Shocking story out of Ukraine.

[kentuck]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/178716/dark-side-ukraine-revolt

<snip>
While most of the Western media describe the current crisis in Ukraine as a confrontation between authoritarianism and democracy, many of the shock troops who have manned barricades in Kiev and the western city of Lviv these past months represent a dark page in the country’s history and have little interest in either democracy or the liberalism of Western Europe and the United States.

“You’d never know from most of the reporting that far-right nationalists and fascists have been at the heart of the protests and attacks on government buildings,” reports Seumas Milne of the British Guardian. The most prominent of the groups has been the ultra-right-wing Svoboda or “Freedom” Party.

<snip>
Svoboda—which currently has thirty-six deputies in the 450-member Ukrainian parliament—began life in the mid-1990s as the Social National Party of the Ukraine, but its roots lie in World War II, when Ukrainian nationalists and Nazis found common ground in the ideology of anti-communism and anti-Semitism. In April 1943, Dr. Otto von Wachter, the Nazi commander of Galicia—the name for western Ukraine—turned the First Division of the Ukrainian National Army into the 14 Grenadier Division of the Waffen SS, the so-called “Galicia Division.”

The Waffen SS was the armed wing of the Nazi Party, and while serving alongside the regular army, or Wehrmacht, the party controlled the SS’s thirty-eight-plus divisions. While all Nazi forces took part in massacres and atrocities, the Waffen SS did so with particular efficiency. The postwar Nuremberg trials designated it a “criminal organization.”

.....more

[AverageJoe90]

1. Not so much the protests themselves.....

Honestly, Svoboda and others only got into this game very recently, even though opposition had been building to Yanukovich long before this year.....but OTOH, it certainly does seem that they've been involved in a lot of the offensive violence; could they and Pravy Sektor perhaps have been manipulated or planted, perhaps by Moscow themselves? It wouldn't surprise me much, TBH: Putin's never had any real problems with fascists in his own country, so, well.....you fill in the blank.

[zeemike]

7. I saw a you tube video of one of the right wing leaders

that stated he wanted a "clean" country and when asked what that meant he said he wanted the jews and Russians to leave.
Sure that sounds like Putin wants that...not.
I think we are being distracted from what the real reason for this is...and Putin is the boogie man that will distract us.

[AverageJoe90]

12. Oh, come on. Use your brain, Mike.

I hate to be harsh but Putin is NOT innocent in all this. In fact, it'd make *PERFECT* sense that Putin would want to discredit the anti-Yanukovich forces. TBH, we also tried the same general routine in Chile in '73.....the major difference is, Salvador Allende actually won his election fair and square.

As for anti-Semitism, it turns out that the pro-Yanukovich forces aren't immune from that either; turns out the riot police were instructed that a Jewish conspiracy was somehow to blame for the rise of the Maidan movement:

www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/mar/01/ukraine-haze-propaganda/?insrc=hpss
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/davidvsdavid/crisis-ukraine-lesson-finnish-history-may-key-peaceful-203236052.html
http://www.worldpolicy.org/blog/2014/02/14/uniting-ukraine

[zeemike]

14. Well I did use my brain

And did not just accept the official line as the truth.
But then my brain does not seem to be infected by the official story like other people...I question.

And WE did that in Chili not Russia, and if we did it there why not in the Ukraine?...We seem to be empire building around the world.
But by all means, believe the official story all you want.

[AverageJoe90]

15. I asked questions, too, Mike.

But here's the thing: I actually used my brain while doing it.

I have heard of the shenanigans of Svoboda and I don't like them one bit. But there truly is ample reason to speculate that Russia's government may very well have manipulated the situation to try to discredit the *legitimate* anti-Yanukovich forces.....in fact, I find it all too convenient for Putin that Svoboda would have risen to more government posts than expected, for one(it serves as a convenient distraction from the fascists in his own country!). That is NOT part of the official story no matter how much you'd like to believe otherwise.

