UN Ukraine report shows double standards in attempt to whitewash Kiev’s actions – Russia
RT | May 16, 2014
Moscow has accused a UN report on violence in Ukraine’s Odessa of being purposefully blind to hard facts and simply “carrying out a political order to whitewash” the actions of the coup-appointed government in Kiev.
The Russian foreign ministry believes that the report presented by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is marked by a systematic and routine ignorance of any Kiev involvement in sparking the Odessa carnage, while placing all the blame unequivocally with the pro-Russian self-defense forces. The ministry statement remarks that not a single word was said about neo-Nazi elements who engaged in setting buildings on fire with people inside, shooting dead anyone who opposed them and finishing of the wounded in plain sight.
This especially concerns the events taking place in the House of the Trade Unions on May 2.
The foreign ministry believes that such “double standards” are a clear indicator of the international organization’s mission to pander to a select side in the conflict without any regard for hard evidence.
The United Nations spoke on Friday of the “alarming deterioration” of the human rights situation in eastern Ukraine. The report by the organization’s head for human rights, Navi Pillay, focuses also on the problems the Tatar minority currently faces in Crimea.
However Moscow said Pillay’s monthly report failed to mention crucial facts, starting with the burnings and the coordinated murders; the inaction by Ukraine’s law enforcement as well as the multiple arrests of individuals rallying for federalization; the multiple kidnappings and instances of torture, as well as lack of any credible evidence to back up those actions. In this interpretation, “the entire story is basically being delivered as Kiev’s official line would have been.”
The foreign ministry found it peculiar that “in some 30 pages of text, there is not one mention of any manifestation of aggressive nationalism and neo-Nazism in Ukraine.”
Russia criticized the authors of the report for violating the principles enshrined in the UN Charter, which clearly dictates that political neutrality must be exhibited whatever the situation. “When UN High Commissioner for Human Rights announced Crimea referendum ‘illegal’ following the suit of Kiev and its Western patrons, it seconded that it accepts a nation’s right to self-determination established by international human rights laws only when it is politically favorable,” said the statement.
The icing on the cake, in Moscow’s view, could be seen in the venue where the UN findings were presented – and by whom: in Kiev, by the UN secretary-general’s assistant, Ivan Shimonovich, who has a “reputation for a lack of objectivity, making sweeping judgments” and “unsubstantiated claims”.
Shimonovich’s role in the presentation is seen as “an unambiguous indication” of the OHCHR’s bias and lack of independence and objectivity.
Zionist Canada bows to the holocaust religion
By Brandon Martinez | May 16, 2014
Officials of the Harper regime recently announced the construction of a new “holocaust” monument in Ottawa set to be completed in the fall of 2015.
“The monument features a large gathering space for ceremonies — with room for 1,000 visitors — enclosed by six triangular, concrete volumes to create the points of a star. … Monochromatic photographs by Burtynsky depicting Holocaust sites will be embedded upon concrete surfaces,” reported the Toronto Star.
It should come as no surprise that the Harper regime is backing this new holocaust monument project, considering that the ruling neo-conservatives in Ottawa have openly expressed their adherence to Jewish supremacist ideology on numerous occasions. Harper and his lackeys in Parliament have incessantly praised the apartheid state of Israel (a nation birthed through ethnic cleansing and mass terror) and have vehemently denounced those who challenge or criticize Israeli imperialism and state-terrorism.
At a May 14, 2014, speech before the American Jewish Committee’s Global Forum, Canada’s Foreign Minister John Baird told the room of Zionist fanatics that Israel is a “truly special nation” that is a “great example to the world.” A great example for what? Ethnic cleansing, mass murder and ruthless deception? Not shy to announce his belief in Jewish exceptionalism, the Zionist puppet foreign minister added that Israel is a “most extraordinary society.”
Many have argued that the holocaust promotion industry is an extortion racket designed to bolster Jewish privilege. By emphasizing Jewish victimhood above that of all other peoples, the Zionists aim to suffocate the public at large underneath a blanket of self-serving propaganda so that evidence of wrongdoing on the part of these tribal zealots will not see the light of day. Not only are Jews today not victims of any sort or underdogs in any sense of the term, they are in fact the most affluent and influential segment of every society in which they live. “Jewish families [are] among the wealthiest families in the United States. According to Forbes, 25 to 30 percent of U.S. multimillionaires and billionaires are Jewish,” noted James Petras in his book The Power of Israel in the United States.
A similar situation to the one described by Petras exists in Canada, Australia, Britain, Germany, France, etc.
