ACTION UKRAINE REPORT - AUR
An International Newsletter, The Latest, Up-To-Date
In-Depth Ukrainian News, Analysis and Commentary
Ukrainian History, Culture, Arts, Business, Religion,
Sports, Government, and Politics, in Ukraine and Around the World
'UNSUNG HERO' WELSH REPORTER REMEMBERED
Journalist Gareth Jones exposed the genocidal famine in Ukraine that killed millions
(Articles one through six)
ACTION UKRAINE REPORT - AUR - Number 694
Mr. E. Morgan Williams, Publisher and Editor
WASHINGTON, D.C., FRIDAY, MAY 5, 2006
-------- INDEX OF ARTICLES --------
Clicking on the title of any article takes you directly to the article.
Return to the Index by clicking on Return to Index at the end of each article
1. 'UNSUNG HERO' WELSH REPORTER REMEMBERED
Journalist Gareth Jones exposed the famine in Ukraine that killed millions
BBC NEWS, UK, Aberystwyth, Wales, Tuesday, May 2, 2006
2. HONOURING THE TRUTH, REMEMBERING GARETH JONES
Jones wrote truthfully about the Holodomor even as Walter Duranty did not
By Lubomyr Luciuk, Professor of political geography
Royal Military College of Canada
Action Ukraine Report (AUR) #694, Article 2
Washington, D.C. Friday, May 5, 2006
3. MEMORIAL UNVEILED TO WELSH JOURNALIST WHO EXPOSED
GENOCIDAL SOVIET FAMINE
Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (UCCLA)
Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Tuesday, 2 May, 2006
4. MARGARET SIRIOL COLLEY: AT THE UNVEILING OF A PLAQUE
FOR HER UNCLE, GARETH JONES, WELCH JOURNALIST
SPEECH: Margaret Siriol Colley at the Old College
Aberystwyth University, Wales, Tuesday, 2nd May 2006
Action Ukraine Report (AUR) #694, Article 4
Washington, D.C., Friday, May 5, 2006
5. THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE HAMMER & SICKLE
Gareth Jones, Welsh Journalist
SPEECH: by Nigel Colley at Aberystwyth University
Aberystwyth, Wales, Tuesday, 2nd May 2006
Action Ukraine Report (AUR) #694, Article 5
Washington, D.C., Friday, May 5, 2006
6. REDISCOVERING THE FABLED GARETH JONES, WELCH JOURNALIST
Thanks for your help without which this event would never have happened
LETTER-TO-THE EDITOR
From: Nigel Linsan Colley, nigel@colley.co.uk
To: 'Morgan Williams' ; morganw@patriot.net
Cc: Moyecrane@aol.com ; siriol@colley.co.uk
Sent: Friday, May 05, 2006 5:08 AM
Subject: RE: Gareth Jones project (University of Wales)
Action Ukraine Report (AUR) #694, Article 6
Washington, D.C., Friday, May 5, 2006
7. "EXPLOSIVE PAST"
Anne Applebaum: "The way the West will see Ukraine and
its history depends on your efforts"
INTERVIEW: With Anne Applebaum
Interviewed by Larysa Ivshyna, Serhiy Solodky, Klara Gudzyk
Mykola Siruk, Nadiya Tysiachna, The Day; and Stanislav Kulchytsky
The Day Weekly Digest in English, #13
Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 18, 2006
8. UKRAINE DOCUMENTARY: "LIGHT FROM THE EAST"
Limited theatrical release in New York City, May 11-17th
REPORT: from Amy Grappell, Producer, Ukraine Documentary
Action Ukraine Report (AUR) #694, Article 8
Washington, D.C., Wednesday, May 3, 2006
9. UKRAINE POULTRY FARM SETS IPO
Deal Will Be a Test Of Market's Fear About Rise of Bird Flu
By Alistair Macdonald, The Wall Street Journal
New York, New York, Friday, May 5, 2006; Page C14
10. GOLDEN TELECOM GETS NEW MOBILE LICENSE IN UKRAINE
Dow Jones Newswires, Moscow, Russia, Thu, May 4, 2006
11. RUSSIA AND THE POLITICS OF ENERGY DEPENDENCY
PRESENTATION: Ambassador Keith C. Smith (Ret.), Senior Associate
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
European Policy Exchange seminar in London, April 24, 2006
Action Ukraine Report (AUR) #694, Article 11, 2006
Washington, DC, Friday, May 5, 2006
12. SCRAMBLE TO GRAB CENTRAL ASIA'S GAS
By Isabel Gorst, Financial Times, London, UK, Thursday, May 4 2006
13. ELECTION RESULTS STRENGTHEN UKRAINE'S BID
FOR CLOSER LINKS WITH WEST
ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY: Ambassador Steven Pifer
Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine & CSIS Senior Adviser
TRANSATLANTIC REPORT: Quarterly Newsletter of the
Initiative for a Renewed Transatlantic Partnership, Volume No. 1
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Washington, D.C., April 2006
14. UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT YUSHCHENKO, US VICE-PRESIDENT
CHENEY DISCUSS NUCLEAR POWER COOPERATION
UNIAN news agency, Kiev, in Ukrainian 0755 gmt 4 May 06
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Thu, May 04, 2006
15. POLAND & UKRAINE NEGOTIATE LIFTING BAN ON POLISH MEAT
Polish News Bulletin, Warsaw, Poland, Thu, May 04, 2006
16. LITHUANIA'S PRESIDENT HITS AT RUSSIA'S POLICY ON ENERGY
By Stefan Wagstyl, Financial Times, London, UK, Thu, May 4 2006
17. GEORGIAN PRESIDENT MIKHAIL SAAKASHVILI SAYS RUSSIA
THREATENS EASTERN EUROPE DEMOCRACY
Associated Press (AP), Vilnius, Lithuania, Thu, May 4, 2006
18. VP CHENEY TURNS UP RHETORICAL HEAT ON PUTIN
VP Criticizes Moscow's Political Repression, Energy-Policy 'Blackmail'
By JOHN D. MCKINNON and GREGORY L. WHITE
The Wall Street Journal, NY, NY, Friday, May 5, 2006
19. RUSSIANS BRISTLE AT US CRITICISM OF DEMOCRACY RECORD
Associated Press (AP), Moscow, Russia, May 4, 2006
20. UKRAINE MEDIA OWNERSHIP STILL A CONCERN
Associated Press (AP), Kyiv, Ukraine, Wed, May 3, 2006
21. A MAN WHO WON'T SELL HIS SOUL
OP-ED: By David Ignatius, OP-ED Writer for The Washington Post
Washington, D.C., Wednesday, May 3, 2006; Page A23
========================================================
1. 'UNSUNG HERO' WELSH REPORTER REMEMBERED
Journalist Gareth Jones exposed the famine in Ukraine that killed millions
BBC NEWS, UK, Aberystwyth, Wales, Tuesday, May 2, 2006
ABERYSTWYTH, WALES - A plaque has been unveiled at Aberystwyth
University in memory of a murdered Welsh journalist dubbed an "unsung
hero" of Ukraine.
Gareth Jones exposed a famine in the former Soviet Union in 1933 that killed
millions, but was later shot by bandits in Inner Mongolia in 1935. During
his brief career, Mr Jones, from Barry in south Wales, also reported on the
rise of Germany's Nazi Party.
Ukraine's ambassador to the UK attended the unveiling ceremony on Tuesday.
Mr Jones graduated from Aberystwyth University in 1926. From 1930, he acted
as a foreign affairs advisor to the then former prime minister David Lloyd
George. This led to a career as a journalist, reporting for newspapers
including The Times, the Western Mail, Daily Express, the New York Evening
Post and the Manchester Guardian.
As well as visiting the Soviet Union, he reported on President Roosevelt in
the United States, on Mussolini's rise in Italy and the troubles in Ireland.
He was also in Leipzig the day Adolf Hitler was made Germany's Chancellor
in 1933, and later flew with the dictator to a rally in Frankfurt and
interviewed Hitler's head of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels.
But perhaps his greatest achievement as a journalist was his expose of the
famine in Ukraine, the Caucasus and Kazakhstan in 1932/3, which is estimated
to have killed between seven and 10 million people.
The story was reported around the world, but the journalist was later banned
from ever returning to the Soviet Union.
"Gareth Jones, largely forgotten except by his family, is today being called
by Ukrainians 'The Unsung Hero of Ukraine'," said his niece Margaret Siriol
Colley.
'RUTHLESS DETERMINATION
"Seventy years ago Gareth returned from the Soviet Union after his third
visit and on March 29 1933, in Berlin, he made his grim press report
revealing the genocide-famine in Ukraine, the Caucasus, Kazakhstan and the
Volga region, the result of Stalin's ruthless determination to carry out the
five-year plan of collectivisation and industrialisation.
"The number of deaths has never been truly ascertained but estimated that it
was between seven to 10 million."
At the unveiling ceremony on Tuesday, Ukrainian Ambassador Ihor Kharchanko
said Mr Jones was an "outstanding figure who should be noted". He added:
"He should be seen as a hero for what he did and for the way he put his life
on the line."
Mr Jones' links with Aberystwyth date back to the mid-1920s. He graduated
from the town's university with a first class degree in French. In 1929, he
gained another first class honours from Trinity College, Cambridge in
French, German and Russian.
He died aged 30 in suspicious circumstances, according to his family. He was
invited to Inner Mongolia in 1935, but was kidnapped by Chinese bandits and
killed.
Mr Kharchanko was joined by senior representatives from the Ukrainian
community in the UK and Canada at the unveiling of the plaque at the
university's Old College. -30-
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LINK: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/mid_/4964784.stm
A video of the event can be found on the BBC website at the link above.
LINK: http://www.colley.co.uk/garethjones/index.htm
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[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
2. HONOURING THE TRUTH, REMEMBERING GARETH JONES
Jones wrote truthfully about the Holodomor even as Walter Duranty did not
By Lubomyr Luciuk, Professor of political geography
Royal Military College of Canada
Action Ukraine Report (AUR) #694, Article 2
Washington, D.C. Friday, May 5, 2006
He was born in Barry and murdered in Mongolia. It was a short life - he was
killed on the eve of his 30th birthday - but the span graced to Gareth
Richard Vaughan Jones was used well. Between 1925-1929 he secured a first
class degree in French from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, then
another in Medieval and Modern Languages from Trinity College, Cambridge.
Fluent in French, Welsh, English, German and Russian, he found employment,
by 1930, as a private secretary for foreign affairs to the Right Honourable
Lloyd George, the First World War leader and only Liberal ever to be a Prime
Minister of the United Kingdom, "the Welsh Wizard."
More interested in journalism than academic life, Jones moved to the Wall
Street offices of Dr Ivy Lee's public relations firm, in 1931. That same
year he made his second trip to the USSR, escorting Jack Heinz II, son of
the founder of the famous "Heinz 57" fortune.
They met many Soviet boosters, from Maurice Hindus to Louis Fischer to
Walter Duranty. They even secured an interview with Lenin's widow, Madame
Krupskaya, first being "thrilled" to view Lenin's mummy in its Red Square
mausoleum, "the body of a man dead seven years."
The Depression forced Jones home but employment awaited with Lloyd George,
later with The Western Mail. As his diary entries and regular Sunday letters
reveal, Jones possessed a near-irrepressible curiosity, coupled to a
determination to interview the great men of his time. And he did - chatting
with Dr Joseph Goebbels, Frank Lloyd Wright, Sir Bernard Pares, Upton
Sinclair, Walter Lippman and William Randolph Hearst, to list but a few.
