Opinion v Propaganda
Seumas Milne appears to have been off on some jolly jape to Venezuela which is where he filed this Guardian column, from the country's capital of Caracas.
Now I've got a real 'downer' on Seumas these days because if you ask me, he tailors issues and events to suit his political opinions instead of presenting a reasonably balanced argument or carefully checking the facts on the ground.
As I discovered recently, for example, when Seumas filed a ludicrous piece about events in Ukraine and Crimea, over which he plainly supported Russia and President Putin, despite reports from other Guardian journalists which flatly contradicted what Seumas was saying.
So I tend to regard the newspaper's comment editor as a propagandist rather than a serious journalist, and my suspicions have been confirmed in Seumas' latest 'report' from Venezuela in which he prays himself in aid, somewhat arrogantly, and quotes selectively from documents released by WikiLeaks.
For example, in the paragraph where President Maduro links events in Venezuela to those in Ukraine, the author of the Guardian report in question is none other than Seumas himself, who fails to point out, of course, that the major player in the Ukraine was the European Union and not America.
Also in the reference to WikiLeaks Seumas leaves out information which is highly significant about the activities of USAID in Venezuela, presumably because he finds the actual words inconvenient, so I have reproduced an extract below - and I have to say I can't find much wrong with the USAID programme entitled 'Strengthening Democratic Institutions'.
What I can't understand is why an intelligent person like Seumas can't see beyond his implacable anti-American outlook, not even for a minute.
If he did, Seumas might question, for example, how President Maduro can hold himself out as a serious politician while invoking miraculous images of the spirit of Hugo Chavez urging him on by appearing on random walls or in the form of a little bird - which is 'evidence', so says President Maduro, that Hugo Chavez is on his side.
Now if that's not the behaviour of a demagogue, then I don't know what is, but perhaps Seumas doesn't care so long as the demagogue holds himself out to be a 'good socialist' and resolutely anti-American into the bargain.
Venezuela shows that protest can be a defence of privilege
Street action is now regularly used with western backing to target elected governments in the interests of elites
By Seumas Milne - The Guardian (Caracas)
'Despite claims that the government is waging a terror campaign, the evidence suggests a majority have been killed by opposition supporters.' Photograph: Carlos Becerra/AFP/Getty Images
If we didn't know it before, the upsurge in global protest in the past couple of years has driven home the lesson that mass demonstrations can have entirely different social and political meanings. Just because they wear bandannas and build barricades – and have genuine grievances – doesn't automatically mean protesters are fighting for democracy or social justice.
From Ukraine to Thailand and Egypt to Venezuela, large-scale protests have aimed at, or succeeded in, ousting elected governments in the past year. In some countries, mass protests have been led by working class organisations, targeting austerity and corporate power. In others, predominantly middle class unrest has been the lever to restore ousted elites.
Sometimes, in the absence of political organisation, they can straddle the two. But whoever they represent, they tend to look similar on TV. And so effective have street demonstrations been in changing governments over the past 25 years that global powers have piled into the protest business in a major way.
From the overthrow of the elected Mossadegh government in Iran in the 1950s, when the CIA and MI6 paid anti-government demonstrators, the US and its allies have led the field: sponsoring "colour revolutions", funding client NGOs and training student activists, fuelling social media protest and denouncing – or ignoring – violent police crackdowns as it suits them.
And after a period when they preened themselves on promoting democracy, they are reverting to their anti-democratic ways. Take Venezuela, which for the past two months has been racked by anti-government protests aimed at overthrowing the socialist government of Nicolas Maduro, elected president last year to succeed Hugo Chávez.
The rightwing Venezuelan opposition has long had a problem with the democracy business, having lost 18 out of 19 elections or referendums since Chávez was first elected in 1998 – in an electoral process described by former US president Jimmy Carter as "the best in the world". Their hopes were raised last April when the opposition candidate lost to Maduro by only 1.5%. But in December, nationwide elections gave the Chavista coalition a 10-point lead.
So the following month, US-linked opposition leaders – several of whom were involved in the failed US-backed coup against Chávez in 2002 – launched a campaign to oust Maduro, calling on their supporters to "light up the streets with struggle". With high inflation, violent crime and shortages of basic goods, there was plenty to fuel the campaign – and protesters responded, literally.
For eight weeks, they have burned universities, public buildings and bus stations, while up to 39 people have died. Despite claims by the US secretary of state, John Kerry, that the government is waging a "terror campaign" against its citizens, the evidence suggests a majority have been killed by opposition supporters, including eight members of the security forces and three motorcyclists garrotted by wire strung across street barricades. Four opposition supporters have been killed by police, for which several officers have been arrested.
What are portrayed as peaceful protests have all the hallmarks of an anti-democratic rebellion, shot through with class privilege and racism. Overwhelmingly middle class and confined to wealthy white areas, the protests have now shrunk to firebombings and ritual fights with the police, while parts of the opposition have agreed to peace talks.