The sages and holy men of holocaustianity have endeavored to promote this quasi-religion to the four corners of the earth. Hundreds of holocaust museums, memorials, monuments, research centers, etc., have been erected across Europe, Russia, North America, Latin America and even Asia. Hundreds of holocaust-themed films and television shows have been broadcasted throughout the Americas and Europe. Countless books, memoirs and other literature relating to the sacred Shoah have flooded the libraries and bookstores of all Western countries. Dozens of governments have created laws forbidding any revision of the rigid, one-sided narrative engineered by the winners of World War II.
In his book The Holocaust Industry, Jewish scholar Norman Finkelstein labeled these practitioners of professional victimhood “a repellent gang of plutocrats, hoodlums and hucksters.” One such charlatan was Herman Rosenblatt who appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show multiple times and attained a movie deal based on his fallacious fibbing. After admitting that climactic portions of his memoir An Angel at the Fence were manufactured, he unapologetically told ABC News: “It was not a lie because in my imagination I believed it.”
Another holocaust faker, Misha Defonseca, was ordered by a judge to pay back her publisher $22.5 million after it was revealed that her best-selling 1997 memoir, Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years, was entirely fictional. Defonseca claimed that as a young girl she journeyed across Europe in search of her parents who were taken away to a German concentration camp during WW2, and that amid her search she was taken care of and raised by a pack of wolves who adopted her as one of their own. “It’s not the true reality, but it is my reality,” Defonseca told The Guardian. “There are times when I find it difficult to differentiate between reality and my inner world,” the mythomaniac explained.
Binjamin Wilkomirski’s 1994 holocaust memoir Fragments was exposed as a fraud. He was never interned in any camp and actually lived in neutral Switzerland during the war. Rudolf Vrba admitted on the stand at the Toronto trial of Ernst Zundel in 1985 that his memoir I Cannot Forgive was an “artistic picture” that contained embellishments and exaggerations. Elie Wiesel, the veritable pope of the holocaust religion, has long been suspected of at least partially fabricating his story of survival. In his memoir Night, he tells of how a doctor performed surgery on his infected foot while interned at the “death camp” Auschwitz. One might ask: what is the purpose of a doctor in a “death camp”? Then, reported Wiesel, he and his sick father chose to evacuate that camp in January of 1945 alongside the retreating German Army and SS-men instead of waiting for the Red Army to arrive. Miraculously he survived this supposedly “genocidal” ordeal.
Wiesel collects hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees to preach “tolerance” to the world, while simultaneously advocating vicious hatred of German people. “Every Jew, somewhere in his being, should set apart a zone of hate -healthy virile hate- for what the German personifies and for what persists in the German,” wrote the man once described by the Chicago Tribune as a ‘beacon for human rights’ in his book Legends of Our Time. The unscrupulous pretender and money-getter has shown blatant disregard for Palestinian human rights because their oppressors are members of a master class of “chosen people” of which he is a Learned Elder.
Also not visible on Wiesel’s “human rights” radar are the tens of millions of Russians and Eastern Europeans, mostly Christians, who were starved, shot, tortured and enslaved by the Jewish-dominated Bolshevik regime in Russia. “Many Jews sold their soul to the devil of the Communist revolution and have blood on their hands for eternity,” wrote the Israeli journalist Sever Plocker in an op-ed for Ynet News. “Even if we deny it,” the Jewish writer concluded, “we cannot escape the Jewishness of ‘our hangmen,’ who served the Red Terror with loyalty and dedication from its establishment.”
Why have Stalin’s Jewish executioners and secret police torturers not received the same level of scrutiny that the Nazis have? Why have there been no Hollywood movie depictions of what happened in Stalinist Russia? When the subject has been broached, kosher commentators and careerist historians have been reluctant to note the fact that a large percentage of the top officials of the Soviet regime and the post-WW2 communist regimes of Eastern Europe were Jewish chauvinists.
When in 2009 the Ukrainian security service published a list of Soviet and Communist Party officials responsible for the Holodomor – the famine-genocide sponsored by Moscow in 1932 that took the lives of 6-7 million Ukrainians – Jewish groups cried foul, contending that publicizing such a list was a bad idea because most of the names on it were Jewish and would thus cause anti-Jewish sentiments, reported the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Instead of learning about the true nature of this unspeakable crime and the culprits responsible, Ukrainians should just “forget history” — at least that is what the Israeli politician Shimon Peres implored them to do in a 2010 speech.
