L’Ukraine, Poutine et notre hypocrisie (comme d’habitude)

Un excellent article sur l’affaire russo-ukrainienne du gaz, avec l’UE et les USA en prime, est donné par Anatol Lieven dans l’International Herald Tribune. On a beaucoup entendu les exclamations occidentales sur l’ “arme du gaz”, sur “la dépendance de l’Europe” ou sur “les mauvaises manières” de Poutine (horreur, — alors qu’il prend la présidence du G-8 — s’est-on déjà exclamé à propos des “mauvaises manières” de GW Bush, de ses attaques préventives et de ses avions transportant des prisonniers vers la torture, lui qui est si souvent à la tête du G8?).

Le cas est plus que suspect, du côté occidental comme d’habitude. Quelques mots de Lieven permettent de bien situer la réalité du problème des rapports de la Russie et de l’Ukraine:

« Consider the figures: Until the latest price hike for gas, Russia was supplying Ukraine with a de facto annual energy subsidy estimated by independent experts at somewhere between $3 billion and $5 billion a year. That is more than the whole of the European Union's aid in the 14 years since Ukrainian independence.

» As for U.S. aid, last year it stood at a mere $174 million — and this after all the talk of U.S. admiration and support for Ukraine's Orange Revolution. Even after the latest price rise, Ukraine will remain greatly favored by international standards, though now more at the ultimate expense of Turkmenistan than Russia.

» Equally important for the Ukrainian economy have been the remittances sent back annually by the millions of Ukrainians working legally in Russia. Once again, contrast Western approaches to this question: It remains extremely difficult for Ukrainians to gain permits to work legally in Western countries. When the last German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, tried to relax the terms for entry into Germany, the result was an outburst of chauvinist hysteria about a supposed flood of Ukrainian criminals and prostitutes.

» Recent days have seen a great deal of moralizing in the U.S. and European news media about Russia using energy as a political tool. It would be better if the Americans and French in particular turned the question round and asked themselves whether there would be the slightest possibility of their countries giving aid on this scale without expecting concrete geopolitical and economic returns.  »

Publié le 9 janvier 2006 à 09H54