Support for the government, meanwhile, remains solid in working class areas. As Anacauna Marin, a local activist in the 23 January barrio in Caracas puts it: "Historically protests are a way for the poor to demand an improvement in their conditions. But here the rich are protesting and the poor are working."
It's hardly surprising in the circumstances that Maduro regards what's been going on as Ukraine-style US-backed destabilisation, as he told me. The US claim that this is an unfounded "excuse" is absurd. Evidence for the US subversion of Venezuela – from the 2002 coup through WikiLeaks-revealed cables outlining US plans to "penetrate", "isolate" and "divide"the Venezuelan government, to continuing large-scale funding of opposition groups – is voluminous.
That's not only because Venezuela sits on the world's largest oil reserves, but because it has spearheaded the progressive tide that has swept Latin America over the past decade: challenging US domination, taking back resources from corporate control and redistributing wealth and power. Despite its current economic problems, revolutionary Venezuela's achievements are indisputable.
Since regaining control of its oil, Venezuela has used it to slash poverty by half and extreme poverty by 70%, massively expanded public health, housing, education and women's rights, boosted pensions and the minimum wage, established tens of thousands of co-ops and public enterprises, put resources in the hands of a grassroots participatory democracy, and funded health and development programmes across Latin American and the Caribbean.
So it's not surprising that Maduro's Chavistas still have majority support. To maintain that, the government will have to get a grip on shortages and inflation – which it has the means to do. Prices spiked after it cut the supply of dollars to the private sector, which dominates food imports and supply, while a large proportion of price-controlled goods are smuggled into Colombia to sell at far higher prices.
A recent easing of currency controls has already had an impact. For all its problems, the economy has continued to grow and unemployment and poverty fall. Venezuela is very far from being the basket case of its enemies' hopes. But the risk is that as the protests run out of steam, sections of the opposition turn to greater violence to compensate for their failure at the ballot box.
Venezuela and its progressive allies in Latin America matter to the rest of the world – not because they offer a ready-made political and economic model, but because they have demonstrated that there are multiple social and economic alternatives to the failed neoliberal system that still has the west and its allies in its grip.
Their opponents hope that the impetus for regional change has exhausted itself with Chávez's death. The recent election of the left-leaning Michelle Bachelet in Chile and the former leftwing rebel leader Sánchez Cerén in El Salvador suggests the tide is still flowing. But powerful interests at home and abroad are determined that it fails – which means there will be more Venezuela-style protests to come.
Street action is now regularly used with western backing to target elected governments in the interests of elites
By Seumas Milne - The Guardian (Caracas)
'Despite claims that the government is waging a terror campaign, the evidence suggests a majority have been killed by opposition supporters.' Photograph: Carlos Becerra/AFP/Getty Images
If we didn't know it before, the upsurge in global protest in the past couple of years has driven home the lesson that mass demonstrations can have entirely different social and political meanings. Just because they wear bandannas and build barricades – and have genuine grievances – doesn't automatically mean protesters are fighting for democracy or social justice.
From Ukraine to Thailand and Egypt to Venezuela, large-scale protests have aimed at, or succeeded in, ousting elected governments in the past year. In some countries, mass protests have been led by working class organisations, targeting austerity and corporate power. In others, predominantly middle class unrest has been the lever to restore ousted elites.
Sometimes, in the absence of political organisation, they can straddle the two. But whoever they represent, they tend to look similar on TV. And so effective have street demonstrations been in changing governments over the past 25 years that global powers have piled into the protest business in a major way.
From the overthrow of the elected Mossadegh government in Iran in the 1950s, when the CIA and MI6 paid anti-government demonstrators, the US and its allies have led the field: sponsoring "colour revolutions", funding client NGOs and training student activists, fuelling social media protest and denouncing – or ignoring – violent police crackdowns as it suits them.
And after a period when they preened themselves on promoting democracy, they are reverting to their anti-democratic ways. Take Venezuela, which for the past two months has been racked by anti-government protests aimed at overthrowing the socialist government of Nicolas Maduro, elected president last year to succeed Hugo Chávez.
The rightwing Venezuelan opposition has long had a problem with the democracy business, having lost 18 out of 19 elections or referendums since Chávez was first elected in 1998 – in an electoral process described by former US president Jimmy Carter as "the best in the world". Their hopes were raised last April when the opposition candidate lost to Maduro by only 1.5%. But in December, nationwide elections gave the Chavista coalition a 10-point lead.
So the following month, US-linked opposition leaders – several of whom were involved in the failed US-backed coup against Chávez in 2002 – launched a campaign to oust Maduro, calling on their supporters to "light up the streets with struggle". With high inflation, violent crime and shortages of basic goods, there was plenty to fuel the campaign – and protesters responded, literally.
For eight weeks, they have burned universities, public buildings and bus stations, while up to 39 people have died. Despite claims by the US secretary of state, John Kerry, that the government is waging a "terror campaign" against its citizens, the evidence suggests a majority have been killed by opposition supporters, including eight members of the security forces and three motorcyclists garrotted by wire strung across street barricades. Four opposition supporters have been killed by police, for which several officers have been arrested.
