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| 2004/11/23-24 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:35049 Activity:high |
11/23 Ukraine to go FOOM!
"Tens of thousands of opposition supporters surrounded Ukraine's
presidential offices after their pro-Western leader declared himself
president ... Official ballot counts so far show 54-year-old
Yanukovich won 49.39 percent of the vote compared with Yushchenko's
46.71 percent, with 99.48 percent of polling stations reporting. Most
independent exit polls handed victory to Yushchenko, but some of those
commissioned by Yanukovich's team showed the prime minister as the
winner."
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/041123/1/3or3z.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6032-2004Nov22.html
\_ Doesn't Ukraine have some number of nukular weapons?
\_ http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/ukraine
\_ Why didn't Al Gore do that?
\_ I. JUST. DON'T. KNOW. More importantly, it speaks volumes as to
how little we believed in Kerry's chances of actually winning.
\_ No Bush minions tried to kill Gore by poisoning him before the
election. No massive formerly imperial neighboring country
making massive amounts of pressure. No criminal conviction of
winning candidate. No massive government corruption. Among
other things. -John
\_ I have been following this saga since the beginning (and was rooting
for the opposition candidate) but I still can't find an answer to
this question: What evidence of vote rigging does Mr. Yuschenko
and all those outraged European and American election monitors
have other than that some of the exit polls don't match the official
results too well? |
| 4/3 |
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| sg.news.yahoo.com/041123/1/3or3z.html AFP Photo Tens of thousands of opposition supporters surrounded Ukraine's president ial offices after their pro-Western leader declared himself president, d efying the government after a weekend election they believe was rigged i n favour of the Russia-backed candidate. With the political crisis threatening to spiral out of control, hundreds of riot police cordoned off the building in the capital Kiev, pushing ba ck demonstrators who shouted slogans and called on security personnel to join the protest, as the government met in emergency session. Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko had earlier declared himself presiden t during an emergency parliament session attended only by his supporters and which lacked a quorom. Outgoing President Leonid Kuchma warned that the act could have unforesee able consequences but he promised his government would not be the first to use force against the uprising, sparked by accusations of irregularit ies during the weekend presidential vote. As criticism of the poll gathered momentum in the West, two members of Uk raine's central electoral commission were reported to have urged their 1 3 colleagues not to approve the results because of major ballot violatio ns. Yushchenko called on Ukrainian civil servants and police to cross over an d join the mass protests that have gripped the nation since the vote. "Ukraine needs you, come over to our side," he urged, as protesters campe d defiantly outside the assembly, many waving the signature opposition c olor of orange, before heeding a call to march on the president's office building. Amid opposition fears that "government provocateurs" would mix in with th e crowd and spark violence with police, Kuchma promised that the securit y forces would not launch an unprovoked crackdown, as he denounced Yushc henko's behaviour as a dangerous political farce. "The authorities will never be the instigators of the use of force," he s aid in a national address. But he warned: "The political farce acted out today by (Yushchenko's) Our Ukraine coalition, which has declared a so-called popular president... is extremely dangerous and can lead to unforeseeable consequences." The election in Ukraine, pitting Yushchenko against pro-Moscow Prime Mini ster Viktor Yanukovich in a run-off round, has been seen by some observe rs as the most important in eastern Europe since the 1991 collapse of th e Soviet Union. A victory for Yushchenko would pull the strategically important eastern E uropean nation of 48 million people out of Russia's age-old embrace and eventually put it into the fold of the European Union and maybe even NAT O, shifting liberal Europe's center of gravity closer to Russia's border s The dispute has split this former Soviet republic down the middle, with t he Ukrainian-speaking West mainly behind Yushchenko and the Russian-spea king east backing Yanukovich. Yushchenko has called on "parliaments and people of the world" to recogni ze him as the real winner of the vote, which Western governments and obs ervers have decried as massively flawed. "In the 20th century, we are facing a threat to the will of a people of o ne of Europe's largest countries," he said in a statement. Most independent exit polls handed vi ctory to Yushchenko, but some of those commissioned by Yanukovich's team showed the prime minister as the winner. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin called for a peaceful resolut ion to the crisis, but dismissed European criticism of the vote. "We can't recognize or protest because no official results have yet been announced," he said during a visit to Lisbon. Putin, who openly supported Yanukovich in the election campaign, contacte d the pro-Russian leader Monday to congratulate him on his "open and hon est" victory. In Washington, the White House said it was "deeply disturbed" by the frau d accusations. Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, whose nation holds the rotatin g EU presidency, told Kuchma that Brussels had "doubts" about the result of the vote, while British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said it was "ve ry difficult to argue that this was a free and fair election." Ukraine now threatens to add to the strains already evident between Russi a and the EU heading into a bilateral summit Thursday in The Hague betwe en Putin and Balkenende. Earlier in parliament, Yushchenko, a former premier, warned that Ukraine "is on the verge of civil conflict," as the western region of Lviv joine d Kiev and five other opposition bastions in rejecting official results giving victory to Yanukovich. Parliamentary speaker Vladimir Litvin refused to recognise the oath of of fice, and the assembly session was attended by too few legislators to ma ke a resolution binding. In a further sign of the deep national split, the regional government of Donetsk, an eastern pro-Moscow fiefdom, denounced the protests in Kiev a nd the Ukrainian-speaking western districts. And 150 Ukrainian diplomats, including the official foreign ministry spok esman issued a statement recognising Yushchenko as president. The central electoral commission has until December 6 to announce the fin al vote count and declare a winner, but doubt shrouded the result late T uesday after two members of the 15-member commission urged their colleag ues not to validate it because of irregularities, Interfax news agency r eported. Ukraine exit poll shows liberal winner (Reuters) Copyright 2004AFP. All information displayed in th is section (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectua l property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence you ma y not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the contents of this section without the pri or written consent of Agence France-Presses. |
| www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6032-2004Nov22.html All RSS Feeds Editorial Coup in Kiev Tuesday, November 23, 2004; Page A28 UKRAINE FACED a fateful choice on Sunday: not just between two sharply op posed candidates in a presidential election runoff, but between two poli tical systems. Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko promised a genuine li beral democracy along Western lines, while Prime Minister Viktor Yanukov ych represented those forces that, backed by a neo-imperial Russia, woul d rule this large European nation through force and fraud. The outcome o f the vote has brought this confrontation to a head. According to exit p olls, the democratic opposition won handily, by 54 to 43 percent in one survey. But yesterday the government revealed its intent to steal the el ection, announcing that Mr Yanukovych had a decisive lead in the vote c ount. Tens of thousands of outraged citizens filled the center of Kiev l ast night to oppose this authoritarian coup. The United States and other Western governments must do everything possible to support them. For the Bush administration, the responsibility starts with stating the u nvarnished truth about what has happened in an election that some -- inc luding those employed by a large Ukrainian lobbying operation in Washing ton -- have falsely portrayed as flawed but free. That judgment was backed by the European Unio n, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and several nongovernmental organizations that sent observers to Ukraine. Appropriat ely, the State Department called yesterday for "quick action on the part of the government of Ukraine" to "ensure an outcome that reflects the w ill of the Ukrainian people." Sign Up Now The United States should do everything possible to help those who seek to reverse the fraud. If that proves impossible in the short term, the Uni ted States at least can demonstrate to Ukrainians that it supports their desire for genuine democracy -- and it can oppose any use of force by t he government to suppress popular demonstrations. It can take action aga inst senior Ukrainian officials and businessmen who are organizing and s upporting the fraud, denying them visas or placing sanctions on their co mpanies. It can also work toward a joint Western response to the new gov ernment, which should include a freeze on all cooperation with Mr Yanuk ovych, and vigorous and material support for the Ukrainian political par ties and civil society groups that fight for democracy. President Bush must also end his administration's passivity in the face o f massive and malign Russian intervention in Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin, who has been consolidating an authoritarian regime in Moscow, no w seeks to install a client government in Kiev; he channeled hundreds of millions of dollars into Mr Yanukovych's campaign and personally trave led to Ukraine before each of the election's two rounds. Yesterday Mr P utin brazenly issued a statement congratulating Mr Yanukovych, even tho ugh Ukraine's election commission had not finished counting the vote or declared an official result. To its credit, the administration summoned the Russian ambassador in Washington to a meeting with a State Departmen t official, Assistant Secretary A Elizabeth Jones, who expressed concer n about Mr Putin's action. The next step is for Mr Bush to clearly and publicly challenge the Russian president on his neo-imperialism -- and to design a US policy to check it. |
