aaus-list @ ukrainianstudies.org -- [aaus-list] Fwd: Article for Edmonton Journal
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date/Main Index][Thread Index]
- To: unlisted-recipients:; (no To-header on input)
- From: Roman Senkus <r.senkus@utoronto.ca>
- Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 13:07:30 -0400
- Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT
- Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed
>Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 08:12:27 -0600
>Sender: "David R. Marples" <David.Marples@UAlberta.CA>
>
>Colleagues,
>
>The attached article appears in today's (30 Oct) Edmonton Journal.
>
>Regards,
>
>David
>
>Dr. David R. Marples, Professor of History
>Department of History & Classics,
>University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada T6G 2H4
>Tel. 780-905-8859 Fax 780-439-9912
PUTIN: THE RETURN OF THE RUSSIAN IMPERIALIST?
David Marples
Russian president Vladimir Putin, firmly established in power after the
2004 presidential election in Russia, has earned a reputation for careful
diplomacy. He is the man who avoided participation for his country in the
war in Iraq, and yet maintained friendly relations with US president George
W. Bush. He is the leader who charmed British Prime Minister Tony Blair,
despite clearly defined policy differences between the two countries.
However, his actions of the past three weeks have undermined four years of
careful diplomacy. He has interfered blatantly in the contentious election
campaign in Ukraine, while sanctioning the prolonged dictatorship of
Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus.
The Belarus issue can be dealt with briefly. Putin did not intervene last
weekend when citizens of Belarus went to the polls in a referendum to
decide whether the president could seek a third term in office (his current
mandate expires in 2006) and amend the current Constitution to do so.
The votemore than 79% in favorwas largely engineered by a government that
controlled the media, harassed opponents, and forced most voters to take
part in an advance poll on 12 October, five days before the election.
Sausages and beer were provided for voters, while the president~Rs portrait
adorned most voting booths.
Alone among the major world powers, Russia recognized the vote as free and
fair. Cynics observed that Putin himself may seek a third term in 2008 and
could hardly criticize his western neighbor for similar sentiments.
In Ukraine, relations between current president Leonid Kuchma and Putin
have been very warm for the past six months. Kuchma, bereft of
international friends and shunned by the EU, has turned to Russia as a
desperate resort. The Russian leader has responded with the unambiguous
embrace of a bear for a honey pot.
In an earlier visit to Ukraine, he suggested that the two countries had an
identical history and stressed the importance of Kyiv in Russia~Rs heritage.
More recently the subtleties have been dropped in favor of an all-out
attempt to drag Ukraine into the Russian sphere.
Two weeks ago, during a televised visit of Kuchma and his presidential
nominee, Viktor Yanukovych to Moscow, Putin openly endorsed Yanukovych~Rs
candidacy. Like Kuchma he stressed the significance of continuity of good
relations, and the stability of the Ukrainian economy under Yanukovych.
Currently Putin is in Kyiv, this time for the commemoration of the
liberation of Ukraine by Soviet troops from German occupation 60 years ago.
However, the event has been brought forward by a week so that it precedes
the 31 October election. Together with Kuchma, Putin, and Yanukovych (as
well as Lukashenko and Ilkham Aliyev of Azerbaijan) are taking part in
official ceremonies on a grand scale. No observer could miss the inference:
that Russia and Ukraine will be in step, as long as Yanukovych wins the
election on Sunday.
Ukraine meanwhile is replete in mass demonstrationslargely of studentsin
support of contender Viktor Yushchenko, who allegedly wishes to take
Ukraine closer to the West, by means of the elusive and thus far
unresponsive EU.
Putin is prepared to open the Russian border to Ukrainians. Thousands of
Ukrainian expatriates in Russia have been encouraged to vote for
Yanukovych. The two countries have every possibility of forming a union,
just as Russia has done with Belarus.
But why would residents of Ukraine wish to base their future on a
commitment to Russia? Why would they pay heed to Putin today, in contrast
to the way they ignored Boris Yeltsin~Rs threats thirteen years ago during
the dissolution of the Soviet Union?
The results of Putin~Rs policiesnot to mention the callous disregard for
democratic procedures by the Ukrainian authorities and Kuchmahave been to
elevate Yushchenko to the rank of a national hero, one transformed ipso
facto into a candidate for democracy and the preservation of independence.
One Ukrainian writer has declared that a Yanukovych victory will turn the
country into a thuggish dictatorship with the curtailment of hard-won freedom.
There is little real substance to Yushchenko~Rs campaign. Absent through
illness for long periods, he has tried to emulate Kuchma~Rs early notion of
a multi-vectored foreign policy that would hold dialogues with East and
West. There is little to indicate how he would persuade the EU to permit
Ukraine to join, or how he would end the endemic corruption that pervades
political and economic life.
It is of no electoral consequence; more important is that Yushchenko is not
a Russian puppet, nor is he likely to bow before pressure from Moscow, no
matter what the issue.
What has Putin to gain from his intervention in Ukraine? At best, he would
gain a reliable partner with important economic and security links to
Russia. There would be no danger of a Ukraine in NATO or isolated from
Russia through the economic curtain of the EU.
At worst, he has created new enemies among the Ukrainian electorate, and
engendered a political divide within Ukraine at a time when it needs to be
united. That political divide is between a Ukrainian-speaking West and
Russian-speaking East, with the former in the Yushchenko camp and the
latter for Yanukovych.
ROMAN SENKUS / POMAH CEHbKYCb
Director, CIUS Publications Program <www.utoronto.ca/cius>
Managing Editor, www.encyclopediaofukraine.com
Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, Toronto Office
University of Toronto
1 Spadina Crescent, Room 109
Toronto, ON
M5S 2J5
Canada
tel. (416) 978-8669
fax (416) 978-2672
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date/Main Index][Thread Index]
lists@brama.com converted by
MHonArc
2.3.3
and maintained by
BRAMA, Inc.