And, 23 February 1933, he was the first non-Nazi journalist invited to fly
with the Fuhrer to Frankfurt, in Chancellor Hitler's private plane, the
Richtoffen, observing - "If this aeroplane should crash, the whole history
of Europe would be changed."
From Germany he went to "the home of Bolshevism," arriving in Moscow, 6
March 1933, that very evening meeting Malcolm Muggeridge. Then,
surreptitiously, he set out for Kharkiv, intent on learning the truth of
rumours about a great famine. Detraining, he tramped through the Ukrainian
countryside, finding widespread hunger.
His pocket diary recorded a village elder saying: "In the old times we had
horses and cows and pigs and chickens. Now we are dying of hunger. In the
old days we fed the world. Now they have taken all we had away from us.I
should have bade you welcome, and given you, as my guest, chickens and eggs
and milk and fine, white bead. Now we have no bread in the house. They are
killing us."
Jones returned to Berlin, 29 March, filing numerous articles about the
famine, provoking a near-immediate riposte from none other than Duranty, in
The New York Times, 31 March, "Russians Hungry, but Not Starving."
Belittling Jones, Duranty would justify the forced collectivization of
agriculture with the infamous prescription, "to put it brutally, you can't
make an omelette without breaking eggs."
Dissimulating further, he wrote" "there is no actual starvation or deaths
from starvation but there is widespread mortality from diseases due to
malnutrition." Duranty never admitted how, 26 September 1933, he had called
in at the British Embassy, stating that "as many as 10 million people may
have died directly or indirectly from lack of food in the Soviet Union
during the past year." Nevertheless, he got the 1933 Pulitzer Prize for his
"objective reporting" about the Soviet Union.
Meanwhile, Jones was targeted. Soviet foreign minister Maxim Litvinov
declared him a persona non grata, forever banned from the USSR. Ominously,
he was placed on the secret police's watch list. Like Muggeridge, he was
censured and scorned, repeatedly.
Writing to Jones on 17 April, Muggeridge left an impression of what that was
like. Agreeing that Duranty was, "of course, a plain crook," he complained
of how his own famine articles were censored by the Manchester Guardian's
editor, William Crozier.
Breaking his ties with that newspaper Muggeridge had offered a rejoinder:
"You don't want to know what is going on in Russia, and you don't want your
readers to know either; if the Metrovick [Metropolitan-Vickers Trial] people
had been Jews or Negroes, your righteous indignation would have been
unbounded. You'd have published photographs of their lacerated backsides.
They being just Englishmen, you refuse to publish the truth about their
treatment or the general facts which make that truth significant - and this
when the MG is packed with stories of what the Nazis are doing to the Jews
and the Poles to the Ukrainian and Silesian minorities."
Banned from the USSR, Jones turned his attentions to Asia, in late 1934
embarking on his "Round-the-World-Fact-Finding Tour." Particularly intrigued
by a growing conflict between Imperial Japan and China, Jones ended up in
Manchukuo where, near Kalgan, he met his end, 12 August 1935, having been
kidnapped by Chinese bandits sixteen days earlier.
How Jones died is not in dispute. The investigating officer, Lieutenant K E
F Millar, reported he was dispatched with one bullet to the head, two to the
chest.
Why Jones was murdered, however, remains controversial. Was it because he
was an eyewitness to the genocidal Great Famine of 1932-1933 in Soviet
Ukraine, the Holodomor? Certainly, but unbeknownst to him, as he made his
way from Japan to Inner Mongolia, he was surrounded by characters now
known to have been Soviet agents of influence, perhaps worse.
He shared an apartment in Tokyo with Gunther Stein, not knowing it was used
for secret wireless broadcasts to Moscow by the Soviet spy, Richard Sorge.
When Jones set out on his last expedition he traveled in a car provided by a
Mr Purpis, who ran the Wostwag fur trading company, a cover for communist
espionage activities in the Far East.
Their "White Russian" driver, Anatoli, disappeared after the ambush, never
interviewed, while Dr Herbert Muller, his traveling companion, was released
unharmed, no ransom paid. The bandits themselves were then tracked down,
some killed, the others scattered, the immediate perpetrators thus lost to
history.
Perhaps Gareth Jones was just an ill-fated fellow. Or he fell victim to
assassination, being a man who, as Lloyd George wrote, "knew too much
of what was going on." We may never find out.
What is indisputable, however, is that Jones wrote truthfully about the
Holodomor even as Duranty did not. And for that reason a trilingual
Welsh-Ukrainian-English plaque, the first ever, was unveiled at the
University of Wales 2 May 2006.
It hallows the memory of a decent young man who wanted nothing more than
to be an honest reporter and probably paid for his commitment to his calling
with his life. Much better, I say, to honour the truth teller than the
Prize-winning liar. -30-
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FOOTNOTE: The event in Wales was organized by the Ukrainian Canadian
Civil Liberties Foundation, the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain, the
Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Great Britain, the Ukrainian
American Civil Liberties Association and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of
Canada.
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[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
3.MEMORIAL UNVEILED TO WELSH JOURNALIST WHO EXPOSED
GENOCIDAL SOVIET FAMINE
Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (UCCLA)
Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Tuesday, 2 May, 2006
TORONTO - The first-ever trilingual (Welsh-English-Ukrainian) plaque
was unveiled today at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, honouring
Gareth Richard Vaughan Jones, a journalist with The Western Mail.
Traveling surreptitiously in Soviet Ukraine, in March 1933, Jones, who spoke
Russian fluently, soon thereafter wrote a number of articles about the man-
made famine orchestrated by the Stalinist government in what had been the
"breadbasket of Europe."
He then himself fell prey to a determined effort to discredit his reporting.
Many millions of Ukrainians perished even as the Soviet authorities denied
that a famine was raging, and continued to export grain. They were joined
in their cover up by some Western journalists, including the now notorious
Walter Duranty of The New York Times.
Commenting on the plaque unveiling, the UCCLA's director of research,
Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk, said:
"Today we have hallowed the memory of the many millions of victims of a
Stalinist crime against humanity, arguably the greatest example of genocide
to befoul 20th century Europe. We have also paid tribute to a brave and
honest journalist, Gareth Jones, who tried to expose the truth, only to fall
victim to Stalin's men.
He was, in some ways, the last victim of the Holodomor, the famine-genocide
of 1932-33 in Soviet Ukraine. It is fitting that we could gather today in
Wales, at the university where he studied, to honour a remarkable young man
who paid such a heavy price for his commitment to being an honest reporter
of the facts." -30-
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: For more on Gareth Jones please go to www.garethjones.org.
For more on UCCLA please go to www.uccla.ca
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[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
=========================================================
4. MARGARET SIRIOL COLLEY: AT THE UNVEILING OF A PLAQUE
FOR HER UNCLE, GARETH JONES, WELCH JOURNALIST
SPEECH: Margaret Siriol Colley at the Old College
Aberystwyth, Wales, Tuesday, 2nd May 2006
Action Ukraine Report (AUR) #694, Article 4
Washington, D.C., Friday, May 5, 2006
Ambassador Ihor Kharchanko [Ukraine Ambassador to UK]
President of the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, Lord Elstan Morgan,
Vice-chancellor, Professor Noel Lloyd.
Thank you Lubomyr Luciuk for all the arrangements you have made for
this plaque.
Gareth Jones, my uncle was born on August 13th 1905 and died in on
the eve of his 30th birthday.
Gareth's parents Major and Mrs Edgar Jones met and became engaged in
Aberystwyth in 1889. No doubt they walked together in this hall. Before
they married Annie Gwen Jones spent 3 memorable years in Hughesovka,
now Donetsk [Ukraine].
As a child on his mother's knee Gareth heard stories of his mother's happy
times in Ukraine. Gareth learnt to speak Russian fluently in order to make
is pilgrimage to Ukraine but he found conditions appalling . On his third
visit he was so moved that he wrote at least 20 articles to expose the
dreadful conditions brought upon by Stalin's ruthless ambitions of
Industrialisation.
Two years later Gareth was dead. It was an unbearable tragedy to his
parents. It is wonderful that a plaque has been erected to him in this
college, Aberystwyth where he was so happy and for which has family
had so much affection and so much respect.
How proud his parents would have been to know that he is not forgotten.
Gareth has come home. -30-
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http://www.garethjones.org/gareth_jones_commemoration_siriol.htm
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[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
Send in names and e-mail addresses for the AUR distribution list.
========================================================
5. THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE HAMMER & SICKLE
Gareth Jones, Welsh Journalist
SPEECH: by Nigel Colley at Aberystwyth University
Aberystwyth, Wales, Tuesday, 2nd May 2006
Action Ukraine Report (AUR) #694, Article 5
Washington, D.C., Friday, May 5, 2006
Gareth Jones' remarkable life almost reads like an epic Greek tragedy - he
was indeed a solitary beacon of light illuminating the darkness of a
tumultuous world of evil tyranny.
His innate goodness stemmed from his devout Welsh, non-conformist roots;
he was instilled with clear black and white values of right and wrong. So,
wherever he saw injustices he felt compelled to confront them with the might
of his pen.
From his humble beginnings in Barry, his star was always destined to become
meteoric through his thirst for knowledge and understanding of the world
around him.
After three formative years in Aberystwyth, he gained a scholarship at
Cambridge in 1926, where he was a contemporary of the likes of Anthony Blunt
and Alistair Cooke. Unfazed by the privileges of wealth that surrounded him,
he continued to shine academically whilst socially making influential
friends for the future.
In the depths of the 1930s depression he secured employment as a foreign
affairs advisor within the secretariat of then the Welsh wizard, David Lloyd
George. This was the opportunity of a lifetime, giving him an automatic
direct entrée into the world of the high and mighty.
In 1931, he was sought after by the world's largest Public Relations firm in
New York to be their expert on Soviet Affairs and it was through his work he
acted as an independent USSR tour guide to a young Jack Heinz of ketchup
family fame. It was on this trip that Gareth and Heinz got well off the
official beaten track and slept on bug-infested floors of Ukrainian peasants
and witnessed the onset of a famine.
In early 1932, Gareth's diary notes were privately published by Heinz in
which they documented on no fewer than half a dozen occasions the word
'starving', in his first attempt to alert the western world to the terrible
agricultural situation. Historically, this was actually the first western
published account of the Holodomor.
His prophesies were to no avail, as back in London with Lloyd George in
autumn 1932, the rumours of a Soviet famine were the talk of every informed
source of Gareth, but this news was being wickedly suppressed and censored
by the Soviet propaganda machine.
Realising that his two articles in the Cardiff Western Mail entitled "Will
there be Soup" would not suffice, Gareth's sense of human morality was
invoked and he decided that he must bravely witness the famine firsthand in
order to bring greater authenticity to his allegations.
Immediately on arrival back in the West from the USSR, he held a press
conference and by the following day his famine story was internationally
out. Gareth even rebuked his old employer, stating "The situation is so
grave, so much worse than in 1921 that I am amazed at your admiration for
Stalin."
But unfortunately the coterie of Moscow foreign correspondents refused to
back up a story they clearly knew to be true, for fear of angering the
Soviet Press Censor, whom they were dependent upon for their jobs.
