[E-rundbrief] Info 185 - Durch USA gelenkte ukrainische Opposition?

Mi Dez 22 16:32:07 CET 2004

E-Rundbrief - Info 185 - Ukraine - gewaltfreie Alternative oder neoliberale 
Ostkolonie der USA und EU? Die Belgrader Politaktionisten-Gruppe "OTPOR" 
trainierte die "Orange" Opposition in der Ukraine. Ergänzung zu Info 183.

Bad Ischl, 22.12.2004

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Liebe in allen Kontinenten Engagierte!

Trotz aller alarmierenden und bedrohlichen Meldungen aus allen Ecken der 
Welt wünsche ich euch friedliche Weihnachten und die nötige Kraft auch im 
neuen Jahr im Engagement für unsere gemeinsamen Ziele.

Mit solidarischen Grüßen

Matthias Reichl

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit, Bad Ischl, Österreich

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Ukraine - gewaltfreie Alternative oder neoliberale Ostkolonie der USA und EU?

Die Belgrader Politaktionisten-Gruppe "OTPOR" trainierte die "Orange" 
Opposition in der Ukraine.

Siehe auch Info 183!

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Zur Sendung im ORF - 2. Fernsehprogramm, 22.12., 22.30, "Auslandsjournal":

Die Ukraine steht vor Schicksalswahlen: wird der neue Präsident nach der 
Wiederholung der Stichwahl am 26.Dezember Wiktor Juschtschenko oder Wiktor 
Janukowitsch heißen?

Wiktor 1 würde unter dem Banner der orangefarbenen Revolution eine nach 
Westen Richtung EU und NATO orientierte Reform-Politik einleiten, Wiktor 2 
das Land mit den Nationalfarben blau-weiß an Putins Russland gebunden 
halten. Janukowitsch wirft dem mit Dioxin vergifteten Juschtschenko vor, 
vom Westen finanziert zu sein und das Land an westliche Kapitalisten 
ausverkaufen zu wollen. In der Tat haben die USA ihre Ausgaben für die 
Demokratieförderung in der Ukraine im letzten Jahr auf 55 Millionen Dollar 
erhöht. Immer wieder werden Parallelen zum Sturz von Milosevic in Serbien 
und zur Rosenrevolution in Georgien gezogen. In der Ukraine herrschen 
Spannung, Angst vor gewaltsamen Provokationen und die Sorge, ein 
demokratischer Wahlausgang könnte vom Verlierer nicht akzeptiert werden. 
Eine Reportage von Lorenz Gallmetzer.

(Aus ORF-Programmvorschau)

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In einem Beitrag im heutigen Morgenjournal wurde in diesem Zusammenhang 
auch die strategische Unterstützung der ukrainischen "Orange-Opposition" 
durch das in Belgrad beheimatete kleine Aktivistenteam "OTPOR (Widerstand)" 
erwähnt. Einige von ihnen waren in den vergangenen Monaten in der Ukraine 
(und auch in Weißrussland) unterwegs um oppositionelle Leute strategisch zu 
schulen (und wurden z.T. mit Einreiseverbot belegt). OTPORS Rolle in 
Jugoslawien und Georgien ist bekannt. Weniger ihre - politischen und 
finanziellen - Hintermänner im Westen (nicht nur in den USA). Darüber wurde 
schon einiges in den Medien publiziert (ein Beispiel siehe unten). Die 
EU-phorie und NATO-Anhängerschaft der "neuen Demokraten" verdecken die 
begleitenden Probleme. Ukranische Altlasten (AKW Tschernobyl, 
Politbürokratie...) werden sich mit den neuen neoliberalen Gefahren 
unheilvoll verbinden.

Tatsache ist, dass OTPOR kaum was mit politisch und ethisch fundierten 
zivilgesellschaftlichen, gewaltfreien Bewegungen zu tun hat, sondern auf 
Politaktionismus (mit Medienunterstützung) setzt. Offenbar kümmert es sie 
wenig, dass nach dem Regimewechsel Kräfte in das politische Vakuum 
nachstoßen, die bedenkliche bis gefährliche politische und v.a. 
ökonomische/ neoliberale Ziele verfolgen. Dass ein Großteil der getäuschten 
und enttäuschten Bevölkerung die sozialen Folgen dieses "neoliberalen 
Roulettes" ausbaden müssen und sich deswegen wieder in eine Politnostalgie 
- zwischen zwei Übeln - oder in Politabstinenz flüchten, ist bittere 
Realität (nicht nur in den ex-kommunistischen Ländern). Der kräfteraubende 
Überlebenskampf lässt immer weniger Energien für politisches Engagement übrig.

