Ukraine: The Street Against the People

Prior to the first round of presidential elections in the Ukraine, we alerted our readers to the deployment of US agents mandated to influence the election [« Washington et Mocou se livrent bataille en Ukraine » by Emilia Nazarenko and the editors of, Voltaire, 1er November 2004.]. The operation was headed for the CIA by Colonel Robert Helvey who had already supervised the elections in Yugoslavia and Georgia. It was officially financed, for its public part, to the tune of 13 million dollars.

To complete our readers’ information, we have reconstructed a chronology of the events from dispatches from Interfax to which we have added information on the protagonists.

Three Days That Shook the Ukraine

Sunday, November 21, 2004, at around 3 pm, the headquarters of the candidate Yushchenko informed press agencies that more than 2,500 foreign observers were prohibited from entering the polling stations. Immediately, several hundred young supporters assembled in front of the office of the Electoral Commission to denounce the “fixing of the elections”.

When voting ended, at 8 pm, Richard G. Lugar, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US Senate and special envoy of President George W. Bush, declared to the press that the elections should be invalidated. At the same time, Socis Institute published an exit poll showing Yushchenko had won with 49% against 45.9% for Yanukovych. For its part, the Razumkov Centre of the International Sociological Institute gave Yushchenko 58% against 39% for Yanukovych. Without waiting for the counting of the votes, 3,000 supporters of Viktor Yushchenko descended upon the centre of Kiev to proclaim their victory. Their number reached several tens of thousands during the evening.

Towards midnight, the demonstrators dispersed. At 1 am, the Electoral Commission announced that one quarter of the polling stations had finished counting the ballots and broadcast the first results. But, contradicting the exit polls, it was Yanukovych who arrived on top with 53% against 45.48% for his opponent. Immediately, Viktor Yushchenko, denouncing a fix, went to the office of the Commission to demand a recount in the first polling stations.

Monday morning the 22nd, the crowd gathered again in Independence Square where Yushchenko had prepared a large stage. He arrived himself around 11 am. The Electoral Commission was to publish the latest results at noon. But, at 11:55, speaking before his militants, Yushchenko denounced the fixed results ahead of time and called for non-violent resistance against the dictatorship.

By noon, the Commission had received 98% of the results. The spread between the two candidates had narrowed, but Yanukovych remained in the lead with 49.57% of the votes against 46.57% for his opponent.

Around 3 pm, the Organisation for European Security and Cooperation declared that the Ukraine had failed to meet international standards for democratic elections. At 4 pm, Senator Lugar issued a press release accusing the authorities of falsifying the results.

During this time, the Kiev Municipal Council denounced the results and proclaimed Yushchenko the president of the Ukraine. Then, it voted a motion to defy the Electoral Commission and called upon Parliament to recognise the new president.

At 5:40, the Secretary of the Defence, Rudkovsky, called the military back to their bases. At 7:40, the Procurer General’s Office issued a press release indicating that it was ready to repress any violation of the constitutional order, but several minutes later, Lytvyn, the head of the Parliament, assured that there was no question of declaring a state of emergency.

At 8:15, Russian president Vladimir Putin is the first foreign head of state to recognise a winner. He sent a message of congratulations to Mr. Yanukovych.
Tuesday the 23rd, Lytvyn tries to mediate. He invites the two candidates and the members of the Electoral Commission to a meeting at the Parliament. There are reports of 100,000 demonstrators in Kiev.

At 12:30, Freedom House calls upon foreign governments and intergovernmental agencies to condemn the fraud. Several minutes later, the European Union demands a revision of the results. At 1:30, the National Democratic Institute declares that it does not recognise the legitimacy of the vote.

At 2:55, the Minister of the Interior dismisses the rumour that Russian special troops had entered the Ukraine.
At 4:00 the president of Belarus is the second foreign head of state to congratulate M. Yanukovych on his election.
The crowd moves towards Parliament. Even though the session was over, a hundred or so members of parliament declare Yushchenko elected and swear him in. The “new” president pronounces a short speech during which he accuses the outgoing president Leonid Kuchma of leading the country towards civil war.

