Protesters in Ukraine remind us of the priceless benefits of being EU members

[steveboy]

Maybe everyone I know and Im speaking about a fair few locals in Ukraine and Transnistria is stupid or something?? But they are all saying she stole just as much money as the ousted president?? Can someone please enlighten me?

[steveboy]

Thinking about it, many Russians still have a very high regard for Stalin , he was white as white to many! And many would love to see him back in power. Of course that is if they had the technology to dig him up and bring him back to life:)

[cc3]

?? As I stated there is a weekly bus from Transnistria (Thats a republic within Moldova save you looking on the Atlas). That travels through Ukraine via kiev then Belarus (Thats near Russia) then on to St petersburg, where you correctly pointed out is in Russia:)

Transnistria is a throwback, wannabe 'Soviet republic', strictly existing in some foggy retro Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist permanent dream. It is far more depraved than Belarus.

You took a bus all the way to St. Petersburg? ...hard to believe.

[steveboy]

You was in Transnistria? I have taken the bus several times! Its a 35 hour trip:) thats with my other half and two kids. Its easier than flying because often I'm moving several computers and a fair amount of stuff. I  can pay the Bus driver $20.00 to put all my cargo in his sleeping area:)) and at just $30 a ticket its an experience not to be missed:)

[cc3]

Its Ukraine! Nothing will change, corruption and theft is a way of life unfortunately.

If anybody doesn't agree, see you in another decade to talk about it:)

Same as Russia...corruption and theft a way of life. Except the Ukrainian people are trying to do something about it. The Russian people are too subjugated by their neo-Soviet rulers to effect any change to the thugocracy under which they must live.

[steveboy]

Who told you this?? I always thought it was the other way round:)

[jone]

CC3, I have seen a great deal of progress in the years I have traveled to Russia.  It is wrong to think that the standard of living there is what it was back in the mid nineties.

Industry and businesses are beginning to operate approaching Western standards for the first time in history outside of the Federal cities.  I attribute much of this to Putin.  When Medvedev was President, he took an active anti-corruption perspective that he has now entrenched, as well, in the Duma.  And many of the Governors of the Oblasts are very anti-corruption centered.

I believe it will take a generation to change the old model.  But as a middle class continues to evolve, I think there will be less and less. 

Unfortunately, Ukraine does not have such a luxury.  The country has no petro-dollar fund or huge Siberian natural resources.   Living for table scraps that Russia may throw towards the people 'on the edge' is no way for a proud nationalistic people to endure.  By attempting, once more, to establish their nationalism, the Ukrainians may finally be able to shake the corruption that has been the hallmark of post-soviet business and government in this wonderful but poor country.

Slava Ukraini!

[steveboy]

CC3, I have seen a great deal of progress in the years I have traveled to Russia.  It is wrong to think that the standard of living there is what it was back in the mid nineties.

Industry and businesses are beginning to operate approaching Western standards for the first time in history outside of the Federal cities.  I attribute much of this to Putin.  When Medvedev was President, he took an active anti-corruption perspective that he has now entrenched, as well, in the Duma.  And many of the Governors of the Oblasts are very anti-corruption centered.

I believe it will take a generation to change the old model.  But as a middle class continues to evolve, I think there will be less and less. 

Unfortunately, Ukraine does not have such a luxury.  The country has no petro-dollar fund or huge Siberian natural resources.   Living for table scraps that Russia may throw towards the people 'on the edge' is no way for a proud nationalistic people to endure.  By attempting, once more, to establish their nationalism, the Ukrainians may finally be able to shake the corruption that has been the hallmark of post-soviet business and government in this wonderful but poor country.

Slava Ukraini!

Fully agree:)

[cc3]

CC3, I have seen a great deal of progress in the years I have traveled to Russia.  It is wrong to think that the standard of living there is what it was back in the mid nineties.

Industry and businesses are beginning to operate approaching Western standards for the first time in history outside of the Federal cities.  I attribute much of this to Putin.  When Medvedev was President, he took an active anti-corruption perspective that he has now entrenched, as well, in the Duma.  And many of the Governors of the Oblasts are very anti-corruption centered.

I believe it will take a generation to change the old model.  But as a middle class continues to evolve, I think there will be less and less. 

Unfortunately, Ukraine does not have such a luxury.  The country has no petro-dollar fund or huge Siberian natural resources.   Living for table scraps that Russia may throw towards the people 'on the edge' is no way for a proud nationalistic people to endure.  By attempting, once more, to establish their nationalism, the Ukrainians may finally be able to shake the corruption that has been the hallmark of post-soviet business and government in this wonderful but poor country.

