The
redeeming factor of the Guardian is that in the midst of all the
anti-Russian rhetoric they can publish an article like this
The
clash in Crimea is the
fruit of western expansion
The
external struggle to dominate Ukraine has put fascists in power and
brought the country to the brink of conflict
Seumas
Milne
5
March, 2013
Diplomatic
pronouncements are renowned for hypocrisy and double standards. But
western denunciations of Russian intervention in Crimea have reached
new depths of self parody. The so far bloodless incursion is an
"incredible
act of aggression",
US secretary of state John Kerry declared. In the 21st century you
just don't invade countries on a "completely trumped-up
pretext", he insisted, as US allies agreed that it had been an
unacceptable breach of international law, for which there will be
"costs".
That
the states which launched the greatest act of unprovoked aggression
in modern history on a trumped-up pretext – against Iraq, in
an illegal war now estimated to have killed 500,000,
along with the invasion of Afghanistan, bloody regime change in
Libya, and the killing of thousands in drone attacks on Pakistan,
Yemen and Somalia, all without UN authorisation – should make such
claims is beyond absurdity.
It's
not just that western aggression and lawless killing is on another
scale entirely from anything Russia appears to have contemplated, let
alone carried out – removing any credible basis for the US and its
allies to rail against Russian transgressions. But the western powers
have also played a central role in creating the Ukraine crisis in the
first place.
The
US and European powers openly sponsored the protests to oust the
corrupt but elected Viktor Yanukovych government, which were
triggered by controversy over an all-or-nothing EU agreement
which would
have excluded economic association with Russia.
In
her notorious "fuck
the EU" phone call leaked
last month, the US official Victoria Nuland can be heard laying down
the shape of a post-Yanukovych government – much of which was then
turned into reality when he was overthrown after the escalation of
violence a couple of weeks later.
The
president had by then lost political authority, but his overnight
impeachment was certainly constitutionally dubious. In his place
agovernment
of oligarchs, neoliberal Orange Revolution retreads and
neofascists has
been installed, one of whose first acts was to try and remove the
official status of Russian, spoken by a majority in parts of the
south and east, as moves were made to ban the Communist party, which
won 13% of the vote at the last election.
It
has been claimed that the role of fascists in the demonstrations has
been exaggerated by Russian propaganda to justify Vladimir Putin's
manoeuvres in Crimea. The
reality is alarming enough to need no exaggeration.
Activists report that the far right made up around a third of the
protesters, but they were decisive in armed confrontations with the
police.
Fascist
gangs now patrol the streets.
But they are also
in Kiev's corridors of power.
The far right Svoboda party, whose leader has denounced the "criminal
activities" of "organised Jewry"
and which was condemned by the European parliament for its "racist
and antisemitic views", has five ministerial posts in the new
government, including deputy prime minister and prosecutor general.
The leader of the even more extreme Right Sector, at the heart of the
street violence, is now Ukraine's deputy national security chief.
Neo-Nazis
in office is a first in post-war Europe. But this is the unelected
government now backed by the US and EU. And in a contemptuous rebuff
to the ordinary Ukrainians who protested against corruption and hoped
for real change, the new administration has appointed two billionaire
oligarchs – one who runs his business from Switzerland – to be
the new governors of the eastern cities of Donetsk and
Dnepropetrovsk. Meanwhile, the IMF is preparing an eye-watering
austerity plan for the tanking Ukrainian economy which can only swell
poverty and unemployment.
From
a longer-term perspective, the crisis in Ukraine is a product of the
disastrous Versailles-style break-up of the Soviet Union in the early
1990s. As in Yugoslavia, people who were content to be a national
minority in an internal administrative unit of a multinational state
– Russians in Soviet Ukraine, South Ossetians in Soviet Georgia –
felt very differently when those units became states for which they
felt little loyalty.
In
the case of Crimea, which was only transferred to Ukraine by Nikita
Khrushchev in the 1950s, that is clearly true for the Russian
majority. And contrary
to undertakings given at the time,
the US and its allies have since relentlessly expanded Nato up to
Russia's borders, incorporating nine former Warsaw Pact states and
three former Soviet republics into what is effectively an
anti-Russian military alliance in Europe. The European association
agreement which provoked the Ukrainian crisis also included clauses
to integrate Ukraine into the EU defence structure.
That
western military expansion was first brought to a halt in 2008 when
the US
client state of Georgia attacked Russian forces in
the contested territory of South Ossetia and was driven out. The
short but bloody conflict signalled
the end of George Bush's unipolar world in
which the US empire would enforce its will without challenge on every
continent.
Given
that background, it is hardly surprising that Russia has acted to
stop the more strategically sensitive and neuralgic Ukraine falling
decisively into the western camp, especially given that Russia's only
major warm-water naval base is in Crimea.
Clearly,
Putin's justifications for intervention – "humanitarian"
protection for Russians and an appeal by the deposed president –
are legally and politically flaky, even if nothing like on the scale
of "weapons of mass destruction". Nor does Putin's
conservative nationalism or oligarchic regime have much wider
international appeal.
But
Russia's role as a limited counterweight to unilateral western power
certainly does. And in a world where the US, Britain, France and
their allies have turned international lawlessness with a moral
veneer into a permanent routine, others are bound to try the same
game.
Fortunately,
the only shots fired by Russian forces at this point have been into
the air. But the dangers of escalating foreign intervention are
obvious. What is needed instead is a negotiated settlement for
Ukraine, including a broad-based government in Kiev shorn of
fascists; a federal constitution that guarantees regional autonomy;
economic support that doesn't pauperise the majority; and a chance
for people in Crimea to choose their own future.
Anything
else risks spreading the conflict.
Twitter: @SeumasMilne
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