The Dominion - Ukraine

Mark Mackinnon's New Cold War

dru — Thu, 31 May 2007 18:48:21 +0000

Canada, the US and democracy promotion in the former Soviet republics

Mark Mackinnon's new book opens with a tale of two large buildings blown up by terrorists. The president, until then an unremarkable leader with deep ties to the country's secretive intelligence agency, seizes on the tragedy by launching a war against the terrorists. Suddenly popular for his decisive strikes, the president sends troops to a small Muslim country that had been occupied, then abandoned by previous administrations. He uses the urgency of war as a pretext for consolidating power, naming his lackeys to key positions. The "oligarchs" of the country, Mackinnon writes, proceeded to set up a system of "managed democracy," where the illusion of choice and a popular longing for stability cover up the fact that fundamental decisions are made in an undemocratic fashion and power remains concentrated in the hands of the few.

Mackinnon, who is currently the Middle East bureau chief for the Globe and Mail, is of course talking about Russia, and its president, ex-KGB agent Vladimir Putin--though if Mackinnon notices parallels with another country, he doesn't say so. The Muslim country is Chechnya and the terrorist attacks were against two apartment buildings in the town of Ryazan, 200km southeast of Moscow. Questions were raised about KGB involvement.

Mackinnon's book is The New Cold War: Revolutions, Rigged Elections and Pipeline Politics in the Former Soviet Union.

Almost without exception, Canadian reporters find it a lot easier to cut through PR spin and official lies when they're covering foreign governments--especially when those governments are seen as rivals of Canada or its close partner, the US. But when the subject is closer to home, their critical acumen suddenly wilts.

Mackinnon suffers from this common affliction less than most reporters. One gets the sense that it's a conscious choice, but still a tentative one.

Over the last seven years, the US State Department, the Soros Foundation and several partner organizations have orchestrated a series of "democratic revolutions" in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. And, during those years, each "revolution," whether attempted or successful, has been portrayed by journalists as a spontaneous uprising of freedom-loving citizens receiving inspiration and moral support from their brothers and sisters in the West.

Evidence that this support also involved hundreds of millions of dollars, meddling with choices of candidates and changes to foreign and domestic policies has been widely available. And yet, for the last seven years, this information has been almost entirely suppressed.

Perhaps the most glaring evidence of suppression came when the Associated Press (AP) ran a story on December 11, 2004--at the height of the "Orange Revolution"--noting that the Bush Administration had given $65 million to political groups in Ukraine, though none of it went "directly" to political parties. It was "funneled," the report said, through other groups. Many media outlets in Canada--notably the Globe and Mail and the CBC--rely on the AP, but none ran the story. On the same day, CBC.ca published four other stories from the AP about Ukraine's political upheaval, but did not see fit to include the one that tepidly investigated US funding.

Similarly, books by William Robinson, Eva Golinger and others have exposed US funding of political parties abroad, but have not been discussed by the corporate press.

Canada's role went unreported until two and a half years later, when--coinciding with the release of The New Cold War--the Globe and Mail finally saw fit to publish an account, written by Mackinnon. The Canadian embassy, Mackinnon reported, "spent a half-million dollars promoting 'fair elections' in a country that shares no border with Canada and is a negligible trading partner." Canadian funding of election observers had been reported before, but the fact that the money had been only a part of an orchestrated attempt to influence elections had not.

For reasons that remain obscure, the editors of the Globe decided, after seven years of silence, to allow Mackinnon to tell the public about what Western money has been up to in the former Soviet Union. Perhaps they were influenced by Mackinnon's choice to write a book about the topic; perhaps it was decided that it was time to let the cat out of the bag.

It's a fascinating account. Mackinnon starts in Serbia in 2000, where the West, after funding opposition groups and "independent media" that provided a constant stream of coverage critical of the government--as well as dropping 20,000 tonnes of bombs on the country--finally succeeded in toppling the last stubborn holdout against neoliberalism in Europe.

