Should US Senators be calling for regime change in Ukraine?

Should foreign nations be calling for regime change in Ukraine?

Here is a copy of the text from two US Senators in relation to Ukraine in a statement made on 3 February  (The highlighting/bolding in the penultimate paragraph is my own):

The Honorable Jeanne Shaheen
Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
The Honorable John Barrasso
Ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Dear Senators:

We are in possession of a copy of the February 1, 2012 letter addressed to you by Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United States [Oleksander Motsyk]. We are certain of your capacity to scrutinize the contents of that letter critically and independently. However, some of the statements made therein were replete with such egregious untruths and half truths, primarily in the area of democracy building and human rights, that we feel compelled to respond, least you mistakenly assume that the Ukrainian American community is unaware or, even worse, is indifferent to such assertions by the ambassador.

It is our position that under the regime of President Victor Yanukovych the situation in Ukraine has deteriorated to a point where the rule of law and civil society is undermined.

Even in the area of energy independence, Ukraine has regressed under Yanukovych by actually increasing its dependence on Russian gas, suggesting an increase in the gas quota in return for a minor price discount.

In the economic sphere, Ukraine essentially hit bottom in 2010 under Yanukovych and in the midst of the global economic crisis. Its somewhat ambiguous, certainly negligible economic growth in 2011 was largely inevitable and the result not of economic reforms but due to the global demand for aluminum and other metal resources, but certainly, not any manufactured products. Ukraine’s exclusion from the Financial Action Task Force’s Blacklist is not an achievement. The Blacklist has become defunct.

Nevertheless what should concern you most is Ukraine’s record in democracy and human rights. It’s improvement on the World Press Freedom Index for 2011 is specious at best, as it ranks 116 out of 179 countries just ahead of such human rights pariahs as Venezuela.

An important, objective and authoritative analysis that addresses many of the Ukrainian Ambassador’s assertions can be found in a resolution on Ukraine passed only a few days ago by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Allow us to submit for your consideration several pertinent excerpts:

“The Assembly expresses its concern with regard to the criminal proceedings initiated under Articles 364 (abuse of office) and 365(exceeding official powers) of the Criminal Code o Ukraine against a number of former government members…The Assembly considers that Articles 364 and 365 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code are overly broad in application and effectively allow of post facto criminalization of normal political decision-making. This runs counter to the principle of the rule of law and is unacceptable…The Assembly regrets the numerous shortcomings noted in the trials against former government members and considers that they may have undermined the possibility for the defendants to obtain a fair trial within the meaning of Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights…the Assembly takes note of the fact that the European Court of Human Rights decided to fast track an application of Ms. Tymoshenko concerning her detention in which she alleges violations of Articles 3,5 and 18 of the Convention…the Assembly reaffirms its deep concern about the lack of independence of the judiciary…the Assembly regrets that the reform of the Prosecutor’s office in line with Council of Europe standards, which is one of Ukraine’s accession commitments, has yet to be carried out. As a result, the Prokuratura remains an excessive centralized institution with excessive powers…The Assembly welcomes the systematic requests by the authorities for the opinion of the Venice Commission on draft laws which they prepare. However, it notes that, on several occasions, the draft laws on which opinions have been asked are subsequently withdrawn and that the recommendations of the Venice Commission are not taken into account in the laws ultimately adopted by the Verkhovna Rada…the Assembly regrets that its main recommendations, namely the adoption of a Unified Electoral Code, and the adoption of a regional proportional election system, were not implemented…”

These alarming findings are particularly important since the Ambassador’s letter concludes with the assertion of seeming confidence in U.S. support of Ukraine’s European aspirations. We too support Ukraine’s European aspirations. However, to this end, ultimately we support regime change in Ukraine as the only viable way for Ukraine to return to its democratic course that is severely undermined by the Yanukovych regime.

Thank you for your kind consideration of our comments.

Respectfully,

For the International Conference in Support of Ukraine

Hmmm – What do you think?

Should US Senators be openly calling for regime change in Ukraine when the government and president, be they good, bad or indifferent, were elected in an internationally recognised free and fair democratic election?

Just to keep matters contemporary, how does that sit with the US continued support and arming of Bahrain which not only fails the democracy test but brutally represses protesters, something which Ukraine, as yet, has not done?

Should Saakashvili do “a Putin” in next years Georgian election and swap Presidency for Prime Ministership (having conveniently passed all major powers to the office of Prime Minister once his presidential term ends) , will they call for regime change there as well?  It would be a severe affront to democracy for Saakashvili to retain power in such a Putinesque fashion.