Ukrainians are commanded by the Zionists to forget their history; as are the Palestinians. But we, the ‘gullible goyim,’ must “never forget” what may or may not have happened to Jews during the Second World War. In this New World Order of Malthusian mayhem and Orwellian mind control, the Zionists hope to lock us in a mental dungeon where unwelcome thoughts are extirpated with ruthless efficiency and cold determination.
Unfortunately for them, the truth can only be hidden from public sight but never extinguished.
Donetsk self-defense forces give Kiev troops 24 hours to withdraw
RT | May 15, 2014
Donetsk self-defense forces set an ultimatum for the Kiev military, warning that if troops do not withdraw from block posts in the Donetsk region within 24 hours, they will be taken by force, RIA Novosti reported.
The pro-autonomy militia of Donbass region in eastern Ukraine made the statement on Wednesday.
“If the armored vehicles are not pulled back, the roadblocks of the so-called legitimate authorities are not removed, I will have enough power and means – the commander supported me today – to destroy and burn everything. Reconnaissance and sabotage groups are ready to move and some are steady,” deputy commander of the pro-autonomy militia of Donbass, Sergey Zdrilyuk, told RIA Novosti.
“I give 24 hours for them to withdraw all troops, all forces,” he added.
The statement follows referendums in Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which showed that the majority of voters support self-rule amid an intensified military operation by Kiev.
Almost 90 percent of voters in Donetsk region have endorsed political independence from Kiev, the head of the Central Election Commission of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Roman Lyagin, previously announced.
In Lugansk region, 96.2 percent of voters supported the region’s self-rule, according to final figures announced by the local election commission.
After the referendum, the Donetsk People’s Republic proclaimed itself a sovereign state and asked Moscow to consider its accession into Russia.
‘No evidence of Berkut police behind mass killing in Kiev’ – probe head
RT | May 14, 2014
There is no forensic evidence linking the victims of mass killings in Kiev on February 20 with officers from the Berkut police unit, the head of the parliamentary commission investigating the murders told journalists.
The killings may have been committed by “members of public organizations, who went out of control,” Gennady Moskal reported, but the so-called ‘sniper case’ may end up with no airtight result, much like the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy.
The MP made the statements at a media conference on Tuesday gathered to announce preliminary results of his commission’s probe. He assured that despite the Ukrainian General Prosecutor’s office having arrested 12 Berkut officers on allegations of committing the mass killings, forensic evidence suggests their innocence.
He said the bullets that killed people in Kiev on the bloodiest day of confrontation between protesters seeking to oust President Viktor Yanukovich and riot police didn’t match any of the firearms issued to Berkut’s special unit, which, unlike the majority of riot police, was allowed to carry lethal weapons.
Moskal added that the first shot was fired at police, not the protesters. He alleged that the shooters were agents of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) acting from the ranks of the protesters, but admitted that genuine protesters could have been the culprits.
Earlier Moskal said that the investigation of the high-profile case was being stalled by the SBU and the Interior Ministry because the post-coup heads of the law enforcement don’t want to face the scandal which would ensue if the real perpetrators were exposed.
In early April, the Ukrainian authorities arrested 12 members of Berkut for alleged participation in the mass killings. The move sparked protest among their fellow officers, who picketed police HQ in Kiev, saying the arrests were made on poor evidence and accusing the authorities of denigrating them. The prosecutors called the suspects “Berkut black company” when announcing the arrest.
The sniper case is one of the hottest issues in Ukraine, where the new authorities accused the ousted president of ordering the mass killings. Both he and several former Ukrainian officials accused the new authorities of sending the snipers to provoke bloodshed and topple the government.
Yanukovich said he never ordered anyone to shoot at Ukrainian people.
The same version was voiced privately in a leaked conversation between EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton and Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet.
Russia says that activists of the radical Right Sector ultra-nationalists are the most likely culprits.
Ethnic Russians Are People, Too
By Robert Parry | Consortium News | May 13, 2014
So what does the New York Times have against Ukraine’s ethnic Russians? While the newspaper has fallen over itself insisting on the “legitimacy” of the coup regime in Kiev, despite its collaboration with neo-Nazis who spearheaded the Feb. 22 ouster of elected President Viktor Yanukovych, the Times editors can’t hurl enough insults at the ethnic Russians in the east who have resisted the regime’s authority.
For weeks, the Times has called the eastern Ukrainian rebel leaders “self-declared” and ridiculed the idea that there was any significant backing for the rejection of the Kiev-appointed regional leaders; all the trouble was simply stirred up by Vladimir Putin. Now, however, the referenda in the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk have demonstrated what even a Times reporter acknowledged was “substantial popular support for the pro-Russian separatists in some areas.”