In order to bury the story, the hatchet job was presented to Walter Duranty
of the New York Times, where he brutally portrayed Mr. Jones as being both
a scaremonger and a liar. Duranty further stated, "There is no actual
starvation or death from starvation, but there is widespread mortality from
disease due to malnutrition."
Notwithstanding, Gareth again put his head above the parapet to challenge
Walter Duranty, the then feted doyen of foreign corresponding in a letter to
the editor of New York Times, in which he stood by his original statement:
"Everywhere I went in the Russian villages I heard the cry; 'There is no
bread, we are dying,' and that there was famine in the Soviet Union,
menacing the lives of millions of people."
He ended his letter stingingly: "May I in conclusion congratulate the Soviet
Foreign Office on its skill in concealing the true situation in the USSR?
Moscow is not Russia, and the sight of well-fed people there tends to hide
the real Russia."
The personal consequences for Gareth were immediate; he was no longer the
blue-eyed boy and was snubbed in every direction including by his childhood
hero, Lloyd George. Foreign Commissar Litvinov took the highly unusual step
of personally banning Gareth from the USSR by telegram. Gareth's world had
tumbled around him in his pursuit of truth and for a year he was banished to
the wilderness.
But fortune favours the brave, when Gareth interviewed press baron Randolph
Hearst at his Welsh castle at St Donats in July 1934, they evidently got on
well. An open invitation was afforded to Gareth to meet Hearst again at his
palatial Californian ranch.
At the ensuing meeting on New Years Day 1935, Gareth was given carte blanche
to write some of the most vitriolic articles on the Bolshevik regime at that
time. Repeating his observations of the Ukraine famine in 1933, they were
both hart-rending and incisively cutting - it was in these articles in which
he personally coined the term "man-made famine" and also dared to suggest
that the recent murder of Kirov, Stalin's main politburo rival may well have
been at the hands of the Stalin himself.
To have crossed Stalin once, may be construed as unwise, but twice and under
the patronage of Hearst, and with the hindsight of time, one can now see was
ultimately to be a fatal mistake.
Instead of rebutting Gareth directly, this time it appears that the Soviets
were clearly more skilful. When Gareth was in communicado, back-packing
around the Far East, enter one bogus journalist named Thomas Walker -
unbelievably an escaped American convict who hood-winked Hearst into
publishing his fantasy account of an unescorted 1934 trip to Ukraine, where
he claimed the famine was still prevalent, ably supported by fake photos to
boot.
Soon thereafter, at the simple stroke of a Soviet apologist's pen, the
complete exposure of these fraudulent articles tainted every previous
anti-Soviet report of a famine as conservative lies - including Gareth's and
which for the next 70 years were to be entirely forgotten - the deliberate
cover-up of an atrocity greater than the Holocaust by the Soviets was now
almost complete.
Four months afterwards, Gareth was kidnapped by bandits in North China and
a fortnight later he was dead and to all intensive purposes so was his memory.
Gareth had quite simply been airbrushed out of history - Until now.
For the past twenty years, our family's relentless unravelling of his death
has been a remarkable tale of unearthing subterfuge and smokescreens almost
straight out of a spy novel.
In the aftermath of his death, in a 500-page confidential report the British
Foreign Office concluded that allegations by Gareth's co-captive Dr Mueller
that the Japanese had orchestrated his kidnapping as a political incident
after coming across Japanese troop movements in Manchuria were open to
doubt.
Gareth death was put down to the bullet of a miscreant. Never in their
entire report did Whitehall even consider Gareth's Soviet reporting to be a
possible cause for his premature murder.
Recently released Public Records from Kew, which I discovered, show that
Gareth was kidnapped from a vehicle belonging to Soviet Secret Police, and
that they also had a 34-year confidential dossier detailing Dr Mueller's
Soviet sympathies in China. One should recall that Mueller was conveniently
and quite unusually released unharmed after two days in captivity.
The chances then of the Soviet NKVD not being behind Gareth's murder now
look very remote - Gareth had perhaps become the last victim of the
Holodomor.
Though Orwell's involvement in Gareth story is open to conjecture, there is
no doubt that in life Gareth was the 'Indiana Jones of Journalism',
valiantly championing the causes of the underdog.
Gathered here today in remembrance of such a remarkable man, I hope the
unveiling of this wonderful plaque will serve as an inspiration to all those
who follow in his footsteps, that the truth will win out, as Gareth's pen has
proven to be mightier than the hammer and sickle.
However tragic it is to reflect on what the world lost upon his death and
what he surely would have achieved, in his noble achievements my great uncle
will now be recognised as a true hero of both Wales and Ukraine . -30-
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LINK: http://www.garethjones.org/gareth_jones_commemoration_nigel.htm
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[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
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6. REDISCOVERING THE FABLED GARETH JONES, WELCH JOURNALIST
Thanks for your help without which this event would never have happened
LETTER-TO-THE EDITOR
From: Nigel Linsan Colley, nigel@colley.co.uk
To: 'Morgan Williams' ; morganw@patriot.net
Cc: Moyecrane@aol.com ; siriol@colley.co.uk
Sent: Friday, May 05, 2006 5:08 AM
Subject: RE: Gareth Jones project (University of Wales)
Action Ukraine Report (AUR) #694, Article 6
Washington, D.C., Friday, May 5, 2006
Morgan,
Just an update to the recent Aber [Aberystwyth] Plaque unveiling for
Gareth Jones, which went excellently.
The media coverage was superb with TV slots on both BBC Wales and
S4C. GJ (Gareth Jones) even made it with Siriol's [Siriol Colley] hard
work, into page 4 of Tuesday's edition of The (London) Times!
I have put just a web page on our website with photos, speeches and
links to related media coverage
http://www.garethjones.org/gareth_jones_commemoration2.htm.
Russ Chelak [New Jersey] has even put a 3 min video clip from BBC
Wales up on his website which your readers might want to take a look at -
http://cybercossack.com/?p=379.
Lubomyr Luciuk [UCCLA - Canada] really did us proud organising it all
and making it happen, plus the plaque itself is most impressive.
Finally, thanks again from Siriol and myself, for all your help in initially
rediscovering the 'fabled' Gareth Jones a few years ago, without which
this event would never have happened.
Kind regards
Nigel Linsan Colley
[Gareth Jones was Nigel Linsan Colley's great uncle. Nigel is the son of
Siriol Colley, niece of Gareth Jones. Siriol and Nigel, are the curators of
the historical materials of Gareth Jones and who created a website in his
honor which contain copies of the important documents,
http://www.GarethJones.org.]
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FOOTNOTE: UCCLA, in collaboration with our American counterpart,
UACLA, and the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain, the Ukrainian
Orthodox Church of Canada, and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox
Church in Great Britain, unveiled a trilingual plaque at the University of
Wales, Aberystwyth, on 2 May 2006
This plaque, the first Welsh-English-Ukrainian language plaque in history,
honours Gareth V Jones, the Welsh journalist who was among the first to
report truthfully on the Great Famine of 1932-1933 in Soviet Ukraine, the
Holodomor.
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[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
7. UKRAINE DOCUMENTARY: "LIGHT FROM THE PAST"
Limited theatrical release in New York City, May 11-17th
REPORT: from Amy Grappell, Producer, Ukraine Documentary
Action Ukraine Report (AUR) #694, Article 7
Washington, D.C., Friday, May 5, 2006
Morgan, my documentary "LIGHT FROM THE EAST" will be having
a limited theatrical release in NY at the PIONEER THEATER May
11-17th.
Discounted tickets and Q&A are being offered to student groups and
organizations who would like to make a screening night into an
educational event for their group.
Check out the PIONEER Website for further info
www.twoboots.com/pioneer/light.htm or contact me directly to discuss
further. Your suggestions in helping me do outreach in NY based
University Eastern European Studies programs or organizations is much
appreciated! Thanks -- Amy Grappell, 512-619-6025.
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"LIGHT FROM THE EAST" The story of an American theater troupe
that witnessed the fall of Communism Opens in New York May 11-17,
2006 at the Pioneer Theater
"Personal, political, historical...I loved It." - Richard Linklater,
director of BEFORE SUNRISE and BEFORE SUNSET
1991. Glasnost. Perestroika. The Soviet Union opens its doors to the
West. A troupe of young American actors from La Mama Theater in NY
travels to Kiev to participate in the first American/Ukrainian cultural
exchange theater project in history.
The play they are to perform is based on the life of Les Kurbas, a
revolutionary Ukrainian theatre director who was murdered in one of
Stalin's purges. Two weeks into their trip, Gorbachev is kidnapped, the
Kremlin is overthrown by a military coup and the entire USSR is plunged
into volatile uncertainty.
As rehearsals progress, the play ironically begins to mirror action in
the streets. Kurbas and his company struggled to make art during the
revolution that ushered in Communism; the international troupe performs
the life of Kurbas as the walls of Communism come tumbling down.
During the massive political changes of 1991, including the fall of
Communism and the Ukraine declaring its national independence,
LIGHT FROM THE EAST takes viewers on a philosophical inquiry
into the meaning of freedom.
"Beautifully captures the spirit of the former Soviet Union and the soul
of its people." - Albert Maysles
"After the recent, quiet Revolution in Ukraine, this movie is almost a
must see as it uses a cultural exchange theater project for the focal
point of examining a people who despite political realities are driven
by dreams that become realities." - Louis Black, Publisher, AUSTIN
CHRONICLE (Texas)
The Two Boots Pioneer Theatre, 155 East 3rd Street, between
Avenues A and B (closer to A), New York City, (212) 591-0434
DOCUMENTARY WILL BE SHOWN AT FOLLOWING TIMES
Thurs May 11 9pm; Fri May 12 9pm; Sat May 13 9pm
Sun May 14 9pm; Mon May 15 9pm; Tues May 16 9pm
Weds May 17 9 pm
Advance tickets: click by showtime or call (800) 595 4849 (service
charges do apply) admission $9 (members $6.50)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
URL http://www.twoboots.com/pioneer/europe.htm#Light
Film URL www.lightfromtheeast.com
Film Trailer http://www.lightfromtheeast.com/trailer.htm
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[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
NOTE: Send in a letter-to-the-editor today. Let us hear from you.
========================================================
8. "EXPLOSIVE PAST"
Anne Applebaum: "The way the West will see Ukraine and
its history depends on your efforts"
INTERVIEW: With Anne Applebaum
Interviewed by Larysa Ivshyna, Serhiy Solodky, Klara Gudzyk
Mykola Siruk, Nadiya Tysiachna, The Day; and Stanislav Kulchytsky
The Day Weekly Digest in English, #13
Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Anne Applebaum, a well-known public figure, political journalist, member
of the editorial board of The Washington Post, and the wife of Poland's
Defense Minister Radek Sikorski, is in Ukraine for the second time.
She first visited Ukraine in the early 1990s, when she was working on her
first book "Between East and West: Across the Borderlands of Europe."
The book was the result of her travels through Ukraine, Lithuania, and
Belarus immediately after these countries gained their independence.
This time Ms. Applebaum came to Kyiv to launch her second book,
"GULAG: a History," published by the Kyiv Mohyla Academy publishing
house with support from the US Embassy.
In 2004 the author was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the main US prize for
excellence in journalism and literature. Translated into more than 20
languages, "GULAG" became a bestseller in Europe and the US.
