Ukraine’s “Democratic” Coup D’état : Washington’s “Neo-Nazi Neoliberal” Proxy Government

[Blue Pilgrim]

One hour interview -- excellent overview with good details.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/ukraines-democratic-coup-detat-washingtons-neo-nazi-neoliberal-proxy-government/5373073
Ukraine’s “Democratic” Coup D’état: Washington’s
“Neo-Nazi Neoliberal” Proxy Government
Guns & Butter host Bonnie Faulkner interviewed
Michel Chossudovsky on the ongoing upheaval in Ukraine
By Prof Michel Chossudovsky and Bonnie Faulkner
Global Research, March 12, 2014
Guns and Butter on KPFA 5 March 2014 http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/100667

“Ukraine’s Democratic Coup d’Etat: Washington
Supports a Neo-Nazi Coalition Government” with Michel Chossudovsky.

The political and economic crisis in the Ukraine;
involvement of the United States and the European
Union in the violent overthrow of the
democratically elected Ukraine President; the
2004 Orange Revolution in that country; its
geography; the involvement of the International
Monetary Fund and NATO in Ukraine’s history;
lustration or mass disqualification of the
members of Viktor Yanukovych’s government.

Guns and Butter, for March 5, 2014 – 1:00pm

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Transcript of Interview

Michel Chossudovsky is an economist and director
of the Centre for Research on Globalization,
based in Montreal, Quebec. He is the author of
The Globalization of Poverty and the New World
Order, War and Globalization: The Truth Behind
September 11th and America’s War on Terrorism.

He is the author of many recent articles on the
crisis in the Ukraine including “The US Has
Installed a Neo-Nazi Government in Ukraine.”
Today we discuss the political and economic
crisis in the Ukraine, the involvement of the
United States and the European Union in the
violent overthrow of the democratically elected
Ukraine president, the 2004 Orange Revolution in
that country, its geography and the involvement
of the International Monetary Fund and NATO in Ukraine’s history.

Bonnie Faulkner: Michel Chossudovsky, welcome.

Michel Chossudovsky: Delighted to be on Guns and Butter.

Bonnie Faulkner: With regard to the current
upheaval in the Ukraine, what was the substance
of the agreement to bring Ukraine closer to the
European Union instead of Russia that President
Yanukovych refused to sign because democratically
elected president Yanukovych took refuge in
Russia and still says he’s president?

Michel Chossudovsky: Absolutely. That agreement
would have been devastating for the Ukraine
because it would have put the Ukraine in the
hands of Western creditors, it would have led to
a subsequent process of impoverishment and it
would also have led to the demise of bilateral
relations with Russia, which from an economic
standpoint were quite beneficial to Ukraine. It
was a deal with regard to the pipelines and gas
using Ukraine as a transit as well as bilateral
relations between the two governments.

The issue is that upon Yanukovych’s refusal to
sign that agreement (i.e. that agreement was put
on hold), we then saw the emergence of protest
movements and those protest movements were
supported by the European Union and the United States.

One suspects that there was an intelligence
operation, a very careful timeline of events
leading up to what one might describe, though
it’s a contradictory term, a democratic coup
d’état in the sense that the Parliament actually
passed a vote while the protests were ongoing,
leading to the demise of the president. But that
decision of the Parliament was totally illegal
because you cannot fire a president under the
Ukrainian constitution. It’s a long, drawn-out
process. In the United States of America you
cannot simply fire President Obama by a vote of
the US Congress. And this was a vote which was
taken at a period when most of the members of Parliament weren’t even there.

Then subsequently what happened was that they
issued an arrest warrant accusing President
Yanukovych of having committed mass murder by
ordering the police to kill civilians in Maidan
Square. In fact, if we look more carefully, those
killings were conducted by Neo-Nazi gunmen which
actually were part of the political landscape.
One of the most important parties [which played a
central role in leading the protests] there is
Svoboda, which is a Neo-Nazi political party and
which is part of that coalition.

So that in a sense is the background. The
question is was it a legal coup d’état to fire
the president? The Parliament cannot fire
presidents. He’s elected head of state; they cannot simply fire him.

