Shadow of Anti-Semitism over Ukraine's Disputed Election

Western television viewers and newspaper readers are being fed on a diet of propaganda about the current crisis in Ukraine. The orange flags and uniforms of the opposition fill our screens and decorate the front pages. “People power” and Western-orientated democrats are on the march against evil ex-communist oligarchs. Good is battling against evil for the soul of Ukraine.

Sadly it is not so simple. Western media and governments may have edited out the manifestations of extreme nationalism and anti-Semitism which disfigure the Ukrainian opposition’s rabble-rousing but history will record that in the run up to the disputed presidential elections, key opposition leaders, including Viktor Yushchenko, Julia Timoshenko and Alexander Moroz, defended anti-Semitic publications and accepted the backing of neo-Nazi groups as well as US and EU and so-called “civic society” NGOs. Nor were the anti-Semtic apologetics of the Ukrainian opposition unknown to key OSCE observers and EU parliamentarians who nonetheless ignored the dark shadow across Yushchenko’s campaign preferring instead to abuse his rival.

A key media outlet which has backed Viktor Yushchenko’s long march on the Ukrainian presidency published an extraordinary anti-Semitic rant in 2003 which claimed that 400,000 Jews fought alongside Hitler’s invading army in 1941!

Inserted as an advertising feature, “Jews in Ukraine Today: Reality Without Myths," appeared in Silski visti (Village News). The newspaper was one of the largest in Ukraine with a circulation of around 500,000. It was a prominent backer of Viktor Yushchenko and his Our Ukraine party.

In late 2003, Alexander Shlayen, the head of the Ukrainian Anti-Fascist Committee and a prominent member of the post-Holocaust Jewish community in Ukraine, initiated a prosecution of the newspaper, Silski visti for promoting inter-ethnic discord in the country which was the site of the infamous Babi Yar massacre along with countless other Nazi atrocities against Jews.

On 28th January, 2004, the court ordered the closing of the newspaper but it defied the ruling with the vocal backing of the opposition Our Ukraine party and its allies. In August, 2004, Alexander Shlaven died suddenly and unexpectedly.

In an interview with JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency) , the paper's editor, Vasily Gruzin, defended the newspaper's decision to publish the piece:

"Although we published the Yaremenko article as a paid advertisement and not as a position we ourselves endorsed, I happen to believe the figure of 400,000 Jews taking part in the German invasion of the Ukraine is not far from the truth," he said.
"I personally have nothing against common Jews, but rather against a small group of Jewish oligarchs who control Ukraine both economically and politically. I believe the point of Zionism today is Jewish control of the world, and we see this process at work in Ukraine today."

Shortly after this anti-Semitic diatribe by Yaremenko, Victor Yuschenko – who our media always apostrophises as “the pro-Western presidential candidate” and who enjoys the open support of the Bush administration -- and another prominent opposition leader, energy oligarch Yulia Timoshenko and Alexander Moroz of the Socialist Party issued a statement headed "Hands Off Silski Visti”! [http://www.ncsj.org/AuxPages/092104JTA_Ukraine.shtml]

Mr Moroz has been a prominent figure on the opposition in tribune in Kiev and as recently as 21st September, 2004, he insisted,

“"I have defended Silski Visti and will continue to do so," Moroz said. "I personally think the argument of the author of the article, Vasily Yaremenko, citing 400,000 Jews in the S.S. is incorrect, but I am not in a position to know all the facts." [http://www.ncsj.org/AuxPages/092104JTA_Ukraine.shtml ]

What kind of ally of the West needs to learn more about the Nazis to refute Yaremenko’s claims about a Jewish-Nazi alliance? Yet this is the sort of politician who gets unconditional backing in Washington and Brussels.