Slava Ukraini!

Ultimately, you can't eat oil. I think, in the long run, Ukraine's brain power and agricultural potential will triumph over raw materials harvesting with antiquated, inefficient technology.

[Voyager36]

Ultimately, you can't eat oil. I think, in the long run, Ukraine's brain power and agricultural potential will triumph over raw materials harvesting with antiquated, inefficient technology.

Or perhaps instead Ukraine will split apart. 

[Voyager36]

Maybe everyone I know and Im speaking about a fair few locals in Ukraine and Transnistria is stupid or something?? But they are all saying she stole just as much money as the ousted president?? Can someone please enlighten me?

No she didn't steal as much money as the ousted president... Probably far, far more. 
Western media usually have a casual dismissal of her prosecution as "political" - if they even mention it at all. She's described as his "rival", instead of a former PM convicted of fraud & graft.
I'd like to see a proper analysis of the actual case against her, since many Ukrainians consider her to be crooked.

[jone]

Back in the early 90's Yulia Tymoshenko was running a Video Cassette Repair Store.  She had little to no money.  She became involved in a scheme to get gas to agricultural entities which began her rise to power.  This was around '96.  When the pipeline came through Ukraine, she was able to control a piece of the action, raising her wealth to become one of the 10 most wealthy women in the world.  By the time she started running for office, she had wealth beyond imagination.

Her whole image is crafted.  From the peasant braids she wears to the need for a wheel chair in the speech she gave tonight, you will find image crafting better than the best Madison avenue advertising executives could produce.

It is the hope of everyone that the time she spent incarcerated she learned that true nobility comes from honoring ethical standards and not raping the people.  But as to her former activities, there is no issue that she has dipped her bucket, repeatedly, into the treasure stores of Ukraine's limited wealth.

[steveboy]

The same story I hear from my other half, she seemed to do some good things when she was in power BUT then decided she should be rewarded , so decided to help herself. Usual story! So I doubt if much will change on the theft side of things.
Im watching the local news now showing all the ousted presidents house and possessions , to which my other half  said, "She stole a lot more than him" "She's just a prostitute "

Same story from several of her Ukrainian friends. Replace one crook with another.

[cc3]

Or perhaps instead Ukraine will split apart. 

Perhaps. I definitely have to begin my Ukrainian lessons from my fiancee, and start researching residential possibilities in Lviv.

[JohnDearGreen]

"Yulia Tymoshenko thanks for the compliments and requests not to consider her candidacy for prime minister."

http://batkivshchyna.com.ua/
http://www.tymoshenko.ua/uk/article/yulia_tymoshenko_23_02_2014_08

[cc3]

Excellent concluding statements from linked article:

"But Russia’s ultimate problem is the same as Yanukovych faced. The Kremlin simply can’t understand that protesters would be motivated by ideology rather than by money or foreign support. The Russians were good at manipulating the old system, but dealing with real revolutionaries is a different matter. Ukraine is starting a very bumpy ride."

Article:

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/why-a-new-ukraine-is-the-kremlins-worst-nightmare-9146751.html

[steveboy]

Do you think the Russian people want a revolution as well??

[cc3]

No. I think they want CCCP 2.0 (communist party modified capitalism...a la China).

[steveboy]

Yes I think thats about it, but with less communism. And what is wrong with that?? The Russian middle class is rising very fast:)
A revolution in Russia is out of the question!

[cc3]

Yes I think thats about it, but with less communism. And what is wrong with that?? The Russian middle class is rising very fast:)
A revolution in Russia is out of the question!

Agree.

[Faux Pas]

Yes I think thats about it, but with less communism. And what is wrong with that?? The Russian middle class is rising very fast:)
A revolution in Russia is out of the question!

Maybe you just ain't paying enough attention 

[JohnDearGreen]

A small demonstration in St P today:


St. Petersburg police arrested three people on Little Konushenny bridge near the temple "of the Savior on Spilled Blood."
According to ITAR-TASS , activists set fire to a barricade of car tires - such a large scale only burn on the Maidan.
Thus they supported the protesters in Kiev.
"Arrested three, two young men and a girl, they are delivered to the department, is investigating" - reported to the police.
According to the group "for detainees in St. Petersburg", among the three brought to the police department 78 protesters is artist Peter Pavlensky in protest "nailed his testicles to the cobblestones on Red Square."