Now, the logic and the history of these protest
movements is very important because the head of
state is accused of “mass murder of civilians”
during the bloody riots and clashes with police
forces on Maidan Independence Square.

But when you look at it more carefully you
realize that this mass murder for which he is
accused bears the fingerprints of the Right
Sector and the Neo-Nazi party, Svoboda, which
incidentally is supported and financed through
various channels by the United States and the
European Union. You have the National Endowment
for Democracy, you have the CIA operating in the
background, you have the various so-called
entities, NGOs, which are funded by the West and
you have also paid gunmen, death squads, which
played a very key role in the last few days of
the riots before the decision of the Parliament
to fire the president. I’m referring to the
escalation of violence on the 18th of February
after the Right Sector Neo-Nazi rioters and thugs
– first, they attempted to take over the
Ukrainian parliament and they were repelled by
anti-riot police and then on the following two
days we had incidents of sniper killings. That
was on the 20th of February, two days later.

And on the 20th of February, according to
reports, more than 20 people were killed by
professional snipers in a matter of a couple of hours.

Now, the media didn’t really report on that.
They mentioned it but it was assumed that these snipers were government.

Now, one might ask oneself why would the
government start shooting on civilians? There was
exchange of gunfire because many of those
Neo-Nazi militia were wearing firearms. They had
weapons. And there was an exchange of gunfire.

But as far as shooting on innocent people from
the rooftops, this has all the hallmarks of a
carefully planned intelligence operation. It
happened within a few hours, it was at random on
innocent people and then what happened is that
these killings were used to accuse President
Viktor Yanukovych of having ordered mass murder.

And I should mention – and it’s very important
– that while these snipers were killing civilians
– and that was acknowledged by the mainstream
media – the riot police had entered into the
square with a view to dismantling the barricades
and they were using rubber bullets and
conventional anti-riot equipment. They were not
using live ammunition against the protestors in
the square. Where the live ammunition came from
was from the rooftops. And then there was also an
exchange of gunfire between police and the
Neo-Nazi militia who were armed to the teeth with automatic weapons and so on.

Now, the issue there is one of extreme forms of
media disinformation. I’ve been listening to the
reports on CBC, Canadian radio and television, Al
Jazeera, US network television and so on, and
there is never any word to the effect that they
are Neo-Nazi gunmen. Not only did they integrate
these protest movements but they actually lead
the protest movements. They will talk about
fundamentalists or extremists or radicals but
they will never say that these people are
Neo-Nazis with a whole history behind them and
with a history of atrocities and so on.

The Right Sector are the militia and the Svoboda
is the sort of civilian arm of that militia. They
operate in tandem and they glorify a major figure
of World War II, Bandera. It’s the hero. Bandera
happened to be a Nazi collaborator during World
War II. He was, in fact, very much instrumental
in sending something like 900,000 Jews to the
death camps, according to data and mortalities.
So there was a certain section of these Neo-Nazi
groups who were, in fact, collaborators of the
Nazis during World War II and essentially what is
now ongoing is that that particular formation of
Neo-Nazis, which pledged their support to the
Nazis of World War II, they are involved in
atrocities and they are also leading the protest movements.

Now, why is this important? Because the
Neo-Nazi supporters of Stepan Bandera, the hero
of World War II who was a collaborator with the
Third Reich, these people are now mingling with
representatives from the European Union and from
the United States. So you have Neo-Nazi Svoboda
Party leader Oleh Tyahnybok who meets up with US
Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland.
Now, we know about Victoria Nuland who said some
bad things against the European Union, the EU,
and we also know that the issue of regime change
was contemplated at the policy level and in the
State Department with the intelligence community and so on.

