The parliamentary elections in Ukraine has been lavished with praise by Western politicians and the mainstream media as confirmation of the country’s turn towards democracy and a rejection of Putin’s evil Russian empire. What the media drones and corporate politicians won’t tell you is that these elections represent a disaster for the ordinary people of Ukraine.
What is the nation? Should we be asking what, or perhaps who? Is it the land? The odd space shown within some contours drawn on a map by dead white men centuries ago?
Are they the people born on a particular side of the border? A gender? A race? An ancient tribe? A conquering army in the Eleventh Century? A raging Parisian mob in the Eighteenth? The government and the local authorities? Is he the taxman? Is she the Queen?
Ukraine is in the throes of an imminent human rights crisis, as the red flags of oppression are visible to all objective observers that care to acknowledge the obvious. The near-death beating of Oleg Tsarev and the intimidation of Mikhail Dobkin, both Eastern Ukrainian presidential candidates, are proof, if any more were even needed, that the upcoming “elections” in Ukraine will be neither honest nor representative of the population at large.
The flywheel of political repressions in Ukraine is gaining momentum these days. In sharp contrast with the liberal approach by president Yanukovych to the “Euromaidan” rout, the interim Kievan administration did not hesitate much about cracking down the public uprising against the “neo-Nazi regime” on the rise in the East and South of Ukraine. Today in Kharkov at least 70 activists have been arrested during the so-called “anti-terrorist operation”.
“Unlimited power in the hands of psychopaths- My own country truly scares me.”
By William Blum
