Meet the New Ukrainian “Finance Minister,” From the U.S. State Department

Her name is Natalie Jaresko, she hails from Chicago, Illinois, a city familiar with thuggish politics and long dominated by a white ethnic political machine, and she spent several years as a U.S. diplomat.

Being an American, she speaks English with an American accent, and according to herself, has mostly worked in private finance.

She was just made a Ukrainian citizen this past Monday, according to the BBC. Billionaire Ukrainian president Petro “Candyman” Poroshenko anointed her a Ukrainian citizen so she could assume her top government position. (Other sources say she was made an instant citizen on Tuesday.)

What exactly are Ms. Jaresko's qualifications? Well, months after Ukraine became independent in 1992, she arrived at the U.S. embassy in Kiev to assume the post of economic section chief. (The role of economic section chiefs at U.S. embassies is to facilitate the penetration of U.S. capital and foreign capital generally into whatever country the embassy is in, and to work to ensure “investor friendly” and “business friendly” laws and policies by the host nation. They may also work to help destabilize governments that don't “play ball” with Western capitalist and imperialist interests.) In 1995 she moved to “the private sector,” namely to the U.S.-government sponsored Western NIS Enterprise Fund, becoming its chief executive officer in 2001. That fund invested $165 million in various Ukrainian companies, giving the U.S. government great influence in Ukraine through this hidden hand operation. (Those Ukrainian companies must have afforded plenty of opportunities for cover for CIA and other U.S. covert operatives too.)

After the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, Jaresko saw her main chance and went for it, forming Horizon Capital with three other founding partners, in Kiev. Through that vehicle, $225 million was funneled into various Ukrainian companies.

Jaresko also graduated from the John F. Kennedy “School of Government” at Harvard University, a sort of finishing school for U.S. imperialist apparatchiks, where they teach their pupils How to Rule.

Jaresko tells the BBC that it's simply absurd to see her as a U.S. agent just because she was employed by the State Department. (BBC World Update, December 4.)

Jaresko did get in a dig against Russia's “illegal annexation” of Crimea. (What's “illegal” about it? Why, the U.S. says it's illegal, that's what! Never mind that 95% of Crimean voters voted for reunification with Russia in advance of the Russian Duma approving it.)

I guess the violent coup that overthrew the previous elected government was “legal.” I guess U.S. subversion is “legal.” I guess U.S.-supplied false flag snipers murdering policemen and protesters is “legal.”

Looks like “law” is in the eye of the beholder.

But wait! There's more! Aivaras Abromavicius, a Lithuanian citizen and yet another finance capitalist (he's a partner in a private equity firm named East Capital) will be Ukraine's "Economy Minister."

And meet the new Ukrainian “Health Minister,” Aleksander Kvitashvili, a Georgian citizen who has served as health minister and labor minister in Tbilisi.

As he did with Jaresko, Poroshenko granted instant Ukrainian citizenship to these two on the spot.

Rabid prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who has relentlessly agitated for NATO military intervention on his behalf and, like the Boy Who Cried Wolf, screeches “Russian invasion!” or “Russian aggression!” every other day, submitted the cabinet “nominees” to the Kiev Parliament, which duly rubber-stamped them the same day Poroshenko waved his magic citizenship wand over their heads to turn them into Ukrainians (December 2nd, a Tuesday, in most reports). (Jaresko was born and raised in the U.S. but is of Ukrainian ancestry.)

And what are these three newly-minted Ukrainian citizens, these foreign “technocrats” going to do? They're going to make sure the IMF-imposed austerity program is carried out. The standard “austerity package” of bleeding the people white to transfer wealth to already-wealthy foreigners. This is the diseased nature of “the international system,” one that sacrifices human needs on the altar of elite greed. [1]

So a superexploiter Ukrainian billionaire, Poroshenko, (how can one manage to suck up enough wealth with operations in such a small country and become a billionaire without exploiting others to the hilt?) appoints a bunch of foreigners to screw the Ukrainians (they'll just go back where they came from after they do their dirty work). The financial speculators Jaresko and Abromavicius will control the budget, spending, taxation, disposition of foreign reserves. The new “Health Minister” will oversee the further gutting of health care for the mass of Ukrainians (part of “austerity”). All in the name of “sound economics” and “getting the fiscal house in order.”

