DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / February 24, 2014
It has become clear that a US-sponsored coup d’état has transpired in Ukraine. The legally elected government and president faced mobs in the streets of Kiev that began at what we may call a plaza called the Maidan. It looked like the “Occupy Wall Street” attempts in New York and parts of the US in 2011.
But there was one major difference: Whereas the “Occupy” protesters remained passive in the face of violent police dispersals, keeping their peaceful conduct despite the tearing down of their tents, or seeing war veteran-participants being knocked unconscious and left bleeding and the gratuitous spraying of tear gas straight into the faces of already subdued and handcuffed female protesters, Kiev saw the reverse.
In the Ukrainian capital, helmeted, masked mobsters wielding long iron rods chased and mauled police, or shot the latter with telescoped rifles, and threw Molotov cocktails that burned down government buildings. Yet the police were allowed to carry firearms only after suffering seven deaths from bullets and other violence.
The US and EU never condemned these protesters’ violence, led by US-paid rightwing thugs, which numbered, by all the different estimates we read, 2,000.
A “peace deal” including new elections, was subsequently signed to stem the bloodshed. But before the ink could dry, President Viktor Yanukovych (refusing to resign, reminiscent of Erap) had to flee to a southern city to maintain government.
Last Feb. 7, international media and the Internet released news and a leaked video of Assistant US Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, in a private conversation with US diplomatic staff, saying, “F….k the EU.”
That’s because the EU, represented by the interests of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, wanted to install a different president contrary to the wishes of the US, which had wanted a former boxer tuned leader of the pro-West opposition in Ukraine to be installed in the coup that Nuland said the US had invested “$5 billion” in already.
It now seems that the US would settle for nothing less; and no “peace deal” to save the democratic process in Ukraine could stop it. Thus, President Yanukovych is in the city of Kharkov to maintain his government.
The present trouble started when Yanukovych signed an economic pact with Russia that would help Ukraine come out of its deep recession, with a $15-billion financial package and a long-term guarantee of cheap fuel prices. The EU, which engaged in a tug-of-war of sorts with Russia over Ukraine, could offer no economic aid at all, as we have seen for struggling EU members Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Italy et al.
The US, on the other hand, instead of investing in Ukraine’s economy, chose to invest in the coup.
The demographics of Ukraine is a major factor in the continuing troubles of the land. While ethnic Ukrainians dominate Western Ukraine, the South has many ethnic Russians who gave Yanukovych his electoral victory. Conversely, there is also a huge Ukrainian population in Russia.
“So what about the Ukrainian people?” the Saker wrote in Asia Times, “The EU needs them as slaves (market and cheap labor), the US needs them as pawns (in geopolitical game), and the only party which needs them prosperous is Russia. That is simply a fact of geo-strategy. If the Ukrainians are too stupid and too blinded by their rabid nationalism to understand that, then let them pay the price for their folly. If they are smart enough to realize it, then let them find the courage to act on it and make it possible for Russia to help them.”
But then, without real democratic elections being respected, the judgment of the Ukrainian people will never be known and only the US gets to “f….k ‘em all.”
What do events at the Maidan (Independence Square) have to do with Edsa? Maidan today is what Edsa was at Edsa I, the place where a US-led coup that was hatched as a conspiracy with local oligarchs fronted by mobs forced out the relatively independent Ferdinand Marcos for a completely pliant Cory Aquino.
After Edsa I, the Philippine economy was de-industrialized and its manufacturing and agro-industries withered. Not long after, poverty and unemployment exploded as national assets in electricity, water and infrastructure, along with all their revenues, were privatized, and as the commercialization of education and the expansion of the country’s debt and taxes commenced.
With the social order now imploding, it is clear that Edsa I has failed in all its promises. What we instead have are the electronic “dagdag-bawas” of our election body, as well as a national enslavement to debt and total import dependency that impoverish our people, which make the Philippines nothing but a US geopolitical toady.
Twenty-eight years later, with the US-led Edsa I coup now totally discredited, as seen in the crowds at the Edsa Shrine celebrations dwindling to just hundreds, tomorrow’s celebrations at the ground of Malacañang are precisely so in order to hide that fact.
Ukraine, after this latest coup, will miss the chance of having a balanced economy, benefiting from both Russia and EU, and will be downgraded to a mere market for the latter and a geopolitical tool of the US.
Some years from now, celebrations at the Maidan may look a lot like the pathetic celebrations of Edsa today.