Many experts, as well as the researcher herself, note that this work on the
history of the enormous system of Soviet prison camps is mostly oriented
to the Western reader. The distinguished Ukrainian historian Stanislav
Kulchytsky says that Applebaum's book is no less valuable for Ukrainian
academics because it includes unique, detailed reminiscences of camp
inmates as well as rare archival materials.
This book will not leave anyone indifferent. Full of genuine and revealing
history, it is explosive because it "detonates" awareness. Based on
documents and oral reminiscences of victims of Soviet repressions, the book
provides information on deportations, camp revolts, and the overall strategy
of survival, and explains why the West, hidden behind the Cold War-era Iron
Curtain, kept silent about the brutality of Soviet rule.
The Applebaum book launch at Ukraine House was attended by Kateryna
Yushchenko and Sandra Saakashvili, the wife of the Georgian leader, who was
in Kyiv to attend the closing ceremonies for the Year of Georgia in Ukraine.
Despite Ms. Applebaum's tight schedule, which included two meetings with
President Yushchenko in three days, the American writer also met with
journalists from The Day.
"PEOPLE WERE TREATED LIKE COGS IN A MACHINE"
[THE DAY] "You worked in the GULAG archives. Not all researchers have
been able to do this. What were your first impressions when you began
handling these documents?"
Applebaum "Those of you who worked in archives know that the documents
themselves at first appearance look like they might be quite a bore. It's
not clear if there is anything interesting in them. The language is very
bureaucratic, the paper is quite bad, the print is very small. You have to
read quite a lot of documents before you understand that there are certain
patterns and forms.
For example, there was a certain form by which Moscow wrote to the camps
and the camps wrote to Moscow. After a while you learn that the documents -
at least these internal documents - are actually very honest. The Center in
Moscow had to know how much food was needed in such and such camps,
and a camp had to tell Moscow how many, say, pieces of iron bar they were
sending back to Moscow.
And of course, as in any other sphere of the Soviet economy, both sides had
reasons to lie about these numbers. Not always but from time to time. But,
nevertheless, you realize that, for example, it was very bad for camp
commanders if too many of their prisoners were dying. They needed certain
number of people to dig the coal or whatever.
So they would write to Moscow complaining, 'We don't have enough food; we
need more.' They never treat the prisoners as human beings in their letters;
the prisoners are part of the production process. You come across angry
letters: too many prisoners here are sick; we need some extra supplies.
Therefore, as you read the archives you find out a lot of information, more
than people originally thought there would be. I came to feel that the
archival documents were very useful and worth believing, if only because
people who wrote them never thought they would be used."
[THE DAY] "How open are the Moscow archives? Did you have the feeling
that there were many other materials behind the wall?"
[Applebaum] "The personal files of people are not available. Only if you are
a relative, you can have access to your relative's file. The reports of the
investigations and interrogation, - that is, what would be in these files, -
are also unavailable.
If you were interested in the fate of a particular person or a group of
people who were imprisoned, you would need access to that which I didn't
have. The other thing I did not have was access to the file on the system of
KGB informers in the camps."
"PRO-SOVIET" SENTIMENTS ARE IN THE PAST
[THE DAY] "What was the reaction to your book from Western readers?
Can we hope that the West will now have a clearer picture of what went on
in the Soviet Union?"
[Applebaum] "I believe so. But don't give me too much credit. There has
been a change in Western perceptions of the Soviet history, but it's not only
because of me. There is a generational change among teachers of history
and students of history in the United States, mostly because of access to
the archives.
In the past, there were two kinds of students of history. There were the
people who studied official Soviet documents: newspapers, official
publications, etc, and the others interviewed people who managed to escape.
Among those was, for instance, Robert Conquest (renowned US diplomat,
historian, and writer who authored "The Great Terror: and "The Harvest of
Sorrow" - Ed.).
There was an ideological division between these two groups of people: one
was Left and the other was Right. This is gone now. I know a lot of younger
American and British historians of this period, whom I met in the course of
doing this book. All of them agree in that access to the archives enabled
you to write about this in a different way.
You can be objective, and you can also tell horrible things. You don't have
to rely on one side or another. Generally speaking, whatever kind of
sentimentalism there was in the West about Soviet Union, it is now really
gone.
One of the things that changed opinions about the Soviet past is people's
observation of changes in Eastern Europe: Hungary, Poland, the Czech
Republic, Slovakia, and in Ukraine.
My first book was partly about Ukraine. At the time it was so exotic and
strange a country that people didn't even know how to write book reviews
on it. I had one television interview in a very provincial part of the
United States in which they started to ask me to tell about the war in Ukraine.
I realized that they thought my book was about the Balkans, because they
didn't know the difference.
It's hard to say how much of that has changed, but Ukraine was on our
television screens for weeks and weeks. In Washington it became very
popular to talk about Ukraine; people wore orange scarves, etc."
[THE DAY] "Even now?"
[Applebaum] Not now, but at that time they did. So there is understanding of
where Ukraine is and what it is. And, therefore, the understanding of what
it was before has changed a lot. It is what you do here that has a huge
impact on how the West perceives you and your history."
[THE DAY] "Do you notice any difference in the way your book is
perceived in Europe and Russia, by Russian and Western scholars?"
[Applebaum] "The book has not been published yet in Russia. Separate
Russian historians associated with the Memorial organization have seen it
and they like it. What the Russian historical establishment or the Russian
public will say I don't know. I can say that it was hard to publish in
Russia because I couldn't find a commercial publisher that wanted to do it.
It is now published by an extremely good and smart little political
institute which is doing it very well. I understand that they are spending a
lot of time on the translation; they even go back to the archive so that
they could use the original Russian quotations.
In Germany this subject made them very nervous because they are very careful
about how they talk about their camps and they don't want to talk too much
about Russian camps for fear of an analogy with fascism.
What surprised me was that one of the countries that received the book very
well was Sweden. Swedes have begun to think a lot about their past history.
They didn't ever challenge the Soviet Union. They were very small and very
close. They begin to worry that, maybe, their neutrality in the Cold War was
wrong.
They have finally begun to look at the map. They are very close to Russia
and so very concerned about things that happen in Russia, and obviously in
Ukraine and the Baltic States. They finally realized that where they are
isn't really a part of Western Europe.
The other country that surprised me, though it probably shouldn't, was
Poland. I thought my book was written for the Western audience and people
in Poland would notice this. It turns out that there is a younger generation
there that doesn't really know this story, while the older generation only
knows it through Solzhenitsyn, and they also find the archives interesting.
The book did well there, selling 80,000 copies, which is a lot."
[THE DAY]"Do you get letters from young people?"
[Applebaum] "I often receive letters from students. There are instances
when they say they hear for the first time about GULAG and thank me for
the book. I know that universities use the book as a manual. I still
continue giving lectures at many US universities."
"UKRAINE HAS AN OPPORTUNITY NOT TO BE
A SUCCESSOR OF THE USSR"
[THE DAY] "James Mace, the well-known researcher of the Ukrainian
Holodomor, diagnosed Ukrainian society as a post-genocidal one. Many
experts agree with him, although others object. For example, Russia takes
a different view of this problem: not all Russians seem to be aware of the
criminal nature of Soviet power.
Sweden, which you say has understood that its neutrality was erroneous, is
an exception. Is the world community prepared to talk again about its moral
responsibility for the fact that millions of people were being wiped out in
the Soviet Union before its very eyes?"
[Applebaum] "I don't know what can be done here. When it became clear
that Ukraine wanted to join the West, people suddenly became interested in
it. If there was a serious movement in Ukraine, for example, to join NATO,
people would be interested in it. The same is true in the sphere Ukrainian
history.
If you create an Institute of National Memory, if you publish good books
that were worth translating... The Germans publish books all the time about
the Holocaust and some of them have done very well in the West. So I think
you have a lot of impact on how you and your history are perceived depending
on what you do here."
[THE DAY] "What should we do with the fact that Russia is considered the
official successor of the Soviet Union?"
[Applebaum] "It means that Ukraine has an opportunity not to be a successor.
Being a successor to the Soviet Union is a problem for Russia. It means that
the Russians have this complex about needing to be an international
superpower.
I don't know why they think it so good to be a superpower. There are a lot
of rich and happy countries that are small, like Switzerland.
Being involved in politics all over the world - here I am speaking as an
American - creates all kinds of problems. For one, it makes people hate you.
So you have a chance to avoid this and be a European country instead of an
international country."
[THE DAY] "Do you think that Russia, as the successor of the USSR, should
apologize to Ukraine for the Soviet regime's crimes, first of all, the
Holodomor? And should our state raise the question of compensation for the
victims of Soviet crimes, like Lithuania did?"
[Applebaum] "This is a hard question because actually it's not only to
Ukraine that Russia owes an apology as successor to the Soviet Union. In
every single statistical list of any camp by far the largest ethnic group
was Russians. The post-Soviet structures need to begin by understanding
what they did to their own country.
When that happens, it will be very easy for them to understand what they did
to Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, or other countries. I think there should be
compensation, even if symbolic. That is part of what would make the society
whole again, what would make victims feel like they belong to this society.
That's true here and in Russia."
[THE DAY] "Do you think Russian society is also post-genocidal?"
[Applebaum] "I am not sure I know what a post-genocidal society is. Maybe
you can say this about the United States because of the Indians. But Russia
is certainly a post-totalitarian society and the Russians need to come to
terms with that.
Not long ago, when I was at Yale making my speech, I was also invited to
a special seminar for people in their thirties and forties who are doing
something important in globalization around the world.
I didn't quite understand their interest to my book. I thought, 'Why do they
care about Russian history?' And then I realized that every single person in
that room were people from Chili, Argentina, France, Germany, Zimbabwe,
China.
All of them had in their country a similar problem about the past and how to
deal with it. In Chile they are still dealing with this Pinochet
dictatorship, in France they are still talking about Vichy, and in Australia
they are talking about what they did to the aborigines.
There are many ways to deal with such problem: some countries create truth
commissions, where they have public discussions in their Congress or
parliament about what happened, others have trials."
[THE DAY] "What do you think Ukrainians should do to make the West know
more about the Holodomor of 1932-1933? This is very important because next
year at the UN Ukraine will be raising the question of recognizing this
tragedy as an act of genocide. Incidentally, this is by no means the first
attempt.
The last time discussions of this subject were blocked under pressure from
Russia. More often than not, politics prevents people from understanding the
nature of events, so many countries chose not to support the declaration on
recognizing the Holodomor as genocide out of fear of spoiling relations with
Russia."
[Applebaum] "You obviously understand now why the UN does not like
us (laughs). Unfortunately, the UN is not an ideal international government.
It has certain groups of countries, each of which pursues a policy of its
own.
I don't think it is the best place for solving this kind of problems. In my
view, one should publish more books about the Holodomor and, naturally,
organize museums on this subject and open research institutes to study these
problems."
[THE DAY] "You have met many different people in the past few days.
What is your impression of Ukrainian society?"
[Applebaum] "I've been here for a few days only, and I find it difficult to
speak about a country with a population of almost 50 million. All I can
say is that very many changes have occurred since I traveled a little across
Ukraine 10 or even 15 years ago.
I feel, for example, that people are now more open, they even speak
differently. Still, I am aware of some problems, such as all-pervading
corruption. Regrettably, I can say nothing about public consciousness
of the Ukrainians or their interest in history.
But I'd like to note that I liked your president's wife when I met her. She
showed interest in the book "GULAG: a History" and, as it seemed to me,
Viktor Yushchenko also takes interest in history.