Mackinnon describes in detail how Western funding--an effort spearheaded by billionaire George Soros--flowed to four principle areas: Otpor (Serbian for 'resistance'), a student-heavy youth movement that used grafitti, street theatre and non-violent demonstrations to channel negative political sentiments against the Milosevic government; CeSID, a group of election monitors that existed to "catch Milosevic in the act if he ever again tried to manipulate the results of an election"; B92, a radio station that provided a steady supply of anti-regime news and the edgy rock stylings of Nirvana and the Clash; and assorted NGOs were given funding to raise "issues"--which Mackinnon calls "the problems with the power-that-is, as defined by the groups' Western sponsors." The Canadian embassy in Belgrade, he notes, was a venue for many donor meetings.

Finally, disparate opposition parties had to be united. This was facilitated by then-US Secretary of State Madeline Albright and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who told opposition leaders not to run, but to join a "democratic coalition" with the relatively unknown lawyer Vojislav Kostunica as the sole opposition candidate for the presidency. The Western-funded opposition leaders, who didn't have a lot of say in the matter, agreed.

It worked. Kostunica won the vote, the election monitors quickly announced their version of the results, which were broadcast via B92 and other Western-sponsored media outlets, and tens of thousands poured into the streets to protest Milosevic's attempted vote-rigging in a demonstration led by the pseudo-anarchist group Otpor. Milosevic, having lost his "pillars of support" in the courts, police and bureaucracy, resigned soon after. "Seven months later," Mackinnon writes, "Slobodan Milosevic would be in The Hague."

The Serbian "revolution" became the model: fund "independent media," NGOs and election observers; force the opposition to unite around one selected candidate; and fund and train a spray-paint-wielding, freedom-loving group of angry students united by no program other than opposition to the regime. The model was used successfully in Georgia ("the Rose Revolution"), Ukraine ("the Orange Revolution") and unsuccessfully in Belarus, where denim was the preferred symbol. The New Cold War has chapters for each of these, and Mackinnon delves deep into the details of the funding arrangements and political coalitions built with Western support.

Mackinnon seems to harbour few illusions about the US exercise of power. His overall thesis is that, in the former Soviet Union, the US has used "democratic revolutions" to further its geopolitical interests; control of oil supply and pipelines, and the isolation of Russia, its main competitor in the region. He notes that in many cases--Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, for example--repressive regimes receive the hearty support of the US, while only Russian-allied governments are singled out for the democracy promotion treatment.

And while Mackinnon may be too polite to mention it, his account significantly contradicts the reporting regularly vetted by his editors and written by his colleagues. Milosevic, for example, is not the "Butcher of the Balkans" of Western media lore. Serbia was "not the outright dictatorship it was often portrayed in the Western media to be," Mackinnon writes. "In fact, it was more like an early version of the 'managed democracy' [of Putin's Russia]." He is frank about the effects of the bombing and sanctions on Serbia, which were devastating.

But in other ways, Mackinnon swallows the propaganda whole. He repeats the official NATO line on Kosovo, for example, neglecting to note that the US and others were funding drug-dealing autocratic militias like the Kosovo Liberation Army, the subject of many misleading, laudatory reports by Mackinnon's colleagues circa 2000.

More fundamentally, Mackinnon ignores the West's central role in the destabilization of Yugoslavia after its government balked at further implementation of IMF reforms that were already causing misery. Mackinnon experiences and discusses the phenomenon of destabilization-by-privatization in most of the countries he covers, but seems unable to trace it back to its common source, or see it as principle of US and European foreign policy.

Former Russian Politburo operative Alexander Yakovlev tells Mackinnon that Russia's politicians had "pushed the economic reforms too far, too fast" creating "a criminalized economy and state where residents came to equate terms like 'liberal' and 'democracy' with corruption, poverty and helplessness."

In one of the more dramatic moments in the book, the 82-year-old Yakovlev takes responsibility, saying: "We must confess that what is now going on is not the fault of those who are doing it... It's us who are guilty. We made some very serious errors."

In Mackinnon's world, the rapid dismantling and privatization of the state-run economy--which left millions in poverty and despair--is an explanation for the Russian and Belarussian peoples' love affair with strongman presidents who curb liberties, marginalize opposition, control the media and maintain stabilnost, stability. But somehow, the ideology behind the IMF-driven devastation doesn't make it into Mackinnon's analysis of the motivations behind "New Cold War."

