UKRAINE FOR
"REGIME CHANGE"
The current
wave of protests in Ukraine are the outward expression of the most brazen
attempt at interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign European country
by the EU/NATO bloc since the conspiracy to destroy Federal Yugoslavia in the
1990’s where armed rebellion against the Belgrade Government was organised and
financed by EU/NATO with the US, West Germany and Austria openly supplying arms
to Croatian separatists provoking the most disastrous civil conflict in Europe since
WW2.
The Western
whore press has gone to great lengths to portray the demonstrations in Kiev as
a struggle for democracy and the rule of law. In fact, they are part of a
geopolitical strategy of the EU/NATO imperialist expansion in Eastern Europe in
an attempt to reduce Russian influence and subordinate the Ukrainian State to
the domination of Germany, the European Union and NATO.
Nine years
ago, the so-called “Orange Revolution” was organised with massive political and
financial support from the US government and American NGOs such as the “Open
Society Institute” of billionaire George Soros. Other usual suspects include
the National Endowment of Democracy (NED), the International Republican
Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute (NDI), Freedom House, and
other corporate groups such as the Rockefeller Foundation. They serve US
imperial and corporate interests. They exploit ordinary people doing so.
Various activities are ongoing in different countries. These forces were able
to annul the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election and ensure that the pro-EU and
pro-US tandem of Viktor Yushchenko and Julia Tymoshenko took over as head of
state and head of government in place of Viktor Yanukovich, who was considered
to be in the pocket of Russia. The muppet duo quickly fell out, however, and
Yanukovich was able to assume the post of president in the 2010 election.
Now another,
more serious attempt, is being made to bring a regime to power in Kiev that
will subordinate the former Soviet Republic and granary of the Russian Empire
to the EU. The tactics have all the
hallmarks of what was engineered against Socialist Yugoslavia in the 1990’s;
the existing elected government is declared “undemocratic” and “dictatorial”;
internal tensions and political and religious divisions are ruthlessly exploited
with massively financed propaganda campaigns with traitorous opportunists who
value euros and dollars above their own countries’ interests.
An
examination of the political leadership of the current protests reveals their totally
reactionary character. They are led by three parties, two of which have close
relations with the conservative camps in the EU, while the third is openly
fascist. The Batkivshchyna (Homeland) party, led by the imprisoned Julia
Tymoshenko, has observer status with the European People’s Party, the association
of Europe’s Christian-Democratic and conservative parties. UDAR (Punch), headed
by boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, who lives in Germany, is a creation of German Chancellor
Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its think tank, the Konrad
Adenauer Foundation. The latter publicly advertises on its web site seminars
devoted to the political education of UDAR members.
According
to a study entitled “The
Extreme Right in the Ukraine” by the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the
third party, Svoboda (Freedom), is “the flagship of core extreme-right
ideology.” The party’s original name was the Social-National Party of Ukraine.
It used as its emblem a logo reminiscent of the Nazi swastika. On the advice of
the extreme right-wing (Le Pen) French National Front (FN), with which it works
closely, it adopted a less provocative name.
Arseniy
Yatsenyuk (Homeland) and Vitali Klitschko regularly appear at press conferences
together with Oleh Tyahnybok from Svoboda. Tyahnybok is a neo-Nazi notorious
for his ultranationalist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic outbursts.
Leading
European and American politicians have expressed their solidarity with the
protests in Ukraine. The EU is no earthly paradise. The same forces that have
tacitly supported the brutality of their own police and para-military forces in
mercilessly beating and oppressing those opposing EU austerity policies in
Athens, Madrid, Lisbon and elsewhere, now proclaim their “outrage” at the brutality of
the Ukrainian police. The appalling “austerity” policies imposed on Greece by
the IMF and Brussels Dictatorship, the unelected EU Commission, which amount to
nothing less than the forced impoverishment of the majority of the Greek
population and are a living example of what is in store for Ukrainians if they
foolishly allow themselves to be duped by the EU/NATO gang of hypocrites and
liars. Likewise, the scandalous robbery of the savings of the people of Cyprus
to satisfy the extortionate demands of the EU Banking cartel, which is now the
official policy of the Brussels Dictatorship, is another example of what is in
store for Ukrainians if these parasites get their way and abolish Ukraine’s
sovereignty under the guise of a “trade agreement” with the EU/NATO bloc.
