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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 12/26/14

Ukraine's Government Is Starving Residents of the Breakaway Region

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Amnesty International has found that "the already desperate situation in eastern Ukraine is being made even worse by" so-called 'volunteer' or mercenary forces for the Ukrainian government, which are blocking the supply of food to residents in that region, and trying to starve them to death.

Thus, "The region is facing a humanitarian disaster with many already at risk of starvation," said Denis Krivosheev, acting Director of Europe and Central Asia for Amnesty International, on Wed, December 24th.

Amnesty International reports that, "Over half of the population in these areas are now entirely dependent on food aid."

The AI report quotes one commander of these mercenary forces as giving his reason for blocking the humanitarian supplies as being: "We're at war with them and we're spilling our blood, but in the same time we're feeding them"; so, they refuse to allow the aid convoys through.

Germany's Nazi forces during World War II gave the same explanation for why they treated the entire population in their conquered regions as being the enemy: they were the enemy, to be exploited and not served; they were thus to be cleared out, or else slaughtered, in order to provide "lebensraum" for the conquering people ('Aryans'), who would be moving in and taking over the natural and other resources of the region, to be used by the Nazi state. (In the present instance, gas is one of the main resources in the rebelling region, which is the site of the vast Yuzivska gas field, and Obama's people want it; and one of the Obama team's appointed leaders there, the billionaire Ihor Kolomoysky, hired Joe Biden's son and a friend of John Kerry for the board of his gas-exploration company.)

The situation is similar in southeastern Ukraine to that during WW II. The United States government (in the person of Victoria Nuland of the State Department) chose Arseniy Yatsenyuk on 4 February 2014, which was 18 days prior to the coup, to become the new leader of Ukraine as soon as the democratically elected leader, Viktor Yanukovych, would be overthrown, which turned out to be on February 22nd (though Nuland had no way of knowing at the time what the specific date of the overthrow would be). Almost immediately after Yatsenyuk became the leader of Ukraine, on March 5th, he sacked the existing three Deputy Defense Ministers, and replaced them with three rabidly anti-Russian racist-fascists or nazis, who were committed to the policy of bombing the residents in that area, the area that had voted 90% for Yanukovych. The person who was made the Minister of Defense, Mikhail Koval, then announced his intention to ethnically cleanse from southeastern Ukraine the "subhumans" who voted for Yanukovych, who will "be resettled in other regions," meaning either Russia (if Russia accepted these Ukrainian refugees) or else concentration camps inside Ukraine (and then perhaps death). Their property was to be confiscated, and "Land parcels will be given out for free to the servicemen of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and other military formations, as well as to the employees of Interior Ministry and the Security Service of Ukraine that are defending territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country in eastern and southeastern regions of Ukraine." That's the euphemism for the ethnic cleansing, and mass-theft. In other words, Obama's new rulers of Ukraine were offering their soldiers the opportunity to grab legally the property of their victims. Ukraine doesn't have the money to pay for all the soldiers that are needed to do this ethnic cleansing; so, they're being promised war-booty, instead. Destroying the residents is the way to get it.

Amnesty International cannot afford to say this. According to sourcewatch (before they took their site down) Amnesty International is largely funded by Western aristocrats, and the famous Professor Francis H. Boyle has said, "Amnesty International is primarily motivated not by human rights but by publicity. Second comes money. Third comes getting more members. Fourth, internal turf battles. And then finally, human rights." So: they're heavily dependent upon Western, and especially upon American, aristocrats, including such people as George Soros and his Open Society Foundation, and his International Renaissance Fund (which donated heavily to promoting the coup). In other words: AI needs to watch out.

Here is an uncensored description of the situation in that region of Ukraine, which is called "Donbass." It comes from George H. Eliason, an American who lives there, and whose reports on the situation in Ukraine I have always found to be true in the past:

The reality in Donbas is this blockade has been in place for almost 6 months now. The bank runs happened in the late spring through the mid summer. I was there as thousands of people stood in line literally for days in front of bank ATMs.

During this time a surcharge was added to every deposit in Donbass banks and the funds went to buy the bullets used to kill people here. When Kiev lost ground in the east mid summer they closed the banks altogether. The banks closed without warning all deposits were stolen and used to buy more bullets.

How is it possible to have a bank run in November when banks haven't been open for 4 months?

The vulnerable, the dying, and the dead

Pensions and benefits to the elderly and disabled were also cut off in mid summer. State and oligarch owned businesses functioning and reaping profits stopped paying salaries. By early July retirees across the countryside were surviving on leftovers from the last harvest, unripened fruit, and help from their neighbors.

In August I started hearing about the starvation among the most vulnerable people which were the shut-ins. People that were bed ridden or because of disabilities could no longer leave their apartments died of starvation and thirst. Where were their neighbors?

In early summer the Ukrainian army started targeting apartment buildings and homes. Throughout the summer this never let up. At first Kiev denied it but later it didn't matter anymore in the news. Kiev suspended the human rights of people in Southeast early in the spring.

The shelling of civilian homes had the effect Kiev was hoping for. It created a flood of terrified refugees that simply ran and almost overwhelmed the capacity to take care of them in Belarus and Russia.

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Eric Zuesse Social Media Pages: Facebook page url on login Profile not filled in       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010,  and of  CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that (more...)
 
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