Incidentally, coming back to the changes that have taken place and the
urgent problems you are facing now, I will say that Ukraine's executive
bodies of different levels are poorly fulfilling the tasks set by the
president.
I think this is the weakest point in your politics. I cannot say, either,
that everything is good in the US, but if our president or Congress
has made a decision, it will be fulfilled." -30-
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LINK: http://www.day.kiev.ua/161248/
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[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
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9. UKRAINE POULTRY FARM SETS IPO
Deal Will Be a Test Of Market's Fear About Rise of Bird Flu
By Alistair Macdonald, The Wall Street Journal
New York, New York, Friday, May 5, 2006; Page C14
A Ukrainian chicken farm is pushing ahead with an initial public offering of
stock, in what is shaping up as a test of how seriously investors take the
threat of a global bird-flu pandemic.
Financial markets overall haven't paid much attention to the prospect of a
flu outbreak, although stocks in some other poultry companies have been hurt
in the past year.
That could still be enough to dissuade Myronivsky Hliboproduct, known as
MHP, from listing. But for now it is proceeding with its plans, which could
see an IPO in the third quarter, people familiar with the matter say.
The company has hired investment banks Morgan Stanley and Renaissance
Capital to help raise about $150 million through an IPO in Kiev, and perhaps
London, that could value the whole company at more than $1 billion, these
people say.
"An IPO is one of the funding options being considered but no concrete
details or timings have been confirmed at this stage," Yuriy Kosyuk, MHP's
chief executive officer, says in an emailed statement.
The company would be launching shares as cases of the H5N1 avian-flu virus
continue to emerge. This and other strains of the virus have appeared in
birds in 45 countries and more than 100 people have died, mostly in Asia,
from being in contact with infected birds.
Some scientists fear that if the virus mutates to the point where it could
be transferred easily between humans, it could spark a global pandemic.
As fears have grown, sales of chicken have dropped, though there isn't any
evidence the virus can be passed on through cooked birds. The United Nations
Food and Agricultural Organization predicts global poultry consumption will
fall by three million tons, or more than 3%, this year.
Stocks in poultry businesses have tumbled. In the U.S., which has yet to see
bird flu, shares of Pilgrim's Pride have dropped almost 25% in the past
year, and Tyson Foods' stock is down almost 20%.
Mr. Kosyuk says MHP, which owns three large chicken farms in the Ukraine
with capacity of 10 million chickens, hasn't been affected by bird flu and
hasn't lost customers since the threat emerged. MHP, which sells chicken
under the brand Nasha Ryaba, emerged in 1995 from the wreckage of
post-Soviet Ukrainian chicken production.
"It is not evident that bird flu is an issue for markets at the moment,"
says Mike Lenhoff, chief strategist and head of research at broker Brewin
Dolphin. "However, even given this, it does surprise me that a chicken farm
would be listing now."
More broadly, many investors believe bird flu is too unpredictable to factor
into broader market decisions. "It may be something, it may be nothing, and
I don't think you can prepare your portfolio for that," says Leigh Harrison,
head of United Kingdom retail funds at Threadneedle Asset Management in
London.
Cherkizovo Group, a Russian meat processor, is also pressing ahead with its
initial public offering, scheduled for this month in London. About 20% of
its revenue comes from its poultry business. Morgan Stanley was hired to
sell this IPO, too. Last week it resigned because the company was putting
too high a price on itself, of up to $1.2 billion, a person familiar with
the situation says.
Bird flu may have created an opportunity for Cherkizovo, which has told
fund managers in London that a Russian ban on all import licenses for
poultry will lead to a shortfall, which can be made up by homegrown
chickens. Morgan Stanley and Cherkizovo decline to comment. -30-
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10. GOLDEN TELECOM GETS NEW MOBILE LICENSE IN UKRAINE
Dow Jones Newswires, Moscow, Russia, Thu, May 4, 2006
MOSCOW -- Golden Telecom Inc. (GLDN) Thursday said it received
an additional mobile telephone license in Ukraine, which it plans to use
to offer mobile and broadband services.
Golden already has a mobile license in Ukraine which covers a population of
6.9 million. The new license will cover 39 million people. Golden will pay a
fee of $5.5 million for the license, Jean-Pierre Vandromme, Chief Executive
Officer, said during a conference call.
Vandromme said that Golden will use the license to offer the converged
service of broadband, mobile voice and television. "We don't plan to
compete head on with (purely mobile operators) Kyivstar, MTS (MBT)
and VimpelCom," he said.
He said that for the time being the company doesn't have a mobile operator
partner to offer the converged services but may consider partnership in
future. "If they don't want a partnership, we will do it on our own," he
said.
He also said that the company bought an Internet provider in the Ukrainian
city of Ivano-Frankovsk for $3.7 million. As far as other expansion
projects, Golden also said that it launched broadband services in Kazakhstan
and Uzbekistan and bought two Internet providers in Russia during the first
quarter of 2006. Company Web site: http://www.goldentelecom.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Anna Ivanova-Galitsina, Dow Jones Newswires; +7 495 974 80 55;
anna.galitsina@dowjones.com
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11. RUSSIA AND THE POLITICS OF ENERGY DEPENDENCY
PRESENTATION: Ambassador Keith C. Smith (Ret.), Senior Associate
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
European Policy Exchange seminar in London, April 24, 2006
Action Ukraine Report (AUR), Wash, DC, Friday, May 5, 2006
WESTERN IN ACTION
Energy dependency on Russian oil and gas has become a hot topic of
discussion in Brussels and Washington following January's Ukraine-Russian
"gas war." Nevertheless, there are few signs that leaders in either capital
are prepared to develop a coordinated strategy to deal with the mix of
opportunities and threats stemming from our greater energy dependency
on an ever more aggressive and authoritarian Russia.
Europe has a new Green Paper, filled with recommendations, but no
enforcement power on the vital issues of energy diversity. EC President
Barroso has traveled to and from Moscow with little to show for his appeal
to President Putin for more business transparency, energy market reciprocity
and pipeline competition.
Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to count on increased Russian supplies to fill
the energy gap created by declining domestic and Canadian production and
by political instability in Venezuela, Nigeria and the Middle East. U.S.
Energy Secretary Bodman stated that the U.S. will be importing 10-20% of
its natural gas needs from Russia in the next few years. The decreasing
efficiency of Russia's vertically integrated companies and new foreign
investment policies make this goal a dream rather than a real plan.
Increasing Western dependency on an authoritarian Russia that uses energy
to regain control over its neighbors is not good policy, particularly when the
Putin Government is continuing to centralize energy resource control in the
Kremlin and the business climate in Russia is becoming less, rather than
more, transparent.
Unfortunately, the EU and the U.S. ignored the petro-politics of the Kremlin
as long as it was confined to the former communist states of East Central
Europe. Statements by Russian leaders make it clear that the supply of oil
and gas and control of downstream facilities in Europe and the U.S. will
eventually influence the West's security policies.
The lack of an effective EU energy policy toward Russia allows the Kremlin
to play Western companies and their governments off against each other for
access to gas and investment opportunities.
NO RECIPROCITY FROM RUSSIA
Since the January "wake up" call regarding Moscow's energy tactics with
Ukraine, Gazprom has carried on with efforts to reach bilateral agreements
with several EU member states. These deals may adversely affect the
long-term energy security of the region.
The many bilateral contracts only make it less likely that the EU will be
able to secure reciprocity or greater transparency from Russia's
increasingly government directed energy sector.
At the same time, Russia is blocking oil shipments from Kazakhstan to
Lithuania and continues to prevent the Central Asian energy producers from
shipping their natural gas directly to European markets without submitting
to the political control of Gazprom. Is this not contrary to European
competition policy?
Moscow's cutoff of gas shipments to Ukraine and much of Europe in January
was merely the latest of many instances in which these same tactics have
been used for political as well as economic reasons. East Central Europeans
have faced colder winters and reduced industrial production at least 20
times since 1990 as a result of politically-motivated energy supply
interruptions.
Should Western Europe and the United States believe that they will be immune
from the same politically-directed supply disruptions as they become more
and more dependent on the paranoid policies of former intelligence officers
who now wield great power in the Kremlin?
In Russia, the boards of all of the state energy companies (and some private
ones) contain numerous former intelligence officers. The same boards also
include individuals who hold leading positions in key government ministries.
Dmitry Medvedev, the Chairman of Gazprom, is Russia's First Deputy Prime
Minister and Igor Sechin is the Chief of the Kremlin Administration and CEO
of Rosneft, Russia's fastest growing energy company.
Western energy companies try to use their governments to help them gain
commercial advantage; in Russia the energy companies are clearly instruments
of state security policy. One should also note that business transparency
in Western companies is dramatically greater than in state-directed Russian
energy firms.
AN UNFAIR GAS DISPUTE
If Russia thought that it had a strong legal case to unilaterally change the
price of gas to Ukraine, why did Gazprom not take the issue to arbitration
rather than simply cut off energy to a customer in the dead of winter? Why
insist that a non-transparent Gazprom controlled company act as middleman?
Few in the West have focused on the fact that the 2004 "five-year" agreement
was signed at the behest of the Kremlin two months before Ukrainian
presidential elections in order to support the pro-Russian candidate of
Viktor Yanukovich. Only after the election of pro-Western candidate Viktor
Yushchenko in December 2004 did Moscow begin to talk about shifting to
world market prices for natural gas.
Gazprom's dramatic cut in gas shipments to Ukraine on January 1st was not
a public relations victory, but did help discredit the Kremlin despised
Ukrainian Government and it resulted in greater Russian control of Ukraine's
domestic natural gas system.
The Baltic Sea gas pipeline deal, put together with the help of then German
Chancellor Schroeder, demonstrated the opaque connection of former
intelligence officers from Russia and Germany putting together deals that
weaken the energy security of EU members in East Central Europe.
The only thing that remains transparent is the Kremlin's intention to use
energy for geo-political gain and to use "pipeline politics" to reverse
democratization trends in the former Soviet republics, particularly in
Ukraine, Moldova and Central Asia.
While Gazprom, Rosneft and Lukoil are free to buy control of European and
U.S. energy assets, such as Getty Petroleum, and blocking shares in German
gas companies, European and American companies are limited to the role of
minor shareholders in Russian energy companies (the TNKBP merger was a
one-off deal, not to be repeated).
Why should we allow ourselves to become more dependent on Russia at the
same time that the Putin Government is undercutting Western security interests
in Uzbekistan and other Central Asia states, in the Middle East, including
Palestine, and is undermining the new democratic states of Ukraine, Georgia
and Moldova through control of domestic energy facilities?
A serious move toward reducing domestic energy demand and increased use
of alternative energy sources in the EU and U.S. is smarter policy than
becoming more dependent on a Kremlin that uses foreign energy dependency
to project its geo-strategic interests. This would shore up the democratic
forces in Russia itself. -30-
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Contact: Ambassador Keith C. Smith (Ret.); kcsmith@csis.org
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12. SCRAMBLE TO GRAB CENTRAL ASIA'S GAS
By Isabel Gorst, Financial Times, London, UK, Thursday, May 4 2006
A proposed gas pipeline from central Asia across the Caspian Sea to Europe
will get an important boost when Dick Cheney, US vice president, meets
Nursultan Nazarbayev, the Kazakh leader, on Friday.
