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Friends Are Urging Credico to Go Underground
Advisers are suggesting Randy Credico to lie low—keep out of sight—because too many journalists, activists, academics and dissidents placed on this hit-list coincidentally wind up dead, sometimes only days after being listed. Once killed, the Ukrainian word ЛИКВИДИРОВАН (“LIQUIDATED”) is plastered across their pictures in big red letters—as in the listing (below) of Russian journalist Darya Dugina, who was blown up by a car bomb.
Randy refuses to hide. He says his first priority is to keep his “Free Julian Assange” billboard trucks rolling up and down the streets of Washington, D.C., to shame Joe Biden, Merrick Garland and the Democratic Party for their continued persecution and imprisonment of Julian Assange.
Photo courtesy of Randy Credico
CAM asked Randy what he thinks and feels about being placed on this precarious list.
“It is what it is. I think it underscores the kind of people the U.S. and NATO are supporting in their proxy war. They remind me of the depraved leadership of the Contras in Nicaragua back in 1980s. The ones that murdered Ben Linder, an American engineer helping people obtain water. I suppose I wouldn’t be doing my job if I weren’t on the list. I will continue to report the truth regardless of the consequences. Living in fear is worse than being dead.”
Randy is no stranger to threats of violence. For decades he has been putting his body on the line to fight racial oppression, war crimes and violations of human rights. He was recently threatened by right-wing supporters of Donald Trump and Roger Stone; before that, he shared a jail cell with Cornel West after being arrested for protesting New York’s stop-and-frisk law. Randy is probably the most jailed political satirist since Lenny Bruce.
That is why his decision to ignore the Ukrainian hit-list is not news. What is news is—Randy may not be able to keep funding his “Free Julian Assange” billboard trucks much longer. His money is running out.
Randy Credico being arrested by police in Times Square. [Source: Photo courtesy of Stephen Brown]
Randy has been digging into his own pockets to keep those billboard trucks rolling. But he cannot continue to pay the bills without a little help from his friends—and from the friends of Julian Assange. Without it, the billboard trucks will stop rolling.
That would be a shame, because they are doing their job. They keep Julian in the public mind and put pressure on the Biden administration during the months leading up to the 2024 election. They also get attention from the millions of tourists who visit the capital city. The media, too, are paying attention to Julian’s plight, and have begun writing editorials asking Biden to set Julian free (although their editorials have been shamefully late and embarrassingly grudging).
Unfortunately, these mobile billboards do not come cheap. They cost a lot to design and fabricate. So does gasoline. And the cost of leasing the trucks and hiring licensed drivers. The cost to keep one billboard truck circulating around Washington, D.C., is $500 a day.
Randy has a message for all those who are sad—and mad—at what the CIA and the U.S. government are doing to Julian. He says, “Don’t just mope and feel powerless to help. Instead, consider donating a few dollars to the Free Assange Mobile Billboard Project. Every dollar will help keep the billboards rolling for another minute—another hour—another day.”
What he does not say, but it is very clear, is that your donations will also show Randy—who may literally be risking his life to keep these billboards rolling—that he is not alone. Donations can be made at AssangeCountdownToFreedom.com.
The Ukrainian terrorist “kill list”
The list is on a website called Myrotvorets (“Peacekeeper” in English). Although mostly written in Ukrainian, it proudly identifies itself—right on its homepage (and in English)—as “a CIA project.” And its headquarters are in Langley, VA, home of the CIA. The website is also reportedly hosted on a NATO server. [See homepage below]
Source: myrotvorets.center
CAM Managing Editor Jeremy Kuzmarov was put on the list after he published an article critical of Myrotvorets, which exposed its links to the CIA.
The list includes many Russian journalists and Americans critical of the Ukraine War, like Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector, and Roger Waters, the Pink Floyd singer who criticized the war. Former government officials advocating for moderation, like Henry Kissinger, have also been put on the list.
Source: riotimesonline.com
The fact that so many journalists, activists and political opponents who get listed on its site die violent deaths—sometimes days after being listed—is dismissed by website apologists as coincidence. Myrotvorets claims that its only purpose is to identify “pro-Russian terrorists, separatists, mercenaries, war criminals, and murderers [guilty of]…crimes against the National Security of Ukraine, Peace, Humanity, and International Law…[in order] to assist law enforcement authorities” in bringing them to justice.
But the website’s real purpose appears to be compiling an extra-judicial “kill list” of journalists, activists, political dissidents and their family members who criticize Ukrainian President Zelensky and his government in Kyiv, which is supported by many neo-Nazis.
By posting the names, phone numbers, home addresses and whereabouts of targets (as Myrotvorets has done with Randy), the website is sending a dog-whistle signal to “patriotic Ukrainians” in the U.S., Russia, and throughout the world, letting them know they have a green light to eliminate these “enemies of Ukraine.”
Why has Myrotvorets targeted Randy Credico?
Randy recently returned from a ten-day trip to Russia and the battleground region of Donbas. His stories, photos and video interviews with Russian and Ukrainian residents in the war zones revealed horrendous war crimes, torture, rape and other human rights violations committed by Ukraine’s neo-Nazi military forces—but deliberately under-reported (or not reported at all) by corporate media like The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic magazine and other U.S. government echo chambers.
The majority of citizens in Donbas voted to become part of the Russian Federation after the Obama administration backed a neo-fascist coup in February 2014.
Russia has long wanted cooperative relations with the U.S. and even to become a NATO member but was betrayed when NATO was expanded to multiple countries that surrounded Russia in violation of a pledge made by the George H.W. Bush administration to Mikhail Gorbachev.
Russia offered a peace treaty as recently as December 17, 2021, which Ukraine and the U.S./NATO simply ignored as part of their strategy to encourage a Russian invasion of Ukraine that could bog down Russia in a quagmire like in Afghanistan in the 1980s and provide a pretext for ratcheting up sanctions that could cause disaffection with Putin’s government and then regime change.
Randy’s on-the-ground reports were designed to help better inform the U.S. public about what is really going on in eastern Ukraine and totally contradicted the official propaganda emanating from both Ukraine and the U.S. State Department. They evidently caught the attention of this CIA-backed terrorist website as swiftly as the scent of blood in the water catches the attention of a killer shark.
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Steve Brown contributed to this article.
Ron Ridenour is a U.S.-born author and journalist, anti-war and civil rights activist since 1961. After joining the U.S. Air Force at 17, he saw the inner workings of U.S. imperialism first hand and resigned. In the 1980s and 1990’s he worked with the Nicaraguan government and on Cuban national media.
He now lives in Denmark and, in addition to writing a dozen books, has served as a special correspondent and freelance investigative journalist for many publications in the U.S. and several Latin American and European countries—among them: The Morning Star, New Statesman, The Guardian (U.S. and England), Playboy, Liberation News Service, Pacific News Service, Coast Magazine, Qui, Skeptic, Seven Days, and Pacifica Radio.
CAM co-founder Philip Agee wrote commentaries to two of his dozen books: Yankee Sandinistas: Interviews with North Americans Living and Working in the New Nicaragua, and Backfire: CIA’s Biggest Burn. See also: The Russian Peace Threat: Pentagon on Alert and Winding Brook Stories at Amazon and Lulu. Other work can be found at ronridenour.com. Ron can be reached at [email protected].
Featured image: Randy Credico in Donetsk. [Source: Photo courtesy of Arnaud Develay]
