Yesterday, in part 1 of this article,
we talked about the current state of things in the Ukrainian civil war
and especially in the propaganda war being fought about that worldwide. A
propaganda war to which so called “independent” media in the “free”
west gladly cooperate, even in such measure that they do anything
possible nót to talk about the facts that are at the base of what
happened in and around Ukraine since November last year. So, let’s
return to the 21st of November for a while.
That
day demonstrators started their “Revolution of Dignity” on the
Independence Square in Kiev, a revolution also called “Euromaidan”
referring to their goal of integrating Ukraine into the European Union.
We don’t doubt for even a second that the biggest part of the
demonstrators were there as idealists and that a big part of the
following fights would be fought by those and other idealists. Only …
did they know what they were doing ? And were they not, as happens all
to often with “spontaneous” revolutions, misused by non-idealistic
people in power ? That’s what we want to talk about today.
Direct
cause for the protests was the fact that then sitting president
Yanukovych refused to sign the association agreement between his country
and the European Union. Protesters demanded more European integration,
the resignation of the president and advanced elections, while
Yanukovych, therein backed by about fifty percent of the population
(according to different polls), chose for further cooperation with
Russia. The essence of the choice being this: signing the association
agreement with the European Union in exchange for a loan from the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) of 17 billion dollar or accepting an
aid package from Russia worth about 15 billion dollar in combination
with a discount on Russian gas. The reason why Ukraine could count on
the “kindness” of the European Union and the US on one side and Russia
on the other side ? Moving the borders of the influence areas. The US
have been working on that for ages, for instance via their engagement in
Georgia (the country not the US-state); Russia – that has not forgotten
how big it was when the Soviet Union still existed and has gotten more
than tired of the humiliations since mafia-like Jeltsin, who kneeled for
the West, was exchanged for Putin – doesn’t feel like standing by doing
nothing anymore. What started as financial bidding thus degenerated
into a civil war. Aggressor in the financial bidding was the coalition
European Union-US, Ukraine was till then sitting firmly in the influence
area of Russia.
But
why did Ukraine absolutely have to leave Russia’s influence area ? From
the amounts that were offered to “save” the country one could easily
conclude that it is not exactly the richest country in the region and
thus that the expected revenues – still the most important motivation in
the international game – can’t be much. Wright ?
Well,
that is where Monsanto enters. It is known that the International
Monetary Fund is nót a big benefactor, isn’t it ? The IMF only “saves”
countries when it expects a big return on investment. Once in a while
that goes wrong, but when big industrial players like Monsanto use their
persuasive power, the IMF is always willing to give it a try. And
Monsanto did have enough reasons to convince the IMF: the future of
genetically modified organisms (GMOs) on the Eurasian continent.
That
future namely doesn’t look very bright. Not only in the green movements
in Western Europe – movements that lobby with the European Parliament
too – but also in a number of countries there is not much enthusiasm
about gm-crops. Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg,
Austria, Poland and France have legislation against the growing of
Monsanto-corn MON 810 and BASF-potato Amflora already. Much against the
will of not only Monsanto, BASF, DuPont and similar groups, but also of
the European Commission (the non-elected European government, so to
speak). Knowing that Russia is going the anti-GMO way too (the country
promised last year to admit the growing of GMOs as part as its entrance
to the World Trade Organisation, but has since then moved the decision
to the long term), with prime minister Dimitri Medvedev saying still in
April of this year that “if the Americans like to eat such products, let
them eat them. We don’t need to do that; we have enough space and
opportunities to produce organic food”, the GMO-industry is looking for a
possibility to break into the continent. A possibility which could
become reality in, indeed, Ukraine.
Ukraine,
that has been known for long as the “grain basket of Europe”, is just
ideal for the growing of grain and corn, but the former Ukrainian
government put a ban on the use of GMOs in agriculture. Maybe that
could, in exchange for 17 billion dollars of “help”, be changed ? That
is what was tried in article 404 – nicely hidden between hundreds of
others, sometimes much less important, articles – of the association
agreement Yanukovych was supposed to sign: both parties would be obliged
to cooperate on the extended use of biotechnologies. Read: Ukraine
would be forced to open its borders to genetically modified crops and
GMOs.
Monsanto,
obviously very self-assured, announced in May 2013 that it would invest
140 million dollar in a corn seed plant in Ukraine. Of course, said
spokesman Vitally Fechuk, “we will be working with conventional seeds
only”. By the 5th of November 2013 that had changed. On that
day Volodymr Klymenko, spokesman of the Ukrainian Grain Association,
announced on a press conference that his organization, together with
five other big agricultural organizations, had demanded to change the
law on biosecurity so “creating, testing, transportation and use of
GMOs” would become possible. “Coincidentally” this demand was also one
of the conditions in the association agreement with the European
Union/the IMF.
At
the beginning of December last year, after the start of the
“spontaneous” revolution, Monsanto Ukraine launched its program for
“social development” of the country, named “Grain Basket of the Future”,
with the promise to the rural population that thus they could “start
feeling that they can improve their situation themselves as opposed to
waiting for a handout”.
A
few days later, on December 13, Monsanto, through Jesus Madrazo,
announced at the US-Ukraine Conference in Washington that the company
saw “the importance of creating a favorable environment [in Ukraine]
that encourages innovation and fosters the continued development of
agriculture”. A favorable environment which could obviously be created
by opening the Ukrainian borders to GMOs, but also by lifting the ban on
selling agricultural land to the private sector. As Morgan Williams,
CEO of the US-Ukraine Business Council, told to the International
Business Times in March: “The major item would center around getting the
government out of business”. The agribusiness companies on the
Executive Committee of the Business Council – Monsanto, John Deere,
DuPont, Cargill and others – would undoubtedly agree to that.
As would probably the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center. That was founded on the 2nd
of March 2014 – the day after Donetsk declared itself independent from
Ukraine and the same day Luhansk did the same – with its headquarters in
Hotel Ukraina in Kiev. Core message of the press agency is that the
interim government of Ukraine is legitimately elected by the parliament
including the party of the disposed Yanukovych and that the country is
victim to the military aggression of neighboring Russia. More important
is the fact that this “independent” agency is financed by, amongst
others, George Soros, the Ukrainian interim government and Weber
Shandwick, one of the biggest publicity agencies in the world that was
also responsible for Obama’s “Affordable Care Act” campaign. The press
agency was labeled on April 15 of this year as a “voluntary operation”
by Olga Radchenko of PBN Hill + Knowlton Strategies, a corporation of
which the CEO, Myron Wasvlyk, happens to be on the board of the
US-Ukraine Business Council, and the managing director for Ukraine,
Oksana Monastyrska, coincidentally leads the firms work for … Monsanto.
Now,
do we, closing this article, dare to say that Monsanto requested the
war in Ukraine ? No. But the mere fact that Ukraine with its new
“western” government would open its borders to GMOs and agricultural
land could be sold to private corporations like Monsanto, while it would
become harder for the countries of the European Union to put an import
ban on genetically modified crops if those crops were grown in a country
that is (at least) associated with the European Union, makes it very
clear that for Monsanto and its allies there is a lot at stake in
getting Ukraine out of the Russian influence aria, if need be manu
militari.
Oh yeah, before we forget: read the free prequel to our comic The Maier-Files here.
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