US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice arrived in the Ukraine yesterday, and immediately interfered in Russia’s internal affairs, condemning Russian legislation that will restrict the work of Western non-governmental organisations in Russia.
These organisations are popularly regarded in Russia as being part of the West’s spying operations against the Russian state. Rice said she hoped Russia would understand the role of NGOs in ensuring a ‘stable democratic environment’.
However, her visit to the Ukraine has nothing at all to do with the construction of a ‘stable democratic environment’, and has everything to do with cementing a new imperialist anti-Russian military alliance.
In fact, no part of her European tour had anything to do with establishing stable democratic environments.
Before she arrived in the Ukraine she spent her time in Germany defending the US policy of using the territory of their allies to fly ‘terrorist suspects’ to third countries, some of them in Eastern Europe, where they are tortured.
On the way to the Ukraine, in the stop before Kiev, in Bucharest, she signed a deal which granted US troops the right to have bases in Romania.
In the Ukraine, Rice got down to business straight away, and the business was nothing to do with establishing democratic environments.
She described the Ukraine as a ‘strategic partner’ for the US. In fact, her arrival in the Ukraine was timed to be on the same day as the Ukraine joined the US-sponsored security body, the South-Eastern European Defence cooperation group (SEDM), the alliance that the US is re-activating to replace NATO in south eastern Europe.
The organisation was formed a decade ago, and includes Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Macedonia, Romania, Slovenia, Turkey and the US – except for Greece, all states that were actively involved in the counter-revolutionary break up of Yugoslavia.
It is already being mooted that Georgia and Azerbaijan, where BP has massive oil and gas interests, will be the next entrants to this US led alliance.
This alliance has nothing to do with establishing stable democratic environments. It has everything to do with preparing the ground for where US imperialism intends to strike next.
There are two candidates. One is Belarus where an intervention scenario has already been worked out. It is one where there must be intervention after ‘widespread ballot rigging’ has led to the return of President Lukashenko in next year’s presidential elections. SEDM is to ride to the rescue of ‘democrats’ who are western agents, for the purpose of breaking up the system of air defences of the Russian Federation.
The other is Georgia where imperialist intervention is required to secure the expulsion of Russian troops, so that the oil rich region can be isolated from the Russian Federation for the benefit of BP and other giant oil and gas companies.
However the imperialist design has feet of clay. In the Ukraine the ‘Orange Revolution’ is popularly perceived to have been led by asset strippers and bandits who fell out over the spoils, while the people of Belarus do not want to end up as ‘democratic’ paupers like their neighbours in Poland.
In fact the working class of Russia, the Ukraine and Belarus are determined to halt the imperialist advance, and the working class of the world will support their efforts with revolutionary struggles in the main capitalist countries.
