashamedly trumpeted its efforts to subvert the Yanukovich government.It clearly sees this as unexceptionable, yet its representatives scream moral outrage at the much more justified Russian manoeuvres in the Crimea.
"...such involvement in a different light to , for example, US support for General Pinochet’s coup, which imposed an iron dictatorship on Chile for the best part of two decades. I think it's fair to say that the "colour" revolutions don't tend to lead to that kind of result."
Maybe; but in my view, the involvement of the ultra-nationalist and far-right groups in this coup risks the imposition of precisely the sort of dictatorship Chile endured. That the "colour" revolutions haven't produced that kind of result entails nothing about what might happen now. I hope that you're right, but I fear that things will turn out badly.
The ordinary folk of Kiev have toppled a corrupt - though democratically elected - leader. But in the process, the violent far-right have come out of the woodwork and got a toehold in government, due in no small part to US machinations. I wouldn't be holding my breath about the next government being democratic; the fascists and neo-nazis have no interest in such Western niceties. Not that the US will care: just so long as whichever dictator is installed turns his face to Europe.
Ukrainians may yet have cause to remember that old saying: be careful what you wish for.
May I strike my colours on this thread.
ReplyDeleteFurther reading and cogitation have led me to the view that the collapse of Yanukovich's rule probably did owe far more to US machinations than to those of the Russians.
Apart from anything else, I hadn't taken into account the extent to which Ukraine's armed forces had become integrated into NATO, despite the country not being formally part of the alliance. Nor had I taken account of Yanukovich's singularity amongst Ukrainian leaders in opposing this.
I'm also impressed by the views of Professor Sergei Nikitich Khrushchev, who is almost uniquely qualified to understand the US, Russian and Ukrainian viewpoints.
You can hear him on Radio New Zealand:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons
I remain of the view that the Russian response to the coup has been heavy-handed and bears some resemblance to Soviet-epoch interventions. But, as stated in previous posts, I also think Moscow has justified causes for concern.
And I continue to fear that
inclusion in Putin's projected Eurasian Union will mean the effective end of Ukrainian democracy, if it has not already been ended by the nationalist coup.
I would much rather Ukrainians had the right, at some point in the future, to vote for membership of the EU though not of NATO. Perhaps, in view of ethnic divisions, such a vote should require a two thirds majority.
Finland's EU membership is not a threat to Russia. And no more should Ukraine's be, if that's what its people want when the time comes. But all of that is for the future.
Meanwhile, as stated in previous posts, I'm concerned about the existence of racist extremism within the new Ukrainian leadership. The Neo-Nazis might be a small minority but nobody seems to be doing anything to contain them.
Moreover, I'm concerned about the inflammatory noises coming from the US and some (but not all)European capitals.
I think that the US has severe difficulties understanding that there might be nations (such as Russia) which are neither compliant underlings nor (however imperfect)empires of evil.
So that's my recantation done. It's less abject, of course, than Stalin would have required of me.
Gosh Peggy
ReplyDeleteWe seem close to agreement
I wonder what America would do if Hawaii decided it wanted to be part of China. After all Hawaii is of great geo strategic importance for America as Ukraine is for Russia. I don't think the wishes of the people would matter one iota.
ReplyDelete@ Victor: "Gosh Peggy
ReplyDeleteWe seem close to agreement"
Amazing, eh? Peace breaking out all over the place! More than those poor sods in the Ukraine have got...
I also heard the interview with Professor Krushchev. He made a refreshing change from the witterings of other commentators recently. I'd written to Jim Mora after Michelle Boag's efforts on the Panel. What she said seemed to be based on the CNN - or perhaps the CIA - version of events. It was so inaccurate, I couldn't let it pass unchallenged.
"...inclusion in Putin's projected Eurasian Union will mean the effective end of Ukrainian democracy, if it has not already been ended by the nationalist coup."
I suspect that the nationalist coup may well have done more damage to democracy there than anything Putin could do; but I hope that I'm wrong.
"The Neo-Nazis might be a small minority but nobody seems to be doing anything to contain them."
Indeed. Unfortunately, it seems that they're wielding influence disproportionate to their numbers; moreover, the US appears to have made common cause with them. Yatseniuk and his party aren't now in control, even if he's interim prime minister.
"the US has severe difficulties understanding that there might be nations (such as Russia) which are neither compliant underlings nor (however imperfect)empires of evil."
