On Democracy and Orchestrated Overthrows in Venezuela and Ukraine
Interesting article:
Particularly the role of the International Republican Institute (second half of the text)
Published on Monday, March 17, 2014 by Common Dreams
On Democracy and Orchestrated Overthrows in Venezuela and Ukraine
by Howard Friel
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/03/17-0
U.S. Senator John McCain, center, with Oleh Tyahnbok, head of the far-right Svoboda Party on the right, during a pro-European Union rally in Independence Square in Kiev, Ukraine, Sunday, Dec. 15, 2013. Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut stands second from left. (AP)
[blockquote {margin:30px 50px 10px 150px;}]"Furthermore, the chairman of the board today of the International Republican Institute is Senator John McCain. In a visit to Ukraine in February (last month), McCain gave a speech in Kiev, during which he said: “We have to side with the protesters and the power has to be dispersed from the hands of (Ukrainian president Viktor) Yanukovych.” What was that supposed to mean, if not a call of support, issued on Ukrainian soil, from the chairman of the International Republican Institute for the overthrow of the elected president of Ukraine? Imagine a high-ranking official from another country, in a speech in Washington, D.C., calling for the overthrow of an elected American president? And if McCain was willing to issue such statements in public, what was he willing to say privately in any discussions with the IRI?
In a truly mad encore on March 14, courtesy of the op-ed page of the New York Times, McCain advocated “sanctioning Russian officials, isolating Russia internationally, and increasing NATO’s military presence and exercises on its eastern frontier,” in addition to “boycotting the Group of 8 summit meeting in Sochi and convening the Group of 7 elsewhere.” The Times’ opinion-page assisted McCain’s belligerence by adding the subtitle: “John McCain on Responding to Russia’s Aggression.”
Neither the Times nor McCain mentioned that the senator from Arizona, who a month earlier appeared to call for the ouster of Ukraine’s president, is chair of the NED-funded Republican International Institute, which admitted in 2002 that it was involved in the overthrow of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, and which is currently the recipient of hundreds of thousands of dollars of NED funds for its operations in Ukraine, whatever those might be.
In short, the essence of the NED enterprise itself almost certainly violates the customary international law norm of non-intervention, given its overall interventionist orientation, which features the neo-liberalization of foreign countries and the destabilization and overthrow of foreign governments."
