U.S. imperialism and the Ukraine coup

Scan page 1

VOL. 32, NO. 3, MARCH 2014 WWW.SOCIALISTACTION.ORG U.S. / CANADA $1 (Left) U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry shakes hands with Ukraine post-coup President Oleksandr (Right) Fascist forces were prominent in anti-government protests in the Maidan.

The recent Ukrainian Maidan (Independence Square) mobilizations are a grotesque caricature of the mass protests of workers and youth in Egypt that led to the demise of the U.S.-backed dictator, Hosni Mubarak.

At the recent Kiev “mass mobilizations” of 250,000 that drove Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych out of the country to seek refuge in Russia, the best organized forces were those of the fascist, anti-Se­ mitic, hyper-nationalist groupings—most promi­ nently, the Svoboda (“Freedom”) Party, formerly the Social-National Party, which traces its ideologi­ cal roots to the pro-Nazi Ukrainian movements of World War II.

These armed, club-wielding, and often Molotovcocktail bomb-throwing beasts had been let loose by the rump Fatherland Party “opposition” Ukrai­ nian parliamentary oligarchs. And this was accom­ plished with the complicity, if not overt support, of U.S. officials, who likely seized on the charge (now highly suspect) that Yanukovych had employed snipers to attack and murder 89 demonstrators and wound 100 others on Feb. 20 as the perfect mo­ ment to shift the debate over a European Union vs. Russian “trade agreement” toward a violent mobili­ zation for Yanukovych’s removal.

A now confirmed taped phone call between the Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and Europe­ an Union Foreign Affairs Minister Catherine Ashton, originally reported by a Russian press agency and then in the British Guardian and other newspapers, reveals Paet’s view that forces among the Maidan protesters had orchestrated the deadly sniper fire on Feb. 20. Paet stated in the taped conversation that “the same snipers [were] killing people from both sides. … There is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers, it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition.” The call took place after the Estonian Turchynov (l.) and Prime Minister Arensiy Yatsenuk.

foreign minister had visited Kiev on Feb. 25, at the height of the Maidan protests.

The Estonian government later denied that Paet “was giving an assessment of the opposition’s in­ volvement in the violence.” There is little doubt, however, that U.S. officials have applied pressure on the Estonians to “reinterpret” the tape.

While the full truth may never be revealed, it is unquestionable that U.S. imperialism has never rejected using manufactured “smoking guns” to achieve reactionary ends. Need we refer to Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction” and the Vietnam-era “Tonkin Bay incident,” both of which were consciously manufactured by the U.S. govern­ ment to justify the mass murder of the people of Iraq and Vietnam—in the latter case 4 million Viet­ namese? Even today, reports by independent inves­ tigators question U.S. intelligence allegations that Syrian government missiles carrying deadly sarin gas killed hundreds of civilians.* This rump Ukrainian government, convened with­ out the presence of Yanukovych or his Party of the Regions, cleared the streets of the official police and military in order to give free rein to the extreme right. The tiny handful of revolutionary socialists who were present, intent on trying to present a working-class and socialist alternative to Ukrainian and Russian capitalism to workers who had legiti­ mate grievances against government corruption, violence, and the selling of Ukraine to the highest bidder, included a few Ukrainian members of the Fourth International. They and other socialists were run off the streets, their flyers torn to shreds.

Evidence of the reactionary nature of the new Ukrainian regime appears in a March 5 on-line Brit­ ish Channel 4 news account: “The man facing down Putin’s aggression as secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defence Council is Andriy Pa­ rubiy. He oversees national security for the nation, having previously served as security commandant during the anti-government protests in Kiev.” Chan­ nel 4 identifies Parubiy as a member of Svoboda and a founder of its pro-Nazi predecessor, the Social National Party. Moreover, “overseeing the armed forces alongside Parubiy as the Deputy Secretary of National Security is Dmytro Yarosh, the leader of the Right Sector—a group of hardline nationalist streetfighters, who previously boasted they were ready for armed struggle to free Ukraine.”

Other Svoboda leaders in the top echelons of the new government include Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Sych, Ecology Minister Andriy Mokhnyk, (continued on page 6, in “30th anniversary fund & subscription drives”)

Scan page 2

Brenda Sandburg

----- pull-quotes -----

INSIDE SOCIALIST Venezuela / Muslims — 3 UPS / Auto — 4

Oregon SEIU — 5 Women’s rights — 8 U.S. hands off Venezuela

Canada news — 10 Immigrants — 11 1934 strike — 12