First handshake: Obama's meeting with Yatsenyuk amounted to a diplomatic dig against Russia, which does not recognize Ukraine's new government
by Stephen Lendman![]()
by Stephen Lendman
It includes a rogue’s gallery of societal misfits. Many are militant fascists. They’re thugs. They’re criminals.
They’re illegitimate putschists. They’re xenophobic, hate-mongering, ultranationalist anti-Semites. Combined they represent mob rule.
They make mafia bosses look saintly by comparison. They threaten world peace. They vowed to fight. They urge NATO intervention.
For the first time since WW II, overt fascists have real power. They hold major government posts.
In December 2012, European parliamentarians expressed concern about “rising nationalistic sentiment in Ukraine, expressed in support for the Svoboda party, which, as a result, is one of the two new parties to enter” Ukraine’s parliament.
Their “racist, anti-Semitic, and xenophobic views go against the EU’s fundamental values,” they said.
Europe’s parliament “appeal(ed) to pro-democratic parties in (Ukraine’s legislature) not to associate with, endorse, or form coalitions with” these elements.
All is forgiven. EU officials look the other way. They turn a blind eye. They embrace what they denounced months earlier.
They march in lockstep with Washington hardliners. They mock democratic values they claim to support.
Olexander Turchynov serves as illegitimate president. He chairs Ukraine’s coup d’etat parliament (its Verkhovna Rada).
He’s a politician/economist/screenwriter. He replaced democratically elected Viktor Yanukovych.
He’s Ukrainian armed forces commander-in-chief. He’s Batkivshchyna/All-Ukrainian Union/Fatherland party deputy chairman.
He was acting prime minister earlier. From March 3 – 11, he served until Mykola Azarov replaced him. He’s a wolf in wolf’s clothing.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk serves as Ukraine’s illegitimate prime minister. On March 12, Obama welcomed him at the White House.
He came to meet his new boss. He did so to get marching orders. He learned more about Obama’s plans to rape and pillage Ukraine.
He’s super-rich. He’s a former central banker/economy/foreign minister and parliament (Verkhovna Rada) speaker.
He’s a Batkivshchya/All-Ukrainian Union (Fatherland) leader. He betrayed his people. He sold out for greater wealth and power.
Billionaire mega-thief Yulia Tymoshenko heads it. She was imprisoned for embezzlement and serious “abuse of public office.”
Charges included illegally diverting $425 million meant for environmental projects into pension funds. A second case involved stealing around $130 million for personal use.
Putschists freed her. They did so lawlessly. She was an illegitimate Orange Revolution prime minister.
She has presidential aspirations. She may head Ukraine’s illegitimate government after sham May elections.
On March 7, the London Independent headlined “Exclusive: UK banks in row over Yulia Tymoshenko ‘millions,’ ” saying:
“…(N)umerous foreign accounts were set up in (her) name (and) her family.”
At least 85 bank accounts “containing millions of pounds were linked to (her) and relatives.”
It bears repeating. She’s a billionaire mega-thief. She accumulated wealth the old-fashioned way. She stole it.
Lawrence Graham is a UK lawyer. In March 2013, Ukraine’s legitimate government enlisted him to investigate Tymoshenko’s “allegedly misappropriated” wealth.
He reviewed 278 bank accounts in 26 countries. He learned Tymoshenko or family members “were either beneficiaries or signatories to accounts which included a number of UK banks.”
They’re now closed. At least 13 accounts worldwide remain open. Her lawyer, Sergey Vlasenko, denied reports of foreign accounts, saying:
“She has had no property, no assets, no accounts in USA, UK or Switzerland.” He claimed reports otherwise were “falsified.” He called them “part of a big dirty propaganda war.”
Ukraine’s legitimate government hired Graham “to trace more than $200 million (allegedly) siphoned off by Tymoshenko and another former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, among others,” said The Independent.
