Tupelov Bear F at Kipelova naval air base in the 1990s
In an article just posted on Russia Today the Kremlin mouth piece is pushing Declan Ganley. It has been suggested recently that Ganley's pal, the former commie state banker and current president of the Czech republic, Vaclav Klaus, is being supported by the KGB.
If the new Pravda is backing Ganley, European citizens should be very worried. We should also demand a pan European police investigation into the financing of Libertas. Enough is enough.
The party that claims to want openness and transparency is the least open and transparent political grouping in Europe. As for their demand for greater democracy they should perhaps look inwards. Libertas is a private political party that has "followers" not "members". Its leader appointed and not elected.
Ganley is a millionaire with Russian links going back to the early 1990s when he got "sweat-heart" deals , buying aluminium on credit at 10% of its true market value and selling it on the international markets at Rotterdam. We have no idea who partnered with Ganley in this racket.
Later he claimed to own Russia's biggest forestry business centred at Kipelova. Indeed he brought one Irish Times journalist there in 1995. they landed at the secret naval airbase at Kipelova which Ganley claimed to own. The journalist was given the impression that the 40 Tupelov "Bear F" planes on the ground had been "abandoned". Russian Front’, Irish Times, Friday, October 27, 1995
The airbase has never been sold and the 40 Tupelovs were Russian naval reconnaissance.
What is clear is that the Russians want Ganley to destabilise the European Union. According to CBS Russia Today is merely a continuation of the old Soviet propaganda services. It they support Ganley then Putin supports Ganley.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_Today
Western state and commercial media claim that Russia Today has close ties with the Russian state authorities[10][11][12] [13][14] and a few years after the channel started broadcasting, for being a "cheerleader" of the Kremlin,[12] applying positive spin to reports about governmental institutions and refraining from criticizing Prime Minister and former Russian president Vladimir Putin or the government.[2] A CBS News story contains allegations that Russia Today is "a continuation of the old Soviet propaganda services".[2] Western commercial media, including The New York Times, routinely call it "state-run".[15]
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2006/03/10/russia-today-critics.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/05/AR2008030503539_pf.html
http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2005-07/2005-07-06-voa33.cfm?CFID=285357866&CFTOKEN=42597376
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/arts/television/18heym.html?_r=1&n=Top/News/World/Countries%20and%20Territories/Russia
22 December 2008. Thanks to Robert Eringer.
Dark secret of new EU president Vaclav Klaus
Robert Eringer
December 20, 2008 12:00 AM
The European Union will have a new president in 12 days. Unfortunately, he was a long-term communist collaborator who may still be under the influence of Russian Intelligence, knowledgeable sources within the intelligence community have told The Investigator. Vaclav Klaus, 67, is President of the Czech Republic, which will rotate to leadership of the EU on January 1.
This is the first time a former Soviet-bloc country will lead the EU -- an irony compounded by Mr. Klaus's opposition, earlier this decade, to Czech membership in the political and economic union of 27 countries and almost 500 million Europeans.
Renowned for his arrogance, the prickly Mr. Klaus is no Santa. Often referred to as Europe's rudest politician, he is more like The Grinch. Such audacious behavior, perhaps, helps him mask a 46 year-old secret.
We can reveal exclusively that Mr. Klaus, while a 21-year-old student at the University of Economics, Prague, in 1962, was recruited by Czech counterintelligence officers and put to work as a spy against democratic reformers with whom he studied and later worked. For five decades he has concealed a murky past of betrayal and deception.
Codenamed "Vodichka," Mr. Klaus is said to have been "an avid and willing informant" who reported on the political reliability of his classmates -- two of whom were expelled because of the information he provided.
For his cooperation, Mr. Klaus was allowed to travel abroad on research projects --first to Italy in 1966, and three years later to Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.
Mr. Klaus is understood to have reported to Czech intelligence officers on the activities of Czech opposition groups within the United States during the aftermath of the "Prague Spring" rebellion.