Mackinnon notices the most literal US interests: oil and the Americans' fight for regional influence with Russia. But what escapes his account is the broader intolerance for governments that assert their independence and maintain the ability to direct their own economic development.

Energy and pipeline politics are a plausible explanation for the US's interest in the southern former Soviet republics. He might have added that the US used Georgia as a staging ground during the Iraq war. When it comes to Serbia, Mackinnon is forced to rely on an implausible account of NATO carrying out a moral mission to prevent genocide. The claim no longer makes any sense, given available evidence, but remains prevalent in the Western press.

Mackinnon mentions Haiti, Cuba and Venezuela in passing. In all of these places, attempts have been made to overthrow the governments. In Venezuela, a US-backed military coup was quickly overturned. In Haiti, a Canadian- and US-led coup resulted in a human rights catastrophe that is ongoing and recent elections confirmed that the party that was deposed remained more popular than the alternative presented by the economic elite. In Cuba, attempts to overthrow the government have been thwarted for half a century.

To explain these additional, more violent attempts at "regime change," it is not enough to cite the literal interests. Venezuela has considerable oil, but Cuba's natural resources do not make it a major strategic asset, and, by this standard, Haiti even less so. To explain why the US government provided millions of dollars to political parties, NGOs and opposition groups in these countries requires an understanding of neoliberal ideology and its origins in the Cold War and beyond.

This much would be evident if Mackinnon added some much-needed historical context to his account of modern-day methods of regime change. In his book Killing Hope, William Blum documents over 50 US interventions in foreign governments since 1945. History has shown these to be overwhelmingly anti-democratic, if not outright catastrophic. Even mild social-democratic reforms of government in tiny countries were overwhelmed by military attacks.

If true democracy involves self-determination--and at least the theoretical ability to refuse the dictates of the "Washington Consensus" or the IMF--then any evaluation of democracy promotion as the tool of US foreign policy has to reckon with this history. Mackinnon's account does not and remains almost resolutely ahistorical.

The last chapter of The New Cold War, entitled "Afterglow," is dedicated to evaluating the ultimate effects of democracy promotion in the former Soviet republics. It is Mackinnon's weakest chapter. Mackinnon limits himself to asking whether things are better now than before. The frame of the question lowers expectations and severely stunts the democratic imagination.

If one sets aside these considerations, then it is still possible for curiosity to get the better of the reader. Is it possible that good things can come even from cynical motivations? Liberal writers like Michael Ignatieff and Christopher Hitchens made similar arguments in support of the Iraq war and Mackinnon flirts with the idea when he wonders whether young activists in Serbia and Ukraine were using the US, or whether the US was using them.

So, did things get better? The information Mackinnon presents in his answer is extremely vague.

In Serbia, he says, life is much better. The revolution hasn't brought too many benefits to the daily lives of Serbs, a cab driver tells Mackinnon. However, he writes, "The era of gasoline shortages and of young men being sent off to fight for a 'Greater Serbia' was long past and the late-night laughter and music that spilled out of Belgrade's packed restaurants spoke to an optimism unheard of under the old regime."

In this and many other cases, Mackinnon buys a well-diffused propaganda line without looking at the facts. Straying from the meticulous detail he brings to his reporting of the ins and outs of democracy promotion, Mackinnon seems to believe that it was a diabolical scheme by Milosevic--and not economic sanctions or bombing and subsequent destruction of the bulk of Serbia's state-owned industrial infrastructure--that led to gasoline shortages. Mackinnon admonishes Serbs to face up to their role in the war, while letting NATO's bombing campaign, which left tonnes of depleted uranium, flooded the Danube with hundreds of tonnes of toxic chemicals, and incinerated 80,000 tonnes of crude oil (thus the gasoline shortages), off the hook.

In Georgia, Mackinnon again relies on nightlife in the capital city as an indicator of the country's democratic well-being. "The city bubbled with a sense that things were starting to move in the right direction...swish Japanese restaurants, Irish pubs and French wine bars were popping up on seemingly every corner." The leisure activities of the economic elite are just that; there are many ways to judge the well-being of a country, but to rely on the sights and sounds of well-heeled city dwellers enjoying themselves to the exclusion of other criteria is peculiar.