What are portrayed as peaceful protests have all the hallmarks of an anti-democratic rebellion, shot through with class privilege and racism. Overwhelmingly middle class and confined to wealthy white areas, the protests have now shrunk to firebombings and ritual fights with the police, while parts of the opposition have agreed to peace talks.
Support for the government, meanwhile, remains solid in working class areas. As Anacauna Marin, a local activist in the 23 January barrio in Caracas puts it: "Historically protests are a way for the poor to demand an improvement in their conditions. But here the rich are protesting and the poor are working."
It's hardly surprising in the circumstances that Maduro regards what's been going on as Ukraine-style US-backed destabilisation, as he told me. The US claim that this is an unfounded "excuse" is absurd. Evidence for the US subversion of Venezuela – from the 2002 coup through WikiLeaks-revealed cables outlining US plans to "penetrate", "isolate" and "divide"the Venezuelan government, to continuing large-scale funding of opposition groups – is voluminous.
That's not only because Venezuela sits on the world's largest oil reserves, but because it has spearheaded the progressive tide that has swept Latin America over the past decade: challenging US domination, taking back resources from corporate control and redistributing wealth and power. Despite its current economic problems, revolutionary Venezuela's achievements are indisputable.
Since regaining control of its oil, Venezuela has used it to slash poverty by half and extreme poverty by 70%, massively expanded public health, housing, education and women's rights, boosted pensions and the minimum wage, established tens of thousands of co-ops and public enterprises, put resources in the hands of a grassroots participatory democracy, and funded health and development programmes across Latin American and the Caribbean.
So it's not surprising that Maduro's Chavistas still have majority support. To maintain that, the government will have to get a grip on shortages and inflation – which it has the means to do. Prices spiked after it cut the supply of dollars to the private sector, which dominates food imports and supply, while a large proportion of price-controlled goods are smuggled into Colombia to sell at far higher prices.
A recent easing of currency controls has already had an impact. For all its problems, the economy has continued to grow and unemployment and poverty fall. Venezuela is very far from being the basket case of its enemies' hopes. But the risk is that as the protests run out of steam, sections of the opposition turn to greater violence to compensate for their failure at the ballot box.
Venezuela and its progressive allies in Latin America matter to the rest of the world – not because they offer a ready-made political and economic model, but because they have demonstrated that there are multiple social and economic alternatives to the failed neoliberal system that still has the west and its allies in its grip.
Their opponents hope that the impetus for regional change has exhausted itself with Chávez's death. The recent election of the left-leaning Michelle Bachelet in Chile and the former leftwing rebel leader Sánchez Cerén in El Salvador suggests the tide is still flowing. But powerful interests at home and abroad are determined that it fails – which means there will be more Venezuela-style protests to come.
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Strengthen Democratic Institutions
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4. (S) This strategic objective represents the majority of
USAID/OTI work in Venezuela. Organized civil society is an
increasingly important pillar of democracy, one where
President Chavez has not yet been able to assert full
control.
5. (S) OTI has supported over 300 Venezuelan civil society
organizations with technical assistance, capacity building,
connecting them with each other and international movements,
and with financial support upwards of $15 million. Of these,
39 organizations focused on advocacy have been formed since
the arrival of OTI; many of these organizations as a direct
result of OTI programs and funding.
6. (S) Human Rights: OTI supports the Freedom House (FH)
"Right to Defend Human Rights" program with $1.1 million.
Simultaneously through Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI),
OTI has also provided 22 grants to human rights
organizations, totaling $726,000. FH provides training and
technical assistance to 15 different smaller and regional
human rights organizations on how to research, document, and
present cases in situations of judicial impunity through a
specialized software and proven techniques. Following are
some specific successes from this project, which has led to a
better understanding internationally of the deteriorating
human rights situation in the country:
Venezuelan Prison Observatory: Since beginning work with
OTI, OVP has taken 1 case successfully through the
inter-American system, achieving a ruling requiring BRV
special protective measures for the prison "La Pica". Also,
on November 7th - 12th they will be launching the
Latin-American Prison Observatory, consolidating their work
with a regional network. OVP receives technical support from
FH, as well as monetary support from Pan American Development
Foundation (PADF). Due to the success of the OVP in raising
awareness of the issue, the BRV has put pressure on them in
the form of public statements, announcing investigations,
accusing them of alleged crimes as well as death threats.
Central Venezuelan University Human Rights Center: This
center was created out of the FH program and a grant from
CARACAS 00003356 002.2 OF 004
DAI. They have successfully raised awareness regarding the
International Cooperation Law and the human rights situation
in Venezuela, and have served as a voice nationally and
internationally.
Human Rights Lawyers Network in Bolivar State: This group
was created out of the FH program and a grant from the DAI
small grants program. They are currently supporting the
victims of a massacre of 12 miners in Bolivar State allegedly
by the Venezuelan Army. Chavez himself was forced to admit
that the military used excessive force in this case. They
will present their case to the Inter-American Commission on
Human Rights in February 2007.