One of the so-called “independent” election observers whose denunciation of the Yanukovich camp for fraud has been a central part of the propaganda battle is the British Conservative MEP, Charles Tannock, who has appeared in recent days on opposition platforms egging on the protestors. Before the elections Mr Tannock wrote several articles openly backing Viktor Yushchenko’s candidacy, but Mr Tannock’s best known intervention in Ukrainian politics before the disputed presidential election was his criticism of the courts for banning the anti-Semitic newspaper, Silski visti.

Like Viktor Yushchenko and Julia Timoshenko, MEP Tannock condemned the ban saying in an interview in the Our Ukraine party newspaper on 12th March, 2004: “the closure of the newspaper went a step far too far” according to Mr Tannock’s own web-page. He goes on to admit that as a backer of Our Ukraine “I don’t think it does your party any good to be associated with extreme [emphasis added] anti-Semitic articles”! [http://www.charlestannock.com/pressarticle.asp?ID=360 ]

In western Ukraine in particular (as in Britain and North America) there is an aging cohort of elderly veterans of the Waffen SS’s Galician division. They are anxious to revise their country’s history and re-habilitate their wartime service on behalf of the Third Reich. In Ukraine these old Nazis parade protesting their patriotism and demanding equal rights with Red Army veterans. A younger more aggressive and openly racist and neo-Nazi cohort of historical revisionists has also appeared. They have their “intellectual” spokesmen whose anti-Semitic and white supremacist writings have produced scandal in Kiev not only in Silski visti.

In western Ukrainian towns like Ivano-Frankivsk, the uniformed bully-boys of the UNSO movement, so-called Ukrainian Self-Defence forces, act as enforcers for Our Ukraine in effect. Mr Yushchenko scored well over 90% in western regions like Ivano-Frankivsk – results at least as improbable as any for Mr Yanukevich in the east of the country. How much does Mr Yushchenko’s near unanimous support in western towns depend on the storm troopers of the Ukrainian new right?

It is shocking that any link could exist between such neo-Nazi muscle men and their propagandists and politicians usually presented in the Anglo-American media as the harbingers of Western democracy and universal humanitarian values in Ukraine. Even more bizarre than the defence of the right of an anti-Semite to disseminate his wares by “pro-Western” Ukrainian politicians like Yushchenko, Julia Timoshenko and Aleksandr Moroz is the fact that Mr. Yushchenko’s candidacy for president of Ukraine is openly backed by the famous American billionaire philanthropist, George Soros, himself a survivor of the Holocaust.

Although ten years ago in 1994, Mr. Soros put his influence and money behind Leonid Kuchma, the democracy-promoting philanthropist has since turned against the outgoing Ukrainian President and his preferred successor as candidate for president, Viktor Yanukevich. As far back as 1st March, 2001, the American billionaire had written an editorial page piece in the Financial Times making his support for Yushchenko clear when he demanded , “If Mr Kuchma cares about Ukraine’s survival as an independent democratic state, he must take responsibility for his actions and hand over duties to the prime minister, [i.e. Yushchenko] the constitutionally designated successor, pending the results of the investigation. The West must take a clear position, denouncing Mr Kuchma’s behavior and his actions. There is no way for the international community to continue to do business with Mr Kuchma until an impartial investigation [into the Gongadze murder case] has been completed and those responsible are held to account.”

Mr. Soros’s concern for human rights and due process does him credit, but his tone does not suggest the assumption of innocence! Moreover at precisely the same time in early, 2001, his own local Ukrainian foundation was supporting media which were the antithesis of democratic decency. In Germany, Neue Solidarität’s Roman Bessonov reported from the western Ukrainian city of Lvov on 4th April, 2001, that a Soros-funded “Renaissance” foundation was backing the nationalist monthly, “Derzhanist” ((“Independent Statehood”) commenting “Whoever reads it would conclude that Kiev is the Fourth Rome and that Babi Yar wasn’t where umpteen thousands of Jews were murdered by the Nazi SS but rather where the Chekists murdered Ukrainian patriots.” [See http://www.bueso.de/nrw/Aktuelles/ukraine.htm ]