But what is never mentioned is that Victoria
Nuland is buddy-buddy with the head of a Neo-Nazi
party, and a Neo-Nazi party which is not
committed to any kind of democracy that we might
expect within Western society. And then you have
a whole bunch of these representatives from
Western countries who mingle with Neo-Nazis. John
McCain is, of course, notorious. He goes to the
Ukraine and again he meets up with the Svoboda
Party leader, Victoria Nuland, and then you have
Catherine Ashton who is the foreign policy chief
of the European Union. Other leaders don’t
necessarily mingle but John Kerry, Francois
Holland, Angela Merkel, among others, openly pay
lip service to Neo-Nazis in the Ukraine. And that
is something which the mainstream media simply
does not mention. They will say there are
extremists within the protest movement – they
will acknowledge that, but they will never say a)
that they are leading the protest movement
because they are armed gunmen. Secondly, they
will not acknowledge the fact that they have
Neo-Nazi roots and thirdly, they will not
acknowledge the fact that they are part of this
bogus coalition government which was put together
through a vote in Parliament at the height of the
protest movement when most of the Members of
Parliament were not even there and then what you
get is some kind of government which then
proclaims its authority and issues an arrest
warrant directed against the former head of state.

And what is fundamental there is that Viktor
Yanukovych was removed from power not by an act
of Parliament but by a threat to his life. He was
threatened and he left the country in haste. He
did not give up his position as head of state and
I think what is striking here is that those
killings for which Yanukovych was accused were
perpetrated by these Neo-Nazi elements in
cahoots, in coordination with the Western
military alliance, the United States and no doubt
US intelligence was involved throughout.

The Right Sector had enough public support to
destroy the national monument to the Red Army
soldiers who died liberating Ukraine from Nazi
Germany. You write that the riots in Maidan
Independence Square and other places were “staged
and carefully orchestrated.” What is the evidence
for this and what was the timeline and specific
political objectives of these riots?

There’s evidence that these riots were staged
because right from the beginning you had the
deployment of militia. These people are not
civilian protestors. There was a large number of
people and there was a very careful timeline of
activities. The protest movement, the decision in
the Parliament, then an arrest warrant against
the president and so on and so forth, but I think
we have to go back in history to the 2004
so-called Orange Revolution. It spearheaded into
power a Western proxy government of President
Viktor Yushchenko and the controversial prime
minister, Yulia Tymoshenko. That happened in
2004. That protest movement was in effect very
much rigged by organizations which were supported
by the West and they were very similar to other
Color Revolutions which took place in different
countries. But what was distinct in that period
is that you didn’t have the neo-fascist militia involved.

Bonnie Faulkner: Now, the 2004 Orange Revolution
in the Ukraine was also directed at this same Viktor Yanukovych, wasn’t it?

Michel Chossudovsky: In 2004 Yanukovych was prime
minister and Viktor Yushchenko became president.
So what happened is that Yanukovych at the time
was the target of a very carefully staged pro-EU
protest movement and this was launched by an
organization which was called Poral. And Poral
was very similar to the surge in Otpor
organization. It was an NGO which was supported
by the National Endowment for Democracy and so
on. It typically had the fingerprints of these
Color Revolutions. It was not an armed
insurrection if we compare it to the present
protest movement and it did not involved in a
significant way the actions of Neo-Nazi militia.
But nonetheless, the geopolitics behind it many
regard as similar to what we have today. It was
essentially geared towards imposing the
neoliberal agenda. President Yushchenko was
really an IMF appointee. He was the architect of
the devastating macro-economic reforms which were
imposed on the Ukraine in the early- to mid-90s
and he was the preferred candidate and they
spearheaded him into the seat of power. And he
was acting on behalf of the West, on behalf of
the European Union and the United States.

At the time, what was also very important and it
is today, as well – is the relationship of the
Ukraine to the Western military alliance, namely
to NATO. So essentially what was at stake was
really a conflict between a pro-NATO,
pro-European, pro-IMF president on one hand and
a more nationalist Ukrainian option which would
also be allied with Moscow. And the 2004 movement
was also a pro-EU/NATO agenda.

Now, what distinguishes the present protest
movement is that it is no longer a protest
movement per se; it is an armed insurrection.
Because elements within this protest movement are
involved in acts of terrorism and arson. The
Right Sector Neo-Nazi Militia are there killing
civilians, they are shooting at the police. The
civilian deaths are then blamed on the government
and that is precisely the content of this
so-called arrest warrant against Yanukovych,
accusing him of killing civilians when those
civilians were killed by Neo-Nazi snipers from
the rooftops and coordinated, most probably, by
Western special forces and intelligence.

