Today, Reuters featured a very important item, under-reported in world media, that demonstrates the clear and irrefutable links between the Kiev regime and organised Fascist violence in the Ukraine.
Just days after 42 anti-fascist, federalist activists were burned to death in the Odessa Trade Union building as a direct result of the actions of a fascist mob, who pelted the building with Molotov cocktails, Reuters reported that:
‘…Kiev drafted police special forces to the southwestern port city of Odessa to halt a feared westward spread of rebellion.
Ukraine said the Odessa force, based on “civil activists”, would replace local police who had failed to tackle rebel actions at the weekend. Its dispatch was a clear signal from Kiev that, while tackling rebellion in the east, it would vigorously resist any sign of a slide to a broader civil war.’
Who are these ‘civil activist’? Will they be mobilised under the watch of Andrij Parubiy, the current effective head of National Security, and former head of the neo-Nazi paramilitary group Patriots of Ukraine?
Will they include members of Right Sector, the third-positionist group that is the spearhead of fascist violence in the Ukraine? Maybe the mobilised ‘civil activists’ will include some of the very fascists responsible for the Odessa massacre?
It is an extraordinary indictment of the Ukrainian regime that it should act in such a crass and desperate manner in a situation demanding extreme sensitivity, especially in the days leading up to Victory Day on May 9th, which commemorates the victory of the Soviet Red Army over the Nazis.
Can anyone seriously question that, in the circumstances, these ‘civil activists’ will be a self-selecting group who are strong supporters of the regime, strong opponents of separatism, and unabashed about physical confrontation. Surely, in the current Ukrainian situation, it is absolutely clear who is going to step up to this particular plate.
Not one to be outdone, Yulia Tymoshenko has also joined in the clamour to arm the fascists. According to the Kiev Post she is calling for the formation of a ‘combat-capable’ volunteer army.
This is a regime that came to power on the coat tails of fascist vigilantism and has sought to mobilise and deploy the same fascist vigilantism to maintain power. It made its intentions clear at the very outset by placing the ex-Nazi Parubiy in charge of National Security.
This disastrous regime, which no-one voted for, is also presiding over a full scale military assault against its own people. According to the interior minister, thirty people were killed in Slaviansk yesterday. There are unconfirmed reports from Slaviansk that this included a number of unarmed civilians.
The Yatsenyuk junta is acquiring quite a collection of casualties – at least 42 in Odessa at the weekend, 30 in Slaviansk last night. Presumably, once the dead are duly identified, we shall soon know the full truth about all the so-called ‘provocateurs’ bussed in from Trans-Dniester and Russia?
In the meantime, the big question remains Donetsk. Up to now, the regime has been picking on the smaller towns in the Donbas. Donetsk is a city of almost a million inhabitants.
Is the Ukrainian regime desperate enough to launch a military assault on its own second city?
In an important development, according to Russia’s ITAR-TASS news agency, miners at two Donetsk coal mines, South Donbass No. 1 and No. 3 mines in Ugledar, have gone on strike to protest Kiev’s crackdown. The organised working class played no part in installing this appalling regime – but perhaps it can play a part in deposing it.
On May 9th, the communist and workers movement in Ukraine, together with the anti-fascist and separatist opponents of the nationalist junta, must put on a massive and self-disciplined display of outrage at an unelected government that hands out uniforms to thugs and sends in tanks and helicopters against its own people.
This May 9th, the workers movement in the Ukraine must demonstrate a renewed determination to once again defeat fascism.
Lionel Reynolds writes the www.dispatchesfromempire.com blog.