At 8 pm, Poland is the first foreign country to denounce the official result. «President» Yushchenko announces the creation of a Coordinating Council for the Protection of the Constitution and starts a provisional government.

On Wednesday, November 24, the crowd is still as thick in Independence Square. At 12:30, the Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister invites the Ukrainian authorities to do a recount. At 1 pm, the Electoral Commission announces the complete and final results: Yanukovych is elected with 49.53% of the vote. Viktor Yanukovych declares himself ready to assume the functions the people have just confided upon him.
At 4:30, “President” Yeshchenko calls on the police and the military to fraternise with the demonstrators. At 8:30 pm, Secretary of State Colin Powell announces that the United States does not recognise the election results.

Decoding

During the election campaign, Viktor Yanukovych abused his position as sitting Prime Minister to use private and public media to bolster his campaign. During the same period, Viktor Yushchenko paid and trained thousands of activists from funds coming from the United States.

Contravening the rules of the OESC, the Ukrainian Elections Code recognises as international observers only official delegations, not NGOs. According to the right-hand man of M. Yushchenko, 2,500 observers were turned away from polling stations. It seems these were 1,000 observers from the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO).
The election delegates chosen by the candidates and the international observers from the Parliamentary Assembly of the OESC, the Parliamentary Assembly from NATO, from the European Council, from the European Parliament, and from OESC were able to survey the voting normally.
ENEMO is a collection of Eastern European associations. Each of them is financed by Madeleine Albright’s National Democratic Institute, while the common secretariat of the collection is financed by the Open Society Institute of George Soros and is led by British diplomats. The group includes the Ukrainian association Committee on Voters of Ukraine (CVU), editor of the paper Tochka Zory. The displacement of 1,000 observers was jointly financed by James Woolsey’s Freedom House, Albright’s National Democratic Institute, and John McCain’s International Republican Institute. Remember that these two organizations are appendices of the National Endowment for Democracy, the public face of the CIA [1].

The exit polls, published by the Socis Institute and the Razumkov Centre, were funded by the United States. The same procedure was used during the revocation referendum in Venezuela where an exit poll was conducted by Penn Shoen & Berland Associates for the opposition association Sumate, financed by the US. The exit poll showed the opposition winning by 59% while the Electoral Commission had them losing with 41%. On the basis of this exit poll, a crowd amassed in the centre of Caracas to drive out President Chavez. Ultimately, the international observers, such as the Carter Center and the Réseau Voltaire, confirmed the official results. [2]

More than 10,000 cadres of the Pora youth association and the Committee on Voters of Ukraine received an average salary of $3,000 per month, a more than comfortable income for the Ukraine. This remuneration was financed by the United States, via USAID and NED. The first experiment in paying thousands of extras to act in a demonstration before the press was carried out by Britain’s MI6 and the CIA for Operation Ajax: in 1952, they recruited 6,000 extras in Iran to march against the Royal Palace and overthrow Mossadegh. [3]
Thousands of tents and blankets were made available to demonstrators so they could camp out in Independence Square where free meals were served. All the logistics were prepared by USAID.

The declaration of the OESC claiming the Ukraine had failed to meet international standards for a democratic election was based largely on the disequilibrium of the election campaign and not on the vote itself which, although marked by a number of incidents, didn’t appear too irregular.

The various statements from Senator Richard G. Lugar demanding the annulation of the election were not accompanied by any precise descriptions of the alleged fraudulent activity.

Polish President Kwasniewski, after denouncing the official results, proposed to mediate between the two candidates. Simultaneously, he made available to his predecessor, Lech Walesa, public monies to visit Kiev where Walesa participated in M. Yushchenko’s meetings in Independence Square.

This “richest revolution in the world” was conceived for the public in the United States.
Yushchenko’s Internet site is entirely translated into English. The street demonstrations were orchestrated for Western television with a know-how that hasn’t failed since the overthrow of Ceausescu and the mass graves of Timisoara.