This is not something which is unique to Ukraine.
We have sniper firing in the protest movement
during the election campaign in Venezuela. We had
sniper firing at the very outset of the
insurrection in Syria and inevitably when those
sniper fires take place what happens is that
civilians are killed and then the government is
blamed for the deaths of civilians when, in fact,
those sniper firings were part of an intelligence
operation to create conditions of conflict and instability.

Bonnie Faulkner: The country is almost broke. It
is seeking emergency credit from the
International Monetary Fund. The IMF is currently
considering an emergency loan program to the
Ukraine. Didn’t the IMF intervene in Ukraine in
1994 with devastating consequences?

Michel Chossudovsky: Absolutely. In fact, in 1993
Viktor Yushchenko, who subsequently became
president in the 2004 elections, was appointed
head of the newly formed National Bank of Ukraine
and he was hailed as a daring reformer. But, in
fact, he was among the main architects of the
IMF’s deadly economic medicine. In fact, the IMF
was the architect; he was their man in Kiev and
he worked hand-in-glove to implement this
historic agreement, which was actually signed in Madrid in 1994.

Now, that 1994 agreement was absolutely
devastating because it led to a dramatic plunge
in real wages. The price of bread increased
overnight by 300 percent, electricity prices went
up by 600 percent and public transportation and
namely fuel prices, essentially, went up by 900
percent and there you had the tumbling of the standard of living.

Now, another important occurrence was the fate of
the breadbasket. We know that the Ukraine was a
very important producer of wheat and what
happened is that World Bank negotiators actually
imposed a regime of trade liberalization whereby
US grain surpluses and food aid would be dumped
on the domestic market, contributing to
destabilizing the breadbasket. Why did it
destabilize the breadbasket? Because
simultaneously the price of transportation and
energy went up by 900 percent so that essentially
farmers were pushed into bankruptcy and their
domestic market was taken over by the import of
these highly subsidized grain surpluses which
came from the United States. It’s something that
has happened in many countries, but essentially,
we say it’s like bringing coal to Newcastle,
where Newcastle was historically the center of
producing coal in the United Kingdom. So you’re
bringing wheat to the breadbasket with the
purpose of destroying the breadbasket. Ukraine’s
agriculture was destabilized, its industrial base
was also affected by the trade package as well as
the collapses in wages and essentially, these
earlier reforms set the stage for the demise of the Ukrainian economy.

I should mention that what is contemplated by the
IMF today is a continuation of IMF ministrations
in the course of the last 20 years and they will
lead to a further process of impoverishment
beyond what has been achieved in these past
adjustment programs, to use the World Bank and
the IMF terminology. It’s called the Structural Adjustment Program.

Bonnie Faulkner: Let’s talk about the geography
of the region. Hasn’t the Crimea in the south and
the eastern part of Ukraine historically been
part of Russia, or more specifically, the Soviet
Union. Crimea only became part of Ukraine in
1954, I’ve read, when Soviet leader Nikita
Khrushchev transferred jurisdiction from Russia,
a move that was more of a formality, when both
Ukraine and Russia were part of the Soviet Union.
So the Soviet breakup in 1991 meant that Crimea
landed in an independent Ukraine. Isn’t this also
true for parts of eastern Ukraine?

Michel Chossudovsky: The borders of Ukraine have
been changing in the course of the last few
hundred years. Clearly, in the 1950s, 60s and
70s, during the Soviet period, those borders
didn’t really have much meaning. There were
Russian communities in the Ukraine overlapping
with Ukrainians in the Russian Federation. One
should understand that the history of Russia and
the Ukraine have been integrated for the last
several – I would say for more than 1,000 years.
The language is almost identical and it’s very
difficult to dissociate the Ukraine, Belorussia
and Russia; they’re part of the same Slavic
history. And the Ukraine has been caught in geopolitics.

