EVERY TIME I think we’ve heard the most astonishing example of diplomatic hypocrisy the United States comes up with a new one. The crisis gripping Ukraine is generating geopolitical mayhem on a scale not seen since the Anglo-American invasion (the illegal Anglo-American invasion) of Iraq in March of 2003. This time, however, there has been no diplomatic heroism – no resolute French and German (and New Zealand!) refusal to participate in such a blatant violation of international law. This time “Old Europe” is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
The biggest problem confronting both the USA and the European Union is the problem of history. Neither power can afford to acknowledge their role in the geopolitical tragedies of the recent past for fear of losing their footing on the moral high ground, and so they are pretending that nothing has happened over the course of the last 30 years that is even remotely relevant or analogous to what is happening today in Ukraine and Crimea.
President Obama’s latest statement, in which he condemns the regional parliament of Crimea for voting overwhelmingly for anschluss with the Russian Federation is a case in point.
“The proposed referendum on the future of Crimea would violate the constitution and violate international law,” Obama said. “We are well beyond the days when borders can be redrawn over the heads of democratic leaders.”
“Well beyond the days”? I suppose it all depends what he means by “well beyond”.
Does December 1991 fall inside or outside the President’s definition? If it falls inside, then he has a problem.
In December 1991, Slovenia and Croatia, member states of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (a status roughly analogous to that of the State of Virginia in the USA, or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in the Ukraine) were recognised by Germany as independent republics.
Given that the Slovenes and the Croats were in open rebellion against the Serb dominated government in Belgrade, Germany’s decision made the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia inevitable. As the situation spiralled out of control, the so-called “international community” responded by joining the Germans in recognising the breakaway republics. The EU recognised Slovenia and Croatia in January 1992. The USA followed suit four months later.
The EU and the USA justified their actions by pointing to the fact that the populations of both countries had voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence. The German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, declared: “The main principle guiding my decision regarding the recognition was: The Slovenians themselves wish for it and was obvious that the splitting up of Yugoslavia will be difficult, if we don’t protect at least one of its parts.”
Of course, President Obama could be right. December 1991 and May 1992 may indeed belong to those dim dark days when borders could be redrawn in violation of national constitutions and international law. But, in the shiny and new twenty-first century, he is insisting that such things simply cannot be done “over the heads of democratic leaders”.
Excuse me? “Democratic leaders?” To whom exactly is the American President referring? I do hope he is not anointing the provisional insurrectionary regime based in Kiev with the holy oil of democracy – because that would be a truly grievous insult to all genuine democrats.
Ukraine was a democracy – albeit an imperfect one. The government of the ousted Viktor Yanukovych had been elected in 2010 in what international observers all agreed was a free and fair election. His term was due to expire in March 2015.
Yes, there was corruption – but that is not unusual in the nations of Eastern Europe. Yes, Yanukovych favoured closer economic relations with the Russian Federation – but he was by no means ill-disposed towards extending Ukraine’s relationship with the EU. Yes, there were many deficiencies in Yanukovych’s governance – but the solution to democratic deficiencies is more democracy, not violent insurrection.
It seems extraordinary, but it is nevertheless a fact, that the USA and the EU – both of whom cheered on the violent insurrectionists in Kiev’s Independence Square – are now telling the Crimeans that they cannot vote to join the Russian Federation because it would be a violation of the Ukrainian Constitution!
Even more extraordinary is President Obama’s description of this collection of billionaire oligarchs, neoliberal technocrats and outright thugs as “democratic leaders”.
Seamus Milne is one of The Guardian newspaper’s most respected correspondents. This is his description of Kiev’s insurrectionary regime:
“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 anti-Semitic 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.”
For the first time since the end of World War II there are unabashed Neo-Nazis holding Cabinet offices in a European government. They are not figments of Russian-speaking Ukrainians’ fevered imaginations, as many Western journalists (to their shame) have attempted to portray them, but a vital political component of the Kiev regime. (Milne estimates that fascist elements made up one third of the demonstrators in Independence Square and were in the vanguard of the deadly attacks on Riot Police.)
