frgnerinukr – 2 days ago
I am a foreigner living in the southeast region of Ukraine and, having read hundreds of news articles (both national and international) about the situation in Ukraine, this article is the best article I have read that accurately describes why Ukrainian people are protesting.
He just forgot the story about the local deputy who beat the crap out of a young woman in the middle of a restaurant because she refused his advances (and not one person in the restaurant got out of their seats to help the woman as they knew he was politically connected). The only reason anything happened to him was the resulting outrage by the people as it was caught on video and went viral on social media. And of course the story about this same deputy’s father who is a member of parliament who upon not liking being pulled over by the traffic police (the politically connected have special license plates so the road police are not supposed to stop them no matter how many laws they are breaking) sent his bodyguard to beat up the policeman! This was also caught on video from the police dashcam. And these are only the few that are caught on video. Similar events repeat daily across Ukraine.
Plain and simple, the people here are sick and tired of one system for the regime and those connected to it and another system for them. The system is corrupt from top to bottom, from the president to the local councils, the courts, the police, etc.. Anything can be had or done with impunity (from business raids to murders) by those connected to the regime. To paraphrase the Joker in Batman “This country needs an enema!”
From my personal observations, the support for the protests is much stronger in the south and east of Ukraine than most people believe it to be. It is the regime’s intimidation tactics which are scaring people from going to the streets. Once a certain threshold has been reached I believe there will be a mass of people taking to the streets in these regions to protest. Also, it has been said that pro-regime support is mostly from the older people. I do not find this to be true. I have met many pensioners who are very anti-regime and young people who are pro-regime. It is very difficult to say how 2 persons the same age, born in the same place, can have such differing points of view. I suppose it is the same in America though. I am tempted to say that it is associated with level of education as the more educated get their information now from internet whereas the less educated still rely on state owned TV and newspapers. But that doesn’t explain the many pensioners here who are very anti-regime.
The author is perfectly correct that the protesters will not settle for anything less than regime change. However, they do not just want one set of oligarchs replaced with another set of oligarchs, they want the system completely changed where the government works for the people and is accountable to the people. Perhaps the election system should be changed so the average person can be elected, not as it is now where only wealthy “businessmen” (and I use the term businessmen loosely, perhaps mafia is a better word) have the opportunity to be elected to parliament?
frgnerinukr – 2 days ago
“When Western countries encourage the official opposition (which unfortunately is still under-represented by the majority of people protesting) to diplomatically negotiate with the current regime, I am wondering if they are considering who they are encouraging the opposition to negotiate with? The current regime are not diplomats, I would not even call them mafia (at least, as far as I know, the mafia has some internal code of rules), they are street thugs who came to power and wealth through dubious means. Realistically, what result do the Western countries expect from diplomatic negotiations with these type of people???”The current regime and those that benefit from it understand only money, power, and violence and have no concern for the average person other than how it affects their assets.
Right now the current regime is stalling for time claiming they need time to study changes to the constitution etc..
So why is the regime stalling for time? Anyone who believes it is because they are concerned for the welfare of the people needs a brain transplant.
There are multiple reasons. You can be assured that right now their army of lawyers and accountants around the world is working on hiding their assets. The regime also continues their campaign of threats and intimidation to scare anti-regime persons from joining the street protests. If the regime is not replaced completely the next presidential and parliamentary elections will see a level of propaganda, intimidation, vote buying, and other election fraud on a massive scale. I don’t see any positive coming out of these “negotiations” without complete regime change and that is exactly what the protesters on the street are saying as they understand this perfectly.The regime owns most of the TV channels and newspapers in the country.
The regime’s newspapers and TV channels, together with the Russian TV channels, contain non-stop propaganda that the millions of protesters are extremists, racists, and fascists. And unfortunately there are millions of gullible people in the south and east of Ukraine that believe the propaganda.
In my city there is a giant billboard paid for by Medvechuk (Putin’s right hand man in Ukraine) that says “WARNING TO THE PEOPLE OF UKRAINE, going towards Europe will result in gay marriages” (I’m not kidding!). Another version of it is that going towards Europe will result in your children becoming homosexuals. This is some of the propaganda promoted by the regime.
Regarding the propaganda that the protesters are fascists the irony is that:
the Merriam-Webster dictionary’s definition of fascism is “a way of organizing a society in which a government ruled by a dictator controls the lives of the people and in which people are not allowed to disagree with the government: very harsh control or authority.” Which is exactly what the current regime is doing!
Regarding the propaganda that heading towards European values will result in gay marriages and your children becoming homosexuals, it is very ironic that Prime Minister Azarov who publicly stated those views as a reason for not moving towards Europe, the day after he resigned as Prime Minister of Ukraine he boarded a private jet to his luxury home in Austria where he, his wife and son have many businesses. It would be justice to see the gay community in Austria put pressure on Azarov.
For this situation not to end in a civil war eventually, the opposition (and the Western countries supporting them) should be:
1. Conducting a massive and aggressive campaign in the south and east regions of Ukraine to counter the regime’s and Russian TV’s propaganda. The difficulty is that many of these people do not use internet and get their news from the state owned media and Russian TV channels.
2. Figuring out how to provide some level of protection for the persons in the south and east regions who want to join the protests but are afraid to do so because of the regimes many intimidation tactics.
By doing these things hopefully this would lead to large scale demonstrations in these regions (there would likely still be violence as the regime has used the time they have been given to surround the government buildings with paid private goons (titushki as they are called here), but at least not at the scale of a civil war) that would lead to a more or less peaceful change of the regime.
This should be followed by a complete enema of the political, judicial, and police systems AND an electoral system where the average person, not just the wealthy and connected, has a chance to be elected. To paraphrase the Joker in Batman, “This country needs an enema!”
The people protesting are right now not represented in government nor are they part of the ongoing negotiations and they should be! They are the one’s leaving their jobs, businesses, and studies to spend cold nights outside on the square, cooking food for the protesters, providing free medical care to the protesters, etc..
Please watch this video and if you are motivated to do so then do your part to make the world aware of the excellent article that Andrey Slivka posted above.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvds2AIiWLA
frgnerinukr – 1 day ago
No charges of attempted murder, no charges of bodily assault, instead charges for hooliganism based on road rage AND yesterday those arrested for the crime, if I understand the article below correctly, were released on their own recognizance! They are free men!
http://topnews.kiev.ua/incident/2014/02/12/18226.html
This plus many other beatings of journalists and protesters going all the way back to September have not even been investigated.
Voices of Ukraine 
Reblogged this on Euromaidan PR.