Couldn't agree more. This perspective underpins US foreign policy. The only way to characterise it is "Disneyland", in my view. Even Hollywood occasionally has moments of insight and introspection.
Anent the issue of snipers, and who was shooting at whom, I post the following illuminating link. The authenticity of the tape has been confirmed. As we suspected at the time, things were not what they seemed - or what CNN and John Kerry were telling us.
http://rt.com/news/ashton-maidan-snipers-estonia-946/
Peggy
ReplyDeleteYup, the Ashton recording is highly interesting. If the allegations are correct, as well they might be, they will have huge ramifications, both for US/EU relations and within the EU.
And I quite agree about Disneyland and US Foreign Policy.
An interesting aspect of this is how the State Department has morphed from its previous role as a comparatively sane and professional check on the hawks of the CIA, NSC and Defence Department, not to mention the vote-hungry, human megaphones on The Hill.
Amongst other things, this may reflect two decades of being run by the "Liberal Imperialists" Madeleine and Hillary, plus Neo-Con Condi and the good soldier Colin, ever ready to lie for his country.
But I also think Russia has difficulty seeing its "Near Abroad" as comprised of fully sovereign states.
I'm not sure that Kerry didn't have a point about there being methods other than thinly disguised armed force, with which Russia could have dealt with this crisis.
Not that the US,of recent decades, would be an exemplar of such other methods.
@ Victor
ReplyDeleteYou're right about the State Department; it's depressing and frightening by equal measures. God knows what they're going to drag the US and its hangers-on into next.
"...Russia has difficulty seeing its "Near Abroad" as comprised of fully sovereign states."
Not surprising, I guess, given that those countries were until relatively recently part of the Russian polity. And they'd been so for centuries.
The US in my view suffers from the same problem with regard to the Caribbean, and Central and South America. And with nothing like that sort of justification.
"I'm not sure that Kerry didn't have a point about there being methods other than thinly disguised armed force, with which Russia could have dealt with this crisis."
I thought so too, until information began to emerge about who's involved in the new government in Kiev. Now I think that Russia has done the only thing it could do. It has likely pre-empted a massacre in the Crimea: greatly to be preferred to waiting around until one occurs!
And speaking of who's involved in the interim government, if you haven't seen the list of ultra-nationalists and neo-nazis who've got ministerial posts, here it is:
Ihor Tenyukh – interim defense minister and a member of Svoboda’s political council. Formerly commander of Ukraine’s navy, in 2008, during Russia’s war with Georgia, he ordered Ukrainian warships to block the entrance of the Russian Navy to the bay of Sevastopol.
Andriy Parubiy – National Security Council chief, co-founded Svoboda back when it was the “Social National” (ahem!) party.
Dmytro Yarosh – deputy head of the National Security Council, i.e. the police, and the founder-leader of "Right Sector," a militant neo-Nazi paramilitary group that took charge of security in the Maidan.
Oleh Makhnitsky – Svoboda member of parliament, is prosecutor-general.
Oleksandr Sych – Svoboda parliamentarian and the party’s chief ideologist, is deputy prime minister for economic affairs.
Serhiy Kvit – a leading member of Svoboda, is to head up the Education Ministry.
Andriy Moknyk – the new Minister of Ecology, has been Svoboda’s envoy to other European fascist parties. Last year, he met with representatives of Italy’s violent neo-fascist gang, Forza Nuovo.
Ihor Shvaika – agro-oligarch and a member of Svoboda, has been appointed Minister of Agriculture. One of the richest men in the country, His massive investments in agriculture would seem to indicate a slight conflict of interest.
A more unlovely bunch of thugs it'd be hard to find. And these are the people the US supports: breathtaking naivete at the very least.
These appointments don't augur well for the Ukraine. Putin isn't stupid: he'll be only too aware of the implications of these appointments; hence the - ahem - first strike.
And then there's this choice little morsel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq47Mq5kZOA
The more I see of the complexities of this situation, the more convinced I am that the West should just butt out and leave Russia and the Crimea to sort things out.
Peggy
ReplyDelete"The US in my view suffers from the same problem with regard to the Caribbean, and Central and South America. And with nothing like that sort of justification."
Absolutely.
And yes the Kiev administration are a disreputable and alarming bunch, although I don't know how far they are able to exert authority (read: cause mayhem) over large stretches of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, what do you make of the BBC reports that (presumably Russian) skinheads with baseball bats are now dishing it to the Crimean Tartars?
