Reproducimos un
detallado informe de Joe Quinn para Signs of the Times (SOTT) acerca de los
sucesos en Ucrania de hace un año. La prensa occidental no habla de esto por la
sencilla razón de que han aparecido temas de una envergadura tal que obligan a
cambiar súbitamente el ángulo de la información. Qué te digo: la reproducción
exitosa del loro amarillo de Tanzania, el drama de las caries de Lady Gaga o el
tremendo corte de pelo de Zendaya en la entrega de los Oscars. En fin, por las dudas, acá va:
Título:
Euromaidan: Anatomy of a Washington-backed coup d'etat
Texto: In late
November 2013, the 'Euromaidan' in Kiev began as a popular protest against a
generalized state of corruption and cronyism in Ukraine. The spark that
ostensibly ignited the protests was the inability of then President Yanukovych
to sign an EU Association Agreement that would cut Ukraine's economic and
military ties to Russia in favor of a closer relationship with the EU and NATO.
The EU had made
the release of former Ukrainian prime minister and "gas princess"
Tymoshenko a precondition for signing the agreement. But the fact that
Tymoshenko was/is a convicted embezzler of state funds, combined with the
rather severe economic impact the EU Association Agreement would have had on
the Ukrainian economy, made it impossible for a consensus in the Ukrainian
government to be reached, despite the fact that Yanukovych urged Parliament to
put aside their differences and ratify the agreement. In fact, the EU's
insistence that Tymoshenko be released appears now to have been designed to
ensure the EU-Ukraine Association agreement failed and Yanukovych blamed for
that failure and removed from office. Whatever the case, when the agreement was
not signed, Ukrainians took to the streets in protest, right on cue.
The reason I say
'right on cue' is that there is abundant evidence to suggest that public
opinion had been primed well in advance of November 21st, 2013 - years in
advance, in fact, by Western (particularly American) 'NGOs'.
The term 'Non
Governmental Organisation' is a flagrant misnomer. Most NGOs require funding,
which often comes from wealthy patrons with direct ties to government, or from
governments themselves. Indeed, several well-known US 'NGO's are equally
well-known fronts for CIA and other 'intelligence' agency activity in foreign
countries.
American
billionaire 'philanthropist' and business magnate George Soros is the founder
and financier of several NGOs. Soros has been 'opening up' societies
(particularly in Eastern Europe) for his own benefit and the benefit of Western
corporate interests for many years. In 1989, his foundations were instrumental
in making sure that former Soviet republics and satellite states chose Western
'liberalism' after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
George Soros, especulador global
In May 2014 Soros
told CNN: "Well, I set up a
foundation in Ukraine before Ukraine became independent of Russia. And the
foundation has been functioning ever since and played an important part in
events now."
Soros's aptly
named 'Open Society Foundations' work closely with and receive money from the
National Endowment for Democracy (NED). NED was set up in the early 1980s in
response to the extremely negative press the CIA had been receiving in the late
1970s. The CIA needed a cover, so the NED was created. According to a 1991
interview in the Washington Post with one of the creators of the NED, Allen
Weinstein, "a lot of what we (NED) do today was done covertly 25 years ago
by the CIA".
Part of the CIA's
mission since its creation has been to make the world free for US corporations.
This means infiltrating, destabilizing and 'opening up' sovereign nations. For
example, one of the goals of a 1997-98 NED program in the former Yugoslavia
was: "To identify barriers to private sector development at the local and
federal levels in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and to push for
legislative change...[and] to develop strategies for private sector
growth." NED and Soros's Open Society are therefore thinly veiled tools of
US imperialism, and they have been at work around the world for decades. NED
continues to throw $millions at Ukrainian 'CSOs' or Civil Society
Organisations. But what exactly is "civil society"?
'Civil society'
(CS) is an over-used term that supposedly describes the "aggregate of
non-governmental organizations and institutions that manifest interests and
will of citizens." Or more simply, it is "individuals and
organizations in a society which are independent of the government". In
reality, however, for the most part, 'civil society' is Western government
double-speak for 'interfering in the political and social affairs of other
nations'. While there are many genuine grassroots organisations around the
world, only the ones that align themselves with US government 'strategic
interests' get significant funding. In the US, these are precisely the types of
groups the US government repeatedly suppresses - those that would 'manifest the
interests and will' of its citizens, and not the 1%. In Ukraine, most 'civil
society' groups are 100% funded and controlled by the US government via its
network of phony 'NGOs'.
