SARU (Solidarity with Anti-fascist Resistance in Ukraine) organised a protest against Ukrainian fascist Andriy Parubiy who was in Britain to meet the Minister for Europe David Lidington, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport John Wittingdale and an inter-party group on relations with Ukraine in the British Parliament chaired by the extreme right-wing racist and homophobe Sir Gerald Howarth. The racist imperialist British government has no qualms about meeting with fascist politicians.
On Friday 23 October, Parubiy visited the Ukraine Cultural Centre in Holland Park where he was met with a protest organised by SARU, attended by the Revolutionary Communist Group (Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!) and the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist).
Andriy Parubiy is a Ukrainian fascist, the deputy speaker of Ukraine’s parliament and founder of the Social National Party of Ukraine, a party styled on Hitler’s Nazis, with membership restricted to ethnic Ukrainians, and a party platform of anti-communism and anti-Semitism. Parubiy supports a far right Ukrainian nationalism based on the heritage of Stepan Bandera, a fascist who collaborated with the Nazis, and was involved in committing acts of genocide against Poles, Jews and Russians, such as the ethnic cleansing of Volhynia in 1943 where 100,000 Poles were massacred. Parubiy was a commander of Euromaidan US-funded paramilitary units in Kiev from November 2013 to February 2014 during the overthrow of the legitimate Ukrainian government. He was linked to the Maidan (Independence Square) sniper fire killings, and implicated in the Odessa massacre of 2 May 2014 where 46 anti-fascists were murdered and over 200 injured. Parubiy also launched the so-called ‘anti-terrorist operation’ in the Donbass in eastern Ukraine.
The Euromaidan Kiev junta was put in place by western imperialism, and the Ukraine army is trained by western imperialist powers, including by the British Army. Western imperialism wants the Ukraine to become part of the European Union and NATO in order to encircle Russia. The Ukraine is a prize asset for western imperialism, having a well-developed manufacturing sector, particularly in aerospace and industrial equipment, nuclear power generation and hydroelectric generation, an advanced rocket systems industry plus the old industries from the Soviet period of coal mining, steel, and metals. It also has its own proven, significant, but as yet totally undeveloped shale gas reserves. In April 2014 Chevron signed a 50-year lease to develop Ukraine’s shale gas reserves. International Business Times (8 November 2013) wrote that ‘Chevron’s agreement with Ukraine was supported by the US as part of its national security strategy to help reduce Russia’s hold on Europe and Kiev.’
Western imperialism and the Kiev fascist junta have escalated hostilities towards Russia and the independent People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine, using the Ukraine army and irregular fascist battalions. The people of eastern Ukraine are in the front-line against western imperialist aggression. The Donbass anti-fascist resistance comprises people’s militias dedicated to the defence of their homeland and struggle against the Kiev fascist junta and western imperialism. They are inspired by the anti-fascist struggle of Soviet partisans against the Nazis and their Ukrainian fascist collaborators.
Eastern Ukraine and the Donbass (the Don coal basin) region is the old heartland of Soviet industry with its concentration of coal and steel production. The Donbass accounts for 16% of gross domestic product and 27% of industrial production in the Ukraine and is greedily sought by western imperialism and the Kiev fascist junta. The Ukraine is the fourth largest coal producer in Europe after Russia, Germany and Poland. The Ukrainian coal industry is believed to have 4% of world coal reserves, or 33.9 billion metric tonnes of proven reserves. This is enough to maintain the level of coal mining produced in 2012 in the country for almost 400 years.
The Ukraine army and fascist battalions have committed war crimes against the people of eastern Ukraine. A report, ‘War crimes of the armed forces and security forces of Ukraine: torture and inhumane treatment’ (15 March 2015), published by the Moscow-based Foundation for the Study of Democracy recounts interviews with over 200 prisoners released by the Ukrainian state. Electric shocks, water-boarding, strangulation, repeated beatings, exposure to freezing temperatures, cutting, drugging and rape of men and women are commonly used. Human Rights Watch reports Ukraine’s armed forces using cluster bombs on civilians. Russian news agency TASS reported on 31 March 2015 on ‘Evidence of torture in east Ukraine’: ‘The world must learn the truth about torture in Donbass, we have documentary evidence of violence against and killing of civilians by Ukrainian law enforcement troops… these materials tells us about hundreds of killed civilians, show thousands of destroyed civilian facilities, residential buildings and apartments.’
Fight Imperialism! No Pasaran! Solidarity with the Anti-fascist Resistance in Ukraine!
Stephanus
