Translated by Ollie Richardson & Angelina Siard
14:19:08
10/11/2017
alternatio.org
Neither mind nor conscience is required to govern today’s Ukraine. In the conditions of social and economic agony, public inquiry is reduced to the most primitive reflexes. This is perfectly understood by Kiev’s top. That’s why it doesn’t especially strain neither in words nor in actions. But nevertheless, it constantly seeks to justify its politics in the opinion of the abstract “world community”. And, it is necessary to recognize that it finds it, in the opinion of those who don’t give a sh*t about what’s going on in this country and about the destiny of the local population.
Probably, it can’t be in a different way at this conjuncture. Especially as Ukrainians themselves aren’t able and aren’t ready to fight for their rights in a creative way – there is no such tradition. However, one should be reminded that self-deception doesn’t end well. And it is in vain that the current Kiev regime thinks of itself as equal to experienced western manipulators. Financial bigwigs of the global scale contemptuously treat the small swindlers who are entrenched in Kiev, taking the last things from the parental house to the flea market. But so far they are tolerated, only due to their [financial bigwigs – ed] mercantile interests.
Thus, following the results of the vote at the United Nations General Assembly on October 16th of this year, Ukraine was included in the UN Council for Human Rights for 2018-2020. A representation [of Ukraine – ed] in this operetta structure was initially presented by Ukrainian diplomats as the another epoch-making victory, although the US Vice-President Michael Pence stated on September 20th of this year: “The UN Council for Human Rights doesn’t deserve its name. Now the United Nations Human Rights Council attracts and welcomes the worst violators of human rights in the world. The vast majority of members of the Human Rights Council don’t conform to even the most basic standards of human rights”.
The forward-looking American politician Pence sees Cuba among the worst violators of human rights. The well-known Human Rights Watch considers the election of the Democratic Republic of Congo to the Human Rights Council “as a slap in the face to the victims of violence of the government” of this country. “The security forces of the government are considered as responsible for the majority of cases of violence in the region of Kasai last year. The Congo doesn’t deserve membership in the principal organ of the UN on human rights,” is said in the statement of the is the United Nations director at “HRW” Luís Charbonneau. But neither Michael, nor Luís see special problems with the inclusion of Ukraine in the structure of the United Nations Human Rights Council – an unconditional torch of democracy and exemplary defender of human rights in the post-Soviet space.
Such a situation allows the Ukrainian leadership to do its favorite thing – shuffling the facts and complaints about external circumstances. As is known to all, the most terrible of these circumstances for Kiev is Russia. Who else would howl about the Russian threat in the international arena if it’s not the former ambassador of Ukraine in Moscow Vladimir Elchenko?
“Because of Russian armed aggression Ukraine endures the most serious humanitarian problem since the founding of independence. About 1.6 million Ukrainians were compelled to leave their own homes and to register as internally displaced persons, which makes up 4% of the total population of Ukraine. More than 3.8 million people living on both sides of the ‘contact line’ need humanitarian aid,” said Elchenko, explaining the scale of the problem at a briefing of the UN about humanitarian issues.
“We are deeply concerned about the large-scale propaganda campaign and the instigation of hatred towards Ukraine and Ukrainians carried out by the Russian State media and public figures. This played an important role in the incitement of Russian aggression against Ukraine and the conflict in Donbass. Such hybrid war against Ukraine with the attraction of the Russian media under the State’s control is a direct threat to UN values,” added the first secretary of the Ukrainian permanent representative at the UN Oleg Nikolenko. He emphasized that the Russian authorities limited independent media and strengthened control over State media, having turned them into powerful instruments of the state propaganda, producing fake news.
The touching care of Ukrainian diplomats in their accusations of the crafty intrigues of the Eastern neighbor looks like mocking in relation to the citizens of their own country. After all, in Ukraine any dissent is methodically quelled, and the current regime are given a free hand not only for propaganda, but also for cynical profit-making on conducting civil war in their own country. But while the “world community” observes the events with the tranquillity of a knackered cat, Kiev’s politicians continue their rat feast on the remains of Ukraine.
And here it is, the new Ukrainian curator from Washington Kurt Volker didn’t notice any special problems during his recent visit to Ukraine. On the contrary, he praised local leadership for the introduction of the medical and pension reforms. He stood up for the need to create the notorious anti-corruption court. He found the time to meet such “leaders” of the Ukrainian public opinion as Anna Gopko, Vladimir Aryev, and Mustafa Nayyem.
What is this about in general? In an exchange for readiness to fight against the “Russian threat” to the victorious end (by all accounts – the end of Ukraine) the “American friends” will further encourage Ukrainian legal lawlessness? Of course they will. Especially as a new wave of more unpretentious, obedient, and cynical activists are ready to replace at any time the shabby dolls of Poroshenko in this theater of puppets.
But to speak again and again about what human rights represents in today’s Ukraine is possible and necessary. At least in solidarity with those who still try to resist the criminal practices of local authorities and to reach out to independent foreign observers.
It is beneficial for western curator to shift to Russia responsibility for solving humanitarian problems connected to the war in Donbass. In this case their decision doesn’t demand the attraction of additional resources. That’s why the empty rhetoric of Kiev concerning this question is indulged in every possible way. And the question of fulfilling the social obligations of their own citizens (both on the territory of the LDPR and among displaced persons) hangs in the air to the joy of all the Maidan gang.