7. (S) Citizen Participation in Governance: Venezuelan
NGOs lack a long history of social activism. In response,
OTI partners are training NGOs to be activists and become
more involved in advocacy. The successes of this focus have
been as follows:
Support for the Rights of the Handicapped: OTI has funded 3
projects in the Caracas area dealing with the rights of the
handicapped. Venezuela had neither the appropriate
legislation nor political will to assure that the cities are
designed and equipped in a handicapped sensitive fashion.
Through these programs, OTI brought the issue of the
handicapped to the forefront, trained advocacy groups to
advocate for their rights and lobby the National Assembly,
and alerted the press regarding this issue. Subsequent to
this, the National Assembly was forced to consider
handicapped needs and propose draft legislation for the issue.
Por la Caracas Possible (PCP): Once-beautiful Caracas has
decayed over the past several years due to corruption and
lack of attention. PCP is a local NGO dedicated to bringing
attention to this problem. They have held campaigns with
communities shining a light on the terrible job elected
leadership are doing resolving the problems in Caracas.
During their work they have been expelled from communities by
the elected leaders, further infuriating communities that
already feel un-assisted.
8. (S) Civic Education: One effective Chavista mechanism
of control applies democratic vocabulary to support
revolutionary Bolivarian ideology. OTI has been working to
counter this through a civic education program called
"Democracy Among Us". This interactive education program
works through NGOs in low income communities to deliver five
modules: 1) Separation of Powers, 2) Rule of Law, 3) The
Role and Responsibility of Citizens, 4) Political Tolerance,
and 5) The Role of Civil Society. Separate civic education
programs in political tolerance, participation, and human
rights have reached over 600,000 people.S
Here's a thoughtful report from The Guardian by Ian Birrell, a journalist who has taken the trouble to visit Ukraine recently and has seen for himself how Russia has behaved recently in annexing Crimea.
Ian invites readers to consider the reaction if France demanded the break up of Switzerland to 'protect' the interests of French speakers and there are many other similar examples from around Europe, of course.
The key point is that self-determination is a complex issue, as we're finding out in Scotland with out own referendum taking place on 18 September 2014, but the 'solution' in Crimea has been found through the use of force and at the point of a gun.
So it's good to know that The Guardian still employs people with journalistic integrity, despite the fact that the newspaper's comment editor, Seumas Milne, seems more inclined to bend the facts to fit his own political views, if you ask me.
Don't fall for Putin's lie
Too many in the west fall for the lie that Russia has a historic right to dictate events in neighbouring nations such as Ukraine
By Ian Birrell - The Guardian
'Putin behaves like a 19th-century imperial overlord, and wants to restore the Russian hegemony destroyed by the collapse of the Soviet Union.' Photograph: Alexey Druzhinin/AFP/Getty Images
Vladimir Putin has won plaudits at home and brushed aside censure abroad with his brazen theft of Crimea. His few supporters at the UN last week tellingly included some of the planet's most unsavoury regimes, such as North Korea, Syria, Sudan and Zimbabwe. Their leaders no doubt appreciated the skilful blend of force, speed and propaganda with which he seized the region from Ukraine.
But it is extraordinary that the Russian president has bedazzled so many in the west – and not just his new admirer Nigel Farage. Putin is the autocratic leader of a regime reviled for domestic repression and systemic human rights abuses. He is a man accused of overseeing atrocities in his quest to restore the Russian hegemony destroyed by the collapse of the Soviet Union – something he outlined quite openly in his first speech to the Duma.
Yet many people fell for his farcical referendum, held at gunpoint and boycotted by big chunks of Crimea's population. They ignored polling showing that only a minority supported joining Russia – as well as the paltry 4% support won by the party that advocates Russian unity and now runs the region.
Even before I left last week after a month there, some Russian speakers were regretting their support as economic and social realities have hit home; other Crimeans have simply fled.
Now Putin, with his tanks and troops lined up on the border, has gone further. His foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, insists that Ukraine is effectively dismembered. The country cannot function as a unified state, he says, and must become a loose federation with autonomous powers given to regions bordering Russia. He adds that Ukraine is not permitted to join Nato – which is, remember, a self-defence alliance.
Pause for a second. Imagine the furore if France, for example, demanded the break-up of Switzerland to protect French speakers, with the creation of a crippled client state on its borders. Yet Putin behaves like a 19th-century imperial overlord, still playing the great game as his country resorts to blackmail, while too many observers fall for the lie that Russia has a unique historic right to dictate events in neighbouring nations.
The Soviet Union crumbled because it was an economic, moral and political disaster; many citizens could not wait to throw off the chains of communism imposed from Moscow. Now Putin seeks to extend the Russian empire once again – and with it the reach of his brutal and venal rule. And he does so because he feels threatened by the potential outbreak of liberal democracy in Kiev following the overthrow of his patsy president, fearing that ripples may spread elsewhere around his backyard.