After the Cold War the Ukraine declared its
independence; that was in 1991. And that
independence project was in effect supported by
the United States and it was also supported
ultimately by Gorbachev and Yeltsin to the extent
that in December 1991 the Ukraine Parliament
endorsed the decision to recognize Ukraine as an
independent state. But at the same time, it’s
very difficult to dissociate the Ukraine from
Russia. It’s a little bit like Texas wishing to
separate from the United States of America. It’s
been part of Russian history for over 1,000 years.

Bonnie Faulkner: Hasn’t NATO been trying to suck
in Ukraine for years? For instance, how was
Ukraine affected by the 1999 NATO agreement?

Michel Chossudovsky: Well, in fact, at 1999 at
the height of the war on Yugoslavia – in other
words, that was NATO forces sent in to Yugoslavia
– an agreement was signed between a number of
former Soviet republics and the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization and this was held in
Washington and it also coincided with the 50th
anniversary of the founding of NATO. This
agreement was with the following countries:
Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova.

Now, if we look at these countries we’ll see that
they’re located at very strategic points of the
former Soviet Union: With Georgia, the Ukraine
and Moldova, it’s the Black Sea and with
Azerbaijan, it’s the Caspian Sea Basin. That’s
the crossroads of strategic pipelines and
essentially the objective of NATO at the time was
to integrate these countries into the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization with a view to
confronting Russia in the Black Sea and in the
Caspian Sea Basin. That area, of course, is
strategic because it’s at the crossroads of major
pipeline routes, it’s an area of wealth in oil
and natural gas and it is important with regard
to maritime routes. We also had simultaneously in
the ’90s, slightly before the signing of this
agreement, the wars in Chechnya and we know that
those wars in Chechnya and Dagestan were, in
fact, supported by the CIA. In other words, the
insurgent Chechen rebels were affiliated to al
Qaeda. These rebel leaders had been trained in
Afghanistan and Pakistan, so that essentially,
there was an objective to destabilize the former
Soviet republics, to impoverish them.

I should mention that the two countries which
were impoverished in the wake of the Cold War and
the demise of the Soviet Union were the Ukraine
and Georgia. According to IMF statistics, the
wages in Ukraine collapsed by 75 percent in
relation to the Soviet era. In other words, in a
matter of a few years. In 1994, those wages had
collapsed by 75 percent so that there was a mass
impoverishment and the situation in Georgia was
similar. There was a massive collapse in the standard of living.

When we look at the geopolitics of that region,
we must understand that the Russians are still
dominant on the Black Sea. They have their naval
facilities based in Sebastopol in the Crimea.
They have signed an agreement with the Ukrainian
government which allows them to stay there for
the next 25 years, beyond 2017, so essentially
it’s a bilateral agreement which was signed with
the outgoing president, Yanukovych, and it’s, of
course, of crucial significance. So we can see
there that since this agreement was signed with
Yanukovych, the fate of President Yanukovych has
a bearing on this relationship. But I should
mention that that agreement, which allows Russia
to deploy its naval facilities in the Black Sea
out of its port in the Crimea, is a binding
agreement between the two governments
irrespective of who actually is in power. And it
is also related to an agreement between the
Ukraine and Russia with regards to the contracts
on natural gas, selling natural gas to the
Ukraine as well as the shipment of natural gas through Ukrainian territory.

Bonnie Faulkner: Well, yes. The Russian state gas
company, Gazprom, said that Ukraine owed 1.59
billion in overdue bills for imported gas. Russia
is also talking about eliminating its discounted
gas price for Ukraine since this whole upheaval
has taken place. You were discussing the 1999 NATO agreement.

Michel Chossudovsky: Yes. Let me give you details on that NATO agreement.

Bonnie Faulkner: It just wasn’t clear to me exactly what the agreement was.