With Svoboda and the Right Sector holding key positions in the Interior Ministry and the national security apparatus, can anyone blame the people of Crimea for wanting to place themselves under the protection of the Russians?
Back in 1992, the Austrian Vice-Chancellor, Alois Mock, explaining his country’s decision to recognise Slovenian independence, said: “You have decided for it in a free referendum and therefore we have to support you.”
Twenty-two years later, the American President is explaining to the people of the Crimea that even if they decide in a free referendum that they wish to become a part of the Russian Federation he will not accept their decision. Instead, he will put the enormous weight of the United States behind an ultra-nationalist, anti-Semitic and authoritarian regime that seized power from a democratically elected government at the point of a sniper’s rifle.
This astonishing hypocrisy is what passes for American and European diplomacy in the twenty-first century – and every party in the New Zealand Parliament is going along for the ride.
Hypocrisy seems too subtle a word to describe the stance taken by the USA and EU. Could it be simply that the Eastern Ukraine and Crimean peninsular are extremely resource rich? As for our parliament … nothing but a pack of limp dicks who will ultimately label their child-like pandering as pragmatism.
Other than in coal the answer would be not at all. Strategically the Crimea is important to Russia but it is not something that Western nations normally concern themselves over.
The unspoken issue may be that the US and EU don’t want Russia to become a super-power like the Soviet Union was.
If you’re looking for resource motivated hypocrisy you may want to consider the case of West Papua which is being mined by the US & UK while a half million have been killed by Indonesia under a US scheme that used the United Nations to colonize instead of de-colonize the territory in 1962.
I can’t help but wonder what attitude AIPAC will take towards Obama’s support of anti-semitic fascism in the Ukrainian government. Is it even possible that they’d welcome a further flow of refugees to build more settlements on Palestinian land? Israel has appointed itself as the one legitimate mouthpiece of Jewish people all over the world. I find their silence on this one very strange so far.
An interesting point, about three months ago on Al Jazeera an interview mentioned record numbers of Jews migrating from Israel to Russia whereas the opposite was traditionally the case.
Well, on the other side, American Neo Nazis are deeply disappointed at the failure of those Ukrainian Neo Nazis to be sufficiently anti Semitic.
No joke
http://www.dailystormer.com/ukraine-right-sector-leader-dmitry-yarosh-meets-with-israeli-ambassador-pledges-allegiance-to-the-jewish-race/
Maybe you will become eurosceptics too 🙂
Given that the Slovenes and the Croats were in open rebellion against the Serb dominated government in Belgrade, Germany’s decision made the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia inevitable.
And, given the effect of its recent history on German thinking about the right to self-determination of peoples, the German government’s decision was equally inevitable. Doing the right thing comes at a price.
You might want to pretend that Crimea’s takeover by Russia is also a matter of self-determination of peoples, but you would be wrong in two ways: a decision for Russian annexation would be tyranny of the only-just majority; and it would be irrevocably tainted by being a vote among a population held hostage by a foreign military force.
The Ukrainians appear to have decided that a government with the odd fascist in it beats being absorbed into Putin’s mafia state. It’s not for you to tell them their choice is wrong.
Really? The Ukranians decided or the CIA fronts who never thought the moderates would be overtaken by the Nazis in their quest for power. Don’t get sucked in by US propaganda. Odd fascist – maybe in behaviour – but not in quantity and impact.
“You might want to pretend that Crimea’s takeover by Russia is also a matter of self-determination of peoples, but you would be wrong in two ways: a decision for Russian annexation would be tyranny of the only-just majority; and it would be irrevocably tainted by being a vote among a population held hostage by a foreign military force.”
It is not just a matter of self determination of peoples, though that factor is important. Crimea has belonged to the Russians since the time of Catherine the Great. The more recent arrangement whereby Crimea is administered from Kiev could only be expected to last for as long as the Ukraine remained within the Russian sphere of influence. The establishment of an anti-Russian regime in Kiev would seem to obviate any claims that the latter might have in respect of Crimea.
“The Ukrainians appear to have decided that a government with the odd fascist in it beats being absorbed into Putin’s mafia state. It’s not for you to tell them their choice is wrong.”
I don’t recall the Ukrainians making that decision. The current regime is unelected.
The more recent arrangement whereby Crimea is administered from Kiev could only be expected to last for as long as the Ukraine remained within the Russian sphere of influence.
Absolutely. There’s no way Putin will let Crimea stay with a western-oriented Ukraine, military intervention to secure it is to be expected, and there’s nothing western countries can do about it (or, arguably, should do about it). But let’s not kid ourselves with some noble “self-determination” bullshit.
I don’t recall the Ukrainians making that decision.
It’s theoretically possible that Yanukovich up and left because he felt personally affronted by the protests, or that he’s just someone who gives up easily, but it’s rather more likely that he left because his government had effectively lost power to the revolutionaries – in which case, yes Ukrainians made that decision.
Presumably the revolutionaries made the people an offer they couldn’t refuse.
Agreed, it was a piece of silly boundary drawing in the first place but at the same time Putin is looking more and more like Milosevic. Dangerous.
The West can actually do an awful lot. In fact the free market is doing a lot already. The Rouble is down, the Moscow stock market dived and money is flowing out fast. Without too much effort the West can make life miserable for Putin’s backers.
Now now, Chris. You’re sapping the morale of our boys on the Malabar front.
Nice post Chris. I too was slightly astonished by the blatant laughable bullshit being spouted from on high and echoed by a feeble and uncritical media, which now appears to have become entirely a weapon of propaganda. The casual off hand manner in which they blatantly lie, abandoning even a decent pretence of sincerity, has the appearance of creeping fascism. Now they just tell us any old crap. It doesn’t matter whether we believe it or not.
Here’s a list of the ultra-nationalist and neo-nazi appointments to the interim government in Kiev:
Ihor Tenyukh – interim defense minister and a member of Svoboda’s political council. Formerly commander of Ukraine’s navy, in 2008, during Russia’s war with Georgia, he ordered Ukrainian warships to block the entrance of the Russian Navy to the bay of Sevastopol.
Andriy Parubiy – National Security Council chief, co-founded Svoboda back when it was the “Social National” (ahem!) party.
Dmytro Yarosh – deputy head of the National Security Council, i.e. the police, and the founder-leader of “Right Sector,” a militant neo-Nazi paramilitary group that took charge of security in the Maiden.
Oleh Makhnitsky – Svoboda member of parliament, is prosecutor-general.
Oleksandr Sych – Svoboda parliamentarian and the party’s chief ideologist, is deputy prime minister for economic affairs.
Serhiy Kvit – a leading member of Svoboda, is to head up the Education Ministry.
Andriy Moknyk – the new Minister of Ecology, has been Svoboda’s envoy to other European fascist parties. Last year, he met with representatives of Italy’s violent neo-fascist gang, Forza Nuovo.
Ihor Shvaika – agro-oligarch and a member of Svoboda, has been appointed Minister of Agriculture. One of the richest men in the country, His massive investments in agriculture would seem to indicate a slight conflict of interest.
These men are violent thugs. It’s possible to find out online much more about them – and what they and their parties stand for – than anyone would really want to know. But of course we need to know about them, because these are the people with whom the US and the EU have made common cause. Naive at best, deeply cynical at worst.
Our own government should steer well clear of siding with the US against Russia; it’s a dangerous and foolish misstep, given the nature of the regime now installed in Kiev.
Yes, this is worrying news and a revelation, and I suppose you may have got some of the information from this link:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/04/who-governing-ukraine-olexander-turchynov
Sadly there are extreme right wing tendencies in a number of Eastern European countries, and Hungary is one example:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/26/leader-hungarian-jobbik-rally-london
http://www.ibtimes.com/marian-kotleba-slovakias-new-neo-nazi-governor-only-latest-right-wing-extremists-emerging-eastern
It started after the fall of the former Iron Curtain, yes apparently in some countries even before then, that right wing parties based in Western Europe and the US made available finance and other support, to like minded politicians, activists and parties in the formerly “socialist” countries. There were also right wing parties springing up and getting a worrying high level of support in parts of former East Germany. Still now they are present and very active there.
One reason for all this may be, that this has formed as a “reactionary” force to the former regimes and systems, and that people in too high numbers in too many countries have embraced new forms of nationalism, to find some new “identity”.
But with all this, Vladimir Putin is himself playing with the fire of nationalism, and under his watch laws have been brought in in Russia, that discriminate not only against gay people, but also against certain migrant minorities, often treated under “collective suspicion” for supporting terrorism.
Having read a fair few stories about the fate of people from the Caucasus or predominantly muslim parts of Russia, facing much hatred in Moscow and other cities, I see Putin as being not much better himself, as the ones now in power in Kiev.
http://guardianlv.com/2014/01/vladimir-putin-to-channel-russian-nationalism-at-sochi-olympics/
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/10/putin-homophobic-nationalism-2013102985511896261.html
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116841/bolotnaya-prisoner-maria-baronova-putins-ukraine-occupation
What can be observed is a revival of right wing activism and nationalism, in many countries, and it also gradually taking a stronger hold in Western Europe, where social tensions worsened after the GFC led to budget and welfare cuts. Propaganda used by conservative governments is not helpful, as the extreme right only use it to make arguments more extreme.
Hence we have an increase on attacks and discrimination against disabled in the UK, as the middle class and even working poor are looking for scape goats for the country’s economic and social problems.
Yes, we have similar trends coming into New Zealand, and the only difference here is, that New Zealand is now a rather multi cultural society, where nationalism can hardly be based on ethnic belonging, which is though the predominant rule in much of Europe.
Eastern European countries are not having the same ethnic and cultural diversity as modern day New Zealand, and hence people have less tolerance for foreign influences and migrants and for that sake foreign investors.
We are returning to geopolitical times that more so resemble the world prior to WW2 than any time after that. The threat must not be under estimated, and risk of major wars is probably becoming greater by the year or at least decade.
A few words:
American World hegemony
CIA destabilisation in Ukraine = $US 5 billion
Ukraine in EU = EU + NATO = American bases in the Ukraine. Can definitely see the Russian neighbours from here.
American Industrial complex.$ $$$$$$$$! Eyes light up.
Democracy? Out Ukraine democratically elected Leader.
Whoops! What moderates? Eeekkk hard right Neo Nazis. “kill Jews and Russians” kill police, kill anyone who doesn’t agree…….just Kill anyone!
USA “yeah nah, oh well”. “But the Russians suck at running Winter Olympics. They deserve a nuclear blast or two.”
Obama you useless, incompetent dickhead.
The Baltic states are part of NATO and they are a lot closer to the heartland of Russia than the Ukraine is.