But the Times editors still won’t give up their prejudices. For instance, Tuesday’s lead editorial begins: “If there were questions about the legitimacy of the separatist referendums in eastern Ukraine, the farcical names of the entities on which people were asked to vote — the self-declared People’s Republics of Donetsk or Luhansk — surely answered them.”
So, the votes – and the desires – of eastern Ukrainians shouldn’t matter because the Times disapproves of “the farcical names of the entities” that people voted for.
The Times then suggests that violence that marred the referenda was the fault of the rebels, not the Kiev regime’s National Guard, which includes the neo-Nazi militias that threw fire bombs at police during the Maidan protests in February and are now carrying out the most lethal attacks against protesters in cities in the east and south.
Of course, according to the Times’ narrative, these neo-Nazis from western Ukraine don’t exist, so the violence must be palmed off on others or be treated like the natural occurrence of a spring thunderstorm. In Tuesday’s editorial, the Times wrote: “But the gathering rumble of violence accompanying the votes is serious and is driving the Ukrainian crisis in a direction that before long no one — not President Vladimir Putin of Russia, not authorities in Kiev, not the West — will be able to control.”
However, even the Times’ own field reporter noted that the violence during the referenda on Sunday was provoked by those new National Guard forces that attacked some polling places. The Times’ editors must assume that most of the newspaper’s readers aren’t paying close attention to the details.
The other part of the Times’ Ukraine narrative is that Putin provoked the unrest in Ukraine so he could seize territory, although no less an authority on power politics than former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger says that notion “isn’t possible,” adding that Putin simply was reacting to events that caught him off-guard as he was coming out of the Winter Olympics at Sochi.
Yet, the Times ignores this more realistic scenario – of a Western-pushed destabilization of the Yanukovych government that involved demands that Ukraine accept a harsh austerity plan from the International Monetary Fund and that spiraled into a violent “regime change” – and instead puts the blame on Putin, who – the Times says – must be told to get “his minions in southeastern Ukraine in line.”
Otherwise, the Times blusters “the European Union and the United States will impose sanctions that will cut Russia off for a long time from Western sources of technology, arms and finance.”
While the Times editorial accurately reflects the swaggering belligerence of Official Washington, the editors still refuse to see the Ukraine crisis in objective terms, in which both the western Ukrainians who favor closer ties with Europe and the eastern Ukrainians whose economy is dependent on trade with Russia have legitimate concerns.
The ethnic Russians in the east are not simply dupes who fall for clumsy propaganda and mindlessly follow the dictates of Vladimir Putin. They are human beings who have their own legitimate view of their political situation and who can make judgments about what course of action is best for their interests. As difficult as life in Ukraine is, it is sure to be worse once the IMF’s harsh austerity is imposed on the country’s population.
The Times and many others in the Western media insult these ethnic Russians with a disdainful treatment that treats them as lesser beings and assumes that only the pro-European Ukrainians in the west deserve respect for their opinions.
~
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).
US VP’s son joins Ukrainian gas group board
RT | May 13, 2014
Hunter Biden, son of US Vice President Joe Biden, will join the board of directors of Burisma Holdings, Ukraine’s largest private gas producer. The statement comes amid Ukraine’s growing gas crisis.
“Hunter Biden will be in charge of the Holdings’ legal unit and will provide support for the Company among international organizations,” said the company’s official statement.
Biden, commenting on his appointment, said that his assistance in consulting Burisma Holdings “on matters of transparency, corporate governance and responsibility, international expansion and other priorities will contribute to the economy and benefit the people of Ukraine.”
“Burisma’s track record of innovations and industry leadership in the field of natural gas means that it can be a strong driver of a strong economy in Ukraine,” he added.
The appointment announcement comes on the same day as Russia’s gas giant, Gazprom, switched to a prepayment system with Ukraine and sent Naftogaz, Ukraine’s gas and oil company, a $1.66 billion gas bill for June supplies. Kiev must pay the bill by June 2, otherwise, it may risk a halt in natural gas supplies on June 3, Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller said.
Ukraine, currently has about 9 billion cubic meters of gas in storage, and by the winter needs 18.5bcm to keep factories open and households warm, Gazprom Deputy Chief Executive Vitaly Markelov said on Tuesday. In 2013, Ukraine bought 27.7 billion cubic meters from Gazprom.
Under the present terms, Kiev has to pay $485 per 1,000 cubic meters. The price was raised in April from $268.50, when Russia withdrew all discounts it provided for Ukraine after the crisis-torn country failed to pay for gas. According to Gazprom’s CEO, Kiev already owes the company more than $3.5 billion.
