Migration Management and NATO: Part 1
Or how NATO had a backdoor into Ukraine for over two decades
by Thomas A. Tass
Yesterday I was going through some old files, and I came across a glossy colour 32-page magazine about the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine (SBGS) published in 2004. It is a bilingual Ukrainian/English language publication that was given to me by senior officials of the SBGS while in Kyiv on an official visit on behalf of my employer at the time. 1
Having literally not seen it for twenty some years, I was curious to read it in retrospect to the current situation in Ukraine.
The magazine starts out with an introductory statement by the Head of the SBGS Mykola Lytvyn. He wrote, “Everything relays on professionalism and competence of individuals being called to protect the border”. It was a very positive statement from the head of a law enforcement body described at the time by many outside of Ukraine as a part of the most corrupt government in Europe. (Lytvyn was a chief of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine since 2003, and then General of the Army of Ukraine in 2008. He resigned in 2014 as Maidan activists began picketing the administration building of the State Border Guard in Kyiv, demanding a meeting with Lytvyn and his resignation.) But I digress.
The magazine is then broken into 18 subtitles that focus on ambiguous statistics, organizational structures, training, and the usual ubiquitous bureaucratic jingoism found in most government publications. Boring stuff until I got to page 28 which is entitled “International co-operations”.
That is where the genesis of the NATO-Ukrainian military relationship is revealed.
The war between Ukraine and Russia did not start two years ago as the warmongers and their old neoliberal media pals in London, Washington and Brussels (EU) have been busy disinforming everyone. The three pages below make it crystal clear that NATO and Ukraine were cementing their strategic relationship in plain sight 20 years ago setting the stage for an inevitable conflict with Russia.
The old government magazine exposed growing NATO/Ukraine links that were directly supported by the European Union (EU) through its various IGO’s and NGO’s along with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) that was principally funded by the United States.
The most illustrative quote is from page 29.
“Activity on border facilitation became really fruitful and mutually useful, contributed to Ukraine-NATO cooperation on border issues. Our agency is the constant participator of all the events of relevant level which are being conducted by both EU member-states, NATO states and by our adjacent states. In particular, the program Ukraine-NATO border management enhancement became the result of cooperation with North Atlantic Treaty States” .
Much of this quasi military activity was coordinated through the IOM office in Ukraine. In fact it states on the back inside cover that “The magazine is made with assistance of IOM Office in Ukraine”.
One might wonder what was a humanitarian organization doing in this mix? Why was an organization dedicated to promoting integrated border management and orderly migration associated with “Export control: cooperation on defense issues….”. 2