Ukraine: Oil politics and a mockery of democracy

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Ukraine: Oil politics and a mockery of democracy
By William Engdahl


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.


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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.


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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.


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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/GA20Ag01.html