USAID - the US
government's overt organization tasked with co-opting (and overthrowing)
foreign governments - is a big fan of 'civil society', providing $1.8billion in
"critical development assistance in support of the Ukrainian people"
over the past 20 years. However, in its 2012-2016 'Ukraine Country Development
Co-operation Strategy', USAID states that it "provides the largest amount
of donor support to the Verkhovna Rada" (Ukraine's Parliament) and is
"also the largest donor in providing support to [Ukrainian] political
parties." 1 So, far from being "independent of government",
USAID's definition of 'civil society' is apparently one government bribing
another, and the 'will of the citizens' be damned.
To differentiate
between genuine CS groups and US government cover groups, you need only look at
the language they use. While genuine groups will speak and write in plain terms
about actual definable issues, US-government-funded groups say things like:
---UNITER will
ensure sustainability of advocacy and monitoring through the identification and
cultivation of organization(s)/mechanisms that have: 1) the credibility and
standing to coordinate, facilitate and convene other organizations around
issue-based initiatives, and 2) the capacity to administer advocacy and
monitoring sub-grants to organizations that collaborate on issue-based
initiatives
"Administer
advocacy [...] for issue-based initiatives"? I'm wondering, is that
initiatives that deal with issues, or issues that require initiatives to deal
with them? Can you administer advocacy for an initiative, or can you only
advocate for an issue that you administer? I currently have an issue that needs
some advocacy and would like some sustainability of initiative to administer
it. I wonder if I should contact USAID?
Pierre Omidyar, el Turbio
A complex web of
phony Ukrainian NGOs
UNITER stands for
'Ukraine National Initiatives to Enhance Reforms' and is also known as
USAID/Ukraine's Strengthening Civil Society in Ukraine (SCSU). It is
administered by Pact Inc. Pact Inc. is a nonprofit organization based in
Washington D.C. that is directly funded by USAID:
USAID/Ukraine
awarded Pact a 5-year cooperative agreement to implement the project, effective
October 1, 2008. The agreement was extended in September 2013 for an additional
year. Including modifications and the 1-year extension, the total amount
awarded comes to $14.3 million. As of September 30, 2013, $13.7 million had
been obligated and $12.7 million had been spent. (1)
UNITER also funds
the Center UA, which was set up in 2009 by Pierre Omidyar as "a coalition
of more than 50 civil society organizations that mobilizes civic participation
in Ukraine and serves as the country's primary forum for government
transparency and accountability." Omidyar is a French-born Iranian
American entrepreneur and philanthropist, and the founder and chairman of the
eBay auction site.
Oleh Rybachuk is
named as the founder and chairman of Centre UA. In 2004, Rybachuk headed the
staff and political campaign of the US-backed presidential candidate Victor
Yushchenko in the 'Orange Revolution'. Speaking at a 2006 NATO forum, he
said: "The task of political forces
[in Ukraine] is to compromise on when Ukraine will sign a NATO Membership Plan
[...] Ukraine's leaders must now join their efforts to launch an information
campaign promoting the country's Euro-Atlantic integration, so that Ukrainians
freely and consciously choose their future."
Rybachuk went on
to serve under Yushchenko and Tymoshenko as deputy prime minister in charge of
integrating Ukraine into NATO and the European Union. With the creation of
Centre UA in 2009, Rybachuk transformed himself into a "civil society
activist" and began working covertly for the US government to prepare the
ground for the overthrow of the established order in Ukraine through
"civil unrest", which eventually included the violent overthrow of
President Yanukovych.
After the
election of President Yanukovych in February 2010, UNITER described how Centre
UA was used to put pressure on the Yanukovych government: “The New Citizen Platform was a key player in
ensuring the success of the legislation. Pact, through the USAID-funded Ukraine
National Initiatives to Enhance Reforms (UNITER) project assists the NGO Center
UA [New Citizen] since 2009. It was UNITER's contribution to create the network
of prominent local and national level Ukrainian NGOs, to bring together leaders
of public opinion and civil society activist.”
Henceforth, Pact
helped Center UA to emerge as the main convener of the need for access to
public information for journalist work. This gave important boost to the
success of the New Citizen platform. It included the facilitation and creation
in summer 2010 of the Stop Censorship movement that unites media professionals
in defending their rights for freedom of speech and access to information. The
intensive collaboration New Citizen platform and Stop Censorship movement
resulted in the reinforced media attention to the legislative struggle. (2)
On investigating
these 'NGO networks' in Ukraine it quickly becomes clear that when Victoria
Nuland said that Washington has spent $5 billion on "democracy
promotion" in Ukraine over the past 20 years, she wasn't lying, at least
not on the numbers. But that $5billion of US taxpayers' money has not gone
towards "democracy promotion" but towards the infiltration and
co-opting of Ukraine's political and social life for the purpose of thwarting
Russia's natural influence on, and co-operation with, its neighbor. Between
2009 and 2014, through its complex web of fake NGOs, the US government engaged
in a concerted effort to radically and definitively change the course of
Ukraine's political and social life for the sole purpose of attacking Russia.