From the mid-1990s, the funds “disappeared.” They did so when Tymoshenko ran United Energy Systems (UES).
Lazarenko awarded it monopoly rights to import Russian natural gas. In 2004, a US court convicted him of money laundering, theft, and hiding funds in foreign accounts.
His indictment called his crime “part of a conspiracy (related to) receiv(ing) money from companies owned or controlled by Tymoshenko, including United Energy Systems, in exchange for which (he) exercised his official authority in favour of (her) companies.”
US prosecutor Martha Moerosch cited “evidence that companies controlled by Tymoshenko took part in the schemes for transferring money to Lazarenko’s accounts.”
“There were bank statements” proving it, she said. Graham discovered London’s NatWest bank involvement. It held 40 million pounds in the name of UES.
Prosecutors found Tymoshenko funds worldwide. Ukrainian analyst Orysia Lutsevych calls her typical of “old generation” Ukrainian politics.
As Orange Revolution prime minister, “she did nothing to reform the economy and establish rule of law,” she said.
“Instead, she focused her attention on infighting inside the Orange Revolution in order to prepare her presidential race.”
“Most (Euromaidan protesters) were not demanding her release.” Her shady business practices earned her the nickname “gas princess.”
Ukraine’s coup d’etat government is infested with criminal extremists. Obama embraces them.
Yatsenyuk’s job is serving Western bankers. Paying them comes first. Ukrainians bear the burden.
Force-fed austerity is planned. IMF larceny features it. Onerous loans come with strings. They assure longterm debt bondage.
Terms demand mass layoffs, huge social benefit cuts, privatizing state enterprises at fire sale prices, letting Western corporations plunder Ukrainian resources freely, and cracking down hard on nonbelievers.
Andriy Parubiy co-founded the ultranationalist neo-Nazi Social National party. It’s now called Svoboda. He did so with Oleh Tyahnybok.
Parubiy and Yulia Tymoshenko co-led Washington’s 2004 Orange Revolution. He heads Ukraine’s National Defense and Security Council.
Right Sector hard right neo-Nazi hate-mongering anti-Semite Dmytro Yarosh is his deputy. He openly boasts about “…fighting Jews and Russians till I die.”He calls Russia Ukraine’s “eternal enemy.” He said war between both countries is inevitable.
He openly supports Chechen militants. He backed Georgia’s 2008 aggression against South Ossetia.
Doku Umarov is Russia’s most wanted criminal. Yarosh urged him to terrorize Sochi’s Winter Olympics.He claimed responsibility for attacking Domodedovo airport in 2011 as well as Moscow’s 2010 metro bomb incident.
He supports efforts to topple Syria’s Assad. He self-appointed himself Russian North Caucasus emir.
Right Sector extremists are the worst of a bad lot of rogues running Ukraine.
They’re gun-toting, radicalized terrorists. Imagine them and likeminded scoundrels in charge of Ukraine’s government.
Imagine Obama embracing them. Next thing you know he’ll call them freedom fighters. They’re cold-blooded killers. They believe in barrel-of-a-gun rule.
State terrorism defines their agenda. Anyone opposing them is targeted for elimination. Yarosh has presidential aspirations. Perhaps he intends achieving them one way or another.
Oleh Tyahnybok heads Svoboda. He chose no portfolio after putschists seized power. Perhaps he has greater aspirations in mind. He’s a force to be reckoned with.
Unaffiliated Vitaly Yarema is first vice prime minister. He formerly headed Ukraine’s Internal Affairs Ministry. His portfolio includes law enforcement.
Svoboda’s Oleksandr Sych is one of two lower-level vice prime ministers. Like fellow party members, he’s ideologically over-the-top.
Unaffiliated Volodymyr Groysman is Ukraine’s other vice prime minister. He’s a former deputy prime minister for regional policy as well as regional development, construction, housing and communal services minister.
Batkivshchyna’s deputy chairman Pavlo Petrenko is justice minister. He’s a politician, jurist and lawyer.