Einer meiner Prager Freunde von 1989 kommentierte dies mit Bitterkeit: 
"Während wir uns sorgfältig und bedächtig vor allem auf lokal/ regionaler 
Ebene für Menschenrechte und Versöhnung, für Basisdemokratie, soziale 
Netze, Reform der Verwaltung, freie Medien und Bildungsinitiativen, 
Minderheiten- und Umweltschutz, dezentrale Wirtschaftsprojekte usw. 
engagierten, wurden wir vom Vormarsch der Eroberer überrollt. Sie 
mißbrauchten Konsumgier und Nachholbedarf - aber auch das entstandene 
ideologische Vakuum - der Durchschnittsbürger. Diese Chance nützten 
geschickt Rechtsextremisten mit ähnlichen politischen und religiösen 
Sekten, aber auch esoterische Heilspropheten für 'Bekehrungsfeldzüge' aus. 
Nicht nur wir sondern auch viele unserer seriösen Partner in Politik und 
Wirtschaft wurden zunehmend von ihnen und von 'Experten' und Lobbyisten an 
die Wand gedrängt."

"Unser Modell eines 'Dritten Weges' zur Überwindung der staatlichen 
Planwirtschaft hat keine Chance, wenn nicht auch ihr im Westen gleichzeitig 
ebenso radikal Politik und Wirtschaft durch eine Abkehr vom 'real 
existierenden' Kapitalismus verändert!" An diese Aussagen eines 
tschechischen Regimekritikers in den späten 80er Jahren erinnerte ich mich 
als ich ihn Mitte 1990 in Prag erneut traf. Beide waren wir betroffen von 
der massiven Medienkampagne "TINA" aus dem Westen: "There is no 
Alternative!" - "Der "Dritte Weg" ist ein unverantwortbares Experiment! Nur 
eine kapitalistische Marktwirtschaft - ohne 'öko-soziale' Beschränkungen - 
garantiert uns, daß unser Lebensstandard bald jenem des Westens entspricht".

Matthias Reichl
22.12.04

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In Ukraine, a Franchised Revolution

K.      Gajendra Singh
L.
Asia Times Online (English-language)
Hong Kong

November 26, 2004

(Auszug)

"A huge geopolitical battle is being fought in Ukraine."
 Nouvel Observateur, Paris.

....
Another franchised revolution

The high percentage of votes in Donetsk (96%), the home town of Yanukovich, 
provided proof that electoral fraud had taken place, according to Western 
media. But turnouts of over 80% in areas, which supported Yushchenko, were 
not. Yanukovich's final official score was over 49%, but when 
Western-supported Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili officially polled 
96.24% in January, no one questioned it. The observers who now denounce the 
Ukrainian elections applauded Georgia's results, saying that it "brought 
the country closer to meeting international standards."

One of the most active "pro-democracy" groups in Ukraine's democratic 
opposition is Pora, which means, "It's time." The student activists of Pora 
received personal tutorials in non-violent resistance from Serbian students 
of the Otpor ("resistance") group, which was in the forefront of toppling 
Milosevich in Belgrade. Then the Serbs helped the Georgian vanguard 
movement Kmara ("enough is enough"). So a Georgian flag was also being 
waved in Kiev's Independence Square. In Tbilisi, the rose-revolutionary 
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili interrupted his first anniversary 
address to offer a few words of encouragement in Ukrainian to his "sisters 
and brothers" in Kiev. The reawakened cold warriors link the "chain of 
Europe's velvet revolutions" in this peaceful march of democracy to what 
the crowds first chanted on Wenceslas Square in Prague in November 1989. So 
a jaded pro-democracy Lech Walesa was there too in Kiev, just as he had 
been in Prague.

Pora's posters plastered all over Ukraine depict a jackboot crushing a 
beetle; an allegory of what Pora wants to do to its opponents. It was like 
this during Nazi-occupied Ukraine, when pre-emptive war was waged against 
the Red Plague spreading out from Moscow. Nobody in the West has said 
anything against these posters. Pora continues to be presented as an 
innocent band of students having fun. But it is an organization created and 
financed by Washington, as were sister organizations in Serbia and Georgia, 
Otpor and Kmara.

Says a Western Cold War warrior: "If we, comfortably ensconced in the 
institutionalized Europe to which these peaceful demonstrators look with 
hope and yearning, do not immediately support them with every appropriate 
means at our disposal, we will betray the very ideals we claim to 
represent." He adds, "At the same time, until now, democracy has been 
creeping backwards. Control of the biggest industries, of the media, of 
state revenue and of the security services has fallen into the hands of a 
corrupt and sometimes murderous elite of cynical, self-loving opportunists 
who feed off the enterprise and hard work of others as they float between 
the worlds of business, politics and bureaucracy."

