White Niggers
Chapter 28
Friday, September 6th, 2019, 11:15
Dr. Zemanek's office, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Welthandelsplatz 1, 2nd district of Vienna
"You can't demand reparations for a war that may or may not occur some time in the future," Dr. Zemanek says. "There is no such thing as reparations in advance."
"This is actually a good point," Lisa says. "On the other hand, making a ruckus about this can, perhaps, wake people up and prevent a war."
"Lisa, I think you overestimate the number of people who will read your dissertation," Dr. Zemanek says. "It's you, it's me, and, maybe, the second supevisor. This isn't a public forum."
"It all depends on the quality of my ideas," Lisa says. "Myron Nordquist's works are read by every lawyer who works on the logistics of sea routes."
"You may be right," Dr. Zemanek says.
Lisa feels as if Dr. Zemanek is crawling back into her burrow of reticence, away from a concealed threat in Lisa's words that Lisa fails to understand.
"This may be not the best part that supports my thesis," Lisa says. "But there are several others."
"Let's hear them," Dr. Zemanek says.
Dr. Zemanek is looking at her watch. All the joviality from before has evaporated. I hardly recognize this person, Lisa thinks.
"The West promotes corruption in Ukraine at the highest levels which leads to corruption everywhere," Lisa says. "Wie der Herr, so's Gescherr."
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," Dr. Zemanek says.
"Let me show you," Lisa says.
Lisa opens a video on her phone. It shows Joe Biden in front of a white wall with "Council on Foreign Relations" lettered on it.
"So I got to Ukraine. I remember convincing our team that we should be providing for loan guarantees," Biden says in the video. "Now I went over to Kiev at, I guess, 12:30 time, and I was supposed to announce that there is another billion-dollar loan guarantee."
"And I've gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from, uh, Yatseniuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor and they didn't," Biden says. "I said we're not going to give you the billion dollars. They said 'you got no authority, you are not the president. The president said…'"
"I said: 'Call him.' I'm telling you, you are not getting the billion dollars," Biden says. "I said you're not getting… I will be leaving in, what, six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money."
"Oh, son of a bitch," Biden says. "He was fired."
The more Dr. Zemanek watches the video, the more warmth drains from her facial expression. By the end, her face is as stiff as the cryogenically frozen heart of the Snow Queen.
"Is this extraordinary enough?" Lisa says.
"Quite so," Dr. Zemanek says. She looks as if it was she who was fired at Biden's behest.
I'm surprised she is not happy about the coherence of my argument, Lisa says. I'd prefer an open confrontation to the silent treatment she is giving me.
"It doesn't end here. Quite a few Ukrainian civil servants have dual citizenships," Lisa says. "Jaresko, Abromavičius, Kvitashvili among others."
"And?" Dr. Zemanek says.
"Conflict of interest is corruption's little brother," Lisa says. "If an American citizen like Jaresko is the minister of finance in Ukraine, in whose interests do you think she is likely to act?"
"Maybe they hired them to turn the Ukrainian economy around?" Dr. Zemanek says.
"If that was the intention, they didn't succeed," Lisa says. "Today, Ukraine is poorer than it was under the Russians."
"Maybe they haven't had enough time," Dr. Zemanek says. "It's only been five years."
"More like thirty," Lisa says. "28 years, to be precise."
"It may still be not enough," Dr. Zemanek says.
"It was enough for Poland, Czech Republic and most countries from the Eastern Bloc," Lisa says.
"Hmm," Dr. Zemanek says. "And you think all these potentially-corrupt politicians were appointed by the West?"
"I don't think so, I know it," Lisa says. "There was a leaked call from Victoria Nuland where she openly said that she handpicked Yatseniuk as the prime minister after the 2014 coup. The Russians intercepted the call and published it."
"The Russians again…" Dr. Zemanek says.
"Nobody ever disputed the authenticity of that leaked record," Lisa says. "Besides, Joe Biden himself said publicly that he has the authority to hire and fire Ukrainian officials. You saw the video yourself."
"Is this the entirety of your case?" Dr. Zemanek says.
"No. My final accusation is that those officials appointed by the West incite inter-ethnic hatred in Ukraine based on language and religion," Lisa says. "What these administrations do is like banning German as an official language in Switzerland, or trying to replace the Catholic Church in Austria with a new one, created by the puppet government of a foreign country. They are planting a nuclear time bomb in the heart of Ukrainian society."
"I will send you the respective laws later," Lisa says. "Should we proceed to the precedents?"
"There are precedents?" Dr. Zemanek says. Her voice is louder than usual, and her eyes sparkle.
"One example when a country sued another over alleged interference in internal affairs is Nicaragua v. United States back in 1986," Lisa says. "The International Court of Justice ruled in favor of Nicaragua and demanded the US pay reparations."
"Then there is Iran vs. United States," Lisa says. "This one is a mixed bag, but I'd say it's a partial win for Iran. That's when we stick to the conservative options."
Dr. Zemanek raises her eyebrows.
"What are the other-than-conservative options?" Dr. Zemanek says.
"The Ukrainians have strong horizontal ties with each other," Lisa says. "So I thought about a class-action lawsuit against the West. I admit that it's an innovation of a kind."
"Has there been something similar before?" Dr. Zemanek says.
"Sort of. In the 1960s and 1970s the British built a military base on the Chagos Islands and expelled the local population," Lisa says. "These islanders and their descendants filed several class action lawsuits."
"Did they win?" Dr. Zemanek says.
She looks as if she is climbing up the emotional roller coaster of this conversation, with curiosity suppressing all her reservations.
"Partially," Lisa says. "The government of Mauritius, where most of them were moved, received 650,000 pounds in 1975 and an additional 4 million pounds in 1982. That's approximately 12,321 Euros per person in today's money."
"Why do you think they won only partially?" Dr. Zemanek says.
"To get those four million pounds, the islanders had to promise the British there would be no further claims from them," Lisa says. "With Ukraine it can be different – the damage is greater, the Ukrainians are more educated and there are more of them. So, I think we have a chance."
Dr. Zemanek raises an eyebrow. She is at the peak of her curiosity roller coaster. It can only go down from here.
"We?" Dr. Zemanek says.