Mackinnon remarks in passing that the Western-backed regime of Saakashvili has resulted in "declining freedom of the press," but has "boosted the economy."

In Ukraine, "newspapers and television stations could and did criticize or caricature whomever they wanted," but the Western-backed free market ideologue Yuschenko made a series of blunders and unpopular moves, resulting in major electoral setbacks for his party a few years after the "revolution" that brought them to power.

Strangely, Mackinnon's sources--other than the odd cab driver--seem to consist entirely of the people receiving funding from the West. Independent critics, apart from aging and deposed former politicians, are virtually nonexistent in his reporting.

Still, the question: did the West do good? In the final pages, Mackinnon is equivocal and even indecisive.

Some countries are "freer and thus better," but the Western funding has made it more likely for repressive regimes to crack down on would-be democratizing forces. In Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, he is critical of the lack of funds for democratic promotion, leaving local NGOs and opposition groups hanging. He attributes this inconsistency to arrangements where American needs are better served by repressive regimes. In other parts of the chapter, he finds democracy promotion as a whole to be problematic.

At one point, he comments that "the help that [US agencies] gave to political parties in countries like Ukraine would have been illegal had a Ukrainian NGO been giving such aid to the Democrats or Republicans." One also imagines that Canadians would not be impressed if Venezuela, for example, gave millions of dollars to the NDP. Indeed, the prospect seems as ridiculous as it is unlikely...and illegal.

Mackinnon's information suggests, though he does not say it outright, that associating the idea of "democracy" and its attendant freedoms with Western funding and US-led meddling in the governance of countries is likely to undermine legitimate grassroots efforts at democratization. For example, dissidents in Russia tell Mackinnon that when they gather to demonstrate, people often look at them spitefully and ask who is paying them to stand in the street. In one case, Mackinnon points out that a report from an authoritarian government claiming that dissidents are pawns of the West is dead-on.

Mackinnon's assessment does not follow this evidence to its conclusion; he doesn't stray from the view that alignment with either the US or Russia are the only options for countries in the region.

While alignment with one empire or another may seem to be inevitable, Mackinnon's implicit Russia-or-US manicheanism obviates other ways of promoting democracy. Mackinnon ignores, for example, a decades-long tradition of grassroots solidarity with democratic forces in countries--predominantly in Latin America--where dictators were often financially backed and armed by the US government. Such movements were usually limited to curbing excessive repression rather than sponsoring democratic revolutions, but this lack of power can be attributed, at least in part, to the lack of media coverage from mainstream journalists like Mackinnon.

If one is concerned with democratic decision-making, then surely one is also concerned with the ability of countries to make decisions independently of the meddling of foreign powers. Mackinnon also does not address how such independence might be brought about. One can speculate that it would involve preventing the aforementioned meddling.

The New Cold War is notable for its thorough account of the internal workings of democracy promotion and the point of view of those receiving the funding. Those looking for an analysis that bring such a thorough accounting to its actual aims and effects, however, will have to look elsewhere.

New Cold War

Orange Revolution

Mackinnon on Post-Soviet Revolutions, take II

dru — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 23:52:38 +0000

Early descriptions of Mark Mackinnon's new book, The New Cold War received a skeptical reaction from this corner -- to say the least -- and Stefan Christoff's and my critique of his coverage in Lebanon resulted in a bit of a scrap via email.

Manufacturing Democracy

Sun, 19 Dec 2004 04:34:13 +0000

The politics of media coverage: Haiti, Ukraine, Georgia

Canadian media have focused on protests, but ignored essential facts about US and Canadian involvement in Ukraine.

Two months ago, many Canadians would have been hard-pressed to name Ukraine's capital, but recent weeks have seen a barrage of breathless headlines tracking the political situation in the eastern European nation.

"Ukraine moves to control official investigations into Yushchenko's illness"; "Doubts arise: can poisoning of Ukrainian opposition candidate be proven?"; "Ukrainian opposition leader Yushchenko poisoned with dioxin: Austrian doctors"; "Doctors 'closing in' on cause of Ukrainian candidate's face disfigurement"; "Ukraine's opposition takes campaign to hostile east".

