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<DIV><FONT id=ecxrole_document color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial><FONT
color=#000000 size=+2 face=Arial><B>"<I>Ukraine on the Verge of Civil War" (Le
Monde)</I></B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr>
<DIV>
<DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px">
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+3 face=Arial><B>Who Is
Responsible?</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial><B>By Dominique
Ferré</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=+1 face=Arial>[<I><B>Note</B>: The following article is
reprinted from Issue No. 297 -- April 16, 2014 -- of Informations Ouvrières
[Labor News], the weekly newspaper of the Independent Workers Party of France
(POI)</I>.]</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial>"<I>Ukraine on the Verge of Civil
War"</I> reads the headline of the French daily<I> Le Monde</I> (April
15)<I>.</I> In statements by U.S. and European leaders it is, of course,
Russia, Putin and "agents provocateurs" who are the ones "sowing trouble," and
"pro-Russian militia" who are occupying administration buildings (1). Blood
was once again shed in Ukraine, in the east of the country in the town of
Slavyansk, when the forces of the SBU [the Ukrainian ex-KGB] anti-terrorist
center launched an attack against the militants who were occupying governments
buildings.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial><I></I></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial><B>Provocations</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial><I>"An anti-terrorist operation
has begun",</I> declared the Ukrainian Home Minister<I>.</I> The Neo-Nazi
group Provyi Sektor immediately put its armed groups at the government's
disposal, in order to "<I>maintain law and order</I>." Meanwhile, Irina
Farion of the far-right party Svoboda, which is a member of the government
coalition, declared that "<I>creatures who take to the path of separatism
deserve to die</I>." Farion is also the author for the draft bill on official
languages which threatens to forbid the Russian language . . . although
Russian is the native language of half the population of Ukraine.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial><I></I></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial><B>The CIA Director's
"<I>Private</I>" Visit</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial><I></I></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial>While such provocations have not
let up over the past two months, and given the brutal austerity plan signed at
the end of March with the IMF, there is no need for "Russian agents" to bring
tens of thousands of Ukrainians out into the streets in all the cities of the
eastern part of the country: Donetsk, Kharkov, Lugansk and others, but also in
Odessa, in the south. In these cities, sporadic occupations of official
government buildings had begun weeks ago. But things were cranked up a notch
on April 13, with the assault that was ordered in Slavyansk. On the eve of
that decision by the Ukrainian authorities, the director of the the CIA, John
Brennan, made a "<I>private visit</I>" (sic) to Kiev. This was revealed by a
source in the Ukrainian parliament to the Russian agency Interfax -- a visit
that the White House was forced to acknowledge. Pure coincidence?
(2)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial><I></I></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial><B>Washington Pours Oil on the
Fire</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial>Behind the official claims of
"de-escalation" coming out of Washington, Brussels and Paris, the leaders of
the United States, the European Union and NATO keep pouring oil on the fire.
The U.S. administration has announced another visit by the U.S. vice president
to Kiev, as a show of support. At the United Nations, the U.S. ambassador has
hammered on the theme, "<I>This instability</I> [in the east of Ukraine]<I>
was written and choreographed in and by Russia.</I>" On April 8 and 9, more
than 250 political and military heads met at a NATO seminar in Paris
(including the French minister Le Drain), where the need to "<I>prepare a
readiness action plan</I> . . .<I> to reinvest in</I> . . .<I> defense and . .
. to reinforce the transatlantic bond"</I> was reaffirmed.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial>No one contests that the Russian
government is seeking to defend its own interests in this affair. But contrary
to what the permanent disinformation campaign claims -- and what the patriotic
declarations coming out of the Kremlin likewise affirm -- Russia has been
weakened because the American and European sanctions, which are disturbing for
foreign investors, have accelerated the flight of capital (US$100 billion in
three months).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial><B>The Donbass Miners Are
"<I>Breathing Incense</I>"</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial>As for the demonstrations in the
cities of the industrial east, they have progressively taken on more and more
of a social content, in the wake of the announcement of the IMF plan (the 50%
increase in the price of natural gas on May 1st, the freezing of salaries).
The British newspaper<I> The Guardian</I> (April 13) quoted, among the many
miners demonstrating in Donetsk, "<I>Oleg Obolents, a retired miner who
recently formed an independent miners' union</I>: 'Donbass miners are
'breathing incense',<I> he said, using an expression that refers to the
incense burned during Russian Orthodox funeral services and is roughly
equivalent to</I> 'having one foot in the grave.'</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial>"<I>'</I>A tenth of Ukraine's coal
production is sold to Russia, the country's largest trading partner. Another
third goes to power metalworking plants, which also sell much of their product
to Russia. But as Ukraine has been gripped by political crisis and the new
Kiev regime has turned towards Europe, Russia has disrupted trade at the
border, and orders from Russian companies have fallen off. . . . If the
Association Agreement goes through and Ukraine's market is completely opened
up to Europe, the tougher EU production standards will result in the decline
of Ukraine's coal and metallurgy industries and the loss of jobs,'<I> Obolents
said. He said that many in the industry had not come out to support the
protests, for fear of losing their jobs.</I></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial><I><BR></I></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial>"'When they haven't received their
pay for two or three months, they'll come out, or if there is a storming [of
the occupied building],"<I> he added</I>. "The hungry have nothing to lose.
The hungry are willing to do anything,'<I> he
said."<BR></I> </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial>* * *</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial><B>ENDNOTES</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial>(1) When Victoria Nuland, from the
U.S. State Department, acknowledges that the United States has spent US$5
billion to finance "democracy" in Ukraine, Neo-Nazis included, and when
American and EU representatives have taken turns visiting to Kiev to speak at
the opposition rallies, this, of course, is not "interference." Who's kidding
whom?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=+1 face=Arial><BR>(2) It was also several days
after a meeting between Victoria Nuland and Svoboda leaders that the former
organized the February 18 armed demonstration that caused about one hundred
deaths by snipers. On this subject, the German public television station ARD
has just broadcast an investigation that seriously questions the official
version, accusing the forces that are currently in power of having themselves
ordered the sniper shootings into the crowd.</FONT></DIV>
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face=Arial></FONT><BR> </DIV></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV></FONT></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>