The Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War wrote
the following article, which was published by the
Hamilton Spectator newspaper. Among other
antiwar campaigns, the Hamilton Coalition to
Stop the War is active in organizing against US
and Canadian government support for the rightwing
coup government in Ukraine,
and against US and Canadian
military involvement in Europe
including within NATO. The
below article is the basis for a
petition campaign calling to oppose
renewing Canada’s military
training mission in Ukraine and
calls for Canada to cut ties with
NATO HERE
Canada’s military mission to Ukraine expires
in March. For several reasons, it shouldn’t be
renewed.
First, the present Ukrainian government, installed
in a coup orchestrated by Washington, isn’t
worthy of our support. According to the BBC,
former US Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria
Nuland, admitted that the U.S.A. spent $5 billion
over a number of years to instigate regime change
in Ukraine.(1) She overthrew the democraticallyelected
Yanukovich government in 2014 which
had less than one year remaining in its term of
office and was trying to deal with competing
pressures to take a financial bailout from either
Russia, on the one hand, or the European
Union, on the other. (2) On February 21, 2014,
Yanukovich secured an agreement with European
Union officials on EU economic assistance,
sharing of power in Ukraine, and moving up
Ukrainian elections. (3) The agreement was not
good enough for US Senator John McCain and
other key Democratic US policy-makers. After
violent street protests, the US installed a prowestern
junta, headed by billionaire Poroshenko.
According to the CBC, the Harper government
allowed the Canadian embassy in Kiev to shelter
the violent street protesters for one week and
one embassy staffer to use an embassy vehicle
(later burned) to take part in the protests. (4) In
other words, Canadian tax-payers supported US
regime-change
in Ukraine.
Second, the
agents of
regime change
recruited by
Nuland were
none other
than gangs
of thugs
from several
fascist parties,
remnants of
the very same
U k r a i n i a n
fascists allied
to Hitler
in WW2. They fought soldiers and police
in the main squares of Kiev and other cities.
Poroshenko’s coup government has the dubious
distinction of being the only government in
Europe with fascists in cabinet, several holding
key security posts. Canadian veterans might be
surprised to learn that the Trudeau government is
considering renewing Canada’s military mission
to a country with the same
fascists in government that
they fought in WW2.
Third, the Ukrainian junta
immediately implemented
divisive policies, such as
banning the use of the
Russian language and some
of the country’s most popular
political parties. It seems
logical that Crimea would
have been less likely have
voted overwhelmingly to leave
Ukraine and rejoin Russia,
and eastern Russian-speaking
regions of Ukraine would have been much more hesitant to seek independence
if a more moderate and tolerant government took
office following constitutional procedures. War
and economic decline could have been avoided
as well. Ukraine, a former Soviet republic (and
a province of Tsarist Russia for the previous
two hundred years) could have sought peaceful
relations and constructive economic engagement
with both East and West and particularly
the booming economic “silk road” trade deals
with China. Instead, seeking EU and NATO
membership, while implementing draconian
austerity policies, have only brought Ukraine to
the point of economic and social collapse.
A fourth reason is the reaction of the Ukrainian
government to the brutal Odessa massacre of
May 2, 2014. On that day, over 40 peaceful antigovernment
protesters were killed and some
200 injured when pro-government thugs set fire
to the Trade Union House in which they had
taken shelter. This incident has not been properly
investigated and no culprits arrested or punished.
Finally, contrary to the promises made to the last
Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev, NATO
expansion continued to the east, along with a
continuing military build-up, missile installations,
and war games right up to Russia’s borders. It’s
completely understandable why Russians feel
encircled by NATO, especially now with the
possibility of Ukrainian membership. We should
remember that Russia was invaded twice in the
twentieth century from the West costing tens of
millions of Russian lives and huge devastation. A
major war, possibly WW3, could develop from
aggressive NATO expansion along the Russian
frontier. Placing Canadian soldiers there makes
no sense at all.
It’s time that the Trudeau government broke with
aggressive Harper-era policies and dealt fairly and
diplomatically with the Russian Federation. For
this reason, it would be far wiser for the Trudeau
government not to extend the military mission
to Ukraine and to pull its troops and equipment
out of all the frontier states with Russia. Indeed,
Canadians would benefit from cutting ties
with NATO altogether and pursuing instead a
peaceful, humane, and independent foreign policy.
* David Rennie writes on behalf of the Hamilton
Coalition to Stop the War.
www.hamiltoncoalitiontostopthewar.ca
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