«ALL ABOUT CONTROLLERS»
Cheating
the voters, voter cheating technology
AGENTS
OF INFLUENCE
Committee
of voters of Ukraine (CVU) successfully masters the American taxpayers
money.
SMALL
CANDLE-PRODUCING FACTORY
The CVU
was formed based on a classic model, similar to the one used by the
majority of other organizations that emerged in the same time period. In
early 90s, after the fall of the "Iron Curtain", the
representatives of the Western countries (such as the USA, the Great
Britain and Germany) started visiting Ukraine. These were mostly
representatives of the "front
line" professions - journalists, political scientists,
representatives of foreign foundations, Members of Parliament and
politicians including well- known representatives of the Ukrainian
Diaspora who arrived on the "historical native land to provide
assistance to their fellow-
tribesmen."
Larissa
Davignon, daughter of the well-known Canadian American Maria Davignon, was
among those "tourists". Larissa who was staying on the native
land of her ancestors with an " uncertain mission ", managed not
only to incline Taras Pastushenko (who controlled the creation of the CVU
to a certain cooperation, but also to influence the activity of the
non-partisan Committee of Voters of Ukraine (NCVU), a prototype of a
contemporary CVU.
Despite
overwhelming influence on Taras Pastushenko, Ms. Davignon failed to create
an organization that would fall under an overall
control of the Western intelligence service. The situation remained
the same under all succeeding NCVU leaders.
The Committee resembled a national - democratic organization whose
main purpose was to provide assistance to the anti-Soviet movement in
Ukraine in implementing democratic principles.
The
American foundations took an overall control over the CVU after Igor Popov
was elected as its Chairman. At that time,
NDI representatives similar to other donor foundations, were not in
a position to refuse from funding CVU after the long-term cooperation with
the organization. Foundations had to formulate their budgets; the lack of
funding programs would have reduced their budgets for upcoming years.
Katie Fox of NDI (in the near future she became a key figure in NDI who
was in charge of directing financial aid at the organizations from the NIS
countries) was responsible for overseeing CVU activities while Igor Popov
acted as its Chairman.
It is
hard to believe that representatives of the Western foundations are not
informed of not targeted and inefficient squandering of grants. Western
inspectors couldn’t have left unnoticed numerous trips, regional
conferences (with " luxurious food " and foorchette-style
tables), presentations in fancy hotels, outrageously expensive printed
materials, large central and regional administrative offices with
secretaries and drivers.
Certain
financial mechanisms could have been used to reduce taxes, convert and
pocket the money for the sake of supporting CVU offices and its affiliates
(such as the Committee of Young Voters of Ukraine, and the Committee of
Women Voters the creation of which was planned in the long run) - all
being efforts to keep monopoly over the grant funds.
As the "army" of thousands of
volunteers receives their honoraria for the "voluntary"
work not from a bank rather from CVU heads directly, they are using
companies founded by CVU leaders, as in the case of Igor Popov who is the
founder of the private company "Polikhim Kiev", to facilitate
payments. As a result, tax police took a close interest with its"
punishing sword " in CVU activities, and studied thouroughly their
operations along with their financial "know-how". In their
reports to the Western foundations, CVU interpreted these actions as an
attempt of the authorities to punish unreliable organizations. Read more
of this in the next part of the AGENTS of INFLUENCE (The end).
An
important factor of these financial mechanisms are god-parent relations
between CVU Chairman and Mott Foundation's representative in Ukraine, a
type of liability that by
tradition is stronger than blood relationship. Read more of Mott funding
of CVU campaign activities in the AGENTS of INFLUENCE -
Part 1 of the publication. As CVU and the processes of land
privatization somehow do not combine, Igor Popov has created the
Landowners Rights' Protection Association whose
chairman he is at -present in addition to being CVU Chairman.
It is not difficult to predict who will defend the interests of the
foreign proprietors of the Ukrainian land.
One may
question why do the Western foundations need this organization ,
inefficient in election monitoring and not scrupulous in financial matters
(current law prevents civic organizations such as the CVU from being
present at the polling stations as observers). Nevertheless, CVU demanded
an increase of funding not
only during elections period but for the in-between periods as well.
During 2000-2001, CVU receivedover $2mln. from one foundation for the
purpose of "transforming CVU into the powerful civic
organization" (should be read - to develop a regional infrastructure
to serve as a powerful mechanism of information gathering not only about
elections that take place no more often than once in three years). This is
not the only money that CVU has
"mastered" successfully and for which it has reported to
USAID as of their "terrific victories".
OBEDIENT
CALF TAKES NOT FROM ONE DONOR ONLY
Western
producers follow a well-desegned model.USAID whose primary purpose is to
formulate the “assistance” programs,
takes care of redistributing “assistance to the democratic
processes”. USAID’s task in Ukraine is in compiling a “first-aid
kit” to facilitate the activities of the donor foundations and
coordinate the flow of funds. This
puts CVU in a favorible position allowing to receive assistance money from
all possible funds (NDI, Mott Foundation, Counterpart) and send progress
reports only to the USAID. The same condition forces the donors to adhere
to the “corporate interests” and in order to keep their budgets
stable, finance even not worthy projects from the CVU, even when there’s
no control over funds expenditure. Although
this factor takes off responsibility before
investors of these fundations.
