Ukraine: after the “Orange Revolution,” power returns to the oligarchs

[Euphen]

Ukraine: after the “Orange Revolution,” power returns to the oligarchs
By Patrick Richter and Andy Niklaus
3 October 2005

Nine months after the so-called “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine, its two leading figures have been plunged into mutual recriminations of corruption. On September 8, President Victor Yushchenko sacked the government of his erstwhile comrade in arms, Julia Timoshenko.

Nothing now remains of the Orange Revolution’s claims to stand for “democracy,” “liberty” and “against corruption.” The transfer of power at the beginning of the year—cheered on by the Western media and substantially supported by the US—has proved nothing more than a struggle for power within the ruling elite. For the mass of the population, Julia Timoshenko’s government meant rising inflation and rapidly sinking living standards.

Now, step by step, the levers of power are returning to the old oligarchs against whom the revolution was supposedly directed. Yushchenko has reconciled himself with his opponents of yesteryear and is now following the same foreign policy course as his predecessor Leonid Kuchma, moving closer to Russia. He now advocates Kuchma’s famous “see-saw policy,” whose pendulum has presently swung far to the east.

The narrow layer of oligarchs developed immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, acquiring the lion’s share of the former state enterprises. Due to the close, historically developed ties linking Ukrainian and Russian industry, Ukraine’s foreign policy was strongly oriented towards Russia. The Orange Revolution was supposed to deprive the oligarchs of power and create a new section of capitalists who orientated towards the foreign policy of the US, so establishing a powerful geopolitical player against Russia.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2005/oct2005/ukra-o03.shtml

[ck4829]

1. But... But...

We're spreading freedom over there so we don't have to have freedom over here!

[tocqueville]

2. trotskyist source ?

cm'on

it's surely not that simple