Posted by Bohdan Oryshkevich on August 18, 2000 at 22:08:00:
In Reply to: GRAFT IN UKRAINE IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT posted by KRYTYK on August 17, 2000 at 16:14:20:
Posted by krytyk on august 17, 2000 at 16:14:20:
Sovdepia runs almost all the significant enterprises in Ukraine. Sovdepia is a kleptocracy comprised of former communist bureaucrats, party bosses, and thugs from the nomenklatura who managed to stay in the seat of power in Ukraine. This includes those who compromised their ideals and sold out to the new order "Ukrainian Mafia" which steals the country blind with no shame. More than 100 billion U.S. has been laundered to the west in the past nine years and not one deputy has been put in jail, because of the so-called immunity clause. Let us not kid ourselves, the west tolerates it because of all the kickbacks. U.S. Visas are being sold for between $8-10,000 and the U.S. Government has not done a thing about it, other than complain. Tens of thousands of young women from Ukraine are being bought and sold around the world and you hardly hear about it anymore. Ukraine is a nice place to visit, but not too many businesses want to put up with the graft and corruption. Now president Kuchma is nationalizing some industry in order to "protect" Ukraine. Just like limiting press, coverage helped Ukraine during the last election. One could go on and on about the bad and the ugly. But we already know how bad it is. Nine years of independence have brought most everybody freedom, but at a very heavy price. When the old and the very young are suffering in poverty, only a few thousand have become millionaires by stealing the country blind. The intellectuals have almost all sold out, or are too scared to talk about who is responsible for the graft and corruption, scared for their lives no doubt. Lazarenkoism reigns along side Kuchmism. The good things that have happened in Ukraine are obscured by much that is bad.