So Putin's propaganda machine promulgates the idea that Ukraine has been taken over in a coup by a bunch of Nazis. But, as Yale historian Timothy Snyder points out, the restoration of democracy could not be further from fascism. Polling for May's presidential election indicates that the highest-placed far-right candidate is on course to get a lower share of the vote than the BNP won in the last British general election.
Western criticism has been weakened by misguided interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq – and, indeed, by a short-sighted failure to stop flows of illegal cash so corrosive to countries such as Russia and Ukraine. But this should not prevent firm support for the fledgling democracy in Kiev, with financial help, military training and tougher sanctions on Putin, his banks and his circle if they remain belligerent.
Instead, there seems to be too much tacit acceptance of the annexation of Crimea, which will have been noted in the Kremlin, and too little thought given to Ukrainian self-determination.
Putin's refusal to play by conventional global rules should shake any complacency, as it raises profound questions. One leading Eurosceptic told me he now thought the continent needed a combined army, while a harsh critic of the Iraq conflict praised President Obama's tough stance. But above all there must be clarity over who is the bad guy in this new cold war drama as he seeks to extend his Russian empire.
I started reading this opinion piece in The Guardian by Seumas Milne but when I got to the paragraph (in bold) about the 'disastrous' break-up of the former Soviet Union I rather lost interest, I have to say.
Because I could understand why someone like Seumas was a political apologist for the old Soviet Union - lots of people on the left were in those days and saw the world in ideological terms as a battle between unfettered Capitalism and state-controlled Socialism.
But the world has since moved on then and despite the recent problems of the global economic recession, no serious politician is now suggests that anything other than a market based system is the basis for organising a modern, productive economy.
Not even China or Russia disagree these days although their political and social systems leave much to be desired as far as civil rights and freedom of expression are concerned.
So having been an apologist for the old Soviet Union what puzzles me is why Seumas should be such an admirer of Russia when it is such a repressive capitalist country operating under a harsh political system - where minority groups are harassed and punished on a regular basis?
If anything, Russia is practising and even more brutal and exploitative version of capitalism under Valdimir Putin and the Russian oligarchs.
And the fact of the matter is that the former satellite countries of the Soviet Union such as Poland, Latvia, Bulgaria and Slovakia (which borders Ukraine) have all become much more democratic and liberal since shaking off Soviet domination.
Whereas Russia, the member states of the Russian Fedearation and satellites countries like Belarus have all gone the other way - they have all become less democratic and more illiberal.
In the case of Iraq of course, prior to any military action being taken there were years of wrangling at the United Nations in an effort to knock some diplomatic sense into the vile Saddam regime.
Yet Seumas has nothing critical to say about the fact that President Putin has ordered boots on the ground in Ukraine at the drop of a hat under the pretext of fascist political activity - while the Dutch UN special envoy (Robert Serry) was chased our of Crimea after being threatened by armed men, so who's kidding who here?
If you ask me Seumas Milne is really arguing for the political rebirth of this beloved Soviet Union - a kind of Soviet Reunion if you like, under the aegis of Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation.
The clash in Crimea is the fruit of western expansion
The external struggle to dominate Ukraine has put fascists in power and brought the country to the brink of conflict
By Seumas Milne
Troops under Russian command fire weapons into the air in Lubimovka, Ukraine. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Diplomatic pronouncements are renowned for hypocrisy and double standards. But western denunciations of Russian intervention in Crimea have reached new depths of self parody. The so far bloodless incursion is an "incredible act of aggression", US secretary of state John Kerry declared. In the 21st century you just don't invade countries on a "completely trumped-up pretext", he insisted, as US allies agreed that it had been an unacceptable breach of international law, for which there will be "costs".
That the states which launched the greatest act of unprovoked aggression in modern history on a trumped-up pretext – against Iraq, in an illegal war now estimated to have killed 500,000, along with the invasion of Afghanistan, bloody regime change in Libya, and the killing of thousands in drone attacks on Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, all without UN authorisation – should make such claims is beyond absurdity.
It's not just that western aggression and lawless killing is on another scale entirely from anything Russia appears to have contemplated, let alone carried out – removing any credible basis for the US and its allies to rail against Russian transgressions. But the western powers have also played a central role in creating the Ukraine crisis in the first place.
The US and European powers openly sponsored the protests to oust the corrupt but elected Viktor Yanukovych government, which were triggered by controversy over an all-or-nothing EU agreement which would have excluded economic association with Russia.
In her notorious "fuck the EU" phone call leaked last month, the US official Victoria Nuland can be heard laying down the shape of a post-Yanukovych government – much of which was then turned into reality when he was overthrown after the escalation of violence a couple of weeks later.
The president had by then lost political authority, but his overnight impeachment was certainly constitutionally dubious. In his place agovernment of oligarchs, neoliberal Orange Revolution retreads and neofascists has been installed, one of whose first acts was to try and remove the official status of Russian, spoken by a majority in parts of the south and east, as moves were made to ban the Communist party, which won 13% of the vote at the last election.
