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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

When Myths Die

13 November, 2012 - 00:00

By Viktor ZAMYATIN, The Day
"The world has moved from its place," wrote American horror book author
Steven King. The twentieth century began and will probably end with senseless
wars all over the world. The world, which finally moved from its place
with NATO air strikes against Yugoslav targets, said good-bye to the myths
it has created over the past decade. What turned out to be a myth was the
very existence of the UN and their Security Council, OSCE, and other numerous
international organizations.

What also turned out to be a myth were NATO's democratic foundations,
world multipolarity, Europe's ability to put its own house in order, Slavic
solidarity, Russia's clout in the world affairs, and the clear-cut position
of Ukraine. That world and that Europe exist no longer. There is no longer
Russia as a superpower, for what kind of a superpower is it when it negotiates
a multibillion loan with the aggressors it condemned for so long?

We see the assertion of Pax Americana, a peace the Americans build according
to their own imagination. Russia looks angry but impotent, and Ukraine
utterly unable to find its way. NATO violated its own Charter and all sorts
of international legal norms by launching a military operation in Yugoslavia.
The situation is paradoxical in that a peace based on the dictatorship
of force may be stable and even lasting for a limited period of time. NATO,
the very existence of which in its old shape under the new conditions would
be highly questionable, has now every reason to claim it is indispensable
as an instrument of precisely this kind of peace.

Kyiv is simply unable to react to all this. This is evident from Leonid
Kuchma's failure to immediately make a clear and sound statement the way
his counterparts Boris Yeltsin and Vaclav Havel did, from the fact that
Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Volodymyr Horbulin
failed to place accents in his televised appearance, that the executive
let emotions get the better of common sense in Verkhovna Rada and let the
Left, who provoke such emotions in society, get the upper hand.

Kyiv could talk with Belgrade, urging it to negotiate (with Milosevic
asking a few days to think it over) and may invite the parties for talks
- but what then?

After Kosovo, the authorities will find it far harder to convince the
population that only close cooperation with the West, not self-isolation,
can bring us adequate living standards. After Kosovo, it is altogether
impossible to say that Ukraine is worth anything as far as European security
and stability are concerned. NATO was oblivious to the fact that its strikes
on Yugoslavia also mean strikes on Ukraine which has again found itself
at a crossroads: Ukraine has put itself in this situation by her own efforts,
displaying its economic, social, and political helplessness which has scared
off potential partners and almost desfroyed to naught everybody's interest
in this strange and unpredictable country. The blame must be laid on the
authorities who can declare whatever they want without really caring for
their own state's future. Ukraine's European choice has proved too close
to becoming part of shattered myths. Maybe this is what they call strategy.

 

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