Michel Chossudovsky: The agreement, the GUAM –
GUAM is entitled Organizations of Democracy and
Economic Development – and it was signed in 1999.
It’s charter was then adopted in Yalta in the
Crimea in June of 2001. Subsequently Uzbekistan
withdrew and essentially sided much more with
Moscow. Initially, this agreement was intended to
enable the extension of NATO into the Black Sea
and the Caspian Sea Basin. And we can see from
the map of that region, first of all you have the
Ukraine and Moldova, including, of course,
Crimea, which legally is part of the Ukraine –
constituting a large portion of the northern
Black Sea coastline including the Sea of Azov.
And then you have Turkey to the south and then
you have Georgia and Azerbaijan, which
respectively have bordered on the eastern part of
the Black Sea and on the western part, as far as
Azerbaijan is concerned, of the Caspian Sea
Basin. So this agreement was very crucial from a geopolitical standpoint.

And eventually what NATO had in mind was the
militarization of the Black Sea and of the
Caspian Sea Basin. That objective is still on the
books and current events point to a confrontation
between Moscow on the one hand and NATO on the
other in the Black Sea. NATO is telling the
Russians that they have no right to be in
Sebastopol because Sebastopol is Ukrainian
territory. Sebastopol is where they have their
naval base. So it’s a situation where in effect
Russia and the North Atlantic military alliance,
NATO, are in a state of potential confrontation.
Given the fact that NATO’s objective is to
militarize the entire Black Sea/Caspian Sea
Basin, we can see that to the south of the Black
Sea we have Turkey. And, of course, Turkey is a
very important member of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization and that’s where a lot of NATO bases are located.

So this is a very crucial geopolitical issue –
the control of the Black Sea – and it very much
depends on relations between the Ukraine, on the
one hand, and Russia, and under the previous
government the Russians had a lease agreement
whereby their naval forces would be based in
Sebastopol and that they would be able to deploy
those naval forces throughout the Black Sea Basin.

Bonnie Faulkner: It looks like Putin has gotten
permission from the Russian Parliament to move
troops into the Ukraine and especially into the Crimea.

Michel Chossudovsky: I think it’s significant
that the Upper House of the Russian Parliament on
March 1st approved the deployment of Russian
troops inside Ukrainian territory. And this was
decided in view of the fact that Moscow does not
recognize the coalition government which has been
illegally installed by the West in defiance of
the authority of the outgoing president. So the
issue really depends very much on the legitimacy
of the outgoing president, Yanukovych, and his
relationship to Moscow. Even if he’s in exile,
he’s still the president of the country and it’s
important. Both Russia and many other countries,
including China, do not recognize this new
coalition government. So if you don’t recognize
the new coalition government the former head of
state has the authority to enter into bilateral
relations with Russia, which may involve the
deployment of troops in the Crimea and in southern Russia.

We have to understand that while the United
States, the European Union, the self-proclaimed
international community are always talking about
anti-Semitism – and ironically, prominent
scholars and writers are accused of being
anti-Semitic when they criticize the state of
Israel – but here we have an International
community which is supporting a Neo-Nazi party
which in turn constitutes the core of the coalition government.

We must understand that there is a sizeable
Jewish community in the Ukraine, mostly
concentrated in the capital city, Kiev. It’s
about 200,000 people. This community is described
as one of the most vibrant Jewish communities in
the world with many active Jewish organizations
and institutions. The Ukrainian rabbi in Kiev,
and I quote, asked Kiev Jews to “leave the city
and if possible the country” due to fears that
Jews might be targeted by Svoboda and the brownshirts of the Right Sector.”

And when you look at the Western media, I hardly
saw anything in any of the mainstream media
discussing this issue, whether it’s the
Washington Post or New York Times, etc., there
was an article in the New York Review of Books
and what they say is a total fabrication. They
portray the Jewish community as an unbending
supporter of the Maidan protest movement led by
the Right Sector Neo-Nazis and they even say that
the Jewish leaders have made a point of
supporting the movement. So they dispel the
notion that this Jewish community is threatened
despite the fact that the main rabbi in Kiev has
said the lives of Jews are threatened. But as far
as the West is concerned this is a non-issue and they don’t even discuss it.

