[Mb-civic] U.S. Money has Helped Opposition in Ukraine-over $65MM

[Michael Butler]

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    U.S. Money has Helped Opposition in Ukraine
    By Matt Kelley 
    The Associated Press

     Saturday 11 December 2004

     Washington - The Bush administration has spent more than $65 million in
the past two years to aid political organizations in Ukraine, paying to
bring opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko to meet U.S. leaders and helping
to underwrite an exit poll indicating he won last month's disputed runoff
election.

     U.S. officials say the activities don't amount to interference in
Ukraine's election, as Russian President Vladimir Putin alleges, but are
part of the $1 billion the State Department spends each year trying to build
democracy worldwide.

     No U.S. money was sent directly to Ukrainian political parties, the
officials say. In most cases, it was funneled through organizations such as
the Eurasia Foundation or through groups aligned with Republicans and
Democrats that organized election training, with human rights forums or with
independent news outlets.

     But officials acknowledge that some of the money helped train groups
and individuals opposed to the Russian-backed government candidate - people
who now call themselves part of the "Orange Revolution."

     For example, one group that received grants through U.S.-funded
foundations is the Center for Political and Legal Reforms, whose Web site
has a link to Yushchenko's home page under the heading "partners." Another
project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development brought an
official with Ukraine's Center for Political and Legal Reforms to
Washington, D.C., last year for a three-week training session on political
advocacy.

     "There's this myth that the Americans go into a country and, presto,
you get a revolution," said Lorne Craner, a former State Department official
who leads the International Republican Institute, which received $25.9
million last year to encourage democracy in Ukraine and more than 50 other
countries.

     "It's not the case that Americans can get 2 million people to turn out
on the streets," Craner said. "The people themselves decide to do that."

     White House press secretary Scott McClellan said, "There's
accountability in place. We make sure that money is being used for the
purposes for which it's assigned or designated."

     Since the Ukrainian Supreme Court invalidated the results of the Nov.
21 presidential runoff, Russia and the United States have traded charges of
interference. A new election is scheduled for Dec. 26.

     Opposition leaders, international monitors and Bush's election envoy to
Ukraine have said major fraud marred the runoff between Yushchenko and
current Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, who was declared the winner.

     Yushchenko is friendlier toward Europe and the United States than his
opponent, who has Putin's support and backing from the current Ukrainian
government of President Leonid Kuchma. Putin lauded Yanukovych during state
visits to Ukraine within a week of the Oct. 31 election and the Nov. 21
runoff.

     Yushchenko's backers say Russian support for Yanukovych goes beyond
Putin's praise and includes millions of dollars in campaign funding and
other assistance. Putin has said Russia has acted "absolutely correctly"
with regard to Ukraine.

     Documents and interviews provide a glimpse into how U.S. money was
spent inside Ukraine.

     "Our money doesn't go to candidates. It goes to the process, the
institutions that it takes to run a free and fair election," State
Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

     The exit poll, funded by the embassies of the United States and seven
other nations and four international foundations, said Yushchenko won the
Nov. 21 vote by 54 percent to Yanukovych's 43 percent. Yanukovych and his
supporters say the exit poll was skewed.

     The Ukrainian groups that did the poll of more than 28,000 voters have
not said how much the project cost. Neither has the United States.

     The four foundations involved included three funded by the U.S.
government: The National Endowment for Democracy, which receives its money
directly from Congress; the Eurasia Foundation, which receives money from
the State Department, and the Renaissance Foundation, part of a network of
charities funded by billionaire George Soros that receives money from the
State Department. Other countries involved included Great Britain, the
Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada, Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

     Grants from groups funded by the U.S. Agency for International
Development also went to the International Center for Policy Studies, a
think tank that includes Yushchenko on its supervisory board. The board,
however, also comprises several current or former advisers to Kuchma.

     Craner's Republican-backed group used U.S. money to help Yushchenko
arrange meetings with Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy Secretary of State
Richard Armitage and GOP leaders in Congress in February 2003.

     The State Department gave the National Democratic Institute, a group of
Democratic foreign policy experts, nearly $48 million for worldwide
democracy-building programs last year. Former Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright is chairwoman of the institute's board of directors.

     The institute says representatives of parties in all the blocs that
participated in Ukraine's 2002 parliamentary elections have attended its
seminars to learn skills such as writing party platforms, organizing bases
of voter support and developing party structures. It also has been a main
financial and administrative supporter of the Committee of Voters of
Ukraine, an election watchdog group that said the presidential vote was not
conducted fairly.

     The institute also organized a 35-member team of election observers led
by former federal appeals court Judge Abner Mikva for the Nov. 21 runoff
vote. Craner's group sent its own team of observers.

     The U.S. Agency for International Development also funds the Center for
Ukrainian Reform Education, which produces radio and TV programs aiming to
educate Ukrainian residents about reforming their nation's government and
economy. The center also sponsors press clubs and education for journalists.

  

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