It has been claimed that the role of fascists in the demonstrations has been exaggerated by Russian propaganda to justify Vladimir Putin's manoeuvres in Crimea. The reality is alarming enough to need no exaggeration. Activists report that the far right made up around a third of the protesters, but they were decisive in armed confrontations with the police.
Fascist gangs now patrol the streets. But they are also in Kiev's corridors of power. The far right Svoboda party, whose leader has denounced the "criminal activities" of "organised Jewry" and which was condemned by the European parliament for its "racist and antisemitic views", has five ministerial posts in the new government, including deputy prime minister and prosecutor general. The leader of the even more extreme Right Sector, at the heart of the street violence, is now Ukraine's deputy national security chief.
Neo-Nazis in office is a first in post-war Europe. But this is the unelected government now backed by the US and EU. And in a contemptuous rebuff to the ordinary Ukrainians who protested against corruption and hoped for real change, the new administration has appointed two billionaire oligarchs – one who runs his business from Switzerland – to be the new governors of the eastern cities of Donetsk and Dnepropetrovsk. Meanwhile, the IMF is preparing an eye-watering austerity plan for the tanking Ukrainian economy which can only swell poverty and unemployment.
From a longer-term perspective, the crisis in Ukraine is a product of the disastrous Versailles-style break-up of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. As in Yugoslavia, people who were content to be a national minority in an internal administrative unit of a multinational state – Russians in Soviet Ukraine, South Ossetians in Soviet Georgia – felt very differently when those units became states for which they felt little loyalty.
In the case of Crimea, which was only transferred to Ukraine by Nikita Khrushchev in the 1950s, that is clearly true for the Russian majority. And contrary to undertakings given at the time, the US and its allies have since relentlessly expanded Nato up to Russia's borders, incorporating nine former Warsaw Pact states and three former Soviet republics into what is effectively an anti-Russian military alliance in Europe. The European association agreement which provoked the Ukrainian crisis also included clauses to integrate Ukraine into the EU defence structure.
That western military expansion was first brought to a halt in 2008 when the US client state of Georgia attacked Russian forces in the contested territory of South Ossetia and was driven out. The short but bloody conflict signalled the end of George Bush's unipolar world in which the US empire would enforce its will without challenge on every continent.
Given that background, it is hardly surprising that Russia has acted to stop the more strategically sensitive and neuralgic Ukraine falling decisively into the western camp, especially given that Russia's only major warm-water naval base is in Crimea.
Clearly, Putin's justifications for intervention – "humanitarian" protection for Russians and an appeal by the deposed president – are legally and politically flaky, even if nothing like on the scale of "weapons of mass destruction". Nor does Putin's conservative nationalism or oligarchic regime have much wider international appeal.
But Russia's role as a limited counterweight to unilateral western power certainly does. And in a world where the US, Britain, France and their allies have turned international lawlessness with a moral veneer into a permanent routine, others are bound to try the same game.
Fortunately, the only shots fired by Russian forces at this point have been into the air. But the dangers of escalating foreign intervention are obvious. What is needed instead is a negotiated settlement for Ukraine, including a broad-based government in Kiev shorn of fascists; a federal constitution that guarantees regional autonomy; economic support that doesn't pauperise the majority; and a chance for people in Crimea to choose their own future. Anything else risks spreading the conflict.
Guards and Guardians (2 April 2014)
Here's a thoughtful report from The Guardian by Ian Birrell, a journalist who has taken the trouble to visit Ukraine recently and has seen for himself how Russia has behaved recently in annexing Crimea.
Ian invites readers to consider the reaction if France demanded the break up of Switzerland to 'protect' the interests of French speakers and there are many other similar examples from around Europe, of course.
The key point is that self-determination is a complex issue, as we're finding out in Scotland with out own referendum taking place on 18 September 2014, but the 'solution' in Crimea has been found through the use of force and at the point of a gun.
So it's good to know that The Guardian still employs people with journalistic integrity, despite the fact that the newspaper's comment editor, Seumas Milne, seems more inclined to bend the facts to fit his own political views, if you ask me.
Don't fall for Putin's lie
Too many in the west fall for the lie that Russia has a historic right to dictate events in neighbouring nations such as Ukraine
By Ian Birrell - The Guardian
'Putin behaves like a 19th-century imperial overlord, and wants to restore the Russian hegemony destroyed by the collapse of the Soviet Union.' Photograph: Alexey Druzhinin/AFP/Getty Images
Vladimir Putin has won plaudits at home and brushed aside censure abroad with his brazen theft of Crimea. His few supporters at the UN last week tellingly included some of the planet's most unsavoury regimes, such as North Korea, Syria, Sudan and Zimbabwe. Their leaders no doubt appreciated the skilful blend of force, speed and propaganda with which he seized the region from Ukraine.