Is it simply US electioneering playing up to the Ukrainian diaspora voters in the US?

Given that the US did not call for “regime change” and has still to call for “regime change” in Hungary despite Hungarian backsliding being swifter, more pronounced and legally incorporated into the Hungarian system within the past 6 months, one wonders why that call has not been made?

Considering the absolute lack of US influence in Ukraine and the lack of importance the US gives to Ukraine, how much traction do the US Senators think such a call will get either in the USA or further afield?

How much assistance do the US Senators think such a public call will give to the few US interests and US entities, commercial or NGO, operating in Ukraine?

Have they considered that even without Ukrainian governmental encouragement, any calls from the USA to promote or encourage regime change in Ukraine will invoke the classic “self” and “other” response from a Ukrainian public who are still overwhelmingly anti-NATO, anti-Ukrainian participation in wars and conflicts globally (even to the point of UN peacekeeping initiatives in which Ukraine participates actively) and simply further a lingering distrust of the US that still exists since the collapse of the USSR?

As the EU is not even considering any form or sanctions on Ukraine or Ukrainian officials in any shape or form according to a recent public statement by the European Commission, do these US Senators feel they have the weight of the EU behind them?

Ukraine is a long, long way from being Belarus and it took the EU a very long time to impose any form of sanctions of Belorussian leaders.  In fact it took a brutal crackdown on protesters to achieve that and even then they were implemented eventually rather than immediately.

Would the US Senators be wiser to await the events of the October 2012 elections before making such calls?  If those elections are again deemed technically free and fair by the international community (and when criticising the new election laws in Ukraine, the US Senators fail to mention that Ms Tymoshenko’s opposition party voted with the current ruling party in favour of those changes) how does that sit with their calls for regime change?  Ms Tymoshenko is hardly recognised for being a champion of democracy within Ukraine or the EU as many Ukrainians and EU diplomats will tell them.  Changing Yanukovych for Tymoshenko may not (and probably would not) increase democracy in Ukraine.

At what point did regime change become legal simply on the premise of regime change?  As yet regime change whilst it maybe a goal of any intervention (via hard or soft power) it is necessarily masked through ideals such as “Right to Protect” (or R2P) etc to remain within international law.

You would hope that US Senators would be remotely or vaguely aware that regime change is internationally illegal as a cause of and unto itself and must be part of a hidden or evolving agenda rather than the stated agenda.  The whole point of the UN Charter and overarching International Law is not to uphold democracy, human rights or any other such sensitivities and never has that been the case.  As China’s recent veto over Syria firmly underscores when citing the UN Charter, voting for regime change even of the most repulsive regimes is not either acceptable or legal.

How exactly are the US Senators proposing to change the regime in Ukraine?  When only 2000 protesters (some paid to be there by their own admission otherwise they wouldn’t have been there) demonstrate against Ms Tymoshenko’s jailing, just how are they going to motivate the Ukrainian population to rise up in huge numbers?  Regime change begins at home and there has to be an appetite for it.  When the alternative to Yanukovych is Tymoshenko, it is hardly surprising the streets are not filled with torch burning Ukrainians as neither instill any form of hope.  They are both hangovers of a by-gone time with nothing to offer the nation going forward.

What would be the likely result of any uprising?  The East and South are unlikely to take kindly to US interference whilst the West and North maybe more receptive.  Is civil war on the EU, Russian and Turkish doorsteps going to fit the US Grand Area Strategy of a peaceful, stable and reliable European continent?

Why no action in basket-case Belarus, a horrendous European regime, by the US when there is likely to be far more national unity behind such a cause?

What should be apparent to the US Senators in question, is that whether it is Ukraine, Georgia or Hungary, all these ex-Communists states have installed the power vertical under the guise of reforms.  All seemingly consider modernising/reforming their nations necessarily relegates some democracy as a hindrance to achieve the reforms.  Are they right?  Time will tell, but one only needs to look at how the EU has handled the on-going ACTA debate to see the EU itself abandoning democracy for reform.

After the US left Ukraine without a US Ambassador for 6 months and then appointed Mr Tefft, who with the best will in the world, can be seen as nothing more than a safe pair of hands rather than a “game changer”, do the US Senators think Ukraine will even heed their words?

Interesting to know what my US and Ukrainian readers think of this public call for regime change in Ukraine by US Senators.