Kiev has rejected the new price as “politically motivated” and has been refusing to pay back the debt until Gazprom cancels the “unjustified and unacceptable hike.”
Meanwhile, the US may use the critical energy situation in the country to promote its shale energy in Ukraine.
Hunter Biden, 44, is a partner at Rosemont Seneca Partners, business development and policy advisory firm, and is counsel to Boies, Schiller, Flexner, a New York based-law firm. He is also an adjunct professor on Georgetown University’s Master’s Program in the School of Foreign Service.
Biden is on the Chairman’s Advisory Board for the National Democratic Institute, and is also a director for the Center for National Policy and the US Global Leadership Coalition, an influential, broad-based organization formed by a coalition of 400 American businesses and NGOs, senior national security and foreign policy experts.
Meanwhile, former US President Bill Clinton appointed him an Executive Director of E-Commerce Policy Coordination under Secretary of Commerce William Daley. Biden was also honorary co-chair of the 2008 Obama-Biden Inaugural Committee.
Hunter Biden is also known in the political world. He is on the boards of the World Food Program USA, and the Truman National Security Project, a US organization, based in Washington, D.C, that recruits, trains, and positions specialists across America.
Burisma Holdings, a private oil and gas company in Ukraine which was set up back in 2002 and has grown rapidly since. Its licenses cover the Ukraine’s three key hydrocarbon basins, including Dnieper-Donets, Carpathian and Azov-Kuban.
In 2013, daily gas production amounted to 11.6 thousand BOE (barrel of oil equivalent), a unit of energy based on the approximate energy released by burning one barrel (158.98 liters of crude oil), or 1.8 million cubic meters of natural gas. The company sells these volumes in the domestic market, both via traders and directly to consumers.
Russia disappointed over additional EU sanctions
RT | May 13, 2014
Moscow expressed disappointment over the EU’s newly imposed sanctions against Russia, stressing that it is not worthy of the European Union.
“Instead of trying to solve the situation through de-escalation, disarmament of the Right Sector, improvement of dialogue between Kiev’s authorities and Ukrainian regions, EU colleagues are demonstrating a one-sided and one-dimensional policy, not worthy of the European Union,” Itar-Tass quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov as saying.
Further sanctions were introduced on Monday following the results of referendums that have been announced in Donetsk and Lugansk Regions, showing the majority of voters support self-rule, amid an intensified military operation by Kiev which resulted in several deaths.
EU foreign ministers have expanded their sanctions over Russia’s actions in Ukraine, adding two Crimean companies and 13 people to the bloc’s blacklist, EU diplomats stated.
The sanctions will come into effect Tuesday. Earlier, 48 Russians and Ukrainians were targeted by EU asset freezes and visa bans over Crimea joining Russia in March.
Among the individuals banned entry to the EU are the chief prosecutor of Crimea and Internet sensation Natalia Poklonskaya and her colleague from Sevastopol, Igor Shevchenko. Also the list includes influential individuals such as the deputy head of the presidential administration, Vyacheslav Volodin, the Commander of airborne troops Vladimir Shamanov, State Duma deputy Vladimir Pligin, Crimean administration chiefs and six pro-autonomy activists in eastern Ukraine, reported Itar-Tass.
Following the referendum results, Donetsk People’s Republic has proclaimed itself a sovereign state and has asked Moscow to consider its accession into Russia, the Republic’s council said.
Russia is taking its time before reacting to Donetsk People’s Republic’s plea while calling for dialogue between Kiev and the eastern regions.
Moscow not in rush to respond Donetsk People’s Republic’s plea of accession
RT | May 12, 2014
Russia is taking its time before reacting to Donetsk People’s Republic’s plea to consider its accession into Russia while calling for dialogue between Kiev and the eastern regions.
The Russian president’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov has told Kommersant newspaper Russia does not yet have a response to the plea.
Earlier on Monday the Kremlin’s press service issued a statement, saying: “Moscow respects the will of the people in Donetsk and Lugansk and hopes that the practical realization of the outcome of the referendums will be carried out in a civilized manner.”
It stressed the necessity of a “dialogue between representatives of Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk.”
On Monday, Donetsk People’s Republic proclaimed itself a sovereign state and asked Moscow to consider its accession into Russia, the Republic’s council said.
Earlier in the day, the results of referendums were announced in Donetsk and Lugansk Regions, showing the majority of voters support self-rule, amid an intensified military operation by Kiev which resulted in several deaths.
Experts on the issue have weighed in with their view on Russia’s response.