In 1970 Mr. Klaus starred in "Operation Rattrap," staged by Czech counterintelligence with the assistance of Soviet KGB advisers. Mr. Klaus was publicly named as an "anti-socialist malcontent" and "purged" from the Economic Institute. Its purpose was to pose Mr. Klaus as a "victim" of the regime so he could continue to penetrate dissident circles as a deep-cover mole. The ruse was successful and Mr. Klaus effectively monitored opposition activities and reported dissident intentions, succeeding also in establishing a personal relationship with underground leader Vaclav Havel, who would become the Czech Republic's first democratically-elected president in 1993.
Mr. Klaus was officially "rehabilitated" by the state in 1987 to allow him to join the Economic Forecasting Institute of the Academy of Sciences -- "a nest of counterrevolution," in the minds of Czech counterintelligence officials, who wanted it infiltrated. Again, Mr. Klaus was their man. Successfully planted within its ranks, he informed on the activities of other members while further building his reputation as a subversive.
But in the 15 years before that, Mr. Klaus had been permitted a career at Czechoslovak State Bank -- most unusual for true critics of the communist regime. He also enjoyed travel privileges, which were practically impossible for genuine dissidents.
Mr. Klaus entered politics in 1989 as a member of the Civic Forum party and got appointed Minister of Finance. Three years later he became prime minister.
One of Mr. Klaus's first acts as a state official was to track down the operational file kept on him by Czech counterintelligence -- and shred it. However, unbeknownst to him, a duplicate "Red File" had been dispatched to Moscow, in October 1989, for safekeeping. It remains in the archives of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).
Mr. Klaus was instrumental in pushing Civic Forum to the right, and the so-called Klaus-wing of the party became the core of the Civic Democratic Party, which he has led since its founding.
In December 1997 Mr. Klaus was forced to resign as prime minister due to complicity in a political funding and corruption scandal stemming from a secret Swiss bank account in his name containing $5 million -- exposed at the time as secret donations in exchange for special favors.
Just over a year later, Mr. Klaus began a series of secret meetings with the SVR's Resident (station chief) in Prague.
An SVR officer told The Investigator, "We opened an operational file on Klaus under the codename 'Kolesnikov,' and did not rule out the possibility of a recruitment attempt (on the basis of possessing his file and being privy to his darkest secret)."
It is unclear whether Mr. Klaus's political career was resurrected with SVR assistance, but crystal clear that Mr. Klaus has since established an unusually close relationship with Russian supremo Vladimir Putin, who one year ago this month rewarded Mr. Klaus -- a fluent Russian speaker -- with the Pushkin Medal, ostensibly for promoting Russian culture.
Mr. Putin paid a rare state visit to the Czech Republic only after Mr. Klaus succeeded Vaclav Havel as President in 2003. (Mr. Havel led the "Velvet Revolution," which brought freedom to Czechoslovakia). While hosting Mr. Putin, Mr. Klaus' submissive behavior was described by Czech journalists as "borderline sycophancy."
Ever since, Mr. Klaus's support for the Putin regime has been strong and unwavering. For example, when the European Union vehemently condemned Russia's invasion of Georgia earlier this year, Mr. Klaus sided with the Kremlin. "The responsibility of Georgia," he declared, "is unexceptionable and fatal."
An active critic of same-sex couples and the green movement, Mr. Klaus has called global warming a "false myth" and referred to Nobel Prize winner Al Gore as "an apostle of arrogance."
So no surprise that the Czech president took umbrage last week when the EU sealed a plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent. "This is scandalous," he said, upset that French President Nicholas Sarkozy (current EU President) managed to push it through before his term expired. Mr. Klaus had hoped to quash it. "Oh God," proclaimed the Austrian daily newspaper Die Presse in reference to EU leadership, "Vlaclav Klaus will come next."
Indeed. This Euro-skeptic's imminent arrival as EU chieftain bodes not well for European unity -- or the world.
__________
The opinions in the column are Robert Eringer's and not necessarily the newspaper's. Readers may write Robert Eringer c/o the News Press. P.O. Box 1359, Santa Barbara 93102. Or if you have a story idea for The Investigator, contact him at eringer33[at]aol.com. State if your query is confidential.
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