These three are joining a government that has been systematically blasting the rebellious eastern cities and towns to rubble with artillery and aerial bombardment, killing thousands and consigning many more to starvation or freezing this winter, now that there is no electricity (and water can't be pumped) and a lack of food. Apparently their moral scruples see no problem with being accomplices to this.

Gee, I wonder whose class interests Natalie is going to protect and serve? 

In mid-November, U.S. vice president Joseph Biden went to Kiev to personally order Poroshenko to form a new cabinet acceptable to the U.S., and until he obeyed the International Monetary Fund would withhold a slug of money the regime desperately needs. The IMF of course is an instrument of U.S. global financial domination. The regime installed by the West in Kiev has already attacked the standard of living of the population in order to pay off debt owed to Western interests. [2]

Notice the double standard here. When Russia tries to get paid for natural gas previously shipped to Ukraine, Western media and politicians scream “extortion!” When the IMF and U.S. puts the squeeze on Ukraine, well, you don't even SEE what's going on unless you read the business press.

Early this year, Russia had proposed a three-way trade deal between Russia, Ukraine, and the EU, but the EU insisted on playing winner-take-all, and refused. When then-president Petroshenko, under Russian pressure, balked at signing an EU-only deal, the West was outraged and incited the violent occupation of the streets of Kiev and siege of government buildings by neo-fascists which eventually overthrew the government and replaced it with one more malleable to the U.S. bloc.

1] “Technocrat” is one of those terms of obfuscation used by bourgeois class dictatorships to cloud men's (and women's) minds and disguise reality. It implies some neutral, scientific economic mechanic, who fixes machinery. Likewise “structural adjustment,” another disingenuous term that obscures rather than explains. What is being disguised is the fact that the policies are not neutral, but are consciously designed to aggressively promote the class interests of the very richest people on the planet, whether these billionaires currently reside in Kiev, as Poroshenko does, or in New York or London or Monte Carlo. “Economic hitman” (or woman) would be the more appropriate term. (Tip of the hat to John Perkins, author of the book Confessions of an Economic Hitman.)

2] “Ukraine's Truly Foreign Ministers,” Dec. 3, 2014, Bloomberg View, which is owned by former New York City Emperor Michael Bloomberg Billionaire.

Here's an interesting quote from the article: “The nationalities of the three officials sent a clear message: Ukraine aspires to be a U.S. ally and a good IMF client, and it admires the reforms that rid Lithiuania and Georgia of their Soviet economic and cultural heritage.” You don't say.

Notes: The BBC, in its interview with Jaresko aired December 4th, said she was made a citizen of Ukraine on Monday, and Jaresko did not contradict this. Reuters said she and the other two newly-minted apparatchiks had citizenship bestowed on them Tuesday, December 2. “Foreign technocrats given Ukrainian citizenship before cabinet vote,” Reuters, 12/2/14.

For an admiring- if not fawning- biography of Jaresko, see “Most Influential Expats: Natalie Jaresko,” KyivPost, October 7, 2010. This is a pro-Kiev regime website with articles carrying titles like “Donetsk airport under Ukrainian control, enemy sustains losses – NSDC,” (Dec. 3), NSDC being the regime's “National Security and Defense Council.” As I've pointed out elsewhere, the “enemy” are Ukrainians too. And letting the “NSDC” write one's headlines is hardly a sign of objectivity. Apparently the Kiev cabal and KyivPost share the same enemy, the rebellious easterners.

[For background, see my numerous previous essays on the Ukraine “crisis” created by the U.S. bloc, with documentation and evidence. Just type “Ukraine” in the blog searchbox next to the orange B in the upper left corner of this page.]