Lord Mandelson and a Marshall Plan for Ukraine

it's no secret that the former business secretary Lord Mandelson cultivates relationships with oligarchs and therefore no great surprise to find his name associated with AMU, the Agency for the Modernisation of Ukraine.

While detained in Austria pending extraditon to the US to face corruption charges, Dmitri Firtash hatched his plan to develop a 'Marshall Plan' for Ukraine and Huffington Post has been the primary promotion vehicle, for Bernard Henri Levy

Sergiy Leshchenko, Ukrainian MP and anti-corruption activist describes The Firtash Octopus

"In an attempt not to be branded as a money launderer and to save himself from being transported to America in handcuffs, Firtash has launched a multifaceted campaign to clean up his image, recruiting dozens of politicians, intellectuals, lobbyists and cultural figures in Europe and the US. "

Notably this 'Marshall Plan' for Ukraine has no plan associated with it, yet a price tag of 300 billion dollars seems to have been plucked from thin air.

The problem for Mandelson above all others is that another 'Marshall Plan' proposal was delivered to Ukraine's government in February 2007 when he was Secretary of State for Business.  It was described as 'Microeconomic Development and Social Enterprise - a 'Marshall Plan for Ukraine'  when published online in August 2007

Estimated cost for this bottom up approach was 1.5 billion dollars, becoming cost neutral over 5 years. One tenth of what Russia was willing to pay to keep Ukraine out. 

From web archives:

Marshall Plan for Ukraine Part 1

Marshall Plan for Ukraine Part 2

As can be seen, the risk that this proposal will be used for other than social benefit is emphasised more than once,  First by quoting from the 1947 speech by George Marshall 

"Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist. Such assistance, I am convinced, must not be on a piecemeal basis as various crises develop. Any assistance that this Government may render in the future should provide a cure rather than a mere palliative. Any government that is willing to assist in the task of recovery will find full co-operation I am sure, on the part of the United States Government. Any government which maneuvers to block the recovery of other countries cannot expect help from us. Furthermore, governments, political parties, or groups which seek to perpetuate human misery in order to profit therefrom politically or otherwise will encounter the opposition of the United States."

And in the conclusion

"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 primary focus of the 2007 Marshall Plan  had been the human misery of abused and neglected children and those who profit therefrom as described in 'Death Camps, For Children'. This groundbreaking report from 2006 described a visit to Torez in the Donetsk region. 

It was the same Lord Mandelson, who chaired a 2009 summit on social enterprise saying that his department helped firms who help others, Not in our case, however.

Another article of the time, first published on the Daily Mail has been all but erased from the web. Only in web archives, may the article describing his association with Rinat Akhmetov be found

Mandelson was also EU Trade Commissioner when the Marshall Plan was shared with the EU Citizens Consultation in 2008.

With hindsight we now know that a free trade agreement between Ukraine and the EU would prove to be the spark to violent revolution.  it was in 2008 that the seed of EU integration was sown   Mandelson described the importance of involving civil society, which is where the 'Marshall Plan' was rooted. 

 

 

THis is how I introduced the Marshall Plan to the Citizens Consultation  quoting from what was published a year before the Mandelson video.

"The EU is seeking an increasingly close relationship with Ukraine, going beyond co-operation, to gradual economic integration and a deepening of political co-operation.

The purpose of this plan is to address poverty which renders children into institutions or the streets, on to a life of either crime or prostitution in a vicious cycle which has contributed to Europe’s largest HIV epidemic which the UN now considers a threat to All Europe.

We propose a microeconomic ‘Marshall Plan’ strategy, as a mix of components in a 4 year implementation to end this cycle of deprivation once and for all.

Focus of this plan is on the microeconomic sector because this is the most effective way to immediately meet the fundamental objectives of a Marshall Plan: policy directed against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. Tools, innovations and methodologies are available today that were not available sixty years ago for tightly-focused microeconomic development aimed specifically and very effectively at target objectives. This is not to diminish nor detract from macroeconomic factors that continue to impede Ukraine’s development. Those factors include such things as tax reform, energy policy, continued reduction of systemic corruption, Constitutional reform, and fostering further development of civil society and freedom of media."

As the reader may observe, practically everything about the 2007 Marshall Plan has been obliterated existing only on web archives, without which there might be no trace.

This was not the first attempt to hijack the 'Marshall Plan' with Western help. In his notes the late Terry Hallman wrote:

"As the 60th anniversary of the Marshall Plan came around in June 2007, noise was emerging within Ukraine of a certain political boss preparing a Marshall Plan for Ukraine.  This person was a reputed mob boss -- exactly the sort of entity that the original Marshall Plan meant to oppose.  It seemed most likely that whatever he came up with would be self-serving, hijacking the label 'Marshall Plan' and turning the whole notion on its head.  I reviewed the original Marshall Plan and realized that what I had written was, in fact, the definition and spirit of the original Marshall Plan.  Thus, in June 2007, I appended the original title with "A Marshall Plan for Ukraine."  After some discussion among trusted colleagues over timing, I published an abbreviated version of the paper in two parts in August 2007 in the 'analytics' section of the Ukrainian news journal for-ua.com.  The abbreviated version removed the rollout sequence over five years, which was more a technical matter and probably of little interest to general readership.  It also removed the names of the organizations I had strongly recommended to manage various components, insofar as there was any organization to recommend.  There were two, one for childcare reform for children in orphanages, one for childcare reform of children in Ukraine's theretofore invisible gulag archipelago for disabled children.  Both of those organizations had already been approved by 'others' by August 2007.  Bringing them to light at that juncture might have been counterproductive to their efforts, particularly because of the extreme sensitivity surrounding the matter of disabled children.  I opted to just let things proceed quietly, and was convinced beyond doubt for once that sincere and committed efforts to help these children were finally underway.  There remain approximately 90,000 children in orphanages, 10,000 in the 'gulags'.  Another 200,000 children live on the streets because state-care options have been less tolerable than street life.  Because street children are most visible and therefore obvious, other organizations notice them and are making at least token efforts to help them.  Nevertheless, the overall problems are systemic.  It is not enough to help these kids without dealing with the causes -- primarily corruption and displacement of Ukraine's cash and resources -- that put children in such conditions to begin with.  This systemic recognition is at least beginning to be understood.  The 'Marshall Plan' details it, and provides comprehensive solutions with a financial net-cost to government over seven years of: zero."

After his Death in 2011, you may hear quite clearly from the BBC that nobody is speaking up about this. They would not engage with us.