A Place to Stand

The western reporting is entirely pro-opposition but there are some questions.

During the Bosnian "independence referendum" which was certainly dubious our media made no complaint. During the coup that overthrew Milosevic (which was done specifically because polls showed he was going to win the 2nd round) our media openly supported the opposition. The Georgian "revolution" is equally questionable. Ditto reporting on Chavez in Venezuela.

It is accepted that western powers organized & funded the Yugoslav coup. It has been noted that coincidentally one of the opposition parties in Georgia bore the same name & logo as one of the openly western funded Yugoslav parties. Some years ago the US ambassador to Belarus (previously the ambassador to Nicaragua) said that his embassy was funding 300 opposition political organizations, which in a country of 10 million is quite a lot.

US Ambassador admits Washington is subverting the Belarus presidential election

by Stephen Gowans
The United States has launched a massive campaign to subvert the September 9th Belarusian presidential election in a effort to topple President Alexander Lukashenka, who has been moving slower on "free market reforms" than Washington would like. And Washington is using a strategy similar to one it used to oust the Nicaraguan Sandinista government in the 80's, and to depose Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia last year.

The campaign, which involves funneling money to non-governmental agencies (NGO's) opposed to Lukashenka, a youth group reminiscent of the US-backed Serb resistance group that was instrumental in toppling Slobodan Milosevic, and Radio Free Europe broadcasts urging Belarusians to vote for Lukashenka's US-backed opponent, was revealed by the US Ambassador to Belarus, Michael Kozak.

Nicknamed "the weasel" by former CIA director William Casey, Kozak served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs, working in Panama and El Salvador in the 80's, and in Nicaragua at a time Washington was employing various shady and illegal means to topple the Sandanistas, including illegally funneling money to the Contras. In a startling letter to a British newspaper, Kozak revealed last week that Washington's "objective and to some degree methodology are the same" in Belarus as in Nicaragua, sparking fears that Washington is prepared to up the ante if Lukanshenka wins the September 9th election.

The opposition, in calling for the military to come over to them is an example of such upping of the ante & difficult to explain in purely internal terms. Gore, for example, did not, despite some serious evidence of electoral fraud, call on the US army to come over to him.

There seems to be an idea that democracy is not how the majority of people vote - it is only democracy if they vote the way our governments want.

The main checkable accusation seems to be that the media were biased but we are dependent on the BBC etc for this claim. This is the same BBC who specifically said that Izetbegovic was a moderate, Tudjman a "nationalist" (when they knew they were both nazis at the time publicly in favour of genocide) & the KLA committed to a liberal multi-cultural Kosovo. Presumably, by their standards, anybody who says otherwise is "biased"

Even if it turns out there was some voting fraud (& looking at the policeman who was killed it seems at least even money that he was killed by opposition not government thugs) the official winner has certainly freely got a considerable higher share of the vote than Tony Bliar's 40%.