EU so-called
“democracy” is a total sham. In 2009, when the Irish people rejected by a 60%
majority the reactionary “Lisbon Treaty” which has imposed the failed economic dogma
of neo-liberalism on EU countries, the people were forced to vote again in
order to give the “right answer” the second time. In the second referendum on
the Treaty, in 2010, the US Corporate monopolies based in Ireland spent €40
Million providing funds for “Yes” vote propaganda while the “NO” opposition had
only a budget of €4,000. In a criminal manoeuvre, the second referendum was
allocated the same number as the first, “28th amendment to the Constitution”
allowing saved “yes” ballot papers from the first vote to be “recycled” (contrary
to electoral law which states they must be destroyed within six months of the
vote) and stuffed in the ballot boxes of the second vote thus providing the
required “correct “ answer. In addition, empty ballot boxes were illegally
delivered to private houses of election officials two days before the second
referendum, again contrary to Irish electoral law, which provides that ballot
boxes must be held in police stations or military barracks, under guard, until
the morning of the vote. Further, and also contrary to Irish electoral law,
agents of the “No” Campaign were refused permission to inspect and survey the
ballot boxes being held overnight in count centres around the country.
In a disgraceful
incident, from the first referendum in 2009, seen here:
An unknown individual is filmed entering the
Count Centre at Cork City Hall and re-emerging with a ballot box which he walks
away with into the night. The Irish Government and police have consistently refused
to investigate this incident despite numerous requests from concerned citizens.
US State
Secretary, public liar John Kerry, urges the Ukrainian government to “listen to
the voice of their people,” while in the US itself the “voice of the people”,
the popular Occupy Movement, which organised street protests against the
corporate robbery of the American people by the bandits of Wall Street, was
violently suppressed by brutal State Police action throughout the country. The
German Foreign Minister, Guido Westerwelle, intervened personally to mix with
demonstrators in Kiev. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has
demanded that the Ukrainian government guarantee the right to freedom of
expression and assembly. The German government, which has just commenced new
proceedings against the neo-fascist National Democratic Party of Germany,
defends the right of the Ukrainian fascists to demonstrate. Yesterday, US Deputy
Secretary of State, Nuland, turned up in the streets of Kiev handing out bread to protesters.
Though it
is calling for the resignation of the President and new elections, the
opposition does not enjoy the support of the majority of Ukrainians. A motion
of censure against the Government failed last week in parliament. The Association and Free Trade
Agreement with the European Union that the opposition wants to implement would
have a devastating impact on large sections of the Ukrainian population.
The EU
Agreement excludes simultaneous membership in a Russian-led customs union and
would thus cut off Ukraine from its main trading partner, with which Ukraine’s
industry and transport routes are closely connected. The abolition of customs
duties on European goods would also mean bankruptcy for many Ukrainian
industries.
The
terms of the agreement, which include the introduction of EU rules for labour market
deregulation, reducing workers’ rights and limiting the right to strike, the
privatisation of state enterprises and a reduction in the public debt, would
have a social impact similar to the EU austerity programs imposed on Greece, Ireland,
Portugal, Romania and other countries. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is
already denying Ukraine a much-needed credit because the government refuses to
hike the price of gas by 40 percent—a move that would inevitably result in the
death of many unemployed people and pensioners unable to pay their heating
bills as happens in the USA and EU countries every winter. The social and
economic gains made by working people in the aftermath of WW2 are being
systematically dismantled throughout the EU by the US invented “neo-liberalism”
economic dogma of selling off state and public assets to private monopolies and
abolishing social welfare, public health services and education services and
replacing these with high-priced profit making rackets. The privatisation of
public water supply further leaves the general
population totally dependent on the whims of greedy profit-mongers and EU/US
corporate vultures.
