UN Condemns Ukrainian Government Cover-Ups

Eric Zuesse

UN’s Christof Heyns—suddenly an honest man willing to cry “J’Accuse!”

On September 18th, the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights headlined “Statement of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns Ukraine: Lives lost in an accountability vacuum,” and condemned there the current Ukrainian Government in strong language, regarding not only the coup which had brought them to power in February 2014, but regarding also the massacre of the people who on 2 May 2014 had been peacefully demonstrating in Odessa against the coup. Specifically, the ongoing cover-ups by the Ukrainian Government concerning both of these matters were condemned by him.

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The High Commissioner, Christof Heyns, said:

By allowing almost immediate access of the scene to ‘pro-unity’ protesters, members of the public or to municipal authorities, investigators lost a large proportion of potentially valuable forensic evidence. Meanwhile I am worried by indications that the Government has significantly reduced the size of the team investigating these events in the past year, before it has had an opportunity to report. The slow progress of the investigation and the lack of transparency with which it is being conducted have contributed to a great deal of public dissatisfaction and provided a fertile environment for rumour and misinformation. It is disconcerting that the Special Unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs that investigates the 2 May events cancelled our appointment in Odessa at short notice, without any explanation.

I am further concerned that administrative and personal impediments seem to have been imposed to prevent or at least discourage the families of those who died from obtaining the status of suffering or affected persons before the Courts. Meanwhile I am greatly alarmed by reports of the extent to which authorities are tolerating both verbal and physical intimidation both of families attending court proceedings and of the judges of those cases, not only outside the court building, but also inside it and in the court room itself.

Here is an excellent video of the coup.

Here is a brief video on the massacre, on 2 May 2014, in Odessa’s Trade Unions Building.

Also of interest might be the following articles:

“Ukraine’s President Poroshenko Admits Overthrow of Yanukovych Was a Coup”

“The Key Man Behind the May 2nd Odessa Ukraine Trade Unions Building Massacre: His Many Connections to the White House”

“[Among other crimes] the Obama Administration bombed Libya and removed Muammar Gaddafi from power there, and is bombing Syria in order to remove Bashar al-Assad from power…”

The Obama Administration has a strong record of installing anti-Russian governments — not only in Ukraine. Obama enabled the 28 June 2009 coup that overthrew Honduras’s progressive democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya to succeed, and enabled the coup’s junta to stay in power though no other head-of-state supported it; and the great investigative journalist Wayne Madsen reports on 21 September 2015 that there is strong reason to believe that the Obama Administration was actually behind the recent coup in Burkino Faso. Furthermore, the Obama Administration has been involved in unsuccessful coup-plots in Venezuela and Ecuador, according to a 12 March 2015 study by the Council On Hemispheric Affairs. In addition, the Obama Administration bombed Libya and removed Muammar Gaddafi from power there, and is bombing Syria in order to remove Bashar al-Assad from power there. The Obama Administration also has continued the Bush Administration’s policy of “unsigning” to the legal authority of the International Criminal Court, but doesn’t use the same rabid rhetoric against the Court that Obama’s predecessor did. The Obama Administration has also taken a strong anti-Russian position on virtually everything at the United Nations, such as by voting against a Russian-supported resolution condemning fascism in all its forms (including Holocaust-denial), which resolution passed overwhelmingly and was opposed by only three governments: U.S., Ukraine, and Canada.

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Obama is highly critical of Russia, and of its leader, Vladimir Putin. The U.S. White House in February issued its National Security Strategy 2015, and it used the pejorative term “aggression” 18 times, 17 of which referred to Russia.

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So, the U.N. High Commissioner’s statement condemning the Ukrainian Government’s cover-ups might be viewed in Washington as simply the UN’s taking the pro-Russian side. Psychopaths could view it that way. But other people will (like the UN) oppose cover-ups — and oppose Obama’s international policies (such as those described). Indeed, the only U.S. President who has been as hostile toward the UN as Obama is, was his immediate predecessor, whose policies Obama publicly opposed when running for the U.S. Presidency in 2008. And, then, in his 2012 re-election campaign, Obama vocally criticized his opponent Mitt Romney’s statement that Russia “is without question our number one geopolitical foe.” But, now, Obama cites Russia 17 out of 18 times for “aggression.”

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Geir Lundestad, who was the Director of the Nobel Institute, and Secretary of the Peace Prize Committee, at the time when Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, recently said that “giving Obama a helping hand” was the reason why the Committee awarded Obama the Prize, but that doing this “did not achieve what the committee had hoped for.” However, he denied “that it was a mistake to give Obama the Peace Prize.” Even all of those coups and massacres don’t mean it was a mistake. Maybe it wasn’t much different from “what the committee had hoped for.” After all: Norway, and its Nobel Institute, is a U.S. ally. Unlike the United Nations, it only pretends to represent the interests of all people everywhere.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.