"Ukraine on the Verge of Civil War" (Le Monde) Who Is Responsible?

"Ukraine on the Verge of Civil War" (Le Monde) Who Is Responsible?


From : Informations ouvrieres, weekly newspaper of the Independent Workers Party of France (POI) – April 16, 2014


"Ukraine on the Verge of Civil War" reads the headline of the French daily Le Monde (April 15). In statements by U.S. and European leaders it is, of course, Russia, Putin and "agents provocateurs" who are the ones "sowing trouble," and "pro-Russian militia" who are occupying administration buildings (1). Blood was once again shed in Ukraine, in the east of the country in the town of Slavyansk, when the forces of the SBU [the Ukrainian ex-KGB] anti-terrorist center launched an attack against the militants who were occupying governments buildings.

Provocations

"An anti-terrorist operation has begun", declared the Ukrainian Home Minister. The Neo-Nazi group Provyi Sektor immediately put its armed groups at the government's disposal, in order to "maintain law and order."  Meanwhile, Irina Farion of the far-right party Svoboda, which is a member of the government coalition, declared that "creatures who take to the path of separatism deserve to die." Farion is also the author for the draft bill on official languages which threatens to forbid the Russian language . . . although Russian is the native language of half the population of Ukraine.

The CIA Director's "Private" Visit

While such provocations have not let up over the past two months, and given the brutal austerity plan signed at the end of March with the IMF, there is no need for "Russian agents" to bring tens of thousands of Ukrainians out into the streets in all the cities of the eastern part of the country: Donetsk, Kharkov, Lugansk and others, but also in Odessa, in the south. In these cities, sporadic occupations of official government buildings had begun weeks ago. But things were cranked up a notch on April 13, with the assault that was ordered in Slavyansk. On the eve of that decision by the Ukrainian authorities, the director of the the CIA, John Brennan, made a "private visit" (sic) to Kiev. This was revealed by a source in the Ukrainian parliament to the Russian agency Interfax -- a visit that the White House was forced to acknowledge. Pure coincidence? (2)

 Washington Pours Oil on the Fire

Behind the official claims of "de-escalation" coming out of Washington, Brussels and Paris, the leaders of the United States, the European Union and NATO keep pouring oil on the fire. The U.S. administration has announced another visit by the U.S. vice president to Kiev, as a show of support. At the United Nations, the U.S. ambassador has hammered on the theme, "This instability [in the east of Ukraine] was written and choreographed in and by Russia." On April 8 and 9, more than 250 political and military heads met at a NATO seminar in Paris (including the French minister Le Drain), where the need to "prepare a readiness action plan . . . to reinvest in . . . defense and . . . to reinforce the transatlantic bond" was reaffirmed.

No one contests that the Russian government is seeking to defend its own interests in this affair. But contrary to what the permanent disinformation campaign claims -- and what the patriotic declarations coming out of the Kremlin likewise affirm -- Russia has been weakened, because the American and European sanctions, which are disturbing for foreign investors, have accelerated the flight of capital (US$100 billion in three months).

The Donbass Miners Are "Breathing Incense"

As for the demonstrations in the cities of the industrial east, they have progressively taken on more and more of a social content, in the wake of the announcement of the IMF plan (the 50% increase in the price of natural gas on May 1st, the freezing of salaries). The British newspaper The Guardian (April 13) quoted, among the many miners demonstrating in Donetsk, "Oleg Obolents, a retired miner who recently formed an independent miners' union: 'Donbass miners are 'breathing incense', he said, using an expression that refers to the incense burned during Russian Orthodox funeral services and is roughly equivalent to 'having one foot in the grave.'

"'A tenth of Ukraine's coal production is sold to Russia, the country's largest trading partner. Another third goes to power metalworking plants, which also sell much of their product to Russia. But as Ukraine has been gripped by political crisis and the new Kiev regime has turned towards Europe, Russia has disrupted trade at the border, and orders from Russian companies have fallen off. . . . If the Association Agreement goes through and Ukraine's market is completely opened up to Europe, the tougher EU production standards will result in the decline of Ukraine's coal and metallurgy industries and the loss of jobs,' Obolents said. He said that many in the industry had not come out to support the protests, for fear of losing their jobs.

"'When they haven't received their pay for two or three months, they'll come out, or if there is a storming [of the occupied building]," he added. "The hungry have nothing to lose. The hungry are willing to do anything,' he said."

-- Dominique Ferré

(1) When Victoria Nuland, from the U.S. State Department, acknowledges that the United States has spent US$5 billion to finance "democracy" in Ukraine, Neo-Nazis included, and when American and EU representatives have taken turns visiting to Kiev to speak at the opposition rallies, this, of course, is not "interference." Who's kidding whom?

(2) It was also several days after a meeting between Victoria Nuland and Svoboda leaders that the former organized the February 18 armed demonstration that caused about one hundred deaths by snipers. On this subject, the German public television station ARD has just broadcast an investigation that seriously questions the official version, accusing the forces that are currently in power of having themselves ordered the sniper shootings into the crowd.