Posted on 11/24/2004 9:34:43 PM PST by FairOpinion
KYIV, Mar. 2 (Ukrainian News) - Major international financier George Soros in a letter published by the Financial Times on Friday called on President Leonid Kuchma to step aside pending the outcome of an official investigation into the murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze.
State prosecutors ruled Gongadze’s death a murder this week after DNA tests showed a 99.9 percent probability that a headless body found in the outskirts of Kyiv last November belonged to the journalist.
The letter from Soros is the latest in high-profile appeals that Ukraine clean up its act with respect to democracy, the rule of law and press freedom.
U.S. President George W. Bush on Friday also sent a sharply-worded verbal message to Ukraine, delivered by United States ambassador to Ukraine Carlos Pasqual.
In the message, the U.S. warns Ukraine that the financial aid that the U.S. has been doling out to the economically-strained ex-Soviet state since it gained independence was at risk due to repressive measures by Ukrainian authorities against democratic processes.
In his letter, entitled "Step Aside, Mr. Kuchma," Soros calls on Kuchma to hand over his duties to Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko while the investigation into Gongadze’s murder goes forward.
"If Mr. Kuchma cares about Ukraine's survival as an independent democratic state, he must take responsibility for his actions and hand over his duties to the Prime Minister ... pending the results of the investigation," Soros said in the letter.
According to Soros, an objective investigation into Gongadze’s murder and other crimes that Kuchma has been accused of was not realistic unless Kuchma stepped aside and allowed the investigation to go forward.
Audio recordings made secretly in Kuchma’s office appear to implicate the president in engineering Gongadze’s disappearance, in addition to other alleged criminal acts.
Soros also said that Kuchma's recent letter to the Financial Times showed that Kuchma "takes any opportunity to lash out at his opponents."
"If Mr. Kuchma remains recalcitrant, continues to harass political opponents and the media and drags his feet on the investigation, he risks relegating Ukraine to the same fate as neighboring Belarus..." Soros said.
In his letter Soros recalled his last meeting with Kuchma. Soros said he was "taken aback by the president's scathing, virulent remarks about Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine's prime minister, and Yulia Tymoshenko, the former deputy prime minister."
"And later I found myself in the uncomfortable position of urging Mr. Yushchenko to accommodate the president," Soros wrote.
George Soros heads the Open Society Institute, which has held several philanthropic programs in Ukraine in the past few years.
Soros also pointed out in the letter that he had been deeply involved in Ukraine by trying to help it make the transition from a closed to an open society by creating the Ukrainian Renaissance Foundation and giving Ukraine more than $100 million in support.
Read the full text of Soros’s letter published by the Financial Times at http://navigation.helper.realnames.com/framer/1/1/default.asp?realname=Financial+Times&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eft%2Ecom&frameid=1&providerid=1&uid=30013336
Soros increased the rate of gay sodomy in the Ukraine, I take it? Color me skeptical.
You are so correct about Soros trying to destroy Ukraine.
AIDS is worse in Putin's Russia.
Understand?
The presence of Russian troops on the ground is a pretty clear indicator of who it is that is trying to steal the election.
If Yushchenko was the one stuffing the ballot boxes, Kuchma should be able to call up Uk troops and police to suppress the rebellion.
The fact that he is mobilizing Russian troops rather than his own suggests that he can't be sure his own forces would remain loyal, or even neutral. That suggests that real support in Ukraine is with Yushchenko.
Elections are always about choosing between flawed alternatives. When Putin is the lesser of evils, I am happy to support Putin. I have frequently and readily supported him in some arguments, but this is not one of those. Russian troops have no good reason to be in Ukraine. They are there to protect Kuchma and Yanukovich from the Ukrainians because Ukrainian troops won't.
How is the collectivist impulse encourgaged by reducing the population? If I wanted to go to this rather insane and unverified paradigm, I would have thought the opposite.
Soros IMHO.
But the guy is hairless - a total turnoff.
It's called control.
why is it that you keep repeating this BS??
it is NOT about exit polls, it is about calculated fraud. every country in the free world is challengin the results. stop spouting your pro-communist crap.
But you have failed in your musings to explain just why Soros would want to free the planet from homo sapien rug rats
This is just like, when Gore, instead of conceding the election, put the country through recounts after recounts.
Wrong. I'm hearing all sorts of other screams (multiple voting, fraudulent results, destruction of legitimate results, violence, intimidation, etc. etc. etc.)
At what point does someone become an idiot for insisting that Soros must be wrong about everything?
Conservative are supposed to stand for something, not against someone.
If Canada, Colin Powell, the rest of the Bush Administration, Vaclav Havel, the EU, and the Pope all agree on something, (in other words, all Western moderates left and right from the top half of the earth) I'm liable to give it the benefit of the doubt. If Soros stands next to the Pope, does that mean we should stand with Lucifer and Putin?
this is nothing like gore. i have asked you several times....why do you ignore that everybody but kuchma refuse to acknowledge the validity of the election? why cant you answer that simple question?
INTERNATIONAL OBSERVERS FROM THE UKRAINE CITE EXAMPLES OF VOTING FRAUD - IN THE UNITED STATES
http://www.moderateindependent.com/v2i22jthoreau.htm
A delegation of international election observers from the Ukraine harshly criticized the recent U.S. electoral process, with one saying, "It reminds me of the worst examples of suppression and dirty tricks under the former Soviet regimes."
Soros is a parent of the culture of death which the Pope so frequently mentions. I doubt they would stand together on anything.
THANK YOU! why are these simple facts ignore by so many on these boards?
Oops -- that was a parody.
But the principle remains, the same people also claim fraud in the US elections.
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