Western
gtant-making organizations make use of the
CVU's subordination. The basis for
such an influence lies not only in "closing eyes" on
financial violations ("sudden loss of several dozen thousands
dollars", purchase of apartments for CVU's top management), or in
zerro accountability for the final results declared in their programs.
In case of failure, CVU may explains
it as a result of the difficult working conditions in Ukraine and pressure from "state-oligarchic monsters ".
The real
motives behind a thorough Western attention to CVU are different. Some of
the real services provided by the CVU at the foreign donors' demand
include but are not limited to the following list:
1.
Creation of a wide regional network aimed at gatheingr political, economic
and social information.This network of regional offices enables
information gathering not only through easily accessible resources (media
and news conferences) but also when talking to politicians, NGO
representatives and regional business representatives who finance
political parties at the local level. This is a prerequisite for CVU’s
success in not only compiling reports on election fraud or businesses
that, according to the CVU, finance those who produced this fraud, but
also in developing informational data bases on other regional developments
in Ukraine. Grouped regional information
might be quite successfully utilized both by local and Western
intelligence services.
Cover to such a vigorous activity is provided through the Internet - project "Political Ukraine",
newspaper "Tochka Zoru" and a couple of regional projects.
2. CVU is
not capable of being an individual player in the elections process as they
are not able to conduct monitoring
of the voting procedure, counting the ballots or compiling reports on
violations to protect the rights of voters at CEC or in courts. Because
the activities of the civic organizations during the campaign period are
not restricted in providing assistance to political parties, consulting
partisan observers and campaigning, CVU actively cooperates with various
parties and candidates running in the single-mandate districts (this list
may exclude Communist Party, Social Democratic Party United and
"Unity") and accepts fees for providing these services.
CVU's regional representatives often hold parallel positions with
campaign headquarters and party offices in addition to their main jobs at
CVU.
These
facts feature one very important aspect of the CVU activity - they host
the international obsrvers, escort them during country travel and provide
consulting services. CVU has 100% influence on elections through these
types of services. Firstly, they have an opportunity to offer
"support services" to the "necessary" candidates
running to the Parliament in problematic districts with expected tight
results. This
"support" can be rendered through deploying mobile groups of the
western observers who move around the district, being escorted by the CVU,
and "induce horror " on the election commissions. Secondly, it's
widely known that Soviet-style traditions of voting
prevail in the regions, for example when one family member votes
for the rest of his or her family, " for entire rural
community", or when people are told how to vote. Knowing all this in
advance makes it easy to record evidence of fraud. Later on these
discriptions of the Election Law violations can be included in progress
reports on grant activities. Foreign observers are still pretending (or
they remain untold?!), that the bulk of falsifications occurs not at the
polling stations during the voting process, but rather during tabulation
of votes, compiling reports and their delivery to the district election
commissions. The international observers as well as their active
assistants from the CVU have no influence on this process, as the decision
on where to add and where to cut votes is made on the Bankova Street well
in advance. Finally, CVU is being positioned by the western donors
as an unbiased side in the election process; and this is another chance
for the international community to report when needed on the
election fraud and not
democratic nature of elections, addressing
not the appeals of the interested sides of the election process
(parties, blocks, the Central Election Committee), rather the reports
prepared by the organizations such as the CVU. Possible scenarios for the
development of such events have been already actively utilized by the USA
in Yugoslavia and Byelorus.
3.
Contacts with representatives of government and non-government
organizations, and political groups enable not only to initiate certain
lobbying campaigns, but also have a certain influence on developments in
Ukraine. It is interesting to note that some heads of the CVU keep
positions of assistants to the People's Deputies, and Igor Popov managed
to serve as an assistant to the Parliament's member- Communist Chumachenko
N.I.
The Ukrainian legislation
prevents foreign countries from influencing the domestic politics
directly. Therefore, they
actively use the CVU in providing all kinds of support to the political
parties and blocks - from conducting surveys, seminars,
training sessions to the development of strategies, PR campaigns
and organizing study trips abroad for the staff of political groups. Any
attempt to highlight this topic in media - such as an article "
Money for the Triumph of Democracy " (in the " New
Century " dated 14 July 2001), interview
with Mykhailo Pogrebinskiy
"Fuhrers ("Hitlers") of the Ukrainian Opposition Imitate
Hyper-Activity Supported by the American Money ", and
statements on the UTN channel, was immediately followed by
all possible statements by the representatives of the leading
groups emphasizing their democratic intentions and willingness to help
Ukraine. Well -known political researcher M ykhailo Pogrebinskiy was even
placed in a position to refuse from his own statements, and texts of
his interviews were quickly removed from the Ukrainian and Russian
web sites (the text of his interview can be found on the
"Anti-Control" site, only in russian language).
(TO BE CONTINUED)
Igor
Popov – CVU Chairman