Mr Cheney will seek to enroll Mr Nazarbayev's support for a scheme to bring
Kazakh gas to Azerbaijan to join a new line to Turkey - ending Russia's
stranglehold on gas export routes out of landlocked central Asia.
During talks with Mr Nazarbayev, Mr Cheney will try to give a "big nudge" to
oil and gas corridors linking Kazakhstan with Europe while "planting a big
American flag in central Asia," said Glen Howard, the head of the Jamestown
Foundation think-tank. "We are flexing our muscles a little bit," Mr Howard
added.
The plan is one of a flurry of new pipeline schemes spanning central Asia
and the Caucasus that are the counters in a geopolitical chess game playing
out between the US, Russia and China for control over one of the world's
last undeveloped oil and gas basins.
Mr Cheney's visit to Kazakhstan, coming hard on the heels of a trip to the
White House by Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, underscores the
strategic importance to the US of central Asia and the Caucasus at a time of
increasingly strained ties with Russia.
Kate Hardin, Cambridge Energy Research Associates director, said that
"Europe and the US took a second look at the map" in central Asia after the
crisis in January when Gazprom, the Russian natural gas giant, temporarily
shut off gas supplies to Ukraine.
Mr Aliyev spent three days in Washington last week, stressing the importance
of Azerbaijan as a reliable, secular Muslim ally that could offer oil and
gas to Europe without being beholden to Russian transit routes.
The US promoted construction of parallel oil and gas pipelines from
Azerbaijan across Georgia to Turkey. Both will start up this year, marking a
major strategic gain for the US in the Caspian energy arena.
Limited marketing opportunities exist in Turkey which has committed to
import more gas than it needs from various sources, including Russia. But
the broader plan is to establish Turkey as a transit highway to Europe,
where Caspian gas will compete head-on with Russian supplies.
Gazprom's strategy is identical - and it is ahead in the game. Vladimir
Putin, Russian president, last November announced plans to expand a pipeline
Gazprom built across the Black Sea to Turkey in 2003, that could provide
extra supplies to southern Europe and Italy. Gazprom's new advance from
Turkey, combined with another planned export route across the Baltic to
northern Europe, would create a ring of pipelines around the continent that
Gazprom's detractors regard as a noose.
With oil and gas export routes now established from Azerbaijan that exclude
Russia, the US is shifting its focus to trying to offset Russian dominance
over exports from Kazakhstan.
This is the second US attempt to bring central Asian gas into Europe.
Lengthy negotiations over a scheme to pipe gas from Turkmenistan across the
Caspian to Azerbaijan broke down in the 1990s mainly because Saparmurat
Niyazov, the authoritarian Turkmen leader, kept changing the terms. US
energy officials now regard Turkmenistan, the central Asian republic with
the biggest gas reserves, as "a lost cause".
But there were other barriers to the Turkmen project that could rear their
heads again. Russia claims Caspian subsea pipelines are environmentally
unacceptable. Azerbaijan is reluctant to share access to the limited Turkish
market with competitors from central Asia.
However, investors' misgivings about the high cost of offshore pipeline
construction have evaporated against a backdrop of record oil and gas
prices and frenzied concern about energy security.
Jonathan Stern, director of gas research at the Oxford Institute for Energy
Studies said: "With $60 oil these pipelines are affordable. If you don't
build a pipeline you are not in the game."
A trans-Caspian gas pipeline would fit with Mr Nazarbayev's strategy to
diversify Kazakh energy export routes. But the president is expected to keep
all options open rather than commit to a project that would tip the delicate
balance of Kazakhstan's energy relations with the US, Russia and China.
Russia would object to any pipeline that eroded its monopoly over central
Asian gas export routes. Gazprom's strategy is to import growing volumes of
central Asian gas to feed its low-price domestic market, thereby freeing up
its own production for sale to more lucrative European customers.
China is also competing for central Asian gas and is willing to commit huge
sums to pipeline projects. Kazakhstan proposes to build a gas line to China
that could eventually serve as a transit hub for central Asian exports
moving east to feed the world's fastest growing energy consumer.
Privately, Kazakh energy officials admit that the appearance of alternative
gas pipeline proposals on the board may coax more generous export terms
out of the Russians. -30-
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Additional reporting by Guy Dinmore in Washington
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13. ELECTION RESULTS STRENGTHEN UKRAINE'S BID
FOR CLOSER LINKS WITH WEST
ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY: Ambassador Steven Pifer
Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine & CSIS Senior Adviser
TRANSATLANTIC REPORT: Quarterly Newsletter of the
Initiative for a Renewed Transatlantic Partnership, Volume No. 1
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Washington, D.C., April 2006
Ukraine's March parliamentary elections demonstrate the country's progress
in consolidating democratic practices since the 2004 Orange Revolution.
They strengthen President Viktor Yushchenko's argument for Ukraine's
integration into Euro-Atlantic institutions, including ultimately joining
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union.
Two questions now arise: What coalition will emerge when the new Rada
(Parliament) meets in May? And how will the new government build the case
for NATO and EU entry, Yushchenko's top foreign policy priority?
UKRAINE'S ELECTIONS. The March 26 elections reaffirmed the democratic
impulse of the Orange Revolution. The electoral process was the most
democratic ever conducted in Ukraine, fully meeting free and fair standards.
And despite the government's mixed record in 2005, much of the electorate
endorsed "Orange" parties-the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, Yushchenko's Our
Ukraine, and the Socialist Party.
Although these parties differ on some economic issues, and over the extent
and pace of Ukraine's integration into the West, they share a commitment to
democratic politics and modernization. The three parties in a coalition
would hold more than 240 of the 450 seats in the new Rada.
Although Our Ukraine came in third in the ballot, mutual antipathy between
the Regions Party (which placed first) and the Tymoshenko Bloc (second)
has positioned Yushchenko to choose the coalition. Early talks suggest a
three-way Orange coalition as the most likely prospect, provided that
Yushchenko can countenance Tymoshenko as prime minister.
Personality clashes and differences over economic policy led Yushchenko to
fire her after she had served seven months as his first prime minister in
2005. Can they reconcile and agree on a common approach on economic and
other issues? This will require delicate discussions, but the odds are that
they will succeed.
The alternative is an alliance between Our Ukraine and the Regions Party.
Regions is led by the pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych, Yushchenko's rival
in the 2004 presidential fight, and comprises major business interests in
eastern Ukraine. (The base of the "Orange" parties is in western Ukraine,
which has traditionally leaned more westward.)
Although the Regions Party professes support for reform, suspicions remain
about the positions it will actually adopt in the Rada. Regions and Our
Ukraine together would command some 265 Rada seats, but such a coalition
would pose great risks for the president. Many of his remaining political
supporters would desert him in anger over an alliance with what they regard
as the discredited old guard.
UKRAINE AND NATO. While Yushchenko shows more interest in the
European Union, he realizes that NATO membership offers the better
shorter-term prospect. At his February 2005 meeting with NATO leaders,
Yushchenko called for deepening NATO-Ukraine relations and a membership
action plan (MAP).
Tymoshenko showed no great enthusiasm, but as prime minister she did not
obstruct Yushchenko's policy, which achieved an intensified dialogue for
Ukraine in April 2005. Regions, in contrast, opposes joining NATO.
With an Orange coalition in the Rada and Tymoshenko as prime minister,
Yushchenko could proceed with NATO. Ukrainian officials can cite Ukraine's
contribution to the coalition force in Iraq in 2002-2005 as demonstrating
that it has serious military capabilities and the will to employ them.
As for Alliance political standards, the March elections show that Ukraine
"gets it" on democracy. The defense ministry has adopted a serious program
to reform the military and make it interoperable with NATO forces. The
larger questions may relate to economics; NATO wants prospective members to
have economic systems compatible with those of the Alliance and will want
coherent policies to reform the Ukrainian economy and deal with rampant
corruption.
Finally, there is the question of public support for NATO. Polls suggest
only about 20 percent of Ukrainians currently favor membership, though
pro-NATO advocates in Kiev believe they can increase this figure.
While some have suggested that Yushchenko might slow the pace of NATO
integration given public opposition in Ukraine's east, if he and the new
government do confirm relations with NATO as a high priority, acceptance of
a MAP at the Alliance's summit meeting in Riga in November is a distinct
possibility.
The idea has support in Washington and among Ukraine's NATO neighbors.
An invitation at the 2008 summit to join the Alliance is an ambitious goal
but, with hard work by the Ukrainians, not unimaginable.
The Russian factor looms over all of this, and Yushchenko has attempted to
build stable relations with Moscow. NATO has made it clear, however, that it
will not allow third countries a veto right. Moreover, growing concerns
about the Kremlin backsliding on democracy and Moscow's behavior toward
its neighbors will reduce sympathy in NATO for Russian views.
All bets are off if Yushchenko opts for a coalition with the Regions Party.
In such a case, even Ukraine's strongest advocates within NATO could hardly
consider a MAP this year.
UKRAINE AND THE EUROPEAN UNION. While NATO membership
remains controversial within Ukraine, EU membership does not. Polls show
a solid majority of Ukrainians in favor of joining the Union, despite their
recognition of EU reluctance to consider Ukraine as a prospective member.
Even key business interests in the Regions Party see advantages in closer
relations with the EU, where they have growing investments.
Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk told the European Parliament in January that
Kiev wants to negotiate an association agreement that would include a free
trade area as its next step toward closer links with the EU. Ukraine has not
formally requested EU membership, although it has indicated an eagerness to
do so; EU officials have suggested that Ukraine should not apply too
rapidly.
This is not the best time for Ukraine to be pressing its EU case. The Union
continues to digest the 10 countries that joined in May 2004, and there are
widespread doubts about the EU's future direction. Ukraine therefore must
pursue its EU aspirations with patience.
With Ukraine showing that it has absorbed EU democratic values, economic
issues will be increasingly crucial. In addition to demonstrating commitment
to building a market economy and ending corruption, Kiev will need robust
and steady growth to bolster its case for negotiating an EU association
agreement, which at best still lies years in the future. A persistently weak
economy and low living standards will frighten off even those Europeans
most open-minded about one day bringing Ukraine into the EU.
Most parties in the new Rada support EU integration. Regions favors joining
the European Union but also wants to join the Single Economic Space with
Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. It has not offered a plan, however, to
reconcile these two contradictory directions.
As a new Rada prepares to meet, form a majority coalition, and choose a
new prime minister, the March parliamentary elections have dramatically
demonstrated Ukraine's consolidation of democratic political practices.
This strengthens its bid for closer links with and ultimate membership in
NATO and the European Union. But Ukraine still has much to accomplish to
make a persuasive case. Its ability to do so will depend critically pn the
new prime minister's commitment to Yushchenko's Euro-Atlantic course and
to foreign and domestic policies that advance it. -30-
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSATLANTIC REPORT
Transatlantic Report is a quarterly review of past and future activities of
the CSIS Initiative for a Renewed Transatlantic Partnership. Center for
Strategic and International Studies, 1800 K Street, N.W.,Washington,
D.C. 20006, Phone: (202) 775-3149, Fax: (202) 775-3199
LINK: www.csis.org/europe/initiative
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14. UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT YUSHCHENKO, US VICE-PRESIDENT
CHENEY DISCUSS NUCLEAR POWER COOPERATION
UNIAN news agency, Kiev, in Ukrainian 0755 gmt 4 May 06
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Thu, May 04, 2006
KIEV - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and US Vice-President
Richard Cheney have discussed the possibility of cooperation between
Ukraine and the USA in the areas of nuclear power and energy conservation.