But it is extraordinary that the Russian president has bedazzled so many in the west – and not just his new admirer Nigel Farage. Putin is the autocratic leader of a regime reviled for domestic repression and systemic human rights abuses. He is a man accused of overseeing atrocities in his quest to restore the Russian hegemony destroyed by the collapse of the Soviet Union – something he outlined quite openly in his first speech to the Duma.
Yet many people fell for his farcical referendum, held at gunpoint and boycotted by big chunks of Crimea's population. They ignored polling showing that only a minority supported joining Russia – as well as the paltry 4% support won by the party that advocates Russian unity and now runs the region.
Even before I left last week after a month there, some Russian speakers were regretting their support as economic and social realities have hit home; other Crimeans have simply fled.
Now Putin, with his tanks and troops lined up on the border, has gone further. His foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, insists that Ukraine is effectively dismembered. The country cannot function as a unified state, he says, and must become a loose federation with autonomous powers given to regions bordering Russia. He adds that Ukraine is not permitted to join Nato – which is, remember, a self-defence alliance.
Pause for a second. Imagine the furore if France, for example, demanded the break-up of Switzerland to protect French speakers, with the creation of a crippled client state on its borders. Yet Putin behaves like a 19th-century imperial overlord, still playing the great game as his country resorts to blackmail, while too many observers fall for the lie that Russia has a unique historic right to dictate events in neighbouring nations.
The Soviet Union crumbled because it was an economic, moral and political disaster; many citizens could not wait to throw off the chains of communism imposed from Moscow. Now Putin seeks to extend the Russian empire once again – and with it the reach of his brutal and venal rule. And he does so because he feels threatened by the potential outbreak of liberal democracy in Kiev following the overthrow of his patsy president, fearing that ripples may spread elsewhere around his backyard.
So Putin's propaganda machine promulgates the idea that Ukraine has been taken over in a coup by a bunch of Nazis. But, as Yale historian Timothy Snyder points out, the restoration of democracy could not be further from fascism. Polling for May's presidential election indicates that the highest-placed far-right candidate is on course to get a lower share of the vote than the BNP won in the last British general election.
Western criticism has been weakened by misguided interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq – and, indeed, by a short-sighted failure to stop flows of illegal cash so corrosive to countries such as Russia and Ukraine. But this should not prevent firm support for the fledgling democracy in Kiev, with financial help, military training and tougher sanctions on Putin, his banks and his circle if they remain belligerent.
Instead, there seems to be too much tacit acceptance of the annexation of Crimea, which will have been noted in the Kremlin, and too little thought given to Ukrainian self-determination.
Putin's refusal to play by conventional global rules should shake any complacency, as it raises profound questions. One leading Eurosceptic told me he now thought the continent needed a combined army, while a harsh critic of the Iraq conflict praised President Obama's tough stance. But above all there must be clarity over who is the bad guy in this new cold war drama as he seeks to extend his Russian empire.
Soviet Reunion (7 March 2014)
I started reading this opinion piece in The Guardian by Seumas Milne but when I got to the paragraph (in bold) about the 'disastrous' break-up of the former Soviet Union I rather lost interest, I have to say.
Because I could understand why someone like Seumas was a political apologist for the old Soviet Union - lots of people on the left were in those days and saw the world in ideological terms as a battle between unfettered Capitalism and state-controlled Socialism.
But the world has since moved on then and despite the recent problems of the global economic recession, no serious politician is now suggests that anything other than a market based system is the basis for organising a modern, productive economy.
Not even China or Russia disagree these days although their political and social systems leave much to be desired as far as civil rights and freedom of expression are concerned.
So having been an apologist for the old Soviet Union what puzzles me is why Seumas should be such an admirer of Russia when it is such a repressive capitalist country operating under a harsh political system - where minority groups are harassed and punished on a regular basis?
If anything, Russia is practising and even more brutal and exploitative version of capitalism under Valdimir Putin and the Russian oligarchs.
And the fact of the matter is that the former satellite countries of the Soviet Union such as Poland, Latvia, Bulgaria and Slovakia (which borders Ukraine) have all become much more democratic and liberal since shaking off Soviet domination.
Whereas Russia, the member states of the Russian Fedearation and satellites countries like Belarus have all gone the other way - they have all become less democratic and more illiberal.
In the case of Iraq of course, prior to any military action being taken there were years of wrangling at the United Nations in an effort to knock some diplomatic sense into the vile Saddam regime.
Yet Seumas has nothing critical to say about the fact that President Putin has ordered boots on the ground in Ukraine at the drop of a hat under the pretext of fascist political activity - while the Dutch UN special envoy (Robert Serry) was chased our of Crimea after being threatened by armed men, so who's kidding who here?
If you ask me Seumas Milne is really arguing for the political rebirth of this beloved Soviet Union - a kind of Soviet Reunion if you like, under the aegis of Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation.