(Watch GNN’s Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m.; tune in to “Sulo ng Pilipino” on 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)
It has become clear that a US-sponsored coup d’état has transpired in Ukraine. The legally elected government and president faced mobs in the streets of Kiev that began at what we may call a plaza called the Maidan. It looked like the “Occupy Wall Street” attempts in New York and parts of the US in 2011.
But there was one major difference: Whereas the “Occupy” protesters remained passive in the face of violent police dispersals, keeping their peaceful conduct despite the tearing down of their tents, or seeing war veteran-participants being knocked unconscious and left bleeding and the gratuitous spraying of tear gas straight into the faces of already subdued and handcuffed female protesters, Kiev saw the reverse.
In the Ukrainian capital, helmeted, masked mobsters wielding long iron rods chased and mauled police, or shot the latter with telescoped rifles, and threw Molotov cocktails that burned down government buildings. Yet the police were allowed to carry firearms only after suffering seven deaths from bullets and other violence.
The US and EU never condemned these protesters’ violence, led by US-paid rightwing thugs, which numbered, by all the different estimates we read, 2,000.
A “peace deal” including new elections, was subsequently signed to stem the bloodshed. But before the ink could dry, President Viktor Yanukovych (refusing to resign, reminiscent of Erap) had to flee to a southern city to maintain government.
Last Feb. 7, international media and the Internet released news and a leaked video of Assistant US Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, in a private conversation with US diplomatic staff, saying, “F….k the EU.”
That’s because the EU, represented by the interests of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, wanted to install a different president contrary to the wishes of the US, which had wanted a former boxer tuned leader of the pro-West opposition in Ukraine to be installed in the coup that Nuland said the US had invested “$5 billion” in already.
It now seems that the US would settle for nothing less; and no “peace deal” to save the democratic process in Ukraine could stop it. Thus, President Yanukovych is in the city of Kharkov to maintain his government.
The present trouble started when Yanukovych signed an economic pact with Russia that would help Ukraine come out of its deep recession, with a $15-billion financial package and a long-term guarantee of cheap fuel prices. The EU, which engaged in a tug-of-war of sorts with Russia over Ukraine, could offer no economic aid at all, as we have seen for struggling EU members Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Italy et al.
The US, on the other hand, instead of investing in Ukraine’s economy, chose to invest in the coup.
The demographics of Ukraine is a major factor in the continuing troubles of the land. While ethnic Ukrainians dominate Western Ukraine, the South has many ethnic Russians who gave Yanukovych his electoral victory. Conversely, there is also a huge Ukrainian population in Russia.
“So what about the Ukrainian people?” the Saker wrote in Asia Times, “The EU needs them as slaves (market and cheap labor), the US needs them as pawns (in geopolitical game), and the only party which needs them prosperous is Russia. That is simply a fact of geo-strategy. If the Ukrainians are too stupid and too blinded by their rabid nationalism to understand that, then let them pay the price for their folly. If they are smart enough to realize it, then let them find the courage to act on it and make it possible for Russia to help them.”
But then, without real democratic elections being respected, the judgment of the Ukrainian people will never be known and only the US gets to “f….k ‘em all.”
What do events at the Maidan (Independence Square) have to do with Edsa? Maidan today is what Edsa was at Edsa I, the place where a US-led coup that was hatched as a conspiracy with local oligarchs fronted by mobs forced out the relatively independent Ferdinand Marcos for a completely pliant Cory Aquino.
After Edsa I, the Philippine economy was de-industrialized and its manufacturing and agro-industries withered. Not long after, poverty and unemployment exploded as national assets in electricity, water and infrastructure, along with all their revenues, were privatized, and as the commercialization of education and the expansion of the country’s debt and taxes commenced.
With the social order now imploding, it is clear that Edsa I has failed in all its promises. What we instead have are the electronic “dagdag-bawas” of our election body, as well as a national enslavement to debt and total import dependency that impoverish our people, which make the Philippines nothing but a US geopolitical toady.
Twenty-eight years later, with the US-led Edsa I coup now totally discredited, as seen in the crowds at the Edsa Shrine celebrations dwindling to just hundreds, tomorrow’s celebrations at the ground of Malacañang are precisely so in order to hide that fact.
Ukraine, after this latest coup, will miss the chance of having a balanced economy, benefiting from both Russia and EU, and will be downgraded to a mere market for the latter and a geopolitical tool of the US.
Some years from now, celebrations at the Maidan may look a lot like the pathetic celebrations of Edsa today.
(Watch GNN’s Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m.; tune in to “Sulo ng Pilipino” on 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)
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