Author Archives: Doug Merrill

About Doug Merrill

Freelance journalist based in Tbilisi, following stints in Atlanta, Budapest, Munich, Warsaw and Washington. Worked for a German think tank, discovered it was incompatible with repaying US student loans. Spent two years in financial markets. Bicycled from Vilnius to Tallinn. Climbed highest mountains in two Alpine countries (the easy ones, though). American center-left, with strong yellow dog tendencies. Arrived in the Caucasus two weeks before its latest war.

Orange in Berlin

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Not just orange, but all the colors of the Ukrainian election, analyzed and discussed by top experts.

The Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the Center for Applied Policy Research and the German-Ukrainian Forum are hosting a day-long seminar on the election on Tuesday Monday, December 6 at the Ebert Fondation’s home in Berlin. Logistical details are here (pdf file, in German).

The program was planned even before the first round, so it’s not sheer luck that they’ve got such good people to talk about the events in Ukraine.
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A Carnival of Hope

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Maybe, just maybe, this will work out right. Positive signs abound. No major violence, police units going over to the people’s side, order among the throngs, volunteers bringing food, boots, whatever the people in the demonstrations need. Crowds in Kiev still in the hundreds of thousands. Miners in thrall to the government few and far between. Rumor and tension, of course, but songs, too, festivities.

If it works out, these are the days that Ukrainians will look back on and say Yes we can. We did.

Even here in Munich, a Ukrainian I know — one from Kharkiv, in the east, and a Russian speaker — said today, “Since 1991, Ukraine has been asleep. But now. My people. Awake.”

And if it goes well, what next?
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A Crucial Night in Kiev

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The Ukrainian election is turning into a huge story, as careful observers had suspected. At stake is whether Ukraine — as big as France, with a population of 48m — will make a decisive political turn toward Euro-Atlantic structures, or whether it will go down the CIS road of defective democracies and subordination to Russia.

(Not blogging it earlier was a blunder, but I’ve had my eye on it, working with a project to present analyses at a Berlin conference on December 6; the papers are obviously on hold, awaiting events.)

That Yanukovych is attempting to steal the election is clear. Two regions in eastern Ukraine are reporting voter turnouts of 98 percent. These Stalinesque numbers are simply not credible, and reports indicate that the difference in just these two regions would be enough to turn the election. Every independent observation group has said there were significant flaws in the election. I think they’re waiting a little to see which way the wind is blowing before coming out with stronger statements.

The central election commission has called the election for Yanukovych, the prime minister and Russian president Putin’s clear favorite.

At present, 100,000 people are in Kiev’s main square at a rally for Yushchenko, the opposition leader who stands for a clear European vocation for the country. The atmosphere is peaceful, happy, electric. One of our authors reports consistent rumors that Yushchenko is negotiating with the security forces to help him or remain neutral.

(BBC and CNN have finally made this the lead story on their Europe pages.)

The city councils in Kiev, Lviv and three other cities in western Ukraine have refused to recognize Yanukovych as president. Putin sent his congratulations to Yanukovych before the official results were announce.

A special session of Parliament has been called, and a prominent ally of Yushchenko has called for a general strike.

In the footage I’ve seen from the main square in Kiev, the new Georgian flags were prominently being waved, suggesting that a pre-revolutionary situation may be well underway.

More as this develops.

What’s in a FYROM?

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Following up on some of the comments to this post from Doug Muir.

I’m with the other Doug on long-term prospects. As far as I know, no Western European state exists with an indigenous minority population approaching 30 percent.

Thus, the EU is asking the Macedonians (that is, the inhabitants of the former FYROM, regardless of ethnicity) to do something that none of its old members was capable of doing. It’s very much an open quesiton whether any European state is capable of coping with minorities of that size.

Why that should be is probably best left as an exercise for the readers.
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A Tangled Skein

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1944-45. Nazis arm Soviet POWs who are promising to topple Stalin and who then turn around and liberate Prague from the Nazis, only to be turned over to the Soviets after the war ends. Nothing is as simple as it seems.

Vlasov’s forgotten army

Communists buried legacy of Soviet General Andrei Andreyevich Vlasov and his battalion of POWs that helped free Prague from the Nazis

By Stephen Weeks, for The Prague Post

…Between that November [1944] and April of 1945, two divisions of “Vlasov’s Army,” more than 50,000 men, were formed, equipped and trained. Nine officers were Jews, concealed by Vlasov personally. Germany could not afford to equip and provide munitions for more men. This army had its own hospitals, training schools for officers, supply systems and air force. And on April 14, 1945, it was sent not to liberate Russia but to try to halt the Soviet advance across the Oder, only a few hours’ drive from Berlin.

Seeing how hopeless, as well as pointless, the situation was for his force, Vlasov turned his men back and decided to march across Bohemia to get to Pilsen — where he would deliver them as prisoners to the Americans, who were halted there. Stalin had already made it known that if any of Vlasov’s men fell into his hands they would receive long and painful deaths.

Read the whole thing.

Round One to Parliament

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As various places are reporting, Barroso is now saying he needs more time to secure the European Parliament’s assent to his Commission. Faced with the prospect of a majority of MEPs voting to reject the entire Commission, he’s taken this unprecedented step, handing a significant victory to Parliament.

According to the German newspaper whose web site really could be better organized, negative votes were likely to come from the Socialist, United Left, Liberal and Green groupings, as well as a large number of independent deputies. The head of the Socialist group, Martin Schulz (Ger-SPD), is quoted estimating 362 no votes to 345 yes votes.
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Whew

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Earlier this month, we noted that the end of the Orthodox mourning period for the victims in Beslan might bring rapid reprisals for the attack. Hasn’t happened.

This is not to say that there won’t ever be reprisals, just that the worst fears have proved unfounded. And frankly, the North Caucasus can use all the good news it can get.

Well?

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In Sunday’s Washington Post, the often-astute Timothy Garton Ash argues:

If President Bush is reelected, many Europeans will try to make the European Union a rival superpower to the United States.

Led by French President Jacques Chirac, they will find the main justification for further European integration in counterbalancing what they see as irresponsible, unchecked American power. In the great European argument between Euro-Gaullists and Euro-Atlanticists, these Euro-Gaullists will be strengthened. The temptation for Europe to define itself as Not America will be increased. All this at a formative moment when an enlarged European Union is hoping to give itself a new constitution and work out what it wants to be.

Is he right?

Inflection Point?

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Earlier this month, when Edward wrote

The alarm shot was given by Dalls Federal Reserve President Robert McTeer when he declared in a speech in New York last week that whilst overseas investors now ?finance? the US current account gap, ?theoretically some day that process will come to an end, the flows will turn against us and there will be a crisis that will result in rapidly rising interest rates and a rapidly depreciating dollar.? This prospect, which currently seems remote, should not be taken lightly. It is real, and it is there.

I noted that this prospect had been around for a long time (close to ten years at least) and asked what would constitute a sign that this time might be different.
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