This might more appropriately apply to new Western-supported rulers in 
former communist countries and even some countries in the West. The United 
Kingdom and the US often forget the enormous dysfunction in their own 
so-called democratic system, where their governments lied brazenly about 
Iraq for over a year in the run-up to war and with impunity, while they 
criticize others and support continued brazen Western intervention in the 
democratic politics of other countries.

A US franchise

A lot of planning, work and money has gone into efforts to design a US 
model for promoting democracy around the world. The model's first success 
was notched in Serbia. Funded and organized by the US government, which 
deployed US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American 
parties and US non-government organizations (NGOs), the campaign defeated 
Slobodan Milosevich at the ballot box in Belgrade in 2000.

Richard Miles, the US ambassador in Belgrade, played a key role in the 
campaign to oust Milosevich. In November last year, as US ambassador in 
Tbilisi, Miles reapplied the same method successfully. Thanks to his 
coaching, US-educated Saakashvili brought down Eduard Shevardnadze. When 
the US ambassador in Belarus, Michael Kozak, a veteran of similar 
operations in Central America, notably in Nicaragua, organized a near 
identical campaign to try to defeat the Belarus strongman, Alexander 
Lukashenko, he failed. "There will be no Kostunica in Belarus," the Belarus 
president declared, referring to the United States' Belgrade success 10 
months earlier.

But experience gained in Serbia, Georgia and Belarus has been invaluable to 
the US in planning the operation in Kiev. It is thus easy to understand 
such slickly organized spontaneity. The operation  engineering democracy 
through the ballot box and civil disobedience, which would be the envy of 
even a Gandhian  is now so smooth that methods have matured into a 
template for winning other people's elections. Located in the center of 
Belgrade, the Center for Non-violent Resistance, staffed by 
computer-literate youngsters, is ready for hire and will carry out 
operations to beat even a regime that controls the mass media, the judges, 
the courts, the security apparatus and the voting stations.

The Belgrade group had on-the-job training in the anti-Milosevich student 
movement, Otpor. Catchy, single-word branding is important. In Georgia last 
year, the parallel student movement was Khmara. In Belarus, it was Zubr. In 
Ukraine, it is Pora. Otpor also had a potent, simple slogan that appeared 
everywhere in Serbia in 2000  the two words gotov je, meaning "he's 
finished," a reference to Milosevich. A logo of a black-and-white clenched 
fist completed the masterful marketing. In Ukraine, the equivalent is a 
ticking clock, also signaling that the Kuchma regime's days are numbered. 
Stickers, spray paint and websites are the young activists' weapons. Irony 
and street comedy mocking the regime have been hugely successful in 
puncturing public fear and enraging the powerful. If only the Tiananmen 
Square activists could have had this kind of support in 1989.

Saakashvili had traveled from Tbilisi to Belgrade to be tutored in the art 
of mass defiance. In Belarus, the US Embassy organized the dispatch of 
young opposition leaders to the Baltic, where they had sessions with the 
Serb teachers flown from Belgrade. The Americans had organized the 
overthrow of Milosevich from neighboring Hungary, as Belgrade was a hostile 
territory.

Promotion of democracy around the world is a bipartisan US effort; the 
Democratic Party's National Democratic Institute (NDI), the Republican 
Party's International Republican Institute, the US State Department and 
USAID (US Agency for International Development) are the main agencies. They 
are all involved in these campaigns and are further helped by the Freedom 
House NGO and billionaire George Soros' Open Society Institute. US 
pollsters and professional consultants are hired to organize focus groups 
and use psephological data to plot strategies.

In Serbia, when US pollsters Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates found that 
the assassinated pro-Western opposition leader, Zoran Djindjic, was hated 
at home and had little chance of beating Milosevich in an election, an 
anti-Western Vojislav Kostunica was promoted. Djindjic came up later and 
handed over Milosevich to the Hague Tribunal. Of course, the US is 
determinedly opposed to the International Criminal Court and would deny aid 
to those countries who do not sign a bilateral accord providing immunity to 
the US.

It is claimed that officially the US government spent US$41 million to fund 
the year-long operation to get rid of Milosevich from October 1999. In 
Ukraine, the figure is said to be about $14 million so far.

While there are reputed outside election monitors from groups such as the 
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Ukrainian 
elections and elsewhere involved thousands of local election monitors 
trained and paid by Western groups. Reportedly, Freedom House and the NDI 
helped fund and organize the "largest civil regional election monitoring 
effort" in Ukraine, involving more than 1,000 trained observers. They also 
organized exit polls. On Sunday night those polls gave Yushchenko an 
11-point lead and set the agenda for much of what has followed.

