US,
Europe Unleashing Lawlessness and War
By
Finian Cunningham
May 02,
2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- This week the Kiev regime went into
rogue overdrive when it cut off electricity
supplies to some three million people in the
self-declared Lugansk republic of eastern
Ukraine. The Ukrainian energy ministry under the
control of the Kiev regime said it was because
the breakaway province was in arrears over bill
payments. That’s rich coming from a cabal that
has continually dragged its feet over unpaid
bills for billions of dollars-worth in gas
supplies from Russia.
From where
does Kiev learn its rogue conduct? From its
masters, of course, in Washington and the
European Union. The present unravelling of
international law and order is their lamentable
legacy.
Donetsk,
the other separatist self-declared Ukrainian
republic, would also likewise be subjected to
power-cuts, according to reported comments from
Kiev. But, apparently, such a move would not be
easy as areas under the control of Kiev would
also be impacted. Also, the Donetsk People’s
Republic, unlike the LPR, is said to be fairly
self-sufficient in electricity supplies owing to
its own local thermal power plants.
Kiev’s
hollow claims about financial rectitude are
risible. The move is nothing but a blatant
attempt to intensify its blockade on the Donbas.
Already, the neofascist cabal, which seized
government power in a violent, illegal coup in
February 2014, has imposed a blackout of bank
services and social welfare payments to the
breakaway region. It has also cut off water
supplies to the LPR since last month.
The
blockade on civilian populations is just another
weapon alongside the military offensive that the
Kiev regime launched against the Donbas three
years ago. That offensive was a response to the
ethnic Russian population of Donbas refusing to
recognize the legitimacy of the coup. The latter
was orchestrated by western Ukrainian factions
who historically pledge allegiance to Nazi
collaborators during the Second World War. The
so-called Anti-Terror Operation (ATO) launched
by Kiev has resulted in over 10,000 deaths since
April 2014.
This
week’s electricity power-cuts to the Donbas are
thus part of a criminal policy of aggression by
a regime that usurped political power
unlawfully, with covert support from Washington
and the European Union. But, rather aptly, it
was the people of Donbas who made the first
«power-cut» – when they defiantly refused to
supply a popular mandate for the Kiev putsch.
The Kiev
regime is thus using a policy of collective
punishment to wage its war on the breakaway
region. Collective punishment of civilians is a
war crime under international law. Rather
fittingly, it was a policy notoriously used by
Nazi Germany in its extermination campaigns in
occupied Soviet territories during the Second
World War. Today, the regime in Kiev, which
adulates Ukrainian henchmen of the Nazi Third
Reich, is carrying out the very same barbarism
on people of eastern Ukraine who suffered it
seven decades ago.
Russia
this week stepped in promptly to resume
electricity supply to the LPR within hours of
the power-cuts. In what was said to be a
humanitarian gesture. Interestingly, the Western
view of the developments in eastern Ukraine took
a fatuous perspective. The New York Times
cynically noted that Russia’s voluntary energy
supply to the stricken populations «would give
it more control over the region».
Meanwhile,
the European Union, whose foreign policy chief
Federica Mogherini was in Moscow this week, said
next to nothing about the Kiev’s flagrant
violation of international law and in particular
its use of collective punishment. Indeed,
Mogherini during her visit tried to lecture
Russia about implementing the so-called Minsk
peace accord, saying that EU sanctions would
remain in place.
Kremlin
spokesman Dmitry Peskov pointed out that the
electricity and water cuts to Donbas were clear
evidence that Kiev was once again repudiating
the Minsk accord to which it is a signatory.
Moscow, like Germany and France, is a guarantor
of the Minsk pact signed in 2015. The guarantors
are only obliged to advocate the signatories –
Kiev, LPR, DPR – to implement. Where is the EU’s
advocacy to Kiev? In a week when the Kiev regime
is escalating its criminal blockade on Donbas,
the EU has nothing to say, except warning Russia
of continuing economic sanctions over
non-existent obligations.
Indeed, as
Russia’s Chief of General Staff General Valery
Gerasimov pointed out this week, the EU’s
financial and military support for the Kiev
regime – without any pause over the latter’s
gross violations – is a blank check for
«provoking it to continue the war» and avoid
seeking a political solution.
The
reported arrival of US military trainers this
week to assist the Ukrainian Armed Forces on
their side of the contact line in Donbas is a
further reward for bad behavior. Ominously, the
DPR’s defense minister Eduard Basurin said the
American military presence «was to inspect the
readiness of the Ukrainian Armed Forces for
combat operations». In the context of Kiev’s
increasing blockade on the civilian population
in the region, the military development takes on
even greater sinister significance. Is it an
attritional prelude to weaken the enemy?
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More
broadly, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
this week lamented the «breakdown of
international order». Lavrov said the world was
degenerating from the lawlessness of having «no
more rules». The corollary of this unravelling
global situation is that nations are more and
more acting as if they are above the law,
routinely committing violations and fueling
conflicts, without restraint, shame or even thin
disguise. Ultimately, this chronic degeneration
is leading to world war. Comparisons with the
1930s and early 1900s are palpable. The
breakdown in capitalism is again the disorder of
the day.
What is
happening in Ukraine is case in point. An
irresponsible regime of bankrupt legitimacy is
brazenly inflicting a policy of blockade and
collective punishment, in conjunction with
military assault. And yet the supposed sponsors
of the regime, Washington and the European
Union, are mute on the matter.
The United
Nations made a mealymouthed statement of
ambiguity, rather than a forthright
condemnation. A spokesman for UN chief Antonio
Guterres said of the blockade in eastern
Ukraine: «It is important that the civilian
population trapped in the fighting is not made
to suffer more.» That is pathetic cowardice and
passive complicity in war crimes – by the UN.
State-sponsored crimes in Ukraine are part of a
despicable general pattern. Washington and its
allies are moving to blockade North Korea with
an armada of cruise-missile-bearing submarines
and warships. The US, Britain and their Saudi
client regime are already blockading and
starving millions of people in Yemen. The same
goes for Syria where that nation is blockaded by
the US and EU while it is trying to defeat a
terrorist proxy army sponsored by the US and EU.
Forget
about the declared rationale and objectives that
these Western powers claim. The fact is that
blockading any country and inflicting collective
punishment on civilians is a war crime.
It is a
final, barbaric resort by powers that have lost
any legitimacy. Cutting off finances, food,
water, power. By what power? By what authority?
Russia,
China and Iran are already subject, to lesser
degrees, to blockade by Washington and its
European vassals. The Western economic sanctions
on Russia over the Western-induced Ukrainian
conflict testify to that. Also US President
Trump is issuing warnings that if China does not
comply with tighter embargoes on North Korea,
then Beijing will also find itself sanctioned.
Iran is also threatened this week by the US
White House with facing tougher sanctions over
alleged misdemeanors.
The US-led
policy of blockade is being wielded like a
weapon across the globe like never before.
Russia, China and others cannot afford to let
this criminality go unchallenged. Some tactical
response is needed, like dropping the US dollar,
before arrogant Western lawlessness takes the
world over an abyss.
By
Finian Cunningham, is former editor and writer
for major news media organizations. He has
written extensively on international affairs,
with articles published in several languages
This article was first published by
SCF
-
The
views expressed in this article are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of Information Clearing House.
