Fascism in the Ukraine: "In the Donbass, It's War"

By Dominique Ferré [reprinted from the July 16, 2014, issue of Informations Ouvrières [Labor News], the weekly newspaper of the Independent Workers Party of France]:
"In Ukraine, the government troops registered on July 5 and 6 their most important successes against the separatists since the unrest began. The cities of Slavjansk and Kramatorsk were taken back. The separatists have retreated to the Donetsk region. The diplomatic exchanges continued as per the 'Normandie format' articulated around the quartet formed by France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine, alongside interventions by Americans and Poles."
These were the words of French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on July 12 to the National Assembly. In fact this "success" is a war of decomposition and dislocation taking place in the industrial region of Donbass (Donetsk Basin), where the so-called "anti-terrorist operation" began three months ago at the initiative of the government set up in Kiev after the fall of the Yanukovych regime in late February. The Kiev government agreed to implement a series of veritable "shock therapy" measures dictated by the International Monetary Fund, and it signed an association agreement with the European Union.
If the Kiev government troops have indeed taken the cities of Slavjansk and Kramatorsk from the "separatist rebels," it has been at the cost of heavy air bombing of these cities -- a bombing campaign that continues in the suburbs of Donetsk, the main city in the region -- and bloody clashes with the so-called "separatist" militias. There have been, in recent days, dozens of victims among the civilian population. In Donetsk, nearly 10% of the population has already fled the city. Many industries have shut down, and workers have been laid off. As for the shots that killed a civilian on the Russian side of the border, these may at any time set off an uncontrollable escalation.
In Kiev, the government initiated proceedings to ban one of the main opposition parties in Parliament, the Communist Party (which, as one of the main parliamentary parties, for more than 20 years has supported privatization), accusing it of supporting "separatism." A correspondent tells us that in Kiev, union activists tried to organize a "Maidan [1] against the price increases" following the 50% increase in gas bills and heating resulting from the cessation of state subsidies (a commitment to the IMF), but they were brutally beaten by pro-regime militias, who promised them that next time they would be "liquidated as separatists." This is the result of eight months of intense interference in Ukraine by the U.S. government, representatives of the IMF, and the European Union [2].
The "struggle against separatism," which has already transformed the industrial regions of Donbass, which concentrates an important part of the Ukrainian working class, into a war zone, is now the cover to introduce across the country a climate of terror and dislocation, to impose the IMF plan. This is a war of decomposition on the European continent and at Russia's doorstep.
While bombs were raining down on Slavjansk and Donetsk, the Agence France Presse (AFP) wrote that, "the rating agency Standard and Poor's described the perspective for the sovereign debt of Ukraine as 'stable' thanks to the bailout by the International Monetary Fund, which should enable the country to meet its external financing needs."
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Endnotes
[1] Reference to events from November to February in the Maidan (Independence Square) in Kiev.
[2] The United States and the European Union are the primary agents responsible for these events. Of course, the Russian government also intervened in these events for the defense of its own interests, while eventually bending to U.S. orders, as illustrated when it recognized the legitimacy of the Kiev government and the election of the mafia oligarch Porochenko as president.