Omidyar and Nazis in Ukraine

As a former member of the Omidyar network which operated as a public discussion group a decade ago, I’ve been concerned to read some of the observations about Pierre Omidyar in Ukraine.

This is the man who’d told Muhammad Yunus that he wouldn’t help those in poverty unless he could profit from it. From which one may conclude that social justice isn’t his motivation.

Recently Forbes published a critical article about his funding an anti-Russian propaganda TV station in Ukraine.

“According to their financial report for the year ending 2015, they have nearly a dozen foreign backers. Some long term, some more fly-by-night.

Who are they? They are the Canada International Development Agency (CIDA); the Embassy of The Netherlands in Ukraine; another Canadian charity called the Ukrainian World Foundation; independent DC-based Pact World; the U.S. Embassy of Ukraine’s Media Development Fund; California based Internews Network; Swiss Cooperation Office and the Swiss International Development Agency; eBay EBAY -1.4% founder Pierre Omidyar’s fund is one of the four biggest donors; the Swedish International Liberal Center; Thomson Foundation; the German Embassy of Ukraine and the biggest funder of all, the European Commission’s Ukrainian delegation office.”

Earlier Pando had drawn attention to his co-funding the opposition groups in Ukraine with US government:

“According to the Kyiv Post, Pierrie Omidyar’s Omidyar Network (part of the Omidyar Group which owns First Look Media and the Intercept) provided 36% of “Center UA”’s $500,000 budget in 2012 — nearly $200,000. USAID provided 54% of “Center UA”’s budget for 2012. Other funders included the US government-backed National Endowment for Democracy.”

In 2007, I described our social enterprise efforts in Ukraine to the Omidyar network. Our founder Terry Hallman had close connections with a human right group know as Maidan, where he called out the Carnegie International Endowment for Peace as being economic hit men with intentions of securing valuable state assets in exchange for loan agreements.

“What economic hit men will surely try to do is persuade Ukraine to give up lucrative state assets to private buyers — and thus lose most of that revenue base — in exchange for the “privilege” of borrowing billions of dollars and going into debt to Western governments, particularly the US. That’s the deal, and that is what and all is going on with most of this noise against Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko at this point in time. God forbid that she have the courage to do the right things for Ukraine. It is simply not done in many countries, including the US, which will likely be one of the main sources of vitriol against her in coming weeks and months unless her government relents on strong, progressive social policy and gives in to demands to give up lucrative state enterprises.”

What better way could there be to create dependency on international loans, than stirring up a military conflict?

Needless to say, Omidyar’s social enterprise platform wasn’t interested in Ukraine. Neither was USAID when called on in 2008 to support a social enterprise development initiative described as a ‘Marshall Plan’ for Ukraine.

10 years ago, on the eve of an economic crisis, we published our argument for applying business for social benefit. It should go without saying that fascism isn’t what we had in mind. Our letter to USAID concluded:

‘I and others shall continue to think positive and look for aid budgets and funding spigots to be opened much more for people and NGOs in silos, foxholes and trenches, insisting on better than ordnance, and who understand things and how to fix them. We can do that. We can even do it cost-effectively and with far better efficiency than the ordnance route. Welcome to our brave new world. Except it’s not so new: learn to love and respect each other first, especially the weakest, most defenseless, most voiceless among us, then figure out the rest. There aren’t other more important things to do first. This message has been around for at least two thousand years. How difficult is it for us to understand?’