The Sixth UN report on human right violations in Ukraine could not help but recognize at least some of the crimes committed by Kiev authorities. Yet, it still fails to produce an objective picture. Radio VR is looking into the issue together with Anna van Densky (Brussels) and Dr. Johan Bäckman (Helsinki).
The report, released by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, covers the period from August, 18 to September,16, and contains testimonial evidence of some violations cases of carried out by Ukrainian military units.
“Armed groups continued to terrorize the population in areas under their control, pursuing killings, abductions, torture, ill-treatment and other serious human rights abuses, including destruction of housing and seizure of property. There have also been continued allegations of human rights violations committed by some volunteer battalions under Government control,” – the report says.
Yet, it has still failed to provide a full and objective account, giving only a part of the whole picture, Alexander Lukashevich, official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, observed.
Anna van Densky, "EU Reporter" journalist:
“It is clear that there are too many omitted facts and they are all made in favor of the current regime, and President Poroshenko. So, it is a clear attempt to embellish and to hide the crimes they committed in Ukraine towards the civilians. We all know that there are facts that we would think are impossible to omit from the report, but they are omitted.
So, there are two conclusions I would make. First conclusion is that the UN, they desperately need to be reformed. And I guess this question about the reform of the UN is a long-standing strategy of many countries, because this American dominance deforms so many things. And we, as humanity, we can’t really function well, we can’t freely realize all the necessary subjects, like the human rights, properly, if the US are influencing and are deforming the data.
So, the first thing is, of course, the reform of the UN and that is very much desired by many countries, because when the UN started, the world was different. Now, there are more than 200 states and this change in the world statehood is not reflected in the structure of the UN.
The second thing, besides the American dominance, is of course about the investigators themselves, because I think they could go as far, as they were allowed to go by the current Poroshenko regime. And, of course, the crimes committed there, they are the crimes of the state, because the antiterrorist operation was not a spontaneous move, it was a policy of President Poroshenko and his Government. So, I mean, of course, Poroshenko couldn’t be self-inflicting and let the investigators analyze the whole data.
So, I suppose there are two factors. The first factor, of course, is a political factor: the existing problems in the structure of the UN. And the second factor, of course, is a foully game of the current regime, because they are trying to get away with their own crimes.
Is the European public becoming more aware of the real state of events in Ukraine?
Anna van Densky: Well, I think that the picture the public gets is much distorted. I think that right from the start there was a real blockade of negative information about the Poroshenko regime, about the antiterrorist operation. And it is a very clear policy, because they try to convince that Poroshenko is a freedom fighter.
But it is a long-standing policy, you know. If you look at such a famous group as FEMEN. You know this group, of course. For example, they became a symbol of our French republic. So, in every French community there is the bust of a Ukrainian girl. So, it is a long-standing strategy to create an image of Ukrainians as freedom fighters and a demonization of President Putin, who is depicted as a real demon and devil.
So, this distortion, this black\white picture, I'm afraid, largely is what is promoted by the Western mass media. So, the people are not well-aware of what happens, I think. There are very few Russian channels, like Russia Today, who are English speaking, and who can bring an alternative information. And let’s not also forget that going there to Ukraine is very dangerous. So, there are very few TV channels which are prepared to send a journalist. And also, it is immensely expensive, because you need to send producers, you need to send equipment etc. So, let’s say, only one mission of Sky News for a week costs like 30 000 Euros.
I mean, there are different factors which contribute. First of all, it is a political factor, then objective factors, as it is extremely difficult. If previously, for example, during the Iraq campaign, journalists were sort of patronized by the American troops and everything was very clear, because they had to be together with the troops. They were transported by the military, they were in a relative safety, because they moved together with an army and they were getting press releases organized etc.
Here, in this war there is nothing of this kind. And it is also a very mixed picture, because they don’t speak the language, they do always have difficulties in finding translators in the conflict area. So, there are different elements. But I'm afraid that political elements, they desire to spread the information and this American policy of changing the regimes into what they think is favorable for them, I think it is a dominant element that consciously creates this distorted picture of what happens in Ukraine”.
Johan Bäckman, Doctor of Social Sciences and Adjunct professor of sociology of law at the University of Helsinki:
“The UN’ report, I would say that the UN should, first of all, investigate the political background in Ukraine – the two revolutions that have been that have been carried out in Ukraine recently, and the mechanisms of organizing such revolutions. I mean the so-called Orange Revolution in 2004 and the latest national-socialist revolution in 2014. This is something that the UN should investigate. And then, also investigate the ideological principles, the ideological foundations of these revolutions. The Orange Revolution that was in 2004, was the ultra-liberal revolution. But now, the 2014 revolution is a national-socialist.
When I read the latest UN report, I think it is still written in the interests of the revolutionary junta, because the UN report is still, for example, saying that the Kiev Government is passing the necessary laws. But what is the jurisdiction and the right of the Kiev revolutionary junta to pass laws? Do these laws have any effect? Are they themselves following the laws? No! I think the only thing we need now is a tribunal. I think we need a tribunal which would investigate the crimes against humanity carried out by the revolutionary junta of Kiev.
