Escalating Chaos
"You, Mr. President, have the opportunity to resolve this issue. Early elections will change the situation without bloodshed and we will do everything to achieve that. Tomorrow we will go forward together. And if it's a bullet in the forehead, then it's a bullet in the forehead, but in an honest, fair and brave way".
Ukraine opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk
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Whatever getting a bullet in the head is, it's hard to think of it being either fair or brave to court it. On the other hand, Ukrainians have demonstrated for months against the Russian-favouring rule of President Viktor Yanukovych and they have decided unequivocally that the choice he made of spurning the offer by the European Union for affiliation in favour of arriving at a concord with Ukraine's former masters under the Soviet era, does not express the future they aspire to.
Mr. Yatsenyuk's and Mr. Klitschenko's demands that the president meet with them to hammer out a solution to the problems that are destroying the country's economy and its unity went unmet with a certain degree of contempt thrown in. The meeting accomplished nothing, adding to the frustration. Stimulating them to add to their demands, that the president dismiss the government, call early elections and disown the anti-protest legislation that led to protesters donning helmets and face masks in defiance.
Angering the protesters to the degree that a certain number among them became violently confrontational, but not totally unexpectedly, given that the riot police had taken to mercilessly beating those protesters that they isolated, firing water cannons in the bitter cold, and using rubber bullets fired at the people, including volunteer medics and journalists being arrested and beaten as well.
As for the people shot to death, Prime Minister Mykola Azarof insisted that since police do not use live ammunition it is the opposition that should be held responsible for the five deaths that have occurred so far. Purportedly as well the death of the man who had been abducted, taken to a forest and beaten and murdered there. The gunshot wounds were not by the police, emphatically, and the man who fell from a colonnaded gate survived, claimed the government.
President Yanukovych had initially promised Mr. Klitschko that he meant to create a commission that would settle the crisis. He had even at one point promised Mr. Yatsenyuk they could negotiate their differences. The result, however, was the anti-protest legislation rather than accommodation in any manner to demands. In defiance of which people began to put on gas masks and hard hats, setting police buses on fire, chasing and beating officers.
Stun grenades, tear gas and water cannons responded. And now police have been given permission to use water cannons on the protesters where before the pretense was that their use was only to put out fires. As plumes of smoke rose over the crowd and the blasts of the stun grenades could be heard activists chanted "Shame!" and "Revolution".
The Interior Ministry has opened a criminal case charging mass disorder. Convictions for which will lead to prison sentences of up to 15 years. Despite which, or because of which, take your pick, the protests and the riots are spreading beyond Kiev.
With Russian President Vladimir Putin warning that matter are 'getting out of hand', and the European Union looking on with genuine alarm, threatening to sanction the government.
Labels: Conflict, Economy, European Union, Russia, Social Failures, Ukraine
posted by Pieface @ Friday, January 24, 2014
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