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Citizens Electoral Council of Australia

Media Release Monday, 15 May 2017

Craig Isherwood‚ National Secretary
PO Box 376‚ COBURG‚ VIC 3058
Phone: 1800 636 432
Email: cec@cecaust.com.au
Website: http://cec.cecaust.com.au
 

Resurgent Nazis in Ukraine attack opposition politicians

The neo-Nazi gangs in Ukraine that the USA and UK—cheered on by the Australian government—backed to turn the 2014 Maidan protests into a violent coup, are stepping up their attacks on their political opponents. On 9 May the neo-Nazi “National Corps” staged a new attack on Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (PSPU) leaders Dr Natalia Vitrenko and Vladimir Marchenko—good friends and collaborators of the Citizens Electoral Council of Australia. Early that morning, as the USA, Canada and European countries had celebrated V-E Day (8 May), the 72nd anniversary of the Nazi surrender in World War II, and the countries formerly in the Soviet Union prepared for their customary marking of the occasion as Victory Day, 9 May, these leading anti-fascists in Ukraine, both of them former members of Parliament, heard their doorbells ring and threatening voices outside in the hallways. Gangs from the neo-Nazi “National Corps Party”, formerly a unit of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion under the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, were attempting to break down the doors of their apartments. During a five-hour stand-off, police refused to remove the attackers forcibly. The neo-Nazis declared that their purpose was to prevent Vitrenko and her PSPU from holding Victory Day rallies or taking part in the Immortal Regiment march, in which people in Kiev, as in cities throughout the world, were set to honour family members who died fighting fascism, or survived as veterans of the war.

Vitrenko is famous not only for her nearly 25-year battle against the destruction of Ukraine through the imposition of neoliberal monetarist economic policies, but also for warning for two decades of an insurgent fascist movement in Ukraine, marching under Nazi-derived banners and those of Ukrainian 20th-century fascist Stepan Bandera’s Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists. Even after her warnings came true, when the neo-Nazis provided shock troops in the US- and EU-backed coup of February 2014 that overthrew the elected President of Ukraine, Victor Yanukovych, Vitrenko has continued to expose them and their backing from the West.

In October of last year, in the latest of a long series of dirty tricks, the PSPU’s national headquarters and all the party’s records of 20 years were seized on the pretext of a commercial dispute, and turned over to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), which continues to gestate a case against Vitrenko on trumped-up charges of “separatism”.

On 4 May 2017, Vitrenko addressed an appeal to world leaders “to review the situation around the gross violation of the rights of citizens of Ukraine to freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of expression of their views and convictions, freedom of association in political parties and public organisations, and freedom of assembly for the peaceful conduct of actions, rallies and demonstrations.” Addressing US President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, as well as President Petro Poroshenko and other Ukrainian government officials, Vitrenko cited recent threats against her, by name, made in the Ukrainian media by individuals linked with the National Corps and affiliated neo-Nazi groups like Right Sector. She concluded, “It is my deep conviction, that if the world community fails to condemn these processes in Ukraine and to force the President of Ukraine and its law enforcement agencies to carry out their obligations to defend the rights and freedoms of the citizens of Ukraine and to put a stop to the activity of the right-wing radicals, then a Nazi state will be formed in the centre of Europe in the near future, and this will give rise to a Third World War.”

In a communication today to friends abroad, Vitrenko voiced hope that Western leaders could be organised to pressure the Ukrainian government to put a stop to the attacks on the PSPU by the Azov Battalion and its political spin-offs like the National Corps Party. She noted, especially, that the US Congress has officially recognised that Azov is “neo-Nazi”. Dr Vitrenko situated the attacks on her party within an evaluation of the political situation in Ukraine, where one current scenario is for a military coup to be staged by Internal Affairs Minister Avakov and allies of his who have also been sponsors of the neo-Nazi gangs.

Citizens Electoral Council leader Craig Isherwood today called on the Australian and British governments to exert diplomatic pressure on the government of Ukraine to bring an end to the neo-Nazi attacks on opposition politicians.

Click here to read Dr Natalia Vitrenko’s statements on the Azov Battalion’s attacks, and a full account of the persecution of the PSPU by the Azov neo-Nazis.

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