[zeemike]

16. And there truly is ample reason to speculate

That the US is behind it too, and in fact more so than Putin.
But I find it so curious that we here in the US who say we are all for democracy are suddenly standing behind coups against democratically elected leaders of other countries.
If we really feel like that then we must say nothing if the Tea Party wants to oust Obama by the same means...I mean their complaints against him are every bit as bad as in the Ukraine.
Once again the American people are getting played with emotional pornography.

[AverageJoe90]

18. I'm not quite so sure of that.

Whatever's going on, Svoboda and Pravy Sektor's actions simply would not benefit the United States in any way shape or form. And, by the way, I don't doubt there may be some bad actors here in the States that may be causing problems as well. But Obama certainly wouldn't support ANY of the rightist elements of the protest movement.

But I find it so curious that we here in the US who say we are all for democracy are suddenly standing behind coups against democratically elected leaders of other countries.
If we really feel like that then we must say nothing if the Tea Party wants to oust Obama by the same means...I mean their complaints against him are every bit as bad as in the Ukraine.

Here's the problem with that line of logic: Yanukovich only won thanks to *massive* amounts of electoral fraud(BTW, this is also how Hitler ascended to office as well). And even more so, our President won *his* election, both times, fair and square *despite* attempts to steal our own. The Tea Party's complaints are hollow and, quite frankly, they are supported by the .1%. On the other hand, the opposition to Yanukovich had *many* legitimate complaints and they had been building up from actual grassroots since his fraudulent election in 2010, and had been gathering steam since then.

In fact, only in January of this year, did Svoboda have any significant presence in the region; and this was well after Putin started his agitprop campaign against the protestors. This, quite frankly, kind of reminds me of what was done to Occupy Wall Street after it's official coalescence in 2011(though it's roots went back a bit farther), when the mainstream media trumpeted the faux-left Adbusters as the "creator" of OWS(when in fact, it was the New York General Assembly that actually created the concept in 2010), just as the even more corrupt Russian media now claims that Svoboda basically spearheaded the Maidan movement(which they did not).

Think about it: neither the U.S. or the Russian media is telling us the whole story. Why is that?

[zeemike]

23. Well there is two sides to this story

And you are telling one...I am telling the other.

[pa28]

2. As the article points out Svboda now occupies important posts in the temporary government.

Vice prime minister, minister of education, minister of agrarian policy and food supplies, and minister of ecology and natural resources.

Let's not forget John McCain was on stage with these people just a month ago advocating for revolt. Democrats should not make the same mistake of crawling into bed with ultra right wing nationalists.

[Igel]

3. Yes, and that makes sense.

Not because of their anti-Semitism--there's Yatseniuk mixed in there--but because of what they did. Part of their motivation wasn't being anti-Jew, but being anti-corruption and pro-independence. Yanukovich had those two prefixes swapped.

Not that Yanukovich was all that anti-anti-Semitic.

However this is short-term. Can they fight the urge to be corrupt and rig the elections and then convince a sufficient number of people to vote for them? That's the question. Esp. since when it comes to the election they'll have to convince the large minority that is Russian-speaking (even if many of them are ethnic Ukrainians) to vote for them.

Not to mention the Bulgarians and Hungarians and Rusyns.

Same goes for Udar and all the other parties. Including what remains of the Party of Regions (which, though fractured and sadly under investigation, is soldiering on). Even the "communists" are trying to break their pro-Yanukovich ties.

[amandabeech]

4. Yes, the elections are key provided they are held in a peaceful atmosphere.

This has been a really tumultuous time for Ukraine, which hasn't had an easy time in independence.

I don't think that electoral corruption is necessarily something just the right wing would engage in. This is a young democracy, and sometimes don't go completely smoothly with people acting in a totally different environment.

It seems that there are many posters here who don't want to give Ukraine time to sort things out for themselves, however messy the situation is now.