In Ukraine, in the presidential elections, Soros’s people back Yushchenko but he is also supported by Andrei Shkil’s ultra-nationalist UNSO. Vyacheslav Likhachev of the European-Asian Jewish Congress noted the unsettling links between Mr Soros’s preferred candidate for Ukrainian president, Yuschchenko, and the neo-Nazis there after the 2002 parliamentary elections

“the former leader of the UNA-UNSD Andry Shkil was elected to the parliament in a single-ticket election in the Lviv region, with the support of Our Ukraine, led by Viktor Yuschenko (Victor Yuschenko is a former prime minister and one of the quite probable presidential candidates). At the time elections were held, the leader of the nationalists had been in jail for a year, accused of organizing mass anti-government riots. Having been elected, Andry Shkil was granted immunity to criminal prosecution. Thus, the moderate national-democrats form unions with the radicals.”

[See Vyacheslav Likhachev, “Anti-Semtism in Ukraine” @ http://www.eajc.org/program_art_e.php?id=10 ]

Some idea of Mr Shkil’s pro-Western reform-minded ideas is available on his web-page: ““Inside, an article appeared, entitled “Nationalism in the World: Past, Present, Future,” written by Andriy Shkil’, editor-in-chief of Natsionalist, chairman of the Dontsov Supporters’ Club, and head of the Lviv branch of UNA. Mostly devoted to the New Right, it also mentioned their precursors, including Gobineau, and “his worthy student Walter Darre, who developed the idea of artificial selection [eugenics] to improve the human race.” Mein Kampf and its author (whose name is not given) are praised for “re-examining these ideas on the highest level.” Several of Darre’s ideas are applied to the Ukrainian situation: Christianity’s mistaken view of the equality of human beings, the necessity for the revival of paganism as an essential spiritual feature of the nation and as a precondition for the creation of a new national elite, with eugenics as a means of cleansing and renewing the people.Thus, the UNA values the experience of the European Right, and other radical regardless of their political orientation.”

Belatedly in the run-up to October’s presidential elections, Mr Yuschchenko tried to distance himself from radical nationalists like Shkil _ at least in the English-language version of his web-page. [ See “Yushchenko advises «fascist thugs» to support Yanukovych” 15:25, 2 July 2004 @ http://www.yuschenko.com.ua/eng/present/News/838/] But they were not prepared to denounce him: “It was reported that last Saturday in Kyiv there was a «parade» of the «UNA-UNSO» party that has nothing in common with the «UNA-UNSO» organization headed by Andriy Shkil, YTB member. During this meeting Kovalenko’s «UNA-UNSO» declared the support of Yushchenko with the fascist signs, «SSS» symbols and gestures in Hitlerite manner.”! [See http://www.una-unso.org/av/mainview.asp?TT_id=17&TX_id=402 ]

With friends like these Mr Yushchenko may feel he has all the People Power he needs to seize the presidency, but should OSCE observers, European parliamentarians, Colin Powell and George W. Bush be undiluted in endorsing a candidate with backing from neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers? What kind of West is being created if the Euro-Atlantic elite openly endorses a president of Ukraine whose domestic supporters at senior levels as well as at street level don’t know who invaded the country in 1941 and defend publications which say Jews were the culprits?

Ukraine's Jews split in vote

Kiev

Ukrainian Jews mirrored the rest of the country in this week's presidential elections – both in how they voted and in their strong reactions to the controversial results.

Many Jews, pleased with the status quo, supported Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, who was backed by the government in Sunday's runoff vote.

"I voted for stability in Ukrainian society," said Pyotr Rashkovsky, head of the Association of Jewish Communities of Small Towns of Ukraine, which unites Jewish groups in a dozen former shtetls in the central part of the country. "I know that most Jews in my region also supported Yanukovich."

But others echoed the sentiments of the estimated 100,000 to 200,000 Ukrainian voters who took to the streets of Kiev on Monday after Yanukovich was declared the winner over the liberal opposition candidate, Viktor Yuschenko.