All of these headlines appeared on the CBC's Web site within a 24-hour period, a saturation of coverage more reminiscent of a typical Canadian election rather than one that took place weeks ago, thousands of miles away. Why the sudden flood of coverage? What is its meaning, and more importantly, what has been excluded?

Perhaps, as the cliché has it, the "Orange Revolution" has "captured the imaginations" of Canadians. But why this one in particular? It's not as though there are a shortage of potentially inspiring mobilizations of thousands of citizens in defense of democracy to pay attention to. The tenacious popular revolt against the three-day coup in Venezuela comes to mind; it received minimal coverage.

In terms of explaining the enthusiasm of the Canadian media in covering the situation in Ukraine and our government's glorious role in cultivating democracy there, the most useful counterexample is the comparatively stark situation with respect to media coverage of events occurring in Haiti.

Just under a year ago, hundreds of thousands of Haitians filled the streets of Port-au-Prince in opposition to ongoing attempts to unseat their democratically elected president, Jean Bertrand Aristide. The anti-Aristide demonstrations topped out at a few thousand participants, their numbers occasionally bolstered by sweatshop workers forced to protest under threat of losing their jobs. It would not be an exaggeration to say that mainstream Canadian media failed to report these basic facts, deciding instead to take every opportunity to demonize Aristide, depicting him as corrupt and unpopular.

That the massive demonstrations were in support of the Haitian leader does not seem to concern the reporter

Just this week, a reporter for CTV news revisited this apotheosis of disinformation, writing that Aristide "left for exile in late February after massive demonstrations." That the massive demonstrations were in support of the Haitian leader does not seem to concern the reporter, or any other Canadian reporters who regularly report this assertion as fact. This practice continues, despite former Canadian ambassador Kenneth Cook's acknowledgement that if elections were held today in Haiti, the Aristide's Lavalas party would win. Nonetheless, under the Canadian-supported post-coup government, the members of the legal government are in jail, in exile, or in hiding.

In contrast, it would be an understatement to say that the Canadian media is friendly to Viktor Yushchenko, the "pro-western" presidential candidate in the 2004 Ukraine election. For example, footage appearing on the CBC's news program The National featured positive images of hundreds of young protesters in Kiev, which were immediately followed by images of a mere handful of Viktor Yanukovych's (the Putin-backed presidential candidate) supporters. The small group was shown milling around a bus at night, with one individual dressed in military uniform. Similarly, The Globe and Mail recently featured a cover photo of two pro-Yushchenko protesters "sharing a tender moment". The binary symbolism is more worthy of an issue of the Soviet-era Pravda than of a free press: west vs. east, young vs. old, democracy vs. autocracy, day vs. night.

There are, of course, legitimate reasons for Canadians and Canadian media to be sympathetic to the Ukrainian-speaking westerners. In the years following the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia continued to intervene in the economic and political lives of its former colonial charges, often using Russian-speaking minorities as pawns. Russian President Putin's backing of Yanukovych is as real as his autocratic tendencies and his murderous policies in Chechnya.

But Putin is not alone in his meddling.

In the last two years, the Bush Administration spent more than $65 million helping political organizations in the Ukraine.

In the last two years, the Bush Administration spent more than $65 million helping political organizations in the Ukraine. Additional funds have come from George Soros, Great Britain, Canada, Norway and the Netherlands, according to the Associated Press (AP). The money was key to funding the exit polls that cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election results, which showed Yanukovych as the winner. That the story came from the AP is significant; while the CBC saw fit to run four AP stories on the details of Ukrainian politics in one night, it omitted the story regarding the funding arrangements for the exit polls. Other Canadian media have also ignored US and Canadian funding of Yuschenko and affiliated political organizations. As the Canadian and American press would have it, Russia is meddling in Ukrainian affairs, but our own countries have only a high-minded concern for democracy. If Stephen Harper and the Fraser Institute received $65 million from the Ukrainian government, would we hear about it?