According to the official figures of the Pension Fund of Ukraine, just for 2016 it was succeeded to “save” 135 billion hryvnia on pensions. Thus, if in August, 2014, owed payments were received by all 1.2 million pensioners registered on the territory of the LDPR, then for the beginning of 2017 the number of pensioners who the Ukrainian State paid a pension to was no more than 500,000 people.
Even public organizations, including western ones, note that only the Kiev authorities’ absence of political impedes a solution to this matter. The Ukrainian pension could be delivered with the mediation of international organizations, even to bed patients. But “civilized” countries prefer not to notice the cynicism of the Kiev authorities, because the protection of the rights of local residents isn’t among the priorities of the fighters against the world’s evil – Moscow.
Perhaps, western friends wish to discuss this problem in the extraordinarily free and independent Ukrainian media? They are welcome to! For the last three years local media became a unique platform for open dialogue and access to objective information.
Thus, the trumped-up cases against Dmitry Vasilets, Evgeny Timonin, Vasily Muravitsky, and earlier – Ruslan Kotsaba and others, effectively serve as the intimidation of the Ukrainian journalistic community. Even when the separate international organizations of employees of the media and human rights structures try to intercede for the aforementioned prisoners of conscience, they thus don’t focus attention on the fact that in today’s Ukraine the prosecution of dissidents has a mass systematic character, and is a part of State policy.
After the victory of the “revolution of dignity” in Ukraine, under various circumstances more journalists were killed than for all previous years of independence together. And this doesn’t include those who fulfilled their professional duty in the zone of the armed conflict in Donbass. It is possible to say that the “dark past” simply has a rest against the background of the “bright present”. In such a situation the vast majority of local media doesn’t even try to contradict State propaganda and to present an alternative point of view on Ukrainian events. A fact known to all? Of course. But “western friends” applaud Poroshenko when he impudently declares the triumph in Ukraine of freedom of speech, the apotheosis of which is probably the odious site “Mirotvorets“. The most important thing is that the Ukrainian media can continue to force the anti-Russian hysteria.
The incitement of ethnic strife in Ukraine is not the destiny of marginals, but the priority task of the top political leadership. The verbal excrements of the ministers Evgeny Nishchuk and Lilia Grinevich about genetics or “patriotic” unreliability already doesn’t surprise anybody. It is a solution of the Catalonian problem that demands European tolerance, but the Ukrainian issue is resolved only by the division of citizens based on “racial civilisational” signs, with the simultaneous destruction or exclusion from the country of those who are in opposition.
Especially important in this direction for the “pacification” of Ukraine is the kindling of interfaith discord. Or rather, the fight against the canonical Orthodox Church. Here is a typical “announcement” about an ordinary event in Western Ukraine: “On October 22nd, 2017, the temple of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in honor of St. George the Victorious in the village of Ostrovets in the Ivano-Frankovsk region will be seized by force. This was declared to the prior of the temple Father Nikolay Bogachenko in the village council, where he was summoned with the demand to hand over the keys to the church belonging to the community headed by him, reports the information-educational department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church”. Who in Ukraine can give a legal assessment of these events? In reality, nobody is going to give one. Everything goes according to plan. Nazis can’t be touched until they have fulfilled the task of cleansing the Ukrainian landscape according to the tastes of western masters.
In a situation of cynical legal nihilism, Ukraine generates problems not only for its own citizens. Recent information from Sky News – that Ukraine becomes a trans-shipment terminal for international terrorists and already 500 jihadists from Syria and Iraq hide themselves on its territory – again passed by the ears of western curators. As is said, they have more important problems. After all, the deceased “people’s hero of Ukraine” Amina Okueva (Nikiforova) claimed that the Chechen and Ukrainian people are brothers in the fight against imperial Russia? It means that things must be like that. And let the “alternative Republic of Ichkeria“ prospers on the coast of the Dnieper as a base for criminals of all kinds, in opposition to the politics of Russia. Probably, Ukrainians deserved such “happiness”.
For the sake of justice it should be noted that the Ukrainian ombudsman Valeriya Lutkovskaya sees all these problems. In the field of her sight – as befits a real European human rights activist – gender equality and inclusive education, communication with Crimean Tatars, and correspondence with certain prisoners in the Russian pre-trial detention centers remain priority issues. In her opinion, now it is very important “to carry out explanatory work about the risks for the citizens of Ukraine connected to commuting to the Russian Federation”. To comment here, as is said, is unnecessary…
There was no special desire to use in this article the hackneyed concept of “double standards”. In Ukraine’s case the franchise of western democracy doesn’t imply even a formal adherence to any standards. Natives must rejoice at just the opportunity to be called a “part of European civilization”, without daring to stutter about their rights and forgetting about their duties to follow the elementary principles of humanity, which they indeed do in their majority.
Of course, it is possible to say that Ukrainians were deceived. And this in many respects will be the truth. But the truth is also that the citizens of Ukraine are already and will be obliged to pay dearly for their mistakes. It won’t be possible to again pin them on the “bad authorities”.
Copyright © 2022. All Rights Reserved.