MediaWatch: The Soviets also used similar dividing propaganda techniques dividing all the other nationalities living in the Soviet Union. Sadly some of the often repeated Soviet propaganda about groups is still believed among some even today.
I can't agree more, MediaWatch. Just another example: there were constant movements of people in the Soviet Union, where one nationalities were put into lands predominantly settled by others. Then that increased minority would be supported by the state and promoted into various civil and military life positions with shear disregard to people who lived there for much much longer. This, of course, created tensions. Giving some salt there and there, peppering with some rape or murder by supposedly one group in the camp of the other and Soviets managed to exist for over 70 years and consequences of their policies you will see in any post-Soviet country: from Balkans, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova to Kyrgyztan, Uzbekistan. Not to go far, civil war that is going on in Kyrgyztan is nothing short of old cruel, cunning policies of Soviets and now Russians to distabilize every reion out there.
In 1989 protests flared up against the discriminatory policy of the Soviet government directed at pushing ethnic Kyrgyz inhabitants out of major cities, which could then be occupied by new settlers from Russia and the other Soviet republics (According to the last Soviet census in 1989, ethnic Kyrgyz made up some 22% of the residents of Frunze (Bishkek), while more than 60% were Russians, Ukrainians, and people from other Slavic nations. Kyrgyzstan was the most Russified republic in the Soviet Union, according to the census, as more than 36 percent of all Kyrgyz citizens said Russian was their first language).[22]
It is ridiculous. Minority in their own land, inhabited for centuries.
In 1989, ethnic Uzbeks living in Osh Province of the Kyrgyz SSR formed the Uzbek rights organization Adalat. The group made demands for local Uzbek autonomy or even separation from the Kyrgyz SSR, in favour of joining the Uzbek SSR; it also proposed that the Uzbek language be granted national language status in the region.[1] The Kyrgyz formed an opposing ethnic association, Osh aimagy (Ош аймагы; English: Osh land).[1] The biggest issue of contention between the two sides were attempts to redistribute agriculturally viable land, which was in extremely short supply in the region.[1]
There are reports that Moscow's hardliners used the KGB and local police to incite the violence. Many local eyewitnesses confirm that outsiders fabricated stories of murder and rape in order to spur violence.[6] Also, the fact that police was passive at best suggested at least complicity.[7]
Indeed, Communist Party leader Askar Akaev himself publicly said that the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the KGB had been fanning ethnic conflicts and tensions.[8]
Active Measures (Russian: Активные мероприятия) were a form of political warfare conducted by the Soviet security services (Cheka, OGPU, NKVD, KGB) to influence the course of world events, "in addition to collecting intelligence and producing politically correct assessment of it".[1] Active measures ranged "from media manipulations to special actions involving various degree of violence". They were used both abroad and domestically. They included disinformation, propaganda, counterfeiting official documents, assassinations, and political repression, such as penetration of churches, and persecution of political dissidents.[1]
(also read in Political assasinations column)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures
And this is 2010. Not hard to imagine what was going on during the Soviet regime, when they had total access to everything within any of the republics: from military, police, newspapers and even local churches.
Torq: *reads the post again and fails to find anything to disagree with... and if he does he keeps it to himself*
Never keep it to yourself in such issues and with me. Let me know. I am interested in solving it as ,probably, you too.
Torq: Very well - I will sign the Hrubieszow Agreement under one tiny condition: you don't name the stadium for Euro 2012 after Stepan Bandera.
I will sign it too with your condition. From then on we let our national commemorations and heroes left alone. If that is what you meant too, I hardly see what the arguments between us or our countries were. I wish we were leaders in our crib-lands :)
Borrka: Correct me if I'm wrong but for me his life was a total failure.
You are wrong. He lost his mom, 3 sisters - sent to Siberia with no right of return, 2 brothers murdered in 1942 by Polish inmates, father by Gestapo or NKVD, murdered himself by Soviet KGB. You might call it a failure on his part. But Stepan Bandera gave up it all to see His country free. His life activity (just 50 years) together with others paved the road to our independance. He is and will be remembered and honored by millions. Will you?
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