While i do recognize that the Crimea is a majority ethnic Russian state within the Ukraine it has to be remembered (and is almost always forgotten) that Crimean Tatars make a very significant proportion of the population I believe 12% of the Crimean population. They are vehemently opposed to anchluss with Russia and with very good reason as history has shown them that Russian nationalism always ends up very badly for them (For those who don’t know they are the original occupants of the Crimea (from the golden horde to the Crimean Khanate) but Stalin had them “relocated” to the steppe after WWII as he considered them traitors they only started returning in large numbers after the collapse of the soviet union). I also recognize that it is abhorrent that neo-fascist groups within the Ukraine are now in their cabinet and have been mobilized to oppose Russian aggression, it has to be remembered that neo-Nazi groups in Russia are the basis of putin’s support. Nazi salute’s have been widely seen in both Ukrainian and Russian protests, I generally feel (I know of course that conjecture of this variety is rarely helpful but it has to be said) this is because of an improper understanding of history in both countries. I would also like it known that since independence polling in the Ukraine has shown consistent opposition to their joining of NATO so i do not really see it on the horizon. Aside from all my rambling the point i am making is that this is a much more complex situation than is being represented in this article and should be treated as such while I agree that the perspective in this article is important to understanding this I feel Mr. Trotter has reached his conclusion over hastily, there really is two sides to this story (after all Russian troops have occupied the Crimea) but this hasn’t been well represented in this article.
Marcus, apparently the russian troops have been there for 15 years
If we are going to play silly beggars they have been there for the last 240 years. The point i was making is that the Ukrainian government had control over the Crimea after independence ignoring the Russian black sea fleet in Sevastopol and other Russian bases in the region. I was mostly referring to the fact that Putin feels (wrongly or rightly) that the Budapest memorandum is null and void as he is no longer dealing with the legitimate successors to that agreement hence the reason he occupied the state ignoring Ukrainian sovereignty of that region. I will also add for those who wish to play devil’s advocate that i also recognize that this wouldn’t be the first Russian breach of the Budapest memorandum as they have previously exerted economic pressure on the Ukraine after the orange revolution through it’s dependence on Russian gas supplies.
“Putin feels (wrongly or rightly) that the Budapest memorandum is null and void”
And he is probably right. The Budapest memorandum is not a contract, but more in the nature of a treaty, and therefore dependent on circumstances more or less remaining the same.
“Given that the Slovenes and the Croats were in open rebellion against the Serb dominated government in Belgrade, Germany’s decision made the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia inevitable. As the situation spiralled out of control, the so-called “international community” responded by joining the Germans in recognising the breakaway republics. The EU recognised Slovenia and Croatia in January 1992. The USA followed suit four months later.”
So Germany is now to blame for the breakup of Yugoslavia, is it?
I am increasingly questioning Chris’ logic, as he has a clear pro Russian bias.
A referendum was to be held in Crimea anyway, but now it is going to be held under the watch of thousands, possibly over 20,000 armed Russian and local “guards”, who are increasingly harassing the Ukrainian minority on the Crimean Peninsula.
And one Wladimir Putin is certainly a “defender of freedom and justice”, is he not?
As for the EU, their leaders (from different member countries) are great talkers about ‘action’, but nothing much will happen. They did not intervene in Georgia, left it to the Baltic nations Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia to fight for their own independence, and only paid much lip-service.
With so many EU states over dependent on Russian gas and oil, they would risk economic suicide, if they impose sanctions.
The US will also be mindful of what they may do.
We have much hard talk, but wait and see, it will all be a lot of bluff, and little else. The Ukrainian independence movement and present government will soon feel the pressure of Russia by having their gas turned off, and then they will eventually sit down at a table and negotiate again.
The Crimean Peninsula will either become independent or join Russia, and the west will have to swallow this, Putin knows that and simply exploits the situation.
I choose to take no sides in this conflict, and that means, I am also highly critical of what the Russian government and their loyal “volunteer brigades” in Ukraine are doing. If we talk about fascism, I think we can count them into that category as well.
The good old U S of A with a secret agenda in the Ukraine, implemented by the CIA and legitimized by an unquestioning Western Media – surely not. Don’t mention Vietnam, Nicaragua, Iraq please -irrelevant. The Ruskies are always wrong – we will swallow that line every time.
The US had Russia exactly where they wanted them when that fool Yeltsin was president. Putin is rolling back the gains that the west thinks they made in those years which is why the Americans are making such a fuss now. If I was Russian I think I’d be cheering for him, the same way I would cheer for anyone who rolls back the gains that the hard right have made in this country recently.
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