Unfortunately, I have to say that the UN is not able to analyze the situation objectively, because everything depends on the behavior of the Kiev Government, which is an illegal government. What has been happening during the last months? It has been a genocide against the peoples of the eastern Ukraine, in the first place the people of the Donetsk and the Lugansk regions. A genocide against the civilians in these regions. A genocide carried out by the illegal revolutionary junta of Kiev.
We have to face the fact that at the end of February this year an illegal revolutionary junta came into power in Kiev. It was a revolution and it was a national-socialist revolution. It was a revolution in the colors of Ukrainian Nazis. It was a revolution glorifying well-known Ukrainian Nazi collaborators. And the individuals who are in power now in Kiev, they do not represent the Ukrainian people. They represent the USA. They are a puppet government which follows the interests of the USA only.
Now, they have been carrying out a genocide against the civilians in the eastern Ukraine. Why the so-called Ukrainian Army has been bombarding and killing, and mass murdering the civilians in the eastern Ukraine? My answer is: because they want to destroy all the political support towards the People’s Republic of Donetsk and the People’s Republic of Lugansk, and also the Novorossiya republic. So, that is the main goal of the revolutionary Government of Kiev – to destroy the support for the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics among the population. And that is why the revolutionary Kiev junta is bombarding the civilians in the eastern Ukraine. And they have been doing that for several months already.
Now, the UN report is treating the revolutionary Kiev junta as a legitimate government. And I think that is a very big error, because, in any case, we have to face the fact that a national-socialist revolution took place at the end of February in Kiev. And as a result of this revolution a national-socialist revolutionary junta came into power. Unfortunately, this was a typical revolution orchestrated by the USA. There is nothing special in this revolution. The USA has orchestrated similar kinds of revolutions all around the planet during the decades. But now they are doing the same in Ukraine.
The UN report is very short. It is very weak. I think that the UN report is weak, because, despite the fact that they of course have to admit the fact that the civilians are suffering, but they don’t use the word “genocide”. They don’t face the fact that people are being killed systematically, because of their political opinions, because of their support towards the democratic institutions of Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics.
Of course, it has the elements of objectivity. I mean, they are trying to give some kind of impression of objectivity. For example, they are accusing all the parties of genocide. We have to understand the fact that the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, they are carrying out their defensive battle. They are defending themselves, they are defending their civilians, they are defending the peoples of Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics against the illegal revolutionary junta.
We cannot say that the Kiev Government would be a legal government. It is a revolutionary government. They’ve even organized the elections for the president, in which the president has announced himself a president even before the votes were counted. I think that the scholars and political scientists around the world understand this problem and they won’t accept this kind of propaganda.
Now, the problem is that the Western journalists are writing about Ukraine, as if it was Switzerland. As if it was a cozy, small peaceful country which has suddenly became an object of aggression of the big neighbor. But that is not the case. Ukraine, first of all, doesn’t exist anymore. Now, there are three or four elements existing inside of the former Ukraine which have the elements of statehood: the first – the revolutionary junta, the second – the People’s Republic of Donetsk, the third – the People’s Republic of Lugansk and the fourth is the ongoing process of creating the Republic Novorossiya.
The Western journalists have a big problem of writing objectively about this. First of all, the Western governments and, primarily, the USA, they have been supporting the revolutionary junta, the revolutionary Government of Ukraine. They have already for years been supporting the extremist organizations and also extremist ideologies in Ukraine, including the glorification of Nazi collaborators. This has been the strategy for the US in Ukraine to support extremist movements, and by these means to organize an anti-Russian revolution.
What is happening now is genocide. We have to face the fact that it is genocide, but it is absolutely forbidden to write about it in the Western media. No Western journalist would ever write or use the word “genocide”, or would say “the revolutionary Government of Kiev is mass murdering their own people in the east”. Why is that? Because the Western media is totally controlled by their governments. They are totally controlled by the USA, their agents, their foundations and they are writing everything in the interests of the USA.
The US is very effective in controlling the Western mass media. And the Western mass media obviously has a very important role in the crisis. For example, the Finnish media, a country where I live at the moment and which I have been living for my whole life, it never wrote a single word about mass murdering the civilians in the east. There was never a word about it. Never a word about the Ukrainian Army mass murdering the civilians in the east. Everything what is happening in the Western media, is blaming Russia.
There is even a joke about blaming Russia button on the keyboard of a computer. The journalists are pressing this button all the time and they are blaming Russia about everything, despite the fact that Russia is not a party to this conflict. I mean, it is an internal conflict on the territory of the former Ukraine. And the USA is the principal actor in this conflict, and they started this conflict, and they are supporting the mass murder of the civilians in the eastern territory.
If we speak about aggression, there indeed is an aggression on this issue, but is the aggression of the USA against the independent Ukraine. Many Ukrainians themselves speak about Nazi-American occupation. It is a Nazi-American occupation. In fact, most of Ukraine is occupied by the USA and what is happening in the eastern territories of Ukraine, is a war of liberation against this occupation”.
