German President rewrites history of Babi Yar massacre: Making the perpetrators look like victims

Monument to Soviet citizens and POWs at the ravine at Babi Yar.

By Christelle Néant

During his visit to Ukraine to inaugurate a memorial dedicated to the victims of the Babi Yar massacre, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier literally rewrote the history of the massacre of tens of thousands of Jews, and made Ukrainian collaborators of the Nazis look like victims.

80th Anniversary of Nazi atrocities committed at Babi Yar

September 29-30, 1941 – November 6, 1943

Monuments at Babi Yar, left to right: to Jews; to Soviet citizens and POWS; to Roma; to children.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed at Babi Yar by the Nazis and their Ukrainian collaborators in their campaign against the Soviet Union during World War II. They are said to be the worst committed up to that time, surpassed by even greater crimes committed by the Nazis after that.

This day. The 1961 massacre of Algerians in Paris: When the media failed the test

Freedom of press of the reactionary ruling classes

In 1961 and for years after, the French and Anglo-American media colluded with the state to cover up the 1961 massacre of Algerians in Paris, ensuring impunity for those responsible for this heinous crime such as the Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon, Prefect of the Paris police. This is an apt time to recall what happened.

This Day. Athens Polytechnic student uprising in Greece

(November 17, updated November 28) – In the past days, the Greek government has escalated its authoritarianism by banning this year’s anti-imperialist march on the US embassy. The march is held every year on November 17 to commemorate the anniversary of the uprising of the Polytechnic students and the workers of Athens against the military junta in 1973. The Greek communist party, trade unions and mass organizations said loud and clear that the anti-imperialist march on Tuesday, November 17 would place by observing all health protection measures, as it happened on May Day. The rally conveyed the messages “USA out – NATO out” and “bread-education-freedom”, which were slogans of the Polytechnic uprising, but also express the contemporary struggles against Greece’s involvement in US-NATO imperialist plans, as well as the workers’ and people’s demands for rights to work, education, health, individual and trade union freedoms. The oligarchs, their governments and the US-NATO allies find this content of the militant commemoration of the Polytechnic uprising very disturbing.

Canadian ‘aid’ to Beirut: Let us remember Qana

Graves of Lebanese civilians massacred by Israeli airstrikes on Qana on July 29, 2006 | Feyrouz

By Tony Seed

It is not acceptable that Canada which has troops and special forces stationed in Lebanon, Iraq and Israel is offering statements of regret and sympathy for the victims while making aid conditional on Lebanon making “reforms” dictated by the big powers. Given its hostility to Lebanon and how it has militarized aid to the Caribbean in the name of hurricane or earthquake relief such as Haiti, or arms to Saudi Arabia to attack the Yemeni people despite the endemic cholera, we need to be vigilant.

This Day. The Belfast Pogroms, 1920

In the middle of July 1920, thousands of “disloyal” workers in Belfast, Ireland were driven out of their workplaces by unionist mobs. In the immediate aftermath, rioting between nationalists and unionists left nineteen people dead. This outbreak marked the start of a period of violence that left almost five hundred dead and which became known by nationalists as “the Belfast pogrom.”

An account of a convulsive period in the history of Belfast by Kieran Glennon, abridged from theirishstory.com.

This Day. The downing of Iran Air Flight 655

By TONY SEED*

(July 3) – On this day in 1988, the American warship USS Vincennes deliberately fired missiles at an Iranian civilian aircraft, Iran Air Flight 655. Two hundred and ninety innocent passengers died. Vice President George W. Bush honoured the warship, saying: “I don’t care what the facts say: I will never apologize for the United States … Life goes on!”

A300B2-203 Iran Air EP-IBT at Mehrabad International Airport, Tehran | Khashayar Talebzadeh

This Day. Ireland – The Falls Curfew, fifty years on

By Lasair Dhearg

“Move on you Irish Bastard…there are not enough of you dead”.

These were the words uttered to a dying Charles O’Neill as he lay mortally wounded on the Falls Road moments after being impacted by a British Army Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC).

This Day. The Clare grain riots in Ireland

A historical account of a massacre in which the para-military Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) – on which the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was modelled – opened fire on a crowd of starving people in Ennis as local food produce was being exported by landlords | DEAN RUXTON, for the Irish Times

That a band of RIC policemen fired at a crowd of civilians in Ennis* was not disputed. Less clear-cut in the aftermath was who, if anyone, gave the order.

A reflection: Canada’s collaboration with the fascist forces and their snipers

By TONY SEED

A poignant post which I have reposted on this blog by Ukrainian journalist Dmitriy Kovalevich struck a chord with me. I had heard about those snipers he mentions, responsible for inciting Ukrainians against Ukrainians. One of them was in Canada just four years ago on a cross-country recruiting and propaganda mission sanctioned by the government of Canada. [1] 

On February 22, 2016 the so-called documentary film “The Ukrainians/Les Ukrainiens: God’s Volunteer Battalion” (Leonid Kanter and Ivan Yasniy) was shown at the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) in Kingston, Ontario.

This day. 2014, Donbass and the politics of provocation

By DMITRIY KOVALEVICH*

One of the most touching pictures from our civil war in Ukraine. ‘That’s mom’s birthday”, 2015, Donetsk. The boy’s eyes are quite telling.

On May 26, 2014  Alexander Turchinov – a leader of Euro-Maidan in Ukraine and interim president of the new coup government until the May 25 election – ordered the armed forces to launch air-strikes against rebellious cities in the Donbass.

Stop the killing, end the Duterte regime’s attacks on Negros Island

International Campaign in the Philippines

On April 25, the Toronto Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines and the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines in Canada (ICHRP-Canada) hosted an online event to bring to light the struggle of the people in the Philippines in general, and Negros Island in particular, against the violence of the Duterte regime. Negros is second only to Mindanao in terms of military presence and perpetration of violence against the people by the U.S.-backed Duterte regime.

‘Heroes’ to be arrested for the Maidan massacre?

Dr IVAN KATCHANOVSKI

(March 27) – The Prosecutor General Office of Ukraine reportedly plans to arrest two prominent recent members of the parliament and far right activists on charges of their involvement in the Maidan massacre.

Ukrainegate: The conflict in Ukraine, which started with US involvement, backfires into US politics and can damage both the current US president and his top challenger

Interview with Dr Ivan Katchanovski, Ph.D.

How did a comedian-turned-President end up contributing to the beginning of a process of impeachment, so talked about but fairly rare in US politics? Feel free to expand in whichever direction you want.

The president of Ukraine and Ukraine overall are just playing cards in the US politics in the case of the impeachment process. The Democratic Party started playing this card after its hopes to impeach Donald Trump using the Russiagate scandal failed after the Mueller investigation did not prove Trump collusion with the Russian government and a conspiracy theory that Trump is a Russian agent was also debunked. The whistleblower report about the call between Volydmyr Zelensky and Trump was used to initiate impeachment proceedings even before the transcript of this call was made public.