International legal expert Alexander Mercouris told RT that Moscow’s reaction was consistent with its previous policy on Ukraine.
“Moscow is following what has been its consistent policy right from the start, right from the moment when the coup took place in Kiev in February, which has been pressing for negotiations between Kiev and the actual true democratic representatives of the eastern regions in order to achieve constitutional change,” Mercouris told RT. “I do not think Moscow’s position has changed. But I think Moscow’s position may change in the future.”
International relations expert and senior lecturer at Moscow State University Mark Sleboda also told to RT that he does not view Moscow’s reaction as contradicting its previous stance.
“Moscow’s reaction to the referendum – they of course recommended that it be postponed, and they had a somewhat tepid reaction to it. But at the same time they did not completely disown it either,” Sleboda said.
“The first statement out of Moscow this morning that it looked forward to a dialogue between Donetsk, Lugansk and Kiev to resolve the situation and implement the people’s will was a very strong indication that Russia is still really trying for dialogue with Kiev,” Sleboda added.
Professor of History and Politics in Berlin Ronald Suni noted that Russia’s slow response will indeed provide room for international dialogue, which may help the situation.
“Vladimir Putin and his advisors decided a few days ago that we’ve got to pull back, that we’ve got to slow things down. That all these people acting in their own interest, out of their own emotions and passions could lead to some very dangerous situations – civil war or international war,” Suni told RT.
“So, why not postpone the referendum, which of course the locals did not want to do, recognize the May 25 elections, which part of Ukraine probably won’t do, and pull troops back from the frontier, which Putin did. Even so, these actions have not led to a response, on both sides it would allow for some kind of international negotiation,” he added.
Mercouris also explained the referendum results are a valid statement of opinion. “Yes, they were organized in great haste, in civil war, revolutionary conditions, but even people who are present, who are hostile to these referendums, from the Western media now accept that these are in fact representative of the powerful mass movement,” he said.
Sleboda stated that when examining Donetsk and Lugansk referendums, one must pay attention to three things. “One, the extremely large turnout, which is nearly impossible to deny. The overwhelming landslide victory – since the vote was essentially public with the glass ballot boxes and the Western journalists who served in place of international monitors, we could say, who clearly informally polled on the ground the strength of support for the independence vote.”
“And three, we have to remember that this did indeed happen under the barrel of a gun – but not the barrel of the gun of the self-defense forces, but under the barrel of the gun of this Kiev regime who was actually killing voters as they tried to vote against it on the referendum day,” he argued.
Donetsk People’s Republic asks Moscow to consider its accession with Russia
RT | May 12, 2014
Donetsk People’s Republic has proclaimed itself a sovereign state and has asked Moscow to consider its accession with Russia, the Republic’s council said.
“We, the people of Donetsk, based on results of the May 11 referendum and the declaration of sovereignty of the Donetsk People’s Republic, declare that from now on DPR is now a sovereign state,” Republic Co-Chairman Denis Pushilin said.
Earlier on Monday the results of referendums were announced in Donetsk and Lugansk Regions, showing the majority of voters support self-rule, amid an intensified military operation by Kiev which resulted in several deaths.
Almost 90 percent of voters in Donetsk Region have endorsed political independence from Kiev, the head of the Central Election Commission of the self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’, Roman Lyagin, announced.
“Counting the ballots proved to be surprisingly easy – the number of people who said ‘no’ was relatively small and there appeared to be only a tiny proportion of spoiled ballots, so we managed to carry out counting quite fast. The figures are as follows: 89.07 percent voted ‘for’, 10.19 percent voted ‘against’ and 0.74 percent of ballots were rendered ineligible,” Lyagin told journalists.
In Lugansk Region 96.2 percent of voters supported the region’s self-rule, according to the final figures announced by the local election commission.
DETAILS TO FOLLOW
Referendum results in Donetsk and Lugansk Regions show landslide support for self-rule
RT | May 11, 2014
The results of referendums have been announced in Donetsk and Lugansk Regions, showing the majority of voters support self-rule, amid an intensified military operation by Kiev which resulted in several deaths.
Almost 90 percent of voters in Donetsk Region have endorsed political independence from Kiev, the head of the Central Election Commission of the self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’, Roman Lyagin, announced.
“Counting the ballots proved to be surprisingly easy – the number of people who said ‘no’ was relatively small and there appeared to be only a tiny proportion of spoiled ballots, so we managed to carry out counting quite fast. The figures are as follows: 89.07 percent voted ‘for’, 10.19 percent voted ‘against’ and 0.74 percent of ballots were rendered ineligible,” Lyagin told journalists.