[I/O]

among the three brought to the police department 78 protesters is artist Peter Pavlensky in protest "nailed his testicles to the cobblestones on Red Square."

If he keeps this sch!t up, they'll be nailed to a tree, about 3'6" above his head.

[JayH]

Yulia Tymoshenko's trial was a travesty of justice
Having suffered unfairly under Ukraine's corrupt justice system, the former prime minister must now reform it


http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/23/ukraine-yulia-tymoshenko-travesty-justice-trail


Geoffrey Robertson
The Guardian, Monday 24 February 2014 06.30 AEST
The former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko
The former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko addresses protesters in Kiev. Photograph: News Pictures/Rex
Yulia Tymoshenko's miraculous release at the weekend was from a seven-year prison sentence imposed for a non-existent crime. The former Ukrainian prime minister had done nothing wrong: the police, prosecutors and jurists who fabricated her offence were subservient to a state that wanted her eliminated. Whether or not Tymoshenko becomes president of her embattled country, Europe needs to find a way to deal with officials who are complicit in human rights abuses.

Tymoshenko was accused of abuse of office, because she made a deal with Vladimir Putin when he stopped gas supplies to Ukraine in the winter of 2009. This threatened a humanitarian disaster unless Ukraine agreed to pay a higher price for Russian gas. Under pressure from the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the European commission president, José Manuel Barroso, and with her people dying from hypothermia, Tymoshenko gave in to Putin's demands. Some criticised her for not holding out for longer, and she narrowly lost the presidential election a few months later to Viktor Yanukovych.

Yanukovych appointed his crony Viktor Pshonka as prosecutor general, who set his deputy, Renat Kuzmin, to destroy Tymoshenko. This was easy in a former Soviet state that had embraced democracy but had not reformed the justice system, in which all-powerful prosecutors control the judges. Ukraine has "P-plate judges" provisionally appointed for five years with tenure confirmed only if their decisions have not upset the regime. This system has produced a conviction rate in Ukraine courts of 99.8% – an impossible statistic for any democratic country.

To convict at Tymoshenko's trial, the judge brutally refused her bail and did nothing to discourage televised proclamations of her guilt by Yanukovych and his top prosecutors. But even this judge could not invent evidence – because there was none – that she had acted in the gas deal for personal gain, or with any trace of fraud or dishonesty.

Her actions, taken to avoid a humanitarian disaster, cannot rationally be regarded as a crime. But for making what her enemies called a "bad deal", she was jailed.

This travesty of justice was accompanied by similarly rigged prosecutions of her ministers. The Council of Europe turned a blind eye to the outrages. The European court of human rights upheld Tymoshenko's initial complaints, but its slow processes and indulgence of the Ukraine government's delaying tactics prevented it from giving her any meaningful relief.

This failure underlines the need for EU member states to adopt a "Magnitsky Law", which names and shames officials– especially judges, prosecutors and police chiefs – who are complicit in abuses. Sergei Magnitsky blew the whistle on state corruption in Russia and was killed in prison: the US, to Putin's fury, last year adopted a law that denied entry and banking services to 16 of his tormentors, including judges who had denied him bail.

London has become a favourite destination of violent and corrupt officials and oligarchs. But when five former secretaries of state for foreign affairs called last year on the minister for Europe, David Lidington, to support a Magnitsky law, his ignorant response was that it was "unlikely to contribute to achieving justice". Tell that to Tymoshenko.

Her vicious prosecutor, Pshonka, was the first to be indicted by Ukraine's parliament on Sunday, followed by the defence minister accused of ordering the shooting of protesters. There will likely be more charges against Yanukovych and his cronies if the opposition triumphs in the May elections. Can they be fairly tried in Ukraine, before their own judicial tools?

The greatest challenge to any new government will be to establish an independent judiciary. It may be better for it to invite European (including Russian) judges to sit on the trials of Yanukovych's corrupt apparatchiks, and to ask the international criminal court to try those accused of ordering the lethal force used against peaceful protesters – a crime against humanity.

Tymoshenko, whatever her faults in failing to capitalise on the Orange revolution, is a remarkable and courageous figure. After 30 months in prison for a crime that was not a crime, her greatest challenge will be to reform the justice system so this cannot happen again – even to those who put her behind bars.

