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Yesterday, August 31, in Kyiv, several thousand right-wing protesters staged a violent protest against proposed decentralization measures for Ukraine’s constitution. The measures are being proposed by President Petro Poroshenko with support from a cross-section of deputies in the Ukrainian Parliament (Rada). The protest took place in front of the Rada.
The protesters were armed, including one who threw a grenade at police and National Guard forces who were blocking entrance to the Rada. The grenade injured many, including one guardsman who lost a leg. This video captures the grenade thrower in action.
One guardsman was shot dead by a pistol. Dozens of police were injured, as were journalists on the scene. Two policemen later died from injuries (New York Times). The protest was spearheaded by the extreme-right Svoboda Party, the Right Sector party/paramilitary agglomeration and the Radical Party.
Two news report on The Telegraph and BBC News summarize the day’s dramatic events. These and all the other Western media reporting come with typical, misleading phrasing describing as “separatists” the people of eastern Ukraine who are resisting the civil war launched by the governing regime in Kyiv in April 2014. The war is a part of the pro-European Union/austerity economic agenda of the Kyiv regime and its backers among the countries of the NATO military alliance.
The decentralization measures being protested by the right wing are a maneuver by the Kyiv government to evade its responsibility under the terms of the Feb. 12, 2015 Minsk-2 ceasefire agreement. That agreement obliges Kyiv to negotiate political autonomy with the rebel forces of eastern Ukraine. It sets out very specific, minimum conditions required to address the grievances of people in the Donbas region (Donetsk and Lugansk) of eastern Ukraine. Full background to the autonomy/decentralization issue is contained in a recent article by Halyna Mokrushyna published on New Cold War.org—Decentralization reform in Ukraine–and in a July 17 compilation of news and analysis on the website–Ukraine’s cunning ploy for ‘autonomy’ for Donbas.
The extreme-right in Ukraine detests the idea of granting any autonomy to eastern Ukraine because according to its hateful, anti-Russian ideology, the people of eastern Ukraine are ‘cattle’ whose national aspirations must be crushed in the name of Ukrainian nationalism. As well, meaningful autonomy for Donbas will have wider implications because the majority of the population in other important regions of Ukraine also favours autonomy, including Kharkiv in the east and Odessa and Bessarabia in the southwest.
President Poroshenko’s ‘decentralization’ laws would grant a small fraction of the range of powers which the constitutions of Canada and the United States accord to provinces and states, respectively.
The violence in Kyiv on August 31 is so very reminiscent of the violence in Kyiv during the ‘Euromaidan’ protests of late 2013, early 2014. Right-wing forces unleashed extreme violence back then, including sniper fire that killed dozens of police as well as pro-Euromaidan protesters. This time, the violence is directed by the rightists against their erstwhile allies and protectors—the governing regime which issued from the overthrow of the elected president Victor Yanukovych in February 2014.
Western media, governments and human rights organizations are ignoring the growing body of evidence of the sniper fire unleashed by right-wing paramilitaries on Maidan Square on Feb. 20, 2014. The sniper fire that day was a pivotal event in the coup which overthrew Yanukovych one day later.
Beginning last year, researcher Ivan Katchanovski at the University of Ottawa has been progressively revealing the grim story of the events of February 20, 2014. Each week brings fresh new evidence which he reports, including videos published by eyewitnesses to the day’s events and video and other testimony being given to the official inquiry being held.
Katchanovski has harsh words for Western media, which he says is shamefully silent in the face of the mounting evidence. He accuses it of playing a central role in propagating blatant lies and falsehoods at the time of the Euromaidan coup when it told the world that the Yanukovych presidency and the government he led were to blame for the sniper fire.
Roger Annis is an editor of the website New Cold War.org, where a versionof this report first appeared. In April of this year, he traveled to Russia and the People’s Republic of Donetsk as part of an international reporting team.
Further reading:
Decentralization reform in Ukraine, by Halyna Mokrushyna, New Cold War.org, Aug 28, 2015
Ukraine’s cunning ploy for ‘autonomy’ for Donbas, New Cold War.org, Aug 17, 2015
Integration of extreme-right battalions into Ukraine policing and military, New Cold War.org, Aug 28, 2015
Marxism and the war in Donbas, by Victor Shapinov, of Ukrainian Marxist organizatoin Borotba, Aug 28, 2015
View:
Video news report on RT.com of Aug 31 right-wing riot in Kyiv, including interview with Roger Annis
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