What Ukraine does not need, though, is the threat of invasion or of civil unrest, whether it be from internal actors or instigated from outside. Both should be condemned.

[okaawhatever]

6. They also need a better constitution. One constitutional law expert called it a "constitution of

convenience". The judicial branch is also largely under the influence/control of the President. People are ignoring how one of the big issues for the protesters was the changes in constitution. Part of the reforms of the Orange Revolution was to remove from the President some of his powers. The Rada voted nearly unanimously to adopt the new amendments. They remained in force until Yanukovych took office again and challenged the changes in the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. The 2010 nullification decision was highly controversial. The Council of Europe's Human Rights Commissioner received several reports alleging that the resignation of four judges in the run-up to the decision occurred as a result of extensive pressure by the executive.[14


On November 18, 2010 The Venice Commission published its report titled The Opinion of the Constitutional Situation in Ukraine in Review of the Judgement of Ukraine's Constitutional Court, in which it stated "It also considers highly unusual that far-reaching constitutional amendments, including the change of the political system of the country - from a parliamentary system to a parliamentary presidential one - are declared unconstitutional by a decision of the Constitutional Court after a period of 6 years. ... As Constitutional Courts are bound by the Constitution and do not stand above it, such decisions raise important questions of democratic legitimacy and the rule of law".

And this didn't help:

In May 2012 President Viktor Yanukovych set up the Constitutional Assembly of Ukraine; a special auxiliary agency under the President for drawing up bills of amendments to the Constitution, the president then will introduce them in parliament.[4]

From Wiki but sources for the info are legitimate.

[stevenleser]

5. All of this sudden attention on antisemitism in Eastern Europe is nice, but it has been there all

along. This is not new and not only Svoboda has people in it who are antisemitic.

This is a convenient excuse peddled by some who want to be on the side of Russia.

[okaawhatever]

11. The author of the piece doesn't want to be on the side of Russia, he IS on the side of Russia. He's

a former communist who has a history of writing and apologizing for Putin and Russia.

[Gravitycollapse]

8. There's a difference between the German occupied nationalist puppet state and ultranationalists...

I feel like I've said this many times but it needs to be repeated.

The nationalist puppet state was a fixture of the Nazi regime and was obviously deeply antisemitic. The ultranationalists formed resistance groups against the Nazi occupation and I don't believe supported antisemitic policies (at least no more so than the general population).

Many of these ultranationalists come from that resistance bend and hate Nazis as much as they hate communists.

The nationalist movement we were seeing in the recent protests appear to be a mixture of these groups. But it seems wrong to assume their allegiances or histories are homogenous because they definitely aren't.

[Violet_Crumble]

10. There was no puppet government installed in the Ukraine by the Nazis...

The position of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian
Insurgent Army (UPA) toward the Jews will be dealt with below; however, there was
almost no political collaboration between the Nazi regime and Ukrainian nationalist
forces between 1941 and 1944. No puppet or collaborator government was set up in
occupied Ukraine, unlike in Croatia (Pavelic) and Hungary (Szalasi), and, especially, in
Norway and France. The Nazi leadership thought it would not be wise to raise the the
Ukrainian nationalist movement’s hopes about gaining power. The Germans exploited
Ukrainian nationalism to further their own interests on occupied Ukrainian territory,
particularly Nazi antisemitic policy. Despite its opposition to the German occupation, a
large segment of nationalist forces supported the Nazi genocide of Jews.

http://www.ushmm.org/m/pdfs/20130500-holocaust-in-ukraine.pdf

The information on collaboration with the Nazis starts on page 187.

[Gravitycollapse]

17. That simply isn't true. Ukraine was occupied by the Nazis.

And there was a division, the 14th, of the SS which operated within Ukraine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskommissariat_Ukraine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Waffen_Grenadier_Division_of_the_SS_(1st_Ukrainian)

[Violet_Crumble]

20. I didn't say it wasn't occupied. I said there was no puppet govt installed..

Read the excerpt from the link I posted. It explains it.

[Gravitycollapse]

21. When you post a large report, it would help to read more than a few pages

Page 114:

This article focuses on the areas of Ukraine that were part of the Reichskommissariat
Ukraine (RKU), administered by a civilian administration, and the areas of German
military administration, primarily to the east of the RKU.

It discusses extensively the Nazi occupation and German administrated Jewish ghettos starting on page 63. There is even a section which discusses military administration under the Germans in Eastern Ukraine which starts on page 74.

The Germans did not want to call the puppet government an occupation regime. So they called it Hilfsverwaltung, or the Local Auxiliary Administration. It was constituted of Ukrainians and answered to the German occupiers. Just like every other puppet regime.

This civilian administrated state was constituted of Ukrainian nationalists. And the 14th division of the SS would eventually became part of the Ukrainian National Army.


The ultranationalists, the ones I was talking about who opposed the Nazi occupation were groups like the UPA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Insurgent_Army



Hence, there is a distinct difference between the nationalists of the occupation regime and the ultranationalist resistance.

[Violet_Crumble]

24. I read the entire thing. There was no puppet govt installed by the Nazis...

No offense, but I'll take things like the paper I linked to over Wikipedia anyday.

You claimed there was a puppet govt in the Ukraine during the Nazi occupation. There wasn't.

[Gravitycollapse]

25. Your own paper discusses the auxiliary. That WAS the occupation regime.

Or at least part of it beside the German military administration to the East.

You don't need Wikipedia. You only need the very paper you yourself posted.

[Violet_Crumble]

26. There's a difference between occupation, collaboration and puppet governments...

You seem to think the first two equal the third. That's not the case. As the excerpt I posted said, the Nazis didn't install a puppet government in the Ukraine as they didn't want to encourage any Ukrainian nationalism.

[Gravitycollapse]

28. There is no difference between forced collaboration and occupation.

I don't totally understand how you could think otherwise. The Nazis invaded the Ukraine. They allowed an occupation regime to form as the civilian auxiliary. That is an occupation regime, not just a body of collaborating Ukrainians. On top of that fact, there was a division of the SS assigned to the territory.

Ukraine was part of Nazi occupied Europe. It was not a collaborator in the axis powers.

[Violet_Crumble]

29. I'm not sure where you got the idea I said that...

I said you seem to think that occupation and collaboration equals a puppet government being installed.

You claimed that there was a puppet government in the Ukraine. I was just correcting that, as it was incorrect. I'm not sure why yr now arguing about occupation. At no point has anyone said that the Ukraine wasn't occupied...

[Gravitycollapse]

30. It WAS a puppet government. To argue otherwise isn't even to be pedantic.

It's to be wrong.

What is it called when an occupying force oversees the construction and maintenance of a local government? It's called a puppet government. The civilian auxiliary was a puppet government instituted by the Reich and ruled over by the occupying military forces.

[Violet_Crumble]

31. I'm going to refer you again to the paper I posted a link to...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4633167

It's become very clear that you can't tell the difference between occupation, collaboration and puppet governments. Give me a choice between the expert who wrote that paper, and some anonymous person on the internet insisting that the expert is wrong, the anonymous internet person loses out every single time...

[DrewFlorida]

9. I read an article in which they suggested the snipers in Kiev had been shooting both protesters and

police officers, they are investigating if Russia might be behind it.

[Cheese4TheRat]

13. So very disturbing.

Regardless of Russia's actions, this is going to be scary, I believe.

[frwrfpos]

19. kick and recommend

[WinkyDink]

22. I've always known of the brutality of the Ukrainians to their Jewish neighbors in WWII.

Germany simply used Ukrainians, but all the "local clubs" in the U.S. and the Cold War made them into "freedom fighters" in mythology.

[Turbineguy]

27. That's the wierd thing about US conservatives

supporting Putin. You'd think they'd like the other guys better.

But then again, they often get it wrong.