• Geoffrey Robertson QC advised Yulia Tymoshenko in her European court cases

[JayH]

Protesters in Ukraine remind us of the priceless benefits of being EU members
Demonstrators in Kiev are fighting for the things European Union countries take for granted – freedom, democracy and peace


Chris Huhne
The Guardian, Monday 24 February 2014 04.59 AEST

'What was once achieved only by Habsburg or Ottoman repression is now achieved by EU‑led consent.' Illustration: Andrzej Krauze
It is humbling to see protesters in Kiev's Independence Square prepared to lay down their lives for freedoms we take for granted. At its simplest, the Ukraine tragedy is a fight for democratic rights at the frontier of autocracy. It is like Beijing's Tiananmen massacre or Caracas's Altamira Square. In the sound of their gunfire, there is the echo of so many through history who fought against oppression: "Freedom or death!"

But Ukraine is also different because it is suffering the rival magnetic pulls of Russia and the European Union. For Russia, the dynastic suzerain of much of Ukraine since 1686, Ukrainian independence is seen as a historic humiliation. Some 17% of the population – thanks to Stalin's gift of the Crimea – are Russian speakers who look to Moscow.

For most Ukrainians, though, the deal with the EU, so peremptorily ditched by President Yanukovych for $15bn of Russian aid, is symbolic of national independence and democratic freedom. From the Orange revolution to today's protests, Ukrainian nationalism sees the EU as its defence.

This is the EU's soft power at work, as it has been in every other central and eastern European state in transition from communism. From Poland through the Baltic states and now to Croatia, EU membership has been the rite of passage that certifies the dark days are over.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was the defining political event of a generation. Twenty eight members of the EU – and rising – says this is a club people still want to join. Even the euro-area, despite its well-advertised problems, continues to attract new members: now up to 18 with last year's Latvian accession.

In any other part of the world, some countries as poor as those in central and eastern Europe would have succumbed to Putinism or worse. At best, they might have the appearance of democracy but not its reality of peaceful change of government. But EU membership has thrown a blanket of democratic stability, personal rights and the rule of law over what had been a region notorious for their absence.

Historically, Europe was as prone to the military "men on horseback" as Latin America or Asia. Whether Marshal Pilsudski in Poland or Admiral Horthy in Hungary, there was scant democratic tradition. Poland was poorer than Argentina or Mexico when it signed its Europe agreement in 1994, but is now richer than either and is a vibrant democracy and a leading member of the European family.

That is testament to the example and power of the EU. In an earlier EU enlargement, the same effect was seen in Spain, Portugal and Greece, all dictatorships within living memory. In the aftermath of Franco's death, Spanish generals were invited to Brussels for lessons from their Nato colleagues in how they had to take instruction from elected politicians.

Of course, this marvel did not always work. The former Yugoslavia is a warning of what can happen with excessive EU caution, disunity and lack of generosity. The old ethnic tensions were aggravated by the early recognition by Germany of Slovenia and Croatia as successor states. But when the EU tries, it has proved to be a remarkable douser of old-time nationalist populism.

Vladimir Meciar, the Slovak prime minister who forced the secession of his state from Czechoslovakia, had to put up with a barrage of EU criticism about his attempts to remove the civil rights of the 450,000 Hungarian-speaking population. Slovakia's EU membership would have been blocked had he won the 2002 election, and it is hard to imagine an elected Hungarian government withstanding the pressure to intervene to protect the Hungarian minority in its neighbour. We could have had another Bosnia.

On a continent where the patchwork of language, ethnic and religious groups defied the best attempts to draw rational boundaries in 1919, a fact too easily forgotten by the sea-defined English, the guarantees of both the EU and the European convention on human rights are the only modern and democratic means of drawing the bile from populist resentments. What was once achieved only by Habsburg or Ottoman repression is now achieved by EU-led consent.

The EU is essential for member states who want to project their influence on a global stage, whether in trade talks or climate change. It has its unfinished business, not least internally now with the euro. But it has also proved a miraculous pacifier of a continent traditionally riven by conflict: not just between Germany and France, but across so many smaller linguistic, ethnic and religious divisions.

England and then Britain was involved in every major continental conflict from Tudor times, defending our trading interests and attempting to avoid continental domination by a single power that could close our markets. Generation after generation, we spent blood and treasure. The EU offers the first convincing evidence that the cycle of death and loss has ended.

When we cast our votes in May's European elections, and when we attempt to put a price on every cost and benefit of the EU like the nation of shopkeepers Napoleon once derisively called us, spare a small thought for the EU's advantages that are priceless. The protesters of Kiev are proving that they still matter.



http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/23/protesters-ukraine-priceless-benefits-european-union