The external struggle to dominate Ukraine has put fascists in power and brought the country to the brink of conflict
By Seumas Milne
Troops under Russian command fire weapons into the air in Lubimovka, Ukraine. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Diplomatic pronouncements are renowned for hypocrisy and double standards. But western denunciations of Russian intervention in Crimea have reached new depths of self parody. The so far bloodless incursion is an "incredible act of aggression", US secretary of state John Kerry declared. In the 21st century you just don't invade countries on a "completely trumped-up pretext", he insisted, as US allies agreed that it had been an unacceptable breach of international law, for which there will be "costs".
That the states which launched the greatest act of unprovoked aggression in modern history on a trumped-up pretext – against Iraq, in an illegal war now estimated to have killed 500,000, along with the invasion of Afghanistan, bloody regime change in Libya, and the killing of thousands in drone attacks on Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, all without UN authorisation – should make such claims is beyond absurdity.
It's not just that western aggression and lawless killing is on another scale entirely from anything Russia appears to have contemplated, let alone carried out – removing any credible basis for the US and its allies to rail against Russian transgressions. But the western powers have also played a central role in creating the Ukraine crisis in the first place.
The US and European powers openly sponsored the protests to oust the corrupt but elected Viktor Yanukovych government, which were triggered by controversy over an all-or-nothing EU agreement which would have excluded economic association with Russia.
In her notorious "fuck the EU" phone call leaked last month, the US official Victoria Nuland can be heard laying down the shape of a post-Yanukovych government – much of which was then turned into reality when he was overthrown after the escalation of violence a couple of weeks later.
The president had by then lost political authority, but his overnight impeachment was certainly constitutionally dubious. In his place agovernment of oligarchs, neoliberal Orange Revolution retreads and neofascists has been installed, one of whose first acts was to try and remove the official status of Russian, spoken by a majority in parts of the south and east, as moves were made to ban the Communist party, which won 13% of the vote at the last election.
It has been claimed that the role of fascists in the demonstrations has been exaggerated by Russian propaganda to justify Vladimir Putin's manoeuvres in Crimea. The reality is alarming enough to need no exaggeration. Activists report that the far right made up around a third of the protesters, but they were decisive in armed confrontations with the police.
Fascist gangs now patrol the streets. But they are also in Kiev's corridors of power. The far right Svoboda party, whose leader has denounced the "criminal activities" of "organised Jewry" and which was condemned by the European parliament for its "racist and antisemitic views", has five ministerial posts in the new government, including deputy prime minister and prosecutor general. The leader of the even more extreme Right Sector, at the heart of the street violence, is now Ukraine's deputy national security chief.
Neo-Nazis in office is a first in post-war Europe. But this is the unelected government now backed by the US and EU. And in a contemptuous rebuff to the ordinary Ukrainians who protested against corruption and hoped for real change, the new administration has appointed two billionaire oligarchs – one who runs his business from Switzerland – to be the new governors of the eastern cities of Donetsk and Dnepropetrovsk. Meanwhile, the IMF is preparing an eye-watering austerity plan for the tanking Ukrainian economy which can only swell poverty and unemployment.
From a longer-term perspective, the crisis in Ukraine is a product of the disastrous Versailles-style break-up of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. As in Yugoslavia, people who were content to be a national minority in an internal administrative unit of a multinational state – Russians in Soviet Ukraine, South Ossetians in Soviet Georgia – felt very differently when those units became states for which they felt little loyalty.
In the case of Crimea, which was only transferred to Ukraine by Nikita Khrushchev in the 1950s, that is clearly true for the Russian majority. And contrary to undertakings given at the time, the US and its allies have since relentlessly expanded Nato up to Russia's borders, incorporating nine former Warsaw Pact states and three former Soviet republics into what is effectively an anti-Russian military alliance in Europe. The European association agreement which provoked the Ukrainian crisis also included clauses to integrate Ukraine into the EU defence structure.
That western military expansion was first brought to a halt in 2008 when the US client state of Georgia attacked Russian forces in the contested territory of South Ossetia and was driven out. The short but bloody conflict signalled the end of George Bush's unipolar world in which the US empire would enforce its will without challenge on every continent.
Given that background, it is hardly surprising that Russia has acted to stop the more strategically sensitive and neuralgic Ukraine falling decisively into the western camp, especially given that Russia's only major warm-water naval base is in Crimea.
Clearly, Putin's justifications for intervention – "humanitarian" protection for Russians and an appeal by the deposed president – are legally and politically flaky, even if nothing like on the scale of "weapons of mass destruction". Nor does Putin's conservative nationalism or oligarchic regime have much wider international appeal.
But Russia's role as a limited counterweight to unilateral western power certainly does. And in a world where the US, Britain, France and their allies have turned international lawlessness with a moral veneer into a permanent routine, others are bound to try the same game.
Fortunately, the only shots fired by Russian forces at this point have been into the air. But the dangers of escalating foreign intervention are obvious. What is needed instead is a negotiated settlement for Ukraine, including a broad-based government in Kiev shorn of fascists; a federal constitution that guarantees regional autonomy; economic support that doesn't pauperise the majority; and a chance for people in Crimea to choose their own future. Anything else risks spreading the conflict.