In hindsight, a violent coup d'etat and the imposition of
US-government-selected political leaders was a part of that plan.The farce that
was and is USAID funding phony 'NGOs' to work for "access to public
information for journalistic work" was fully exposed recently when the
Kiev government banned more than 100 Russian media outlets from Ukraine.
US Snipers on
EuroMaidan?
When he took up
the post of US Ambassador to Ukraine on July 30th, 2013, Geoffrey Pyatt
inherited this complex and well-established network of US-financed social
activists and agitators. One of Pyatt's first tasks was to oversee the funding
(about $50,000 in total) of a new television station in Ukraine, Hromadske TV.
Unsurprisingly, Hromadske's first broadcast was on Nov. 22nd, 2013, the very
first day of the Maidan protests. Indeed, the rallying cry for those protests
was given by Mustafa Nayem, a Ukrainian journalist who founded Hromadske TV
(with US taxpayers' money). Hromadske provided blanket coverage of the Maidan
protest and since then has continued to receive generous funding from the US
State Department and EU governments. To get an idea of the editorial line of
the US State Dept. Hromadske, last year they hosted a journalist who called for
the genocide of 1.5 million residents in the Donbass.
From the
beginning of the protests until Yanukovych was forced to flee the country, the
Euromaidan was the place to be if you wanted to press the flesh with US
politicians. Pyatt and Nuland regularly handed out cookies and 'attaboys' to
the protestors and police alike, while the US government's revolutionary envoy
John McCain rallied the protestors in December 2013, telling them that
"America stands with you" and "Ukraine will make Europe
better". As the protests became increasingly violent through January 2014,
the Ukrainian Prime Minister resigned on January 28th in a failed attempt to
appease the protestors. By February 18th, President Yanukovych was in
negotiations to draft a 'peace deal' with three members of the opposition -
Yatzenyuk, the fascist Tyahnybok, and Klitschko, along with French, German and
Polish foreign ministers. These were the same three people mentioned by Nuland
and Pyatt in their infamous leaked phone call where they discussed the future
make-up of the post-Yanukovych government.The agreement called for a drastic
reduction in Yanukovych's presidential powers, a return to the 2004
constitution, the release of Tymoshenko from prison, early elections for later
in 2014, the appointment of Yatzenyuk as prime minister and Klitschko as deputy
prime minister, and the dismissal of the current government.
These measures
amounted to a radical change in the power structure in Ukraine and should have
meant an end to the protests, since they fulfilled all of the opposition
demands. After all, the leaders of the opposition who had signed the agreement
were the representatives of the protestors on the streets of Kiev, right?
However, as the negotiations were ongoing, someone began a shooting spree in
the streets around Kiev square over the three days of February 18th-20th. At
least 15 policemen and 80 protestors and civilian bystanders were shot dead by
what appears to have been a team of snipers firing from the tops and windows of
buildings. The agreement was signed on the 21st, but the large death toll
appears to have contributed to the almost immediate scrapping of the agreement,
and the announcement by what was left of the Ukrainian parliament that
Yanukovych would be impeached.
The image below
shows the Maidan square in the top left corner.
The yellow line
shows the extent of the progress of the protestors on February 20th along
Institutskaya Street as they tried to reach the central bank and the Ukrainian
parliament (in red). All of the buildings surrounding Maidan square (off
screen, top left), including the Ukraine hotel (in green), were occupied by
protestors. The lobby of the Ukraine hotel had been turned into a makeshift
triage center for the injured. The point being, everything behind and to the
left and right of the protestors should have been safe territory. Ukrainian
officials and protestors to this day claim that the police were responsible for
the deaths. Yet the video segment below, taken from this video, shows a
protestor (and the tree behind which he is hiding) being struck by a bullet
from behind or from the side, most likely from the upper floors of the Ukraine
hotel, as pointed out by this German news report (with English subtitles).
Throughout the
day, dozens of other protestors were shot from behind, from buildings occupied
by protestors, as outlined in this detailed report by Professor Ivan
Katchanovski of the University of Ottawa.
