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June 24, 2017 - No. 23 Supplement Longstanding, Far-Ranging and Unprecedented Intervention
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Canada's Unacceptable Mission in Ukraine Longstanding, Far-Ranging and
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The 1997 Madrid NATO summit established the NATO-Ukraine Commission (NUC) by the NATO-Ukraine Charter on a Distinctive Partnership. The Charter between NATO and Ukraine was formally signed by Ukrainian and allied heads of state and government including the Chrétien government in Madrid on July 9, 1997. The Charter was the first official document announcing Ukraine's intention to draw closer to NATO. An important political declaration, it defined in no uncertain terms the positions of the parties and the priorities guiding their cooperation. The "special partnership" that started with the signing of the Charter evolved into the NATO-Ukraine Action Plan, adopted on November 22, 2002, seven weeks after the Anglo-American invasion of Afghanistan and in the run-up to U.S. aggression against Iraq. Ukrainian forces participated in both invasions, as they also did in NATO's Balkan wars. Paragraphs 3 and 4 of the Charter stated:
"3. Ