Civil War in Ukraine? – Moon of Alabama

November 22, 2004

Civil War in Ukraine?

Officials in several Ukrainian cities have refused to accept the outcome of Sunday’s presidential election.

Tens of thousands of protesters have rallied to contest the official victory for Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, amid Western concern over the vote.

Opposition challenger Viktor Yushchenko has told supporters to stage a civil disobedience campaign.
But central security authorities are warning that they are ready to put down any lawlessness "quickly and firmly".

The "KGB candidate" incumbant Yanukovych has officially won. The "CIA candidate" Yushchenko has probably lost. There are concerns about election irregularities that naturally would not happen in any really democratic state.

[OECD claimed] violations included a continuing "media bias" in favour of Mr Yanukovych and intimidation of observers and voters.
…

Exit polls earlier suggested that Mr Yushchenko had been on course for victory with a lead of at least six percentage points.

His supporters say they do not believe the official turnout figure of 96% in eastern Ukraine.

During the campaign, Mr Yushchenko, prime minister between 1999 and 2001, claimed to have been the victim of intimidation and dirty tricks, including an alleged poisoning attempt.

His critics portray him as an American puppet who will do anything to gain power, including inciting civil unrest.

I have no firm opinion on what is happening in Ukraine, but I do prefer any nonviolent outcome, even if it is not a 100% certified democratic solution.

Posted by b on November 22, 2004 at 22:51 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Sad, isn’t it, that they have more passion to have their votes counted correctly than U.S. citizens do?

Posted by: SusanG | Nov 22 2004 23:29 utc | 1

I found this today at CANNONFIRE:

It is to laugh: A story on the upcoming Ukrainian elections included this ripe paragraph:
President Bush, called on Ukrainian authorities for a vote “free of fraud and manipulation. In a letter delivered Friday to President Leonid Kuchma, who is not seeking a new term, Bush warned said “a tarnished election, however, will lead us to review our relations with Ukraine.”

Posted by: beq | Nov 22 2004 23:35 utc | 2

I’m with Susan. It’s a sad state of the world when Ukrainians seem ready to openly denounce alleged fraud and stage big demonstrations, when the Americans simply cave in.
Not sure about civil war, though the country is nastily split in half there, from what I’ve seen, and this may well have long-term bad consequences for the national unity. And I haven’t much hope that there’s much to do to go against the Putin-approved candidate – if it goes to civil war and the pro-Russia guy asks for the Red Army to come, I don’t see the US or EU doing anything serious against it. Ukraine is too big, close and tied to Russia in many areas for Putin to let it go away if the results are murky; if Yushenko had won by 60%, he would’ve been stuck, but not here. Frankly, unless EU offers the same kind of relations to Russia and Ukraine and the same kind of closer alliance, I don’t think it will work. Then, I also thought that it would have been an interesting move to offer Russia to join NATO in the 90s (make that later 90s), so that they won’t feel besieged by Western powers – at least it would’ve been up to Russia to refuse, not to the US to play the aggressive game.

Posted by: Clueless Joe | Nov 22 2004 23:40 utc | 3

You really don’t have a clue, if you are comparing the stable, careful election in the US (where fraud is relatively rare and IS addressed) with the rampant, oligarch-manipulated elections in Ukraine.
When the US has repeated instances of disappearing “ink” on ballots, trainloads of “absentee voters” arriving in the capital on election morning, students being paid $20 to vote for the oligarch candidate, 99% “voter turnout” in a city where a large percentage of the population lives across the border in Russia, voter lists with wrong information for everyone in a neighborhood, ballot boxes being set on fire, journalists beat up for not supporting the oligarch candidate. . .
Tes, please draw attention to problems in the US–that’s what keeps them from getting out of hand! But please don’t draw false analogies with the REAL vote fraud in countries that are new and struggling democracies.