The question of
who was responsible for the large death toll among both protestors and policemen
was brought into sharp focus by an intercepted telephone call, released on
March 4th, 2014, between EU Foreign Affairs Chief Catherine Ashton and Estonian
Foreign Affairs Minister Urmas Paet, who had just returned from Kiev. In the
call, Paet tells Ashton:
There is now
stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers, it was not
Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition. [...] all the evidence
shows that the people who were killed by snipers from both sides, among
policemen and then people from the streets, that they were the same snipers
killing people from both sides ... and it's really disturbing that now the new
coalition, that they don't want to investigate what exactly happened.
If you're
wondering why you haven't heard much, or anything, about this phone call in the
Western media, the reason is that it has been ignored. And as Paet says,
apparently the new US/EU-installed 'interim' government in Ukraine is not too
keen on investigating the allegations.
Along with the
video evidence and eyewitness testimony, Paet's statement strongly suggests
that within the 'Maidan' protestors, perhaps specifically the US-funded and
Chechen Jihadi-linked 'Right Sector', there were individuals who were fighting
on both sides of the barricades; their aim being to kill as many police and
protestors as possible in an effort to turn the 'people's revolution' into a
revolution of Ukrainian ultra-nationalists bent on kick-starting a 'civil war'
to cleanse Ukraine of Russian influence. That agenda dovetails nicely with the
broad, decades-long goal of the Anglo-American empire to neutralize Russia as a
potential global power broker able to stand against US global hegemony through
destabilization and proxy wars.
The expansion of
NATO up to Russia's borders that was begun by the Clinton administration in
1992 was advised against by many because it would obviously provoke conflict
with Russia, yet the plan went ahead anyway. Why? There are two interwoven
benefits from the US point of view. The first is that expanding NATO eastwards
served to physically and economically expand the US empire. The second is that
provoking conflict with Russia was predicted to scare European states,
especially the expanded-upon new NATO Baltic states, into believing that Russia
was a threat.
NATO was designed
to increase security in Europe, but it has achieved precisely the opposite
today. What 'increase security in Europe' really means in Washington is
'increase of US control in Europe'. The US government has long-since understood
that the best way to increase control is to increase fear, and to increase fear
you need an enemy. In the case of Europe, Russia could be provoked into
appearing as an enemy to Europe by threatening it through expansion of NATO,
which was justified by the need to increase security in Europe. Basically,
expansion of NATO to Russia's borders was designed to threaten Russia and, as a
result, threaten Europe and push it further into the arms of the Empire.
Ukraine today is
not just a 'failed state'. A 'failed state' is usually still in the hands of a
national government. Ukraine today is fully in the hands of the US government
and the IMF. That might not be such a bad thing (relatively) if it weren't for
the fact that the only reason those two institutions have any interest in
Ukraine is to use it as leverage in their futile attempt to thwart the
inexorable strengthening of the Russian Federation.
Just take Natalie
Jaresko as an example. A Chicago-born investment banker who received her
Ukrainian citizenship in December 2014, she now controls Ukrainian financial
policy. In the late '80s and early '90s, she just so happened to hold several
positions at the US State Department before taking the position of Chief of the
Economic Section of the US Embassy in Ukraine. She also managed the
USAID-financed Western NIS Enterprise Fund, which kindly provided funds for
'pro-democracy' movements in Belarus, Moldova and, predictably, Ukraine.
One year ago
today, there was an option to end the Maidan protests peacefully while also
meeting the protestors' demands and reforming Ukrainian politics and society in
a way that would have benefited the Ukrainian people. Instead, the US empire
and their proxy agents chose to unleash bloody mayhem on Ukraine. In the
process, Ukraine (and therefore NATO) lost Crimea and is so to lose the rich
lands of Donetsk and Lugansk. Does the US government care? Of course not. The
real goal of demonizing Russia as a threat to global stability has been
achieved.
All other
considerations, including the slaughter of tens of thousands of ragged
Ukrainian troops and at least 5,000 eastern Ukrainian citizens, are a price the
psychopaths in Washington were only too willing to pay.
Neonazis ucranianos
Notas:
1 USAID, 'Ukraine
Country Development Cooperation Strategy, 2012-2016'
2 USAID, 'Audit
of USAID's Strengthening Civil Society in Ukraine Project'
3 FreedomInfo,
'UNITER Project, Pact Inc. Memorandum'
Expansión de la NATO hacia el este europeo: 1990-2009
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