The Ukrainian president's press service reported that during their meeting
in Vilnius, Yushchenko informed Cheney about the energy strategy adopted
by the Ukrainian government.
During the meeting, which lasted 90 minutes, the sides discussed a broad
range of issues, in particular concerning bilateral relations and
trade-economic cooperation. Considerable attention was paid to the
post-election political situation in Ukraine.
Yushchenko described his views on formation of a democratic coalition,
saying that he is optimistic about the time it will take to form the
coalition and government. Yushchenko is convinced that today there are
good grounds to say that Ukraine will have a new government in June.
Yushchenko also said that he had met the election winners and is planning
shortly to hold another meeting with the leaders of the parties and blocs
that will take part in the future coalition.
Speaking of bilateral US-Ukrainian relations, Yushchenko said that Ukraine
welcomes the level of strategic partnership that has developed between the
two countries and all the steps that are being taken to raise it.
In turn, Cheney said that the USA supports Ukraine's democratic choice and
will continue to support the country on the path of reform and Euro-Atlantic
integration.
During their discussion, Yushchenko and Cheney also touched on the issue of
regional policy, in particular the resolution of the [Moldova's breakaway
region] Dniester conflict and the GUAM [regional bloc with Georgia, Ukraine,
Azerbaijan and Moldova] summit to be held in Kiev at the end of May.
The sides also discussed a number of foreign policy issues. In this context,
Yushchenko said that the country's Euro-Atlantic course remains unchanged.
Speaking of Ukrainian-Russian relations, Yushchenko said that Russia remains
a strategic partner for Ukraine. He said that the Ukrainian authorities are
interested in the development of good neighbourly relations and mutually
beneficial relations with Russia, and will do everything they can to develop
them.
Yushchenko and Cheney also spoke of President George Bush's future visit to
Ukraine. Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk and the head of the presidential
secretariat, Oleh Rybachuk, also took part in the meeting from the Ukrainian
side. -30-
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15. POLAND & UKRAINE NEGOTIATE LIFTING BAN ON POLISH MEAT
Polish News Bulletin, Warsaw, Poland, Thu, May 04, 2006
WARSAW - Deputy Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Marek
Chrapek announced that the heads of Polish and Ukrainian veterinary
services are negotiating the possibility of lifting the ban on Polish meat.
The negotiations are also being attended by representatives of Polish and
Ukrainian customs services.
He went on to say that such a solution is possible in the near future. On 26
March, Ukraine introduced a temporary ban on Polish meat products due to
frequent lack of necessary veterinary documentation. In the opinion of
Polish experts, tackling such a situations falls within the competence of
Ukrainian customs services.
Representatives of both countries met to solve the problem on 13 April.
They agreed that special border crossings need to be selected through which
exports of Polish meat to Ukraine could be continued. Earlier, a ban on
Polish meat and other food products was introduced by Russia.
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16. LITHUANIA'S PRESIDENT HITS AT RUSSIA'S POLICY ON ENERGY
By Stefan Wagstyl, Financial Times, London, UK, Thu, May 4 2006
VILNIUS - President Valdas Adamkus of Lithuania has called for a common
European Union front in response to Russia's willingness to use its energy
supplies to secure political influence over its neighbours.
Speaking to the Financial Times on the eve of an international pro-democracy
conference in Vilnius, Mr Adamkus condemned Germany for backing Russia's
controversial planned Baltic Sea gas pipeline, which will circumvent transit
countries including the Baltic states, Ukraine and Poland.
He said: "I believe I can understand the Russian position but I can't
understand Germany's position. As a member of the EU, they acted without
even extending the courtesy of advising the Baltic states [about their
plans]."
Mr Adamkus's comments echoed those of Polish officials including Radek
Sikorski, defence minister, who earlier this week compared the Baltic
pipeline deal with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact - the secret German-Soviet
agreement dividing up eastern Europe signed just before the second world
war.
Although the 79-year-old Lithuanian president distanced himself from Mr
Sikorski's rhetoric, he left no doubt that Warsaw's concerns are shared by
Vilnius, as they are by the EU's other new member states in central Europe.
"I don't want to use the word blackmail," said Mr Adamkus in referring to
Moscow's efforts to extend its influence through energy policy, but he made
clear he was very concerned about Russia's economic and political pressure.
Mr Adamkus is due today to host a summit attended by Dick Cheney, the US
vice-president, and more than 20 European political leaders, including nine
presidents of east European states. The conspicuous absentee is Russia's
Vladimir Putin, who was invited but - to nobody's surprise in Vilnius -
declined to accept. His absence will give Russia's critics a chance to voice
their complaints unhindered.
Mr Adamkus, a former US government official who returned to his native
Lithuania in the 1990s, said the conference would highlight the region's
shared democratic values and emphasise the fact that this ideology extended
much further than was often supposed - as far as the south Caucasus.
Mr Adamkus said there were differences in interpreting democratic values
between Russia and the west but he avoided any direct comment on what is
widely seen in the west as Russia's growing authoritarianism.
He urged EU leaders to support Lithuania's bid to join the euro next year,
saying the application should not be blocked because the country's inflation
rate missed the entry criteria by a "fraction of a percentage point".
Vilnius is lobbying to be admitted alongside Slovenia on January 1. But the
European Commission and the European Central Bank have vowed to interpret
the admission rules strictly, including the inflation criteria. Under the
latest (March) data, Lithuania's rate stands at 2.7 per cent, just above the
required 2.63 per cent.
Mr Adamkus expressed hopes that Vilnius would soon settle the future
of the Mazeikiu oil refinery - the largest industrial enterprise in the Baltics -
in which Yukos, the stricken Russian oil group, has a 53.7 per cent stake
worth an estimated $1bn (Euro790m, £550m).
Yukos, which runs the refinery in partnership with the Lithuanian
government, which owns 41 per cent, has been in talks with Vilnius about
selling its stake back to the state. Lithuania would then resell a majority
interest to another large oil group, such as Kazakhstan's KazMunaiGaz.
However, the Russian authorities, which are pursuing debt claims against
Yukos, last month won a US court injunction banning asset sales. Lithuanian
officials are concerned that Moscow plans to secure a big stake in Mazeikiu
for a Russian state-controlled group such as Rosneft. Mr Adamkus said:
"Lithuanians are still sensitive that their economic dependence [on Russia]
should not turn into political dependence." -30-
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17. GEORGIAN PRESIDENT MIKHAIL SAAKASHVILI SAYS RUSSIA
THREATENS EASTERN EUROPE DEMOCRACY
Associated Press (AP), Vilnius, Lithuania, Thu, May 4, 2006
VILNIUS, Lithuania - Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili Thursday
accused Russia of trying to undermine national sovereignty and economic
growth in the fledgling democracies emerging from the former Soviet empire.
Saakashvili warned that democratic advances in Georgia, Ukraine and the
Baltic countries since the collapse of communism were under threat from
Moscow, which he accused of suffering from "imperial nostalgia."
"Freedom is under threat," Saakashvili told a forum of Baltic and Black Sea
leaders in the Lithuanian capital. "Political forces in Moscow actively work
to undermine our economies, our sovereignty, and even our system of
governance."
Georgia is heavily reliant on imports of cheap Russian natural gas, and
Saakashivili accused Russia of using "new tools such as energy dependence,
state censorship and the power of national monopolies" to bully its
neighbors.
"We still have imperial nostalgia around us," Saakashivili said, also noting
a recent Russian ban on imports of Georgian wine.
Ties between Moscow and Tbilisi have cooled markedly since Saakashvili
swept to power more than two years ago during Georgia's Rose Revolution.
Earlier Thursday, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney accused Russia of
restricting the rights of its citizens, and said "no legitimate interest is
served" by turning energy resources into implements of blackmail.
The presidents of Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,
Poland and Moldova also attended the summit, sharing their experiences in
democracy-building after the Soviet collapse.
The countries are in different stages of integration with the West through
membership in NATO and the European Union. The Baltic countries and
Poland are both NATO and E.U. members, while Ukraine and Georgia are
still looking for membership in both.
Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga said NATO hopefuls should not
expect "any concrete invitations for accession" when her country hosts
an alliance summit in November.
Ministers from Azerbaijan and Armenia also attended the summit, and used
the occasion to accuse each other of aggression in the disputed enclave of
Nagorno-Karabach.
The countries claim each has frequently violated the shaky 1994 cease-fire
that ended fighting between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces over the
enclave.
Nevertheless, E.U. foreign policy chief Javier Solana proclaimed: "Here we
can see the elements of a possible breakthrough."
Solana said the E.U. was committed to "underpin an agreement" in
Nagorno-Karabach and other so-called "frozen conflicts" in the Black Sea
region, including Trans-Dniester, which broke away from Moldova in 1992.
Delegates also expressed hope that the spread of freedom in the region
would reach Belarus, which Cheney called "Europe's last dictatorship,"
and condemned the arrest of Bealrusian opposition leader Alexander
Milinkevich. -30-
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18. VP CHENEY TURNS UP RHETORICAL HEAT ON PUTIN
VP Criticizes Moscow's Political Repression, Energy-Policy 'Blackmail'
By JOHN D. MCKINNON and GREGORY L. WHITE
The Wall Street Journal, NY, NY, Friday, May 5, 2006
VILNIUS, Lithuania -- Dialing up pressure on Russian President Vladimir
Putin, Vice President Dick Cheney criticized Russian political repression
and use of oil and gas as "tools of intimidation or blackmail."
Mr. Cheney's remarks amplified tensions that have been brewing for more than
a year. The Kremlin has bridled at Washington's support for pro-Western
countries in the former Soviet Union, and Mr. Putin has tightened his grip
on the energy sector at a time when the U.S. hoped Russia would become a
reliable alternative supplier to the unstable Middle East.
So far, the U.S.'s increasing bluntness over the drift in Russia has
produced little change in Moscow's behavior. Russia's current course, Mr.
Cheney suggested, risks isolating it from the European community and harming
its long-term development goals.
President Bush, who once said he had gotten a "sense" of Mr. Putin's "soul,"
appears to have grown particularly impatient with Russia's tactics on
energy. Mr. Cheney's toughest language -- the harshest yet from a U.S.
official -- addressed Moscow's energy policy. He rebuked Russia for recent
moves, including bickering over pipelines and briefly shutting off natural
gas to Ukraine in January.
"No legitimate interest is served when oil and gas become tools of
intimidation or blackmail, either by supply manipulation or attempts to
monopolize transportation," he told a conference of officials from fledgling
Eastern European democracies.
Russia is the world's largest producer of natural gas and ranks No. 2 in oil
behind Saudi Arabia. Boosted by revenue from those exports, Russia has
sought to stand up more for its interests beyond its borders, something it
rarely did in the 1990s, when the country was wracked by economic crisis.
Last month, U.S. officials said, a top Kremlin official told his Washington
counterparts that Moscow would link the participation of U.S. companies in a
major natural-gas project aimed at the U.S. market -- one of the Bush
administration's energy priorities with Russia -- to U.S. agreement on the
terms of letting Russia into the World Trade Organization, something Mr.
Putin has long sought.
U.S. officials were shocked. The WTO agreement hasn't been completed yet and
Russia continues to delay the announcement of partners for the gas project,
although officials in Moscow deny any effort to link the two.