Now, the Israeli leaders inevitably have raised
the issue but they have also avoided and
distorted the underlying realities because they
say, yes, there’s a Jewish community in Kiev, but
they say – and I’m quoting the Jerusalem Post –
they say “no information of Jews being targeted
as of yet.” They then say based on expert opinion
that ,in fact, the two incidents of anti-Semitic
violence, which they acknowledged, was really due
to government provocation. So they lay the blame
on the outgoing government of President Yanukovych.

Bonnie Faulkner: These Neo-Nazi parties could
also be a threat to other groups, right, other
political groups, communists, etc., don’t you think?

Michel Chossudovsky: They are a threat to
everybody. They are a threat to the entire
country. But I think they are also a threat to
the whole socio-economic fabric of the country
because they are operating in tandem with the neoliberals.

Neoliberalism and neofascism join hands, so to
speak, because in as much as they establish a
neofascist government in Ukraine, that neofascist
government is going to take its orders from
Washington and Brussels, from the International
Monetary Fund, which acts on behalf of Wall Street.

Strong “economic medicine” will be implemented,
the standard of living will collapse and these
Neo-Nazi collaborators of the European Union and
the United States will be there essentially as a
mechanism of social control. So we must
understand we’re moving towards an authoritarian
form of government integrated by the extreme
right, by Neo-Nazi elements which already have a
track record, and that can only lead to disaster
for the entire Ukrainian population.

Bonnie Faulkner: Since democratically elected
president of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych has been
run out of Kiev and has taken refuge in Russia, a
so-called coalition government has been
installed. What do we know about the new
coalition government and who comprises it?

Michel Chossudovsky: The coalition government
is under the helm of the Fatherland Party, and
the Fatherland Party controls the majority of the
portfolios. But if we look carefully, this
transitional government has granted key positions
to the two Neo-Nazi political entities, namely
Svoboda and the Right Sector. In other words,
we’re not dealing with a transitional government
in which Neo-Nazi elements integrate the fringe
of the coalition. And in particular, these two
main Neo-Nazi entities have been entrusted with
key positions, which grants them de facto control
over the armed forces, police and national
security, and that, of course, is crucial at this particular crossroads.

One individual, Andriy Parubiy, who was
co-founder of the Neo-Nazi Social National Party
of Ukraine, which was subsequently renamed
Svoboda, was appointed Secretary of the National
Security and the National Defence Committee. Now,
this committee is central to the formulation of
foreign policy, national security, military
deployments and so on. It’s a key position which
oversees the ministry of defence, the armed
forces, law enforcement, national security and
intelligence. And this individual, Andriy
Parubiy, was one of the main leaders of the
Orange Revolution in 2004 and he is also referred
to, by the Western media, as the commandant of
the Euro-Maidan Movement, which means that he was
in charge of the armed insurgency in the last few weeks.

Another individual who belongs to the Right
Sector and who leads the so-called Right Sector
delegation in the Parliament is Dmytro Yarosh.
Now, Dmytro Yarosh is actually the leader of the
brownshirt Neo-Nazi paramilitary during the
Euro-Maidan protest movement. He’s a racist, he’s
a Neo-Nazi, he’s called for the disbanding of the
Party of the regions and the Communist Party and
he directly led the armed insurrection. So we’re
dealing with two individuals who are, in fact,
Neo-Nazis and these two individuals have been
appointed to key positions, which enable them to
decide on the issues pertaining to law
enforcement as well as armed forces through their
roles in the National Security and the National
Defence Committee. These are not portfolio
assignments. They’re not ministries but in some
regards this National Security and National
Defence Committee overrides individual ministries.

Now, you have other positions, which are
absolutely crucial. The Neo-Nazi Party, Svoboda,
also controls the judicial process through the
appointment of Oleh Makhnitsky, who is a Svoboda
Party member, he’s a Member of Parliament and
he’s been appointed to the position of Prosecutor
General of Ukraine. Then we can ask ourselves,
what kind of justice will prevail with a renown
Neo-Nazi in charge of the prosecutor’s office of
Ukraine? In other words, it would correspond to
the office of the attorney general in the United States.