In Lugansk Region 96.2 percent of voters supported the region’s self-rule, according to the final figures announced by the local election commission.
Despite fears that amid Kiev’s intensified military crackdown – which killed at least two civilians on referendum day – the turnout will be low, in both of the region it was unexpectedly high. In Donetsk it reached 74.87%, while in Lugansk the central election commission says 75% of eligible voters came to the polling stations.
With such a huge turnout, the referendums have been recognized as valid by both election commissions.
The acting president of Ukraine, Aleksandr Turchinov, has condemned as a “farce” referendums in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions.
“This propaganda farce won’t have any legal consequences, except for criminal charges for its organizers,” Turchinov said, Interfax reported.
The referendums, according to Turchinov, were inspired by Russia to “totally destabilize the situation in Ukraine, disrupt the presidential election and overthrow the Ukrainian government.”
Calling the regional voting on self-determination illegal, Kiev sent its recently formed paramilitary forces to Donetsk and Lugansk regions on Sunday, in an apparent move to disrupt referendums.
As armored military vehicles blocked passage to polling stations, voting in four towns across Lugansk region was disrupted. In the Donetsk town of Krasnoarmeysk, the National Guard shot at a crowd and killed two civilians who were protesting their attempt to seize a polling station.
The people’s governor of the Donetsk Region, Pavel Gubarev, told journalists on Sunday that Donetsk and Lugansk will emerge as new legal entities as a result of the referendum.
“The referendum for us is about creating a new state paradigm,” he said.
Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, the people’s mayor of Slavyansk, Donetsk Region, where some of the heaviest fighting between Ukrainian troops and self-defense activists took place, said the next step following the referendum would be developing closer ties with Russia.
“Russia is our brotherly nation, [we hope for] full interaction with Russia, including entering the Customs Union,” Ponomaryov said.
One of the organizers of the referendum in Lugansk, Vasily Nikitin, told journalists that the region will appeal to the United Nations to recognize its independence, RIA Novosti reports. Nikitin also said Lugansk was not going to take part in the Ukrainian presidential election on May 25.
Moscow hopes the results of the referendums in eastern Ukraine will instigate dialogue between Kiev and the regions that voted in favor of self-rule, according to the Kremlin’s press-service.
“Moscow respects the will of the people in Donetsk and Lugansk and hopes that the practical realization of the outcome of the referendums will be carried out in a civilized manner, without resorting to violence, through dialogue between representatives of Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk,” the statement reads.
The Kremlin says it welcomes all mediation efforts, including those by the OSCE.
Spokesman for the president, Dmitry Peskov earlier explained that Putin “did not urge, but recommended” that the votes be postponed. However, the spokesman says that “even considering the authority of the Russian president,” it was difficult for Donetsk and Lugansk authorities to follow his recommendation amid Kiev’s ongoing military crackdown.
Both the EU and US have dismissed the ballots in eastern Ukraine as illegal.
“If these referenda go forward, they will violate international law and the territorial integrity of Ukraine. The United States will not recognize the results of these illegal referenda,” US State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said in a statement late on Saturday.
The European Union came up with a similar comment, adding that the referendums ran counter to the Geneva agreement on de-escalation reached by Ukraine, Russia, the EU and the United States last month.
“The so-called referenda in … parts of Lugansk and Donetsk Regions were illegal and we do not recognize the outcome. Those who organized the referenda have no democratic legitimacy,” Maja Kocijancic, a spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, said in emailed comments to Reuters.
Despite the rejection of the referendums by Kiev and most Western countries, it won’t be so easy to ignore the results, international affairs expert Serdja Trifkovich believes.
“After the referendum it will no longer be possible for the regime in Kiev to say that they do not want to negotiate with the so-called terrorists,” Trifkovich told RT. “They will be forced to acknowledge internally that they are facing the level of agreement among the people in the eastern regions that will prove it rather difficult to deal with by force.”
400 US mercenaries ‘deployed on ground’ in Ukraine military op
RT | May 11, 2014
About 400 elite mercenaries from the notorious US private security firm Academi (formerly Blackwater) are taking part in the Ukrainian military operation against anti-government protesters in southeastern regions of the country, German media reports.
The Bild am Sonntag newspaper, citing a source in intelligence circles, wrote Sunday that Academi employees are involved in the Kiev military crackdown on pro-autonomy activists near the town of Slavyansk, in the Donetsk region.
On April 29, German Intelligence Service (BND) informed Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government about the mercenaries’ participation in the operation, the paper said, RIA Novosti reported. It is not clear who commands the private military contractors and pays for their services, however.
In March, media reports appeared suggesting that the coup-imposed government in Kiev could have employed up to 300 mercenaries. That was before the new government launched a military operation against anti-Maidan activists, or “terrorists” as Kiev put it, in southeast Ukraine.
At the time, the Russian Foreign Ministry said then that reports claiming Kiev was planning to “involve staff from foreign military companies to ‘ensure the rule of law,” could suggest that it wanted “to suppress civil protests and dissatisfaction.”
In particular, Greystone Limited, which is currently registered in Barbados and is a part of Academi Corporation, is a candidate for such a gendarme role. It is a similar and probably an affiliated structure of the Blackwater private army, whose staff have been accused of cruel and systematic violations of human rights in various trouble spots on many occasions.
“Among the candidates for the role of gendarme is the Barbados-registered company Greystone Limited, which is integrated with the Academi corporation,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “It is an analogue, and, probably and affiliated body of the Blackwater private army, whose employees have repeatedly been accused of committing grievous and systematic human rights abuses in different troubled regions.”
Allegations increased further after unverified videos appeared on YouTube of unidentified armed men in the streets of Donetsk, the capital of the country’s industrial and coal mining region. In those videos, onlookers can be heard shouting “Mercenaries!”“Blackwater!,” and “Who are you going to shoot at?”
Academi denied its involvement in Ukraine, claiming on its website that “rumors” were posted by “some irresponsible bloggers and online reporters.”
“Such unfounded statements combined with the lack of factual reporting to support them and the lack of context about the company, are nothing more than sensationalistic efforts to create hysteria and headlines in times of genuine crisis,” the US firm stated.
The American security company Blackwater gained worldwide notoriety for the substantial role it played in the Iraq war as a contractor for the US government. In recent years it has changed its name twice – in 2009 it was renamed Xe Services and in 2011 it got its current name, Academi.
The firm became infamous for the alleged September 16, 2007 killing of 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad. The attack, which saw 20 others wounded, was allegedly without justification and in violation of deadly-force rules that pertained to American security contractors in Iraq at the time. Between 2005 and September 2007, Blackwater security guards were involved in at least 195 shooting incidents in Iraq and fired first in 163 of those cases, a Congressional report said at the time.
Kiev’s armored vehicles attack village near Lugansk – self-defense forces
RT | May 11, 2014
The village of Novoaydar in the Lugansk region is being attacked by Ukrainian troops, according to the local self-defense leader.
“Around 15 APCs have come near Novoaydar,” Aleksey Chmilenko said. “Our self-defense guards are trying to stop the attack and prevent the vehicles moving farther in the direction of Lugansk.”
Meanwhile, representatives of another Lugansk region self-defense group, based in Krasny Luch, told RT that they have seen APCs in the region, but have not heard any fighting yet.
Reports of sightings of Ukrainian APCs in various towns and villages in the Lugansk region have been coming in throughout the day. One report said that as many as 45 APCs were moving from the Kharkov region in the direction of Lugansk.
Novoaydar election commission was reportedly evacuated by self-defense activists, after it had been attacked by National Guard troops.
Earlier in the day, shooting and artillery fire was heard on the outskirts of Slavyansk, in southeast Ukraine’s Donetsk region, RIA Novosti reported, citing its correspondent in the area.
There have also been reports of a military operation going on in the town of Krasny Liman, Donetsk region. Those emerged after communication was lost with two territorial self-determination referendum committees there, according to the head of the Central Election Commission of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic,” Roman Lyagin.
On Sunday, Donetsk and Lugansk regions opened polling stations for a referendum seeking autonomy from the central government. Local self-defense forces boosted security, fearing that Kiev could stage provocations to disrupt the self-determination vote.
Voting in four towns across Lugansk region has been disrupted, as military vehicles block passage to polling stations, representatives of referendum coordination council told Interfax.
“In four districts – Belokurakinsky, Svatovsky, Troitsky and Melovsky – APCs of the Ukrainian National Guard do not let residents pass to the referendum polling stations,” the sources said.
In total, two helicopters, 10 APCs and 100 National Guard troops are currently engaged in attempts at disrupting the referendum in the Lugansk region, according to deputy head of the Krasnoluchsky district referendum commission, Elena Khryapina. She says that turn-out is high despite the tense situation.
Meanwhile, the acting head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, Sergey Pashinsky, said Kiev’s military operation in the Donetsk region towns of Krasny Liman, Slavyansk and Kramatorsk was in its its final stage, adding that “a lot of separatists have been eliminated during the operation.” He would not provide any figures though.
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