Andrii Deshchytsia is foreign minister. He’s a politician and diplomat. He formerly was Ukraine’s ambassador to Finland.
Oleksandr Shlapak is finance minister. He’s a former economy minister.
Pavlo Sheremeta is economical development and trade minister. Formerly he was Kiev School of Economics president.
Svoboda’s Ihor Tenyukh is defense minister. He’s Ukraine’s former naval commander. Yanukovych sacked him for supporting Kiev putschists.
Batkivshchyna’s Arsen Avakov is internal affairs minister. He’s a former parliamentarian. He held various administrative posts.
Svoboda’s Oleg Makhnitsky is prosecutor-general (Ukraine’s attorney general). He’s a politician and lawyer.
Six Svoboda members hold top government posts. Others include ecology minister Andriy Mokhnyk and agriculture minister Ihor Shvaika.
Neo-Nazi Ukrainian National Assembly/Ukrainian National Self Defense (UNA-UNSO) members Tetyana Chernoval, Dmytro Bulatov, and Yegor Sobolev hold government portfolios.Chernoval chairs Kiev’s anti-corruption committee. Perhaps she’s in charge of dispensing spoils.
Bulatov is youth and sports minister. Sobolev is lustration (mass disqualification) committee chair.
He’s charged with purging Yanukovych loyalists. Everyone pro-Russian is targeted. So is anyone left of far right.
Obama’s new friends are ideological extremists. Imagine what Ukrainians can expect.
Their agenda makes peace activists cringe. They threaten civil war. Regional war could follow. They risk spreading it globally.
Yatsenyuk vowed never to give up “a centimeter” of Ukraine to Russia. “This is our land,” he said. “Our fathers and grandfathers have spilled their blood for this land.”
“And we won’t budge a single centimeter from (it). Let Russia and its president know this.”
Washington pledged full support. Obama pledged financial aid. Doing so violates US law. It’s spurned by supplying Israel, Egyptian putschists and other rogue governments with military and financial aid.
The 1961 Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) and 1976 Arms Export Control Act (AECA) prohibit doing so.
AECA permits military related sales only for defense or internal security. FAA forbids aiding governments that engage:
“in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, including torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, prolonged detention without charges, causing the disappearance of persons by the abduction and clandestine detention of those persons, or other flagrant denial of the right to life, liberty, and the security of person, unless such assistance will directly benefit the needy people in such country.”
The 2001 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act’s (FOAA) Leahy Law provision states:
“None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to support any training program involving a unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of Defense has received credible information from the Department of State that a member of such unit has committed a gross violation of human rights, unless all necessary corrective steps have been taken.”
FOAA prohibits funding foreign security forces that commit gross human rights violations unless its government “is taking effective measures to bring the responsible members of the security forces unit to justice.”
Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and numerous other rogue state US allies commit the worst of high crimes against peace and humanity.
It doesn’t matter. They’re close US allies. They receive generous support.
FAA prohibits giving all forms of aid to putschist regimes. Obama pledged $1 billion in loan guarantees. Doing so violates US law.
It doesn’t matter. Washington does what it wants. Russia’s Foreign Ministry commented, saying:
According to US law, FAA prohibits aiding ” ‘the government of any country whose whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup or decree.’ ”
“Thus, by all criteria, the provision of funds to the illegitimate (Kiev) regime, which seized power by force, is unlawful and goes beyond the boundaries of the US legal system.”
“The US administration will most probably continue to close its eyes on the dominance of the ultranationalist forces in Kiev, which have launched a hunt for dissidents across the country, increasing pressure on the Russian-speaking population and our compatriots, threatening the people in the Crimea with punishment for their desire for self-determination.”
Neo-Nazi putschists threaten all Ukrainians. Ruthless hardline rule runs things. Fascists tolerate no opposition. State terrorism targets outliers. Darker than ever dark times loom.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.His new book is titled "Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity."
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
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