The
Association Agreement would turn the country into an extended sweatshop workplace
for German and European companies, which could produce at deliberately lowered
wage rates than those in China. At the same time, the country’s natural
resources, its vast and fertile landmass, agriculture and its domestic market
of 46 million inhabitants make Ukraine a mouthwatering prospect for German and
European corporate exploiters. The EU especially covets Ukrainian agricultural
production as part of its policy of “food security” in reducing imports from
developing countries in favour of production on the continent of Europe.
The
agreement would also strengthen the EU’s hand against Russia. A customs union
or Eurasian Union comprising Russia and the Ukraine would have had a significantly
stronger position in trade negotiations with the EU than an isolated Russia. Separation
of Ukraine from Russian trade links would leave that country in a much weakened
position of reduced sovereignty, as has been imposed on the smaller EU
countries by Britain, France and Germany who themselves blatantly ignore the
rules they impose on others through the Brussels Dictatorship.
Germany,
the EU and the US are pursuing not only economic, but also geopolitical,
objectives in Ukraine. Given Russia’s loss of influence in Eastern Europe since
the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the incorporation of Ukraine into the EU
would push Russia off to the edge of Europe and with the extreme pressure now
being exerted on the remaining neutral countries in Europe, Ireland, Finland, Sweden,
Austria, Macedonia and Montenegro to join the aggressive NATO military
alliance, responsible for all current major conflicts in the world, Syria,
Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia, supporting Israel’s oppression of
Palestine, they want to consolidate their position on the frontiers of Russia
at the expense of the peoples of those countries.
Kiev Rus,
the first organised Slavic state in Europe, was a creation of the Ukrainian
people. Since the end of the 18th Century, Ukraine formed an important part of
the Russian and Soviet state. Moreover, the Russian Black Sea Naval Fleet is
located in Crimea at a port leased to Russia by Ukraine. Both the US and the EU
have an interest in weakening Russia, which is considered to be an important
ally of China. Immediately after his election in March, Chinese President Xi
Jinping travelled to Moscow to strengthen the two countries’ “strategic
partnership.” Both countries feel threatened economically and strategically by
the aggressive incursions of the US and its allies in Asia, the Middle East and
Africa.
China is
also expanding its economic links with Ukraine, which currently conducts about
5 percent of its foreign trade with China. In October, the South China
Morning Post reported that the Chinese state-owned enterprise XPCC had
struck a deal with the Ukrainian agricultural company KSG Agro to gain access
to 100,000 hectares of arable land for the production of food for China. This
area is to be expanded to three million hectares—the size of Belgium or
Massachusetts.
China has
already given the country loans of $10 billion. Ukraine considers its economic
relations with China to be so important that President Yanukovich set off for a
four-day state visit to Beijing, despite the continuing political crisis. This is
the background to the attempts by the EU and the German government to use the
protests in Kiev to destabilise the Ukrainian government. Their initiative has
been launched in tandem with the US, which is systematically expanding its
military presence in Asia to encircle China and undermine its influence in the
region. To this end, the US has massively intensified its pressure on China in
recent weeks.
The
offensive against Ukraine raises profound historical questions. In two world
wars, Germany sought to bring Ukraine under its control and committed
abominable crimes in the process. The current brazenness of the German
government is fraught with new dangers. The growing international tensions can
quickly turn into armed conflict similar to what was imposed on Socialist Yugoslavia
and being imposed on Syria today. The EU/NATO bloc cares nothing about the
destruction imposed on countries where they seek “regime change” as their
long-term strategy includes profiting from the required “reconstruction”
business in the aftermath of each conflict and acquiring the resources of the
target country for globalised monopoly capitalism.
This danger
can only be countered by a strong independent movement of international working
class solidarity fighting for a united, democratic socialist Europe against the
inhuman neo liberalism economic dogma of the Wall Street and Frankfurt Banking
monopolies.
