Mark Ames — Ebay Billionaire Pierre Omidyar Helped Finance the Coup in Kiev

• Svitlana Zalishchuk is a Ukrainian political activist who organized a string of pro-Western NGOs
• These enjoyed lavish funding from USAID and the French-American billionaire Pierre Omidyar
• Zalishcuk has since entered the new Rada as part of Poroshenko's coalition and is emerging as his leading spokesperson
• She has been taking charge on a new, highly controversial "lustration" law to purge political enemies
• Omidyar opposes the US National Security State at home, but often acts to help advance Washington's interests abroad and is a frequent guest at the White House

Ukraine just held its first post-revolution parliamentary elections, and amid all of the oligarchs, EU enthusiasts, neo-Nazis, nepotism babies, and death squad commanders, there is one newly-elected parliamentarian’s name that stands out for her connection to Silicon Valley: Svitlana Zalishchuk, from the billionaire president’s Poroshenko Bloc party. 

Zalishchuk was given a choice spot on the president’s party list, at number 18, ensuring her a seat in the new Rada. And she owes her rise to power to another oligarch besides Ukraine’s president — Pierre Omidyar, whose funding with USAID helped topple the previous government. Zalishchuk’s pro-Maidan revolution outfits were directly funded by Omidyar. 

Earlier this year, Pando exposed how eBay billionaire and Intercept publisher Pierre Omidyar co-funded with USAID Zalishchuk’s web of nongovernmental organizations — New Citizen, Chesno,Center UA. According to the Financial Times, New Citizen, which received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Omidyar, “played a big role in getting the [Maidan] protest up and running” in November 2013. Omidyar Network’s website features Zalishchuk’s photograph on its page describing its investment in New Citizen. Zalishchuk was brought into the NGOs by her longtime mentor, Oleh Rybachuk, a former deputy prime minster who led the last failed effort to integrate Ukraine into the EU and NATO.…

Pando Daily
Ebay Billionaire Helped Finance the Coup in Kiev. His Protege Now Works Closely with Neo-Nazis
Mark Ames

RT comments on this Pando article.

This is high quality investigative reporting from an American journalist at Pando Daily who knows Russia very well.

He was the founder and editor, along with Matt Taibbi, of the iconic satirical Moscow-based English-language weekly, The Exile, which published in Moscow from the late 1990s to the late 2000s. Its archives arestill available online.
Taibbi, who later went on to be an acclaimed columnist at Rolling Stone, recently left a major internet publishing venture funded by Pierre Omidyar, the subject of this article.

In February, Ames published an important article revealing how Omidyar, in cooperation with the US government, has been heavily involved in financing pro-US activists who were instrumental in organizing the February coup in Kiev which started the Ukraine crisis.

I wonder whether this had anything to do with Matt Taibbi leaving Omidyar's employ. He must have known about it from his former colleague Mark Ames.

Wait, the plot thickens:

Meanwhile, in just the past year Omidyar Network has co-funded Ukraine revolution groups in Ukraine with the US government, and directly financed far-right, pro-business political actors in both Ukraine and in India, where a former top figure in Omidyar Network, Jayant Sinha now serves in the ultranationalist BJP Party and as close advisor to its controversial far-right leader, Narendra Modi. Previously, Sinha had served in a powerful BJP Party think-tank, the India Foundation to elect Modi, while simultaneously working as head of Omidyar Network India Advisors, and serving on the five-member global Executive Committee of Omidyar Network.

Ames wonders:

There is truly nothing like Omidyar’s contradictory roles — fighting the empire, leaking the empire’s secrets, while also working hand-in-glove with the empire’s agencies to make the world more pliable to US government and corporate interests. 

Perhaps it reflects the multibillionaire’s bizarre Howard Hughes-like schizophrenia; perhaps it’s deliberate, a co-optation of the dissident activist wing. Perhaps there’s no rhyme or reason, only the effects — an eerie silence from nearly the entire activist community when it comes to holding Omidyar or his many endeavors accountable.

Maybe the Libertarian plan is to take over the empire for anracho-capitalism instead of crony capitalism.