PUTIN: THE GREAT DICTATOR FROM THE NORTH?
November 10, 2004
By Toby Westerman
Copyright 2004 International News Analysis Today
www.inatoday.com
Russian President Vladimir Putin, known to some Ukrainians as the "great dictator from the North," is attempting to establish a political and economic "empire" and "subjugate" the East European nation of Ukraine, according to Michael Sawkiw, president of the pro-democracy Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA), during an exclusive interview with International News Analysis Today. Moscow is employing several measures to accomplish this goal, including "dual citizenship" between Ukraine and Russia.
Some critics are already condemning President Vladimir Putin - one of our most important allies in the war on terror -- for the destruction of press freedoms in Russia and domination of Russian society by Moscow's espionage bureaucracy.
Bordering four nations of the "new Europe," the East European nation of Ukraine also has Russia as its neighbor to the north and east, the Stalinist-oriented state of Belarus to the northwest, and the vital Black Sea shipping region to the southeast. Ukraine has a rich agricultural region, and also possesses a highly advanced aerospace industry.
The Ukrainian Congress Committee had earlier led the fight to revoke the Pulitzer Prize status from Walter Duranty, The New York Times correspondent in Moscow during the late 1920s and early 1930s. The UCCA cited evidence indicating that Duranty intentionally filed inaccurate, pro-Stalinist reports, which misled millions of readers throughout the world regarding the horrors perpetrated by Stalin, especially in Ukraine during the Communist inspired terror-famine, which claimed some 10 million victims.
Despite the efforts of the UCCA and others, the Pulitzer committee still lists Duranty among the recipients of the prestigious press award, and The New York Times still ranks Duranty among its prize-winning journalists.
At present, both houses of the Russian parliament - at Putin's command -- are working on a scheme to grant "dual citizenship" to Ukrainians and Russians, a move Sawkiw is convinced is meant to undermine Ukrainian independence and establish Russian dominance in that nation.
Moscow is advancing the concept of "dual citizenship" to "subjugate" Ukraine into a Russian "empire" based upon "economics and politics," Sawkiw declared.
While Sawkiw expresses his belief that "dual citizenship" would never be accepted in Ukraine, Putin has stated that the "overwhelming majority of Russian and Ukrainian society support this measure." Reverting to phraseology reminiscent of the Soviet-era, Putin asserted that both Russians and Ukrainians, are ready to struggle for dual citizenship," according to a recent report from Itar-Tass' Russian language Internet site.
Putin argues for recognition of the "closely linked religious and cultural traditions" between Russia and Ukraine as one of several compelling reasons for "dual citizenship." These "traditions" developed when Russian and Ukrainian populations "lived in a united state," Putin asserted, according to an English language version of the Itar-Tass report.
Putin has, however, glossed over the type of "united state" in which Russia and Ukraine existed. The first "united state" was the tyrannical Tsarist empire, followed, in turn, by the much more deadly Soviet Union.
During the Soviet era, Ukraine suffered greatly under Moscow's rule. Ukrainian culture was suppressed, Catholics living in the western part of the country were persecuted, and Stalin's brutal tactics to force agricultural collectivization - including the great terror-famine - reduced much of the countryside to wasteland.
Observers note that "dual citizenship" could indirectly pull Ukraine into the "Union State" which already exists between Russia and the former Soviet republic of Belarus, a nation dominated by Alexander Lukashenko, an avid admirer of the USSR and Communist dictator Josef Stalin.
Copyright 2004
International News Analysis Today
NOTE: The upcoming issue of International News Analysis
(No. 71) will go into depth regarding the rise of the
new Russian empire, the reality of Russian "democracy,"
and investigate why Russia's pro-Soviet intelligence
services may erect a statue to a Tsarist spymaster -
and how these events directly affect you and your family.
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