| www.fas.org/nuke/guide/ukraine -> fas.org/nuke/guide/ukraine/ Ukraine Special Weapons After the disintegration of the USSR, Ukraine found itself in possession of the world's third largest nuclear arsenal. There were 176 launchers o f intercontinental ballistic missiles with some 1,240 warheads on Ukrain ian territory. This force consisted of 130 SS-19s, each capable of deliv ering six nuclear weapons, and 46 SS-24s, each armed with ten nuclear we apons. An additional 14 SS-24 missiles were present in Ukraine, but not operationally deployed with warheads. Several dozen bombers with strateg ic nuclear capabilities were armed with some 600 air-launched missiles, along with gravity bombs. In addition, as many as 3,000 tactical nuclear weapons rounded out an arsenal totalling approximately 5,000 strategic and tactical weapons. From the first days of its independent development, Ukraine affirmed thre e basic principles -- not to accept, manufacture or acquire nuclear weap ons. The West remained concerned with the nuclear aspects of Ukraine's p roblems with weapons proliferation. Western sensitivity over nuclear iss ues convinced Ukraine's leaders that they could influence the West by us ing the nuclear lever. The Declaration on State Sovereignty adopted by the Parliament of the Ukr ainian SSR on 16 July 1990 defined the building of the army as a major t ask and a natural right of the future Ukrainian independent state. By an nouncing the right to maintain its own army, Ukraine took a significant step toward independence from the USSR. The military coup in Moscow in A ugust 1991 and fears that Soviet troops on Ukraine's territory would act aggressively against the Ukrainian state led the official leadership in Kiev to subordinate these troops to the control of Ukrainian authoritie s Ukraine also announced as its own the Soviet military property on the soil of the newly independent state. Ukraine initially announced its intention to obtain operational control o ver the strategic nuclear weapons deployed in its territory. Responding to these intentions, Russian military officials responded that attempts to interfere with, or to damage the command and control systems of, Russ ian strategic troops located abroad would constitute a direct military t hreat to Russian Federation. Originally Ukrainian leader Leonid Kravchuk was "not worried" if nuclear weapons went to Russia for decommissioning. Gradually, however, his worr ies developed sufficiently to lead to him to reverse his position and on 12 March 1992 to suspend temporarily the transfer of tactical nuclear w eapons to Russia. The trilateral agreement signed in Moscow on 14 January 1994 by the Unite d States, Russia, and Ukraine was seen as a significant Western success in disarming Ukraine of nuclear weapons. Under the agreement, the Russia n Federation undertook to send 100 tons of fuel to Ukraine for its nucle ar-power plants. The United States agreed to pay $60 million to the Russ ian Federation in support of that process. For its part, Ukraine agreed to transfer 200 nuclear warheads over a 10-month period. As of May 1994, 120 SS-19 Stiletto and 60 SS-24 Scalpel intercontinental ballistic missiles had been shipped out of Ukraine for reprocessing in R ussia. Ukraine announced in June 1996 that all warheads bad been removed from th e country. A problem arose in the removal of SS-19s, which use large amo unts of a toxic substance known as heptyl. The United States sent storag e tanks to hold 2,200 metric tons of the substance. After the SS-19 miss iles were removed from combat duty, 19 were re-used in Russia. In May 1997 Ukraine agreed to destroy its SS-24 missiles, in addition to SS-19 missiles, silos and launch sites, utilizing $47 million provided t hrough the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program. Withdrawal f rom combat duty of the SS-24 (RS-22) missiles started on 01 July 1998. C omplete liquidation of intercontinental ballistic missiles in Ukraine is planned to be completed by 04 January 2001. In September 1998 a US Depa rtment of Defense delegation, headed by Assistant Secretary of Defense E dward Warner, took part in the decommissioning of a SS-24 silo launcher in Pervomaisk, the Nikolayev region, Ukraine. The Pervomaisk base compri ses 46 silos with SS-24 solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles. Decommissioning of a single silo launcher is estimated to cost about US$ 1 million, and the US Government is allocating a total of US$3992 mill ion. The Bechtel company is the main contractor in the decommissioning p rogram of the Ukrainian silo launchers. Ukraine inherited about 30 percent of the Soviet military industry, which included between 50 and 60 percent of all Ukrainian enterprises, employ ing 40 percent of its working population. Ukraine was, and remains, the leader in missile-related technology, especially guidance systems, navig ation electronics for combat vessels and submarines, and radar for milit ary jets. Strong competition in the world's weapons market forced Ukrain e to look into exporting arms to politically unstable or even aggressive regimes. Ukraine established its own network for arms export and, in so doing, did not fully recognize international rules and bans. The Ukrain ian military traded conventional arms on the black market and signed con tracts with commercial firms. The first contracts on weapons deliveries to Iran, signed in the middle of 1992, and caused negative reaction in t he West (particularly in the US). On 13 May 1994, the United States and Ukraine signed a Memorandum of Unde rstanding on the Transfer of Missile Equipment and Technology. This agre ement committed Ukraine to adhere to the Missile Technology Control Regi me (MTCR) by controlling exports of missile-related equipment and techno logy according to the MTCR Guidelines. Two Tu-1 60 bombers flew from Priluki in the Ukrainian Chernigov region for the R ussian air base in Engels. Three Tu-95MS bombers and six Tu-160 airplanes had already arrived at E ngels since October 1999 in fulfilment of the intergovernmental agreemen ts. Before being moved to Russia, 19 Tu-160 airplanes were stationed at the Priluki airfield and 21 Tu-95MS were located in Uzin. |