#Purpose and Mandelson in #Ukraine
It was a decade ago when the EU Trade Minister of the time declared their interest in creating a trade agreement with Ukraine:
At the time, the Daily Mail had drawn attention to his relationship with oligarch Rinat Akhmetov. It was soon censored, but an Ukrainian news portal had replicated the content.
“No one will be overly surprised by the allegations surrounding Mandelson’s visit to Ukraine, as the former Labour Party MP was twice forced to resign from cabinet positions amid accusations of corruption.
“While both Mandelson and Akhemtov vehemently deny the latter paid the former a hefty appearance fee, rumours that Mandelson is about to trade up to an 8 million pound house (around $13 million) in London have encouraged people to start asking from where’s he’s getting the money. “
He wanted to put Ukraine on the map and he did, albeit 6 years later.
We’d been working in Ukraine as a social enterprise and by then, our strategy plan for microeconomic development and social enterprise had been in government channels for more than a year. It was described as a ‘Marshall Plan’ for Ukraine.
Founder Terry Hallman was interviewed about his work in 2006
“When you get down to it. no one in Rada has to pay a bit of attention to Ukrainian citizens. They’re in office, they have full immunity while in office, and they can steal Ukraine blind if they want to. The checks and balances that might stop them are the president and prime minister, but the president doesn’t seem to be paying attention, is gone half the time, and the prime minister at present is basically his yes man. At the least, immunity for parliament deputies is going to have to be removed. Otherwise, you’ve got 450 people in Rada whose only check and balance is the president’s office and prime minister’s office. Citizens can’t touch them, so they don’t have to listen to a word you say. That one factor — immunity for parliament — can easily prove fatal for Ukraine’s new democracy. Parliament can trash everything if they want to, and there’s nothing really to stop that except for their consciences. These guys didn’t get into office on the basis of conscience or even being directly elected. They got there by paying millions of dollars for positions on a party ticket, and you can be sure they’re going to be looking to recover that investment while in office. That’s why they’re in office. That means making a ton of money for themselves, and once again leaving the rest of Ukraine wanting.”
Speaking out about orphanage condition in ‘Death Camps, For Children’ would gain the attention of their minister for Family, Youth and Sport who was interviewed later in 2006:
Q: Some charitable NGOs were shocked by horrible conditions our orphans live. These orphanages were called even “death camps.” Do you know about those facts? How many times the Youth, Sport and Family Ministry has held reviews of the orphanages?
A: If such violation happens, it must be reported to the Ministry. We have agreement and close relations with the Social Policy Ministry and the Health Ministry, so we will deal with the problems.
We regularly check orphanages. Our first raids disclosed lots of violations of conditions of living, nutrition, violent treatment with children. Time and again we have been checking these institutions and every new raid reported about reduction of such violations.
Regarding the foreigners’ impressions of our orphanages even quite well, according to Ukrainian standards, orphanage where 300 kids living and 10–15 persons in a room may look horrible for foreigners. And it is horrible. We are constantly working for improvement of this situation.
Our ‘Marshall Plan’ had been delivered to government in February 2007 and a few months later we learned of Akhmetov’s own plans. By then Paul Manafort was on board. It didn’t excape the attention of PM Tymoshenko who wrote:
“Not so a long ago Rinat Akhmetov threatened to hire the clever American experts and write for Ukraine the plan of development on the nearest 20–30 years in a prospect, Yulia Tymoshenko press service reported.
“According to plan (read by myself in the internet), it must have been, at least, “Marshall plan for Ukraine”. However nobody knows either Marshalls are finished there, behind the ocean or something worse has happened. But as a result instead of Marshall plan we received the “proFFesor’s plan” as usual.
“I analyze stage-by-stage implementation of “Marshall plan” from Akhmetov and become convinced that it was written, probably, by domestic specialists (“marshalls” or generals from SCM-group), because it will never occur to any average manafort to put a first issue of such plan a task to “steal “Dniproenergo” at a state”.
In recent revelations we learn that Manafort was engaged in ‘black ops’ to undermine the Tymoshenko government.
In 2008, the EU Citizens Consultation offered the opportunity to share with the EU.
The following year, speaking at a social enterprise summit Mandelson as UK business secretary, spoke of how his department were “helping firms to help others”.
How the ‘Marshall Plan’ put it was shared with McKinsey in 2013, for their Long Term Capitalism inititiative.
‘This is a long-term permanently sustainable program, the basis for “people-centered” economic development. Core focus is always on people and their needs, with neediest people having first priority — as contrasted with the eternal chase for financial profit and numbers where people, social benefit, and human well-being are often and routinely overlooked or ignored altogether. This is in keeping with the fundamental objectives of Marshall Plan: policy aimed at hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. This is a bottom-up approach, starting with Ukraine’s poorest and most desperate citizens, rather than a “top-down” approach that might not ever benefit them. They cannot wait, particularly children. Impedance by anyone or any group of people constitutes precisely what the original Marshall Plan was dedicated to opposing. Those who suffer most, and those in greatest need, must be helped first — not secondarily, along the way or by the way. ‘
The EU pushed ahead with its access agreement for Ukraine and Putin’s government countered with a $15 billion funding offer.
The EU agreement was declined bringing protests and violence to the streets of Kyiv.
At Davos, Tony Blair whose Faith Foundation had been sponsored by another oligarch chaired a discussion at his Philanthropic Roundtable. They were reading back what the ‘Marshall Plan’ had argued about applying capitalism for social and financial returns:
Note the participation of Richard Branson and a plug for his B Team.
In the Huffington Post a year later, Bernard Henri Levy writes that he’s just returned from meeting oligarch Dmitro Firtash and plans to crowdsourse ‘Marshall Plan’ over 200 days.
As the Telegraph revealed , Lord Mandelson was one of those involved.
“Three British peers have agreed to play a key role in an ambitious recovery plan for the war-torn Ukraine economy.
“Labour peer Lord Mandelson, a former EU trade commissioner, will head an agency tackling trade issues; Lord Macdonald, former head of the Crown Prosecution Service, has agreed to manage a law enforcement workstream, while Lord Risby and the Earl of Oxford are members of a six-strong advisory board.”
An Ukrainian anti-corruption politician put it more plainly in the ‘Firtash Octopus’
“Dirty money from the East has become a resource for dozens of European structures and politicians. Sergii Leshchenko reports on some of those that are only too happy to open their doors to a Ukrainian oligarch willing to invest millions in cleaning up his image.”
Today the EU themselves are supporting a proposal from the European People’s Party for a ‘Marshall Plan’ for Ukraine, with an estimated cost of 50 billion euros.
