Far from promoting EU values and democracy the European delegation to Ukraine threatens democratic process, Professor Mark Almond told RT in his extensive analysis of the events in Kiev.
RT: The German chancellor and the French foreign minister say they want to meet with Ukrainian opposition leader Vitaly Klitschko – and support his presidential ambitions. Do they see an exit for Yanukovich as a done deed, then?
Mark Almond: Well I think they hope so, and I think this is what is deeply problematic because in addition to the double standards that the EU leaders are showing when very little has taken place in Kiev that could remotely justify foreign intervention there. There have been no deaths. There have been a few heads hit with truncheons. But when we think about the deaths that took place in other countries where the European leaders ignored or even colluded with regimes that did this – Egypt for instance this summer, when perhaps 1,000 people were killed – it’s very striking the double standards and I think this is also a threat to our democracy domestically.
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[O]nce you’d say that what should determine who rules is the crowd in the street, not the ballot box, then of course, in almost any society there are reasons why 50-70,000 people might be discontent with the government, might go into the streets if they get sympathetic coverage in the media, you could inflate the numbers to hundreds of thousands. But even hundreds of thousands are only a small number in a country of 46 million people. And I think whether it is Ukraine today, whether it could be Italy or Spain tomorrow, once you start saying that the ballot box can be trumped by the street that is a deep threat to democracy. Far from promoting EU values and democracy and the rule of law, we seem to be able to throw them out the window in order to get our man into power.
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RT: Is Ukraine really the priority for the EU here – or is it just being used as a pawn in a bigger game?
MA: Well first of all we see a parade of losers coming to Kiev. Westerwelle, the German foreign minister’s party was annihilated in the recent German election. It’s lost all of its seats. Kaczyński the former Polish prime minister is a loser. Saakashvili , the [former] president of Georgia reviled by the population for his brutality and torture in his prisons are coming because it gives them a sense of self importance. But also they are coming because the European power centers, the organization in Brussels, NATO and so on, see Ukraine as a key strategic factor.
They want Ukraine to be under their thumb, under NATO’s thumb, because they are deeply hostile to Russia. And they don’t want to accept, of course in Ukraine there are diverse range of opinions of people that are pro-Russian, people who are anti-Russian. But Ukraine happens to sit next to Russia as well as to Poland. And instead they want to draw it into the Western sphere of influence. And I’m afraid, these retired, failed politicians are being presented to the public, Westerwelle, Saakashvili and so on, as representatives of the enormously rich and powerful West… I suspect that the average person in Ukraine knows very little of what the so-called Association Agreement involved. But it is being pushed back by rhetoric about “Do you want to join the rich and affluent West?” The implication being that the rich and affluent West and the Europeans will pay for you, but we know they won’t pay for the Greek health service, they won’t pay for the Spanish health service. So why should they pay for the welfare of Ukrainians? I think it is rather misleading and cynical propaganda campaign sadly is being staged. But I think that many Ukrainians seem to be rather immune to it. Fortunately.
Read the entire interview at RT
Flickr/mac_ivan.
