Friday, December 3, 2004, 2:57:50 PM, Phil Enns wrote: PE> Regarding the possibility of the wrong person being elected, I wrote: PE> "There is no 'wrong' person." PE> Judy Evans wrote: PE> "there's a 'wrong' person in the Ukraine." PE> Which one? the one the US Govt didn't fund: I posted the story here, here it is again. (Addendum: The Guardian has since carried a major article in support of the people for Viktor Yushchenko, and various letters both for and against.) On 26 Nov I wrote: this is really a reply to an earlier post (on the same subject), it's a comment on the demos in the Ukraine. (Sorry not to find the right post: the Millennium Centre's opening tonight. I couldn't get one of the democratically allocated -- ! -- 1000 free tickets, but want to see the TV coverage.) The demos were "aided", to put it mildly, by the US. I don't take the view that just because the US has had its own little election problems it can't yammer on at the Ukraine re possible problems there, [Addendum: the US had just attacked "electoral irregularities" in the Ukraine.] but do think it's a bit rich to try to remove a politician in another country by subterfuge then take the high moral ground when that attempt appears to fail. also you should know what the US is doing and whom the US is helping (I have a second item, from a totally separate source, to support the gist of this, but anyway know the journalist I quote here is no kind of pro-Putin hack): (Excerpt from http://www.guardian.co.uk/ukraine/story/0,15569,1360297,00.html ) ***************** 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. ************ (Excerpt from http://www.guardian.co.uk/ukraine/story/0,15569,1360236,00.html ) **************** Ukraine, traditionally passive in its politics, has been mobilised by the young democracy activists and will never be the same again. But while the gains of the orange-bedecked "chestnut revolution" are Ukraine's, the campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes. Funded and organised by the US government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American parties and US non-government organisations, the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot box. Richard Miles, the US ambassador in Belgrade, played a key role. And by last year, as US ambassador in Tbilisi, he repeated the trick in Georgia, coaching Mikhail Saakashvili in how to bring down Eduard Shevardnadze. (cut) The final stage in the US template concerns how to react when the incumbent tries to steal a lost election. In Belarus, President Lukashenko won, so the response was minimal. In Belgrade, Tbilisi, and now Kiev, where the authorities initially tried to cling to power, the advice was to stay cool but determined and to organise mass displays of civil disobedience, which must remain peaceful but risk provoking the regime into violent suppression. If the events in Kiev vindicate the US in its strategies for helping other people win elections and take power from anti-democratic regimes, it is certain to try to repeat the exercise elsewhere in the post-Soviet world. The places to watch are Moldova and the authoritarian countries of central Asia. ************ -- Judy Evans, Cardiff, UK mailto:judithevans001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html