REPORT FROM KIEV - A DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION?Monday Nov. 22, 2004Matthew Maly

(Note:  Matthew Maly is a courageous and astute Russian-American who is based in Kiev, and is a SubmergingMarkets Contributing Editor. He filed the following brief eyewitness report late Saturday night, as demonstrations in the city were mounting.  As journalists who are intimately familiar with so-called "democratic" countries that routinely subvert democratic elections and press freedoms, we wish to express our solidarity with the people of the Ukraine.)

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Kiev is a city of 4 million people. About a million of them today wore
Yushchenko's orange color, and that includes all students, and a fair number of grandmothers, yuppies, businessmen, etc. His opponent is a twice convicted Al Capone, for whom no more than 30% of Ukrainians voted.

There was tremendous electoral abuse. There is a Woodstock
atmosphere in the city which the people will never forget. Half a
million Kievites and "visitors" (some with good military skills)were on the main square today, screaming "Yushchenko" so that I heard it a mile away.

Nothing like that has ever happened in the CIS, ever. It is not even similar to winning a Superbowl. Ukraine will never be the same, whatever happens, as the young people will never forget.

Tonight the people may storm the Presidential Administration, and there may be lots of blood. I tried to stop the bloodshed all day today by pushing a neat political trick I invented, a certain Open Letter I wrote. They listened, but they already were handing out the guns....

©Matthew Maly, SubmergingMarkets™, 2004

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November 23, 2004 at 04:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack