generalspeaking

Economic Blackmail

"Today, December 8, data on individual politicians perpetrating illegal acts aimed at seizing power was entered in the universal register of pre-trial investigations."
Ukraine security service

"Do not surrender, do not take a single step backward, do not sit at the negotiating table. Our goal is the immediate removal of Yanukovich as the president of Ukraine.
"We are on a razor's edge between a final plunge into cruel dictatorship and a return home to the European community."
Yulia Tymoshenko -- address from prison read out by her daughter Yevgenia

The once-revered statues in public squares of tyrants, dictators and proponents of world-shattering ideologies that fail to deliver their promises of equality and opportunity and succeed instead in imprisoning people's minds and impoverishing their human potential, fallen out of favour become a primary target of those liberated from the stultifying effects of their lingering memories. Toppling such symbols of a failed totalitarian state mechanism brings huge satisfaction to those who see their destruction as a release from misery.

In the case of the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who have made common cause against rejoining a union of countries comprising the Soviet Union that they once had no option but to remain part of through military force, the rejection of the very thought of once again aligning themselves with a renascent Kremlin-inspired reunion holds the appeal of dismayed disorder. Those marching in Kiev view the very possibility of rejoining a union with Russia are aghast at the possibility, and adamant in their rejection.

While not many are left to recall the suffering of the Holdomor -- when an estimated seven million Ukrainians starved to death in a country once renowned for its fulsome harvests when drought and Joseph Stalin's plan to feed Moscow with Ukraine's grains and leave Ukrainians to starve -- its legacy will never be forgotten. Vladimir Lenin planned before that time to claim for the Soviet Union's disposal the fertile farmlands of the Ukraine.

More latterly, natural-gas-rich Russia has taken during the long cold winter months, to cutting off heating fuel to Ukraine, and charging it high rates for the gas that crosses the country in pipelines delivering the fuel to the European Union. It uses the threat of energy cut-off to dominate and oppress the Ukraine, and to ensure its politicians are kept in line. And it appears to have succeeded by newer threats to ensure that President Viktor Yanukovich has decided for his country to remain within the Russian orbit of influence.

The government of Ukraine turned down the long-awaited offer of economic union with the European Union. Insecure, intimidated, financially unstable, finally deciding to accept Russia's demands that it instead join a customs union with Moscow instead.  Riot police who had been guarding the statue of Lenin standing on the main boulevard leading to Kiev's Independence Square failed to respond when the crowd began to pull down the statue, sledge-hammering its marble likeness of Lenin.

They stood by, and they watched. While later security services announced that the leaders of the protest would be facing arrest for treason, for leading, urging and participating in an attempt to produce a coup. For their part, the crowds representing the western half of the country demanded the immediate resignation of the president, insisting they will maintain their occupation of central Kiev until the government reverses its decision.

The former world boxing champion, Vitali Klitschko, is envisioned as a president-in-waiting, calling on the crowd to continue to exert their pressure on the government. "The dictator will not go away himself. He must be made to leave", he urged. The government remains unimpressed, defying the demands, while the opposition, including an alliance of pro-European liberals and hard-right nationalists, struggles to maintain momentum.

Poland freed itself from the tentacles of communism led by a Gdansk Lenin shipyard dock worker by the name of Lech Walesa who represented the trade union political party Solidarity. Later becoming the much-celebrated president of the new Poland. Ukraine has just to follow Poland's example, another country whose history was replete with carving out its geography for division to other countries' control, and which is now a member of the European Union.

Labels: European Union Conflict, Russia, Ukraine

posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, December 10, 2013