@ Victor:
ReplyDelete"what do you make of the BBC reports that (presumably Russian) skinheads with baseball bats are now dishing it to the Crimean Tartars?"
Got a link you can post? We here haven't seen anything, but we've been out of internet range since last night.
Hi Peggy
ReplyDeleteI've just caught up with your latest note and tried sourcing the BBC item, albeit unsuccessfully.
I heard it on World Service at about 11.00 am on Saturday.Since then, of course, there have been reports of violence between demonstrators in Crimea. The preponderence of violence seems to have come from the Russian side, although Ukrainians seem to have started some of it.
Although I agree with you that Russia has significant legitimate interests in the Ukraine, I'm not sure that I agree that a thinly disguised invasion was the only possible response.
However much the nationalist coup in Ukraine owed to western interference and however nauseating some of the people it's projected into power, I don't see that there were any Russian interests (apart from Putin's prestige) in such urgent danger that an immediate recourse to armed force was necessary.
There may be something that I'm missing here. But I just don't see it.
Was the Black Sea fleet in jeopardy? If so, why now and not during the recurrent governmental crises of post-Soviet Ukraine?
By my reading, Russia has now breached the Charter of the United Nations. It's not, of course, the only significant power to have done so of recent years. Nor has it done so with the crude and extreme violence that some of the countries now criticising have used of late.
But each rending of the fabric of international law brings that fabric closer to disintegration. And (as Helen Clark pointed out with respect to the Iraq invasion) that's bad news for a small country like New Zealand.
In itself, it would not, to my mind, be an unreasonable solution to this crisis for Crimea to become part of Russia, provided that minorities such as the Crimean Tartars are protected.
But the acquisition of territory by force (for that, plebiscite notwithstanding,is what it will be)seems to take us back to the age of Bismarck.
@ Victor: "there have been reports of violence between demonstrators in Crimea. The preponderence of violence seems to have come from the Russian side, although Ukrainians seem to have started some of it."
ReplyDeleteReportage of what's going on there is very confused; I'm dubious about the extent to which any of us can rely on Western sources, including the BBC, unfortunately. The old Cold War perspective seems still to underlie the Western narrative, and this influences the ways in which journalists interpret what they see and hear. I also think that Western journalists generally don't have a good grasp of the history and culture of the Ukraine. They've consistently underplayed or ignored the central role in the coup played by the ultra-nationalists and the neo-nazis.
" I'm not sure that I agree that a thinly disguised invasion was the only possible response."
In an interview, to which I'll post a link, Putin has denied that there has been any such invasion. There's no reason to assume a priori that he's dissembling; it seems unlikely to me that he'd send in Russian troops without insignia. After all, why should he care a good goddamn what the West thinks?
"Was the Black Sea fleet in jeopardy?" We think so, because of the nature of the people who have seized power. The West seems not to grasp that, now Svoboda and Pravy Sektor have had a taste of power, they're not going to give it up. And their modus operandi is violence; we've seen that already.
Here's the link; it's an interview worth reading:
http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/6763
If we can take seriously interviews with Barack Obama, I think we should do the same with Putin. And we shouldn't assume deceit or bad faith on his part, when we don't with Obama.
@ Victor: I replied to your comment last week, but, for some reason, it hasn't been published.
ReplyDeleteI'm dubious about the extent to which we can rely on the western media for an accurate account of what's going on in the Ukraine. It seems to me that they don't have sufficient understanding of the history and culture of the region for informed commentary. Moreover, few if any western journalists speak Russian, yet I'd have thought it an essential prerequisite if they aren't going to refer to English-language Russian news sites for another perspective.
With regard to the issue of "Russian troops" on the ground in Crimea, I've read an interview with Putin in which he denies that those soldiers are Russian military. Here's the link:
http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/6763
It's an interesting read, especially given that western journalists don't seem to bother seeking an interview with him.
I guess that some will dismiss it as propaganda. No doubt those are the same people who take CNN or the Beeb pronouncements as careful, unbiased and independent commentary....
Discussion on this issue has been somewhat overtaken by events, I guess. The results of the referendum are pretty conclusive, and render rather pointless and feeble Obama's and Cameron's claim that they'll refuse to recognise the referendum and its results. The people have comprehensively spoken; the west has little option but to accept it, given that it has recognised as legitimate the coup in Kiev that toppled Yanukovich.