Then you have other cabinet positions allocated
to former members of the Neo-Nazi fringe
organization which is called Ukrainian National
Assembly, Ukrainian National Self-Defence. That
formation is no longer in Parliament but several
of its former members who have integrated other
parties in the Parliament have been allocated key
positions. One is Tatiana Chornovol and she is
known for her role in the UNSO and she’s been
named Chair of the government’s Anti-corruption
Committee so that enables her to wage some kind
of internal witch hunt against senior officials
in the government, municipalities and so on.

And then there’s another interesting
appointment. It is Yegor Sobolev. He is also
linked up to Neo-Nazi groups but not in a less
formal fashion. He was appointed to chair what is
called the Lustration Committee. The Lustration
Committee essentially has the mandate to purge
the followers of President Yanukovych from
government and public life. It’s to organize a
Neo-Nazi witch hunt against all opponents of the
new Neo-Nazi regime and the targets of Lustration
are people, of course, in positions of authority
within the civil servants, regional governments,
research institutes and so on. And the term
Lustration refers to what is described as “mass
disqualification” of people associated with the
former government. It has inevitable racial
overtones and in all likelihood it will also be
directed against Communists, Russians and members of the Jewish community.

Bonnie Faulkner: Well, then, how do we qualify
the Obama administration, which is supporting
this Neo-Nazi takeover? That’s pretty much what it amounts to.

Michel Chossudovsky: I think that’s a very
important question and I think that’s a question
for the American public to answer. If the Obama
administration, including the State Department
and the US Congress – because it’s a bipartisan
agenda – supports the development of a Neo-Nazi
government, supports the installation of a
Neo-Nazi government, it certainly reflects on
these individuals. Because the sponsors of a
Neo-Nazi regime in the Ukraine are people in high
office – people in the White House, People in the
State Department and the US Congress. In other
words, can we say that they are responsible or
can we point to the fact that this implies de
facto the existence of Neo-Nazi or fascist
tendencies within the various institutions
of the United States state apparatus, including the US Congress?

Because if the “flowering of democracy” in
Ukraine, to use the words of the New York Times,
which in effect coincides with the installation
of a Neo-Nazi government – if that flowering of
democracy is supported as part of a bipartisan
consensus we might imply from that that the
bipartisan consensus has Neo-Nazi tendencies. And
that is something I think everybody has to
reflect upon. Supporting Neo-Nazism in any
country in the world, from my standpoint, is an
act of complicity, particularly in the Ukraine
where the Neo-Nazi parties have a long history
and where the forefathers were involved in
atrocities directed against the Ukrainian
population but also the Jewish community in the Ukraine.

I think the support to Neo-Nazi elements in the
Ukraine is a reflection of the current status of
US foreign policy under John Kerry. There’s no
hesitation in having, very openly, ties with al
Qaeda, including photo ops with John McCain with
terrorist leaders inside Syria on the one hand
and having buddy-buddy relations with Neo-Nazi
leaders in the Ukraine. All avenues are on the
table, including support to Neo-Nazis and jihadist terrorists.

Lest we forget, the United States supported
German conglomerates during World War II and the
privatization program launched by Adolph Hitler
in 1933 was, in some regards, similar to that
adopted in the UK under Margaret Thatcher. The
first thing they did was to privatize the
railways, and then they privatized the banks and
they privatized heavy industry, so that, in
effect, the thrust of the Nazi economy in the
course of the 1930s was not the state; it was the
private sector and it was a profit-driven military agenda.

Bonnie Faulkner: Michel Chossudovsky, thank you very much.

Michel Chossudovsky: Delighted to be on the program. Thank you very much.

Guns and Butter is produced by Bonnie Faulkner
and Yarrow Mahko. To leave comments or order
copies of shows, email us at
faul...@gunsandbutter.org. Visit our website at
www.gunsandbutter.org. Guns and Butter can be
heard every Wednesday at 1:00pm PST on KPFA in
Berkeley, California and every Friday at 9:00AM EST on WBAI in New York.

The transcripts of Guns and Butter are available on the Global Research.