The exit polls are important because they help seize the initiative in the 
propaganda war with the regime, invariably appearing first, receiving wide 
media coverage and putting the onus on the attacked regime to respond. And 
how to react when the incumbent regime tries to steal a lost election. The 
advice was to stay calm and cool but organize mass displays of civil 
disobedience, which must remain peaceful but could invite violent suppression.

The US has now adapted and perfected the latest communication techniques to 
apply to post-Soviet states to bring about desirable changes. "Instruments 
of democracy" are used to topple unpopular dictators or unfriendly regimes, 
once a successor candidate friendly to the West has been groomed. The 
Central Intelligence Agency-sponsored Third World uprisings of the Cold War 
days to remove prime minister Mohammed Mossadaq of Iran, who had 
nationalized its oil resources, and of Salvador Allende of Chile, which 
brought US favorite General Augusto Pinochet to power, a man whose crimes 
are still being catalogued and looked into, are now passe.

That is the promotion of democracy, US style. Who is next in line?

K. Gajendra Singh served as Indian ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan from 
1992-96. Prior to that, he served as ambassador to Jordan (during the 
1990-91 Gulf War), Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the 
Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies and editorial adviser with global 
geopolitics website Eurasia Research Center, USA.

Copyright © 1997-2004 Worldpress.org. All

Auszug aus:
http://www.worldpress.org/Europe/1987.cfm

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 From Diana Johnstone, Fool's Crusade, p 257:

The U.S. NED provided millions of dollars and training in "methods of 
nonviolent action" to a network of young activists calling itself Otpor 
(resistance) with no political program other than the desire to "be normal" 
on Western terms. Otpor youth plastered walls with posters of clenched 
fists and tried to get arrested in order to denounce the "regime" as 
repressive.

In the first round held on 24 September 2000, Milosevic failed to gain 
re-election. Official results gave Kostunica over 48 per cent of the vote 
in a five-man race. This fell slightly short of the 50 per cent required to 
win, but indicated an almost certain landslide in the runoff against 
Milosevic, who trailed by some ten percentage points. (Yugoslav electoral 
law calls for a second round if no candidate wins an absolute majority in 
the first round.) Not satisfied with this prospect of a certain victory at 
the ballot box, DOS (democratic opposition of Serbia) claimed a first round 
victory and announced it would boycott the second round. This heightened 
tension and provided an opportunity for the Otpor agitators to take matters 
into their own hands. The DOS thereby moved the contest from the ballot box 
onto the streets. The result was the spectacle of the 5 October "democratic 
revolution", when a large crowd stormed the Skupstina, the parliament 
building in the center of Belgrade. Presented to the world public in the as 
a spontaneous act of self-liberation, the event was staged for television 
cameras, which filmed and relayed the same scenes over and over again: 
youths breaking through windows, flags waving, flames rising, smoke 
enveloping the parliament building, described as "the symbol of the 
Milosevic regime".

(Diana Johnstone ist Jopurnalistin und seit vielen Jahren aktiv in ethisch 
und politisch fundierten gewaltfreien Bewegungen.)

References about Otpor

PBS series, Bringing Down a Dictator 
(http://www.pbs.org/weta/dictator/otpor/origins.html), PBS, 2002. NB: this 
documentary portrays Optor in a positive light  no references to its 
origin or possible CIA relationship.
Roger Cohen, "Who Really Brought Down Milosevic?", New York Times Sunday 
Magazine, Nov. 26, 2000.
Diana Johnstone, Fool's Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions, p 
257.
Stephen Mulvey, Behind the scenes at Kiev's rally 
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4050187.stm), BBC Online, Nov. 28, 
2004. States: "Natalia is the deputy leader for the Kiev region of a 
student protest group called Pora, modelled on the Serbian group Otpor, 
which played a key role in the ousting of Slobodan Milosevic. In spring she 
attended lectures in Kiev by Otpor leader Alexander Maric".
Brian PoÅ¾un, Planning for an Uncertain Future 
(http://www.ce-review.org/01/8/pozun8.html), CE Review, Feb. 26, 2001. 
References to Otpor post-Milosevic. (CE Review has been renamed TOL).
Daan van der Schriek, Georgia: How good the revolution has been! 
(http://worldpress.org/article_model.cfm?article_id=1805&dont=yes), World 
Press Review, Dec. 7, 2003

Funding Sources

National Endowment for Democracy

Open Society Institute

Aus: http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Otpor

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Matthias Reichl

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