Yuschenko's ties to anti-semitic groups -- Ukrainian neo-Nazis and holocaust deniers -- and far-right partisans have gone similarly unreported. Some have speculated that antisemitic activity, which was strictly curbed by Yanukovych's government, could run amok under Yuschenko.

Is there a debate to be had about US and Canadian intervention in the internal affairs of other countries, or Yuschenko's shady political associations? With these facts suppressed, a rational debate is impossible.

While the press provides plenty of arguments to depict Yuschenko as one of the good guys, Ukraine is not the first place that a "democratic revolution" has been enthusiastically embraced by the Canadian and American press, only to go awry after the media spotlight fades. The combined effects of privatization and inequality have had devastating effects throughout the post-Soviet world, but there is little or no criticism--much less awareness--of Yuschenko's advocacy of massive privatization of the Ukrainian economy.

Similar replacements by "democratic" oppositions occurred in Serbia, Georgia, and may soon occur in Romania. In Georgia, the initial enthusiastic press coverage of US- and Soros-backed Mikhail Saakashvili has abated, yet subsequent findings show that the new President has consolidated power, put further constraints on the press, and has used violence on demonstrators--not what most Canadians would call democratic reforms.

However, Saakashvili has fulfilled the European and American requests to privatize the economy, impose fiscal discipline, and "modernize the military and police force". Yet these changes have not been deemed newsworthy. Will the public be informed if Yuschenko follows in Saakashvili's footsteps? To whom does Yuschenko owe more loyalty: his voters, or his foreign investors?

While nominal democracy makes for good public relations, it is never the primary motivation for investing millions of dollars into a political outcome in a foreign country.

While nominal democracy makes for good public relations, it is never the primary motivation for investing millions of dollars into a political outcome in a foreign country. In Haiti, Georgia and Ukraine, the foreign policy of the US (with Canada in tow) is oriented toward increasing US power, spreading "free trade" and privatization as dominant economic policies, gaining valuable trade deals, and minimizing Russia's regional influence. The press supports the official line with startling regularity, while frequently neglecting to report the true motivations fuelling these policies.

In the absence of meaningful and consistent criticism, the media will support the official policy, as it is the journalistic path of least resistance.

Will the press continue to pay such close attention to Ukrainian politics if Yuschenko assumes power? If the precedents of Haiti and Georgia serve as indicators, the answer is no. In any case, serious considerations of the interests of the people of the Ukraine, Georgia, or Haiti have yet to make an appearance in the Canadian media, that's as worthy of concern as any election fraud.

» WSWS: What US-backed "democracy movements" have produced in Serbia and Georgia

» AnarchoGeek: Guess who funded the right wing 'orange revolution' in Ukraine

» Jakarta Post: Dividing the Ukraine, Putin's imperial dream

» Associated Press: U.S. money has helped opposition in Ukraine

Ukrainian politics have been the subject of relentless media attention in recent weeks. Dru Oja Jay wonders what is missing.

Confusion, Distrust in Ukrainian Election

Mon, 22 Nov 2004 05:03:22 +0000

Both sides in the Ukrainian presidential election are claiming victory following poll closures on November 21st. Independent election observers from around the world, including Ontario Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj, state that Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich is believed to be in the lead, though they hasten to add that the Moscow-backed candidate is known to have organized the election to boost his apparent support.

Liberal opponent Viktor Yushchenko, who is widely supported abroad, has stated, "I believe in my victory, but the government ... has staged total fraud in the elections in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions." Numbers released by the central electoral commission show Mr. Yanukovich leading 50% to Mr. Yushchenko's 48%, but exit polling conducted by foreign observers earlier in the day gave Yushchenko a decided lead. Further suspect is the commission's assertion that the Donetsk region, Yanukovich's homeland, enjoyed a 96% voter turnout in comparison with the country's 79% average. Independent observers were barred from monitoring polling stations in the Donetsk region.

The official results will not be known until all votes are counted, a process expected to take up to 15 days. Even once the votes are counted, it will not be known how the suspicions surrounding the electoral process will be resolved as there is no precedent for election recounts in Ukraine.

» Al Jazeera: Ukraine's election candidate cries fraud

» BBC: Ukraine's key election 'rigged'

» Reuters: Cheating alleged in Ukraine poll