Washington's fears that the Kremlin had reasserted control over the energy
sector crystallized in January when Moscow briefly shut off gas supplies to
Ukraine. That happened after Ukrainian authorities rejected Russia's demands
for a rise in the deeply discounted prices Ukraine paid for the fuel.
The conflict led to shortfalls in exports to Europe, which gets a quarter of
its gas from Russia, mostly through pipes across Ukraine, triggering calls
for steps to reduce European dependence on its eastern neighbor. Mr. Putin
responded with public threats to send shipments to energy-hungry China
instead.
Beyond energy, Mr. Cheney's speech yesterday gave the Bush administration an
opportunity to tout the success of its "freedom agenda" in an area other
than troubled Iraq. The "Community of Democratic Choice" meeting in
Lithuania this week includes former Soviet satellites Ukraine and Georgia,
where so-called Orange and Rose revolutions recently flowered, with active
U.S. encouragement. Hosts Lithuania and Poland have become success stories
of the post-Cold War reconstruction.
To some degree, the U.S. is playing Mr. Cheney's bad cop against the good
cop of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, architect of Mr. Bush's original
outreach to Moscow. Her tone lately has been much more moderate.
Mr. Cheney also chastised Russia for heavy-handed treatment of some
neighbors, saying that "no one can justify actions that undermine the
territorial integrity of a neighbor or interfere with democratic movements."
A senior administration official later said those comments referred
specifically to Georgia and Moldova, where tensions over pro-Russian
breakaway regions have led to friction with Moscow, and even in some cases
the unwanted presence of Russian troops.
Internally, the vice president said, the Russian government "has unfairly
and improperly restricted the rights of the people" in suppressing civil
liberties. He added that "none of us believes that Russia is fated to become
an enemy."
The Kremlin thinks Washington is probably more worried about energy than
democracy and civil rights in Russia, says Ivan Safranchuk, head of the
Moscow office of the Center for Defense Information. "I think that in the
media, there will be plenty of fury and yelling anti-American things, but in
the Kremlin they will take this very pragmatically," he said.
"They will think this is more about the energy dialogue, and that now the
U.S. is introducing other issues as a trade-off potential," he said. "If
Russia compromises on some things, they [the U.S.] will forget about other
issues in the same way they did before."
Some U.S. officials worry that the relationship could worsen considerably
after the coming G-8 summit, an event the Kremlin hopes to turn into a
ratification of its return to the international stage.
"There's a real fear that after St. Petersburg, the way things move in
Russia will be much more unpredictable," said one U.S. official, especially
on the sensitive issues of democratic institutions inside Russia and
Moscow's relations with its former Soviet neighbors. The worsening
relationship also could complicate U.S. efforts to win United Nations
sanctions to curb Iran's nuclear program.
Mr. Cheney's focus on democracy and freedom in the former Soviet Union could
serve another political purpose -- deflecting attention from recent
administration meetings with heads of oil-rich Central Asian states like
Azerbaijan that aren't models of democracy.
In his six-day trip to the region, Mr. Cheney will visit another such place,
Kazakhstan. He plans a stop in Croatia to meet with other Eastern European
heads of state. Mr. Cheney's speech gave a rhetorical boost to the Bush
administration's vision of a democratic Europe that brings together both its
old and new members.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Write to John D. McKinnon at john.mckinnon@wsj.com and Gregory
L. White at greg.white@wsj.com
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19. RUSSIANS BRISTLE AT US VP'S CRITICISM OF DEMOCRACY RECORD
Associated Press (AP), Moscow, Russia, May 4, 2006
MOSCOW - Russian officials and diplomats reacted angrily Thursday to a
summit of former Soviet republics and allies where U.S. Vice President Dick
Cheney criticized Moscow for backtracking on freedom and bullying its
neighbors.
Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin voiced annoyance about the fact that
Russia hadn't been invited to the conference of Baltic and Black Sea Fleet
ex-Soviet nations and Moscow's former Warsaw Pact allies.
"We would like to see Russia figure at the summit as an important positive
factor of global politics, not as an object for scrutiny," Karasin told
reporters.
Cheney, speaking at the conference that brought Eastern European leaders to
Vilnius, Lithuania, said that in Russia in many areas "from religion and the
news media to advocacy groups and political parties, the government has
unfairly and improperly restricted the rights of the people."
He also warned Moscow against using its energy resources to blackmail its
neighbors - an apparent reference to Russia sharply rising a price for its
gas supplied to Western-leaning Ukraine amid a sharp dispute that led to a
brief halt of gas exports to other European nations early this year.
Karasin didn't directly comment on Cheney's statement, but several
Kremlin-connected lawmakers and former Soviet president Mikhail
Gorbachev harshly denounced his remarks. Their comments reflected
increasing irritation at American criticism and what many Russians see
as U.S. meddling in the nation's affairs.
Andrei Kokoshin, the head of the Russian parliament's committee for
relations with other ex-Soviet republics, said that the U.S. should respect
Russia's legitimate interests.
"The United States has to deal with an absolutely different Russia today - a
Russia that has restored its real sovereignty in many areas and is pursuing
a course on the world arena that meets mainly its own national interests,"
Kokoshin said, the Interfax news agency reported.
Russian-U.S. relations have soured in recent years because of Washington's
concerns about curtailing of democratic freedoms in Russia and disagreements
over politics in the former Soviet republics and global crises including
Iraq, Iran and the Mideast peace process.
Gorbachev, who has recently warned that hawks in Russia and the West were
eager to see a replay of the Cold War, harshly criticized Cheney's statement
on Thursday.
"Cheney's speech looks like a provocation and interference in Russia's
internal affairs in terms of its content, form and place," Gorbachev said,
Interfax reported. -30-
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20. UKRAINE MEDIA OWNERSHIP STILL A CONCERN
Associated Press (AP), Kyiv, Ukraine, Wed, May 3, 2006
KIEV - Ukraine's media enjoyed more freedom last year than ever since this
ex-Soviet republic became independent, but the murky ownership of media
outlets and a lack of respect for journalists remain persistent problems, a
media watchdog group said Wednesday.
The media reported 12 cases of economic or political pressure last year,
compared to 60 in 2004. There were 52 cases of censorship in 2004, whereas
only 14 reported cases last year, said Viktoriya Syumar, director of the
Institute of Mass Information, marking international Press Freedom Day.
"Ukrainian media saw fewer violations of their activity in 2005," she said.
But Serhiy Taran, a media expert, said true freedom of the press still
hasn't come to Ukraine despite the massive changes wrought by the 2004
Orange Revolution. He cited the lack of transparency about who owns many
of Ukraine's powerful media outlets, and obstacles keeping journalists from
the corridors of power.
"We know that in many democratic countries, including the U.S., even
presidents have had to resign because of journalistic investigations," he
said. "Here we have a paradoxical situation - journalists have freedom of
speech, but they haven't yet become the fourth branch of power."
Ukraine's reformist, pro-Western president, Viktor Yushchenko, has pledged
to make media freedom a top priority. Under his predecessor, former
President Leonid Kuchma, media were given orders about what they could
report, and the opposition was either given little time on television or
portrayed in a very negative light.
But Taran warned that there was still a need for media outlets to become
more transparent, and reveal who is funding them. He also complained that
journalists weren't being given the access they need to carry out their
watchdog role.
The media watchdog group said it had recorded a worrying increase in
incidents against journalists during this year's parliamentary campaign.
Last year, only 13 lawsuits were opened against the media, whereas in the
first quarter of this year, there have already been 15, Syumar said.
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21. A MAN WHO WON'T SELL HIS SOUL
OP-ED: By David Ignatius, OP-ED Writer for The Washington Post
Washington, D.C., Wednesday, May 3, 2006; Page A23
BRUSSELS -- Sen. John McCain likes the moral high ground, and he takes
palpable pleasure in delivering zingers to errant Russians, Iranians and
Europeans, as he did at a conference here last weekend. But as the apparent
front-runner in the 2008 presidential race, McCain is spending more of his
time in the bog of American politics, and it's no picnic.
McCain's critics have accused him of playing a game of political Twister the
past few months. When he accepted a speaking invitation from Jerry Falwell,
the polarizing prince of the Christian right, liberals saw it as a betrayal
of values. When he voted to make President Bush's tax cuts permanent,
despite his own past warnings about the country's fiscal mess, budget
balancers attacked him as a hypocrite.
When I asked McCain, in between his speeches to the Brussels Forum here,
if the criticism bothered him, he answered quietly, "Oh, yeah." He says
liberals need to understand that he's not a man of the left, or even the
center. "I haven't changed. My record is the same on all issues, which is
that of a conservative Republican. Not a liberal Republican, not a moderate
Republican."
But in the next breath, he lists all the positions he has taken that have
made him the darling of centrist Republicans and Democrats, from torture to
ethics reform to climate change.
The early question about any presidential candidate is whether he wants the
job badly enough to suffer the indignities involved in getting it. In
McCain's case, the answer isn't yet clear.
He wants it enough to suppress any residual anger over Falwell's role in
derailing his 2000 presidential campaign, certainly, but not so much that he
can brush off criticism that he's an opportunist for making such expedient
political decisions. Some people (Bill Clinton comes to mind) have a knack
for making easy compromises on the road to election, but McCain isn't one
of them.
"I don't want it that badly," McCain says. "I will continue to do what is
right. I will continue to pursue torture, climate change. If that means I
can't get the Republican nomination, fine. I've had a happy life. The worst
thing I can do is sell my soul to the devil."
He explains: "Every time I did something because I thought it would be
politically helpful, it turned out badly." As an example, he cites his
waffle during the 2000 South Carolina primary, when he said flying the
Confederate flag at the state capitol was a state issue.
The most polarizing issue for the country is the Iraq war. Here, as on other
fronts, McCain tries to bridge the extremes. He has been one of the sharpest
critics of the administration's strategy in Iraq, arguing loudly since 2003
that there weren't enough U.S. troops to stabilize the country.
He voiced the generals' anger at Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld long
before they went public with their dissent. But at the same time, McCain has
backed President Bush and the basic U.S. mission in Iraq. Indeed, he still
favors putting in more troops, even though he recognizes that is now "like
saying, 'I hope it snows in Gila Bend, Arizona.'
"A measure of McCain's loyalty to Bush on Iraq is that he won't rule out
becoming secretary of defense if Rumsfeld goes. "I would have to assess
where I can be most effective," he said, adding: "It's awfully hard to say
no to the president of the United States."
McCain is a walking embodiment of the Catch-22 of presidential politics. To
get the nomination, a candidate must appeal to his party's activist wing.
But even as he buffs his credentials with the base, the candidate inevitably
tarnishes his image with the center.
A successful campaign almost requires some fibbing -- the candidate is
either less extreme than he's telling his party's base, or more extreme than
he's telling the general public. The trick is not to get caught -- not to be
too obvious in the tactical compromises that are necessary in the marathon
race of a presidential campaign.
Part of McCain's appeal is that he seems to straddle such partisan political
calculations. He's the victim of torture who opposes torture, the man caught
in the "Keating Five" ethics scandal who insists on reform, the critic of
Iraq policy who insists that America must win the war, the conservative who
is beloved by moderates.
A McCain candidacy, if he makes the formal decision next year to run, will
be rooted in his image as a man of principle. But it will also be something
of a balancing act -- one that the candidate himself is likely to find
uncomfortable. davidignatius@washpost.com
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/02/AR2006050201482.ht
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