As the anti-government movement in Maidan Square hunkers
down for its tenth week of occupation in sub-zero temperatures, the
battle-lines have changed. Starting as a largely pro-European Union movement
last November, the remarkable courage and determination of Kiev’s people has
changed the stakes.
The massive reaction of the authorities produced a defiant opposition
to the brutality of the notorious security forces and to widespread state
corruption. That’s why what is effectively an insurrection has spread to the
eastern parts of Ukraine, despite the area’s historic ties to neighbouring Russia.
The centre of Kiev has become a charred and frozen war-zone
with some of the thousands
of occupiers sheltering in occupied buildings and others behind barricades
made of ice. They are sustained by well-organised support from both locals and
those further away.
Hundreds
of women ferry food, hot drinks, blankets and medication, braving not only
freezing temperatures, smoke from burning tyres, but also live bullets from
plainclothes snipers, not to mention batons, tear gas, water cannon and rubber
bullets.
At least two of the movement’s leaders have had to flee Ukraine
and take refuge in neighbouring countries. There is evidence of death squads
and that snipers surrounding Maidan Square are deliberately targeting
protesters’ eyes.
Over 40
journalists are reported injured and there is video evidence of police
beating and stripping a Cossack protester in a freezing street.
Dmytro Bulatov, the founder of Auto Maidan – which organises
car owners in support of the occupation – disappeared on January 22. Two days
before, Bulatov had urged opposition leaders to settle on a single protest
leadership. He was only found eight days later, having been tortured by the
police. Only the vigilance of his supporters prevented further beatings while
he was in hospital. He has apparently now left the country.
Oleksandre Danylyuk, leader of the anti-government group
Spilna Sprava which organised the occupation of three strategic buildings, fled
to London last week after the police issued a warrant
for his arrest. He is wanted on suspicion of !organising riots that caused the
death of people or serious harm to them," according to the Interior
Ministry's database of wanted people. The offense carries up to 15 years behind
bars, says the Kyiv Post.
Danylyuk and Bulatov have been luckier than 50-year-old Yuri
Verbizky, who was beaten and left
to die of the cold in a forest near Kiev. His colleague, Ihor Lutsenko
managed to escape with a concussion and missing teeth. He was rescued by a
passing motorist.
Meanwhile, the website for Berkut, the state’s special
police force, has been flooded with anti-Semitic materials alleging that the
Jews are to blame for organising at Maidan. Berkut proudly publishes photos of
its brutality to protesters.
As poet Yuri Andrukhovych has written, the state repression
and collusion with autocrats like Putin has hardened the resolve of the
movement. They are fired up, he says “by
an exceptionally hot mix of despair, hope, self-sacrifice and hatred”. He adds:
“”Yes, hatred. Morality does not forbid hating murderers. Especially if the
murderers are in power or in direct service of those in power.”
Ukraine became an independent state in 1991 for the first
time in its long history, apart from a brief moment around 1918-1919. For most
of the 20th century it was part of the Soviet Union. During the
Stalinist period, Ukraine experienced famine during which millions died as a
result of forced collectivisation.
Political independence following the break-up of the USSR did
not mean economic independence from the greedy tentacles of Putin’s state in
Russia, nor from their Ukraine’s own oligarchs. The transition to a full-blown
capitalist economy meant poverty for the majority of Ukraine’s workers and its
women in particular. After the 2008 global crash, Ukraine’s economy staggered
deeper and deeper into debt.
Ukraine’s embattled president Viktor Yanukovych, who has
just returned from a few days’ “rest” signed an economic pact with Russia in
December rather than the EU. But the anti-government protesters are wise to the
fact that there are sinister strings attached to any deal with Putin even if
they don’t yet appreciate that the EU sees Ukraine as another pool of cheap
labour to exploit.
There is a wide spectrum of forces
at work in the Ukrainian movement, including the “Right Sector”. This has
been seized up by Putin’s propaganda machine to discredit the movement. But
there are also others, amongst them Narodniy Nabat (People’s Bell) and Avtonomniy Opir (Autonomous Resistance) and Volna
Zemlya (Free Land). They recognise the state as their enemy even if there
is no clear view yet about what to replace it with.
Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary
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