Posted by: TulipGirl | Nov 23 2004 2:57 utc | 4

A synoptic update here of the current broad efforts to rectify our own dubious “election”.
It’s really only “sad” if WE don’t care. Owing to the media’s astounding detachment from this crucial issue, I suspect we truly have no real idea what the “rest of America” may be thinking.
I agree, naturally, that civil war should never be a first resort. But if utter lawlessness continues to prevail in our nation’s highest office, we may ultimately have little choice. Let’s just hope there’s enough decency and justice left in this country to resolve this legally. I, for one, don’t *intend* to just roll over and play dead:
Litigating the Election
by Marjorie Cohn
Without much fanfare, a number of lawyers are busy mounting court challenges to the election. Lawsuits have been filed and other actions are being taken in Ohio and Florida, the two key electoral states. Members of Congress have demanded a General Accountability Office investigation of the election. The largest Freedom of Information Act request in the nation’s history has been launched, and other efforts are in the works. …

Posted by: JMF | Nov 23 2004 3:11 utc | 5

But please don’t draw false analogies with the REAL vote fraud in countries that are new and struggling democracies.
Tulip Girl: We *have* REAL vote fraud in this country. The fact that our “election” was rigged more subtly (for the most part) and made relatively invisible through the “sophistication” of electronic (and human) manipulation after the fact doesn’t make it any less *real*!
Election fraud is election fraud.

Posted by: JMF | Nov 23 2004 3:21 utc | 6

I guess it’s possible that Yanukovich won even with all the irregularities. There’s lots of people in the east who want a Big Daddy figure to protect them, something that attracted voters to you-know-who. But the OSCE seems less than impressed by the whole thing. I remember the Russian elections being criticised for being free but not fair (eg, media ignoring presidential challengers). It seems Ukraine’s elections were neither in many parts of the country.
It’s a bit unnerving to read those reports of *some* cities refusing to recognize the results. Not like the nation-wide anger in Serbia and Georgia that resulted in Milosevic and Shevardnadze being tossed. I hope your title turns out to be rhetorical.

Posted by: Harrow | Nov 23 2004 5:06 utc | 7

in ucrania they voted with Diebold machines?+

Posted by: curious | Nov 23 2004 8:39 utc | 8

Ukraine is still the only soviet country (along with the Balts, who are now in the European Union) to have ad a peaceful political transition – back in 1994, the first President, father of the independence, was beaten by Kuchma (the current president) and stepped down peacefully.
I still hope that they can build on that tradition and have a new peaceful transition. The interesting thing is that in the 1994 election, Kravtchuk was supported by the West, which accepted the results. Of course, the real results are reversed now, but the behavior is not.
Europe = democracy
Russia = not democracy
that’s the choice they have – and that’s also the choice we all have.
People that talk, vs people that understand only force.
(And I agree with tulipgirl that fraud is of an order of magnitude worse in Ukraine than in the US – but it’s of course pretty bad – and pretty incomprehensible that there is so much likely fraud in the US as well)

Posted by: Jérôme | Nov 23 2004 11:50 utc | 9

from CANNONFIRE again:

The evidence of election fraud keeps getting stronger — and stranger.
Vote fraud in the Ukraine. We must consider the Washington Times an authoritative source — after all, it is owned by an actual messiah. (No, really! He even has a crown to prove his messiah-hood.) I was therefore startled when the Times graced its audience with this gorgeous paragraph:
Election authorities said the government-backed presidential candidate, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, maintained a comfortable margin with nearly all votes counted, despite exit polls showing opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko winning.
The Washington Post concurs:
The outcome of the vote has brought this confrontation to a head. According to exit polls, the democratic opposition won handily, by 54 to 43 percent in one survey. But yesterday the government revealed its intent to steal the election, announcing that Mr. Yanukovych had a decisive lead in the vote count. Tens of thousands of outraged citizens filled the center of Kiev last night to oppose this authoritarian coup. The United States and other Western governments must do everything possible to support them.
All right, class…let’s review:
What is the proof of vote fraud in the Ukraine? The final tallies disagreed with the exit polls. Do we have any other mechanism to verify the vote? No, we do not.
So why is vote fraud thinkable there but not here?
Perhaps now even the dimmest of our red state brethren will grasp the real reason Republicans want to eliminate exit polls in this country.
Bev Harris. Blackboxvoting.org tells us to expect a major announcement in the afternoon or evening (November 23). Keep checking there…

Posted by: beq | Nov 23 2004 12:32 utc | 10

i’m afraid i don’r see this as jérôme does – for me it is just an interfascist struggle for power. a sharing amongst oligarchs, gangsters & their toys in power
the ukraine has its own troubled history of which it never takes responsibility for – loves the folkloric – but babi yar – that terrible moment of the holocaust passed here with the thunderous applause of the people. their long & active tradition of exterminationist anti-semitism
the speak of democracy only to attack democracy in the same way america exports a ‘democracy’ that is rotten to its core
the ukraine is not the cradle of civilisation as iraq is & my concerns in this moment will rest there – all the politics of the old russia is like some ugly gilbert & sullivan musical mixed with the mafia & the blood od the people
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 23 2004 18:09 utc | 11

Robert Parry, of Consortium News, has also rung in loud and clear on the glaring hypocrisy of questioning the speck in the Ukraine’s elections, while ignoring the beam in our own:
Big Media’s Democracy Double Standards
The Washington Post and other big U.S. news organizations are citing voting irregularities, including exit polls favoring the challenger, to justify overturning official presidential election results in the Ukraine. In the United States, however, the Post and other news outlets have applied a different standard, mocking concerns from U.S. citizens about voting fraud as “conspiracy theory” undeserving of investigation.

Posted by: JMF | Nov 24 2004 5:01 utc | 12

What to make of this? Amazing transfiguration (over a 2 month period) and scary! See the pictures.
Bizarre article du jour: Yushchenko poisoned?

Posted by: Fran | Nov 25 2004 6:40 utc | 13

Come on! My husband just got back from the Kiev. He was there for 10 days. He brought me tapes of the opposition broadcasts (channel 5). Those guys lie and change their stories all the time. They say white on black and black on white. Like those rape allegations against Yanukovich (that he has raped a 9 year old girl). Like allegations that Russian army is coming (can you believe that when the whole world is watching that Russia would even think about using the army or anything else). Like allegations that Yanukovich closes schools, when really it is the opposition that asks young people not to go to schools and come and protests. How about the allegations that it is Yanukovich trying to do the revolution… ha… when the opposition leader takes a circus presidential oath. How about the historical “love” of the Ukrainian radicals for the Jews. Did you hear the speech of the Yushenko’s Minister of the Nationality’s Affairs (nationality’s, not nation’s) Tjagnybok said about the role of the Ukrainian nation in World War II – that ukrainians were fighting against fascists, Russian Bolsheviks and Jews (zhidnjoj) (apparently referring to the Ukrainian SS)? The opposition succesfully and shamelessly uses rumors, using the post soviet mentality that everything that rumors say must be true.

Posted by: tita | Nov 27 2004 0:06 utc | 14

By the way! I really doubt fraud in the election, at least from the government because:
1. all Europe and US were watching and had a big bunch of monitors there and the opposition were watching too
2. ukrainians living in Russia could not vote there (of course you can guess what their vote would be and opposition did not like it) because of the possibility of fraud.
3. all of the eastern regions of the Ukraine and the Crimea supports Yanukovich

Posted by: tita | Nov 27 2004 0:24 utc | 15

@tita, there was a good comment in the Guardian yesterday how the opposition and the exit polls were paid for with US money.
Some Rove jun. is managing over there…

Posted by: b | Nov 27 2004 9:55 utc | 16

Yes, the US did send money. Russia sent about three times as much money to Yanukovich’s campaign.

Posted by: Iain Argent | Aug 4 2005 0:19 utc | 17

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