Posted on 06/11/2014 9:55:41 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
The man who convened the meeting that buried the Soviet Union in 1991 has warned that it is being restored in his native Belarus and across the post-Soviet space.
Stanislav Shushkevich – the politician who hosted the 1991 summit at which Belarus, Ukraine and Russia signed the USSR into obsolescence and paved the way for independence – said a mixture of despotic leaders, KGB-revivalism and Putin’s Ukraine interference all remind him of the worst of the Soviet Union.
“What we see now is the restoration of Soviet order, in Belarus most of all,” Shushkevich said in his study in the modest central Minsk apartment.
“Look what happened in Ukraine. It was just the same as in Soviet times in 1990 when they tried to restore control over the Baltic republics with special services. It’s all a play by Russian special services. And in Belarus it’s just like Soviet order,collective farms, it all works like a Soviet regime.”
Shushkevich ran against Alexander Lukashenko in the 1994 elections in Belarus. He says that although that vote was widely regarded as free and fair, everything since has been a sham.
“Lukashenko’s first win was honest,” he says. “He was a populist and he won properly. But 1994 was the first and last proper election. Everything since has been nothing more than an operation by special services."
The 79-year-old former physics professor still nominally heads up a political movement, but he concedes that it’s pointless. “Because we have a law that doesn’t permit parties to function normally. Now it’s the KGB who control the electoral process. There are no elections, just a re-appointment.”
Belarus is not alone in finding that Soviet habits die hard. The five central Asian republics have made scant progress towards democratic reform in the two decades since independence.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
The Russian people have been accustomed to living under the heel of one despotic psychopath or another for centuries.Events of the last 20 years have shown...or at least strongly suggested...that the Russian people are truly an irredeemable “race”.
And we have a president who thinks that is cool.
Now, years later, things are somewhat better, but in regard to lifestyle, a poor Frenchman or Italian, living in the unfashionable part of Marseilles or Naples, and let's face it, our welfare poor, have it all over these ex-Soviets.
Now they know it! Hard to take. They'll follow anyone who throws'em a bone. When do they get another pair of shoes? A car? Cable TV?
If the Ukrainians didn’t overthrow their government (with our help) Russia wouldn’t have had an excuse to get involved. Instead we’re headed back towards a Cold War. Thanks alot McCain.
Check out this reply. *facepalm*
Same to you pal!
They simply have difficulty addressing any subject matter regarding Ukraine and Russia....rather like progressives they can’t engage in serious conversation. Instead,.... they attempt to distort anything said in an attempt to diminish who they see as their “enemy”.... If they are successful, they never have to actually address the real issue ......for which they have no real answers.
Best just to ignore them...they are like 3rd graders in a school yard.
I watched a video of US Reps attempting to "teach" and explain governance and changes to staff members in the Kiev Gov. You could tell they were talking over their heads and or they resented they were being told.... they really don't want Americans to tell them what to do with their governance....even if they recognize they need help. And this is at the Government staff level
I also noted there are about 26 Switzerland companies wanting to invest in Ukraine...but for the violent nature of the citizens coupled with their dependent nature. So there are those willing to come in and help other than the US.
“Replace the screw you and the horse you rope”
Translator FAIL
lol
Whatever. :)
He says...
...” the best hope for democracy is the large numbers of young people who go abroad to study and come back with different ideas of how a political system can be developed. “If we have young, politically ‘literate people’ coming through, that is the way to democratise.”
I agree with him...too many citizens don’t understand how ‘democracy’ works...in their minds if your side wins that it....done deal. So to them it’s their way or the highway.
It takes time to move generations who still hold to the cold war mentality as well.....however you certainly can’t say the USA is any better for how Obama is running the show now here. HE sees it that way too.
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