"After the total falsification of the results of the presidential elections, the people demand to announce Yuschenko the next president," said Eduard Gurvitz, a Jewish member of Parliament and former mayor of Odessa who supported Yuschenko.

The choice of the new president may prove crucial for Western and Russian strategic interests in Eastern Europe.

According to the Central Elections Commission, Yanukovich won about 49.4 percent of the vote and Yuschenko received 46.7 percent. In the first round of voting on October 31, Yuschenko led Yanukovich by less than 1 percentage point, according to the official results.

Many Jews are believed to have voted for Yuschenko and generally followed the nationwide pattern, with the younger, urban and better-educated voters favoring the opposition.

But with no valid data in existence, some observers believe probably as many, if not the majority, of Jews still backed Yanukovich – partly because they feared the rising Ukrainian nationalist sentiment.

Many Jews were afraid of speaking openly about their choice even after casting their vote, as were many Ukrainians. Up to 40 percent of respondents refused to talk to those conducting exit polls, local media reported.

"People are afraid of the authorities," one Jewish voter in Kiev said. "And many Jews may have found themselves even in a more difficult situation knowing that many wealthy Jews sponsoring Jewish community programs support the authorities and particularly Yanukovich."

Indeed, some of the leading domestic sponsors of Jewish life in the region backed Yanukovich, reflecting the fact that many Jewish big business owners have played a prominent role in Ukraine's economy during the current regime.

For many of Ukraine's Jews, estimated at between 250,000 and 500,000, the election was a difficult choice between the liberal Yuschenko, who in the past has allied himself with politicians openly expressing anti-Semitic views, and Yanukovich, who has displayed authoritarian traits but has promised stability, which appeals to Jews in a region where instability has historically led to anti-Semitism.

Some Jews said they believed Yanukovich would be better at fighting anti-Semitism and xenophobia – partly because of his past statements on Jews and Israel, and partly because of Yuschenko's mixed record on Jewish issues.

"I'm sure that Yanukovich is able to prevent" radical nationalism from developing in Ukraine, said Aleksandr Naiman, a leader of the Ukrainian Anti-Defamation League, a group not related to ADL.

At the end of September, Yanukovich visited Israel. He met with President Moshe Katsav and members of the Ukrainian community to discuss the issues of dual citizenship and payment of pensions to Jewish pensioners from Ukraine now living in Israel.

Only 3,106 out of nearly 40,000 eligible Ukrainian voters in Israel cast their ballots.

"Western television viewers and newspaper readers are being fed on a diet of propaganda about the current crisis in Ukraine. The orange flags and uniforms of the opposition fill our screens and decorate the front pages. “People power” and Western-orientated democrats are on the march against evil ex-communist oligarchs. Good is battling against evil for the soul of Ukraine.

Sadly it is not so simple. "

Thanks for the ping.

That is exactly the point, that things aren't so simple, in fact are very complex, and the media is not giving us all the information.

They want Yushchenko elected, just as much as they wanted Kerry elected. That should make people stop and think.

The media is also letting people believe that virtually all Ukrainians are supporting the opposition, and Yanukovich is forced on them. I only saw a couple of articles which mentioned that there actually have been years of strife between the Eastern and Western half of Ukraine, where Yanukovich is supported mostly in the East, and Yushchenko by the Western half.

"Borys says simply that it is "not clear what Yushchenko might bring to the country" and adds that the economy has been doing well under the current prime minister's stewardship.

"It is insulting for me that they consider me to be a silly animal. I wholeheartedly support Viktor Fiodorovych Yanukovych. To begin with, I know him. He is very decent, good, powerful -- a man with strong will power. I feel insulted when they say that nobody voted for him. I am from Kyiv. I voted for him, my family did, my children did, grandchildren did, and my mother did. Why they are insulting me?" Svitlana says.

"Me, as a human being, as a woman feel that Yushchenko is not a leader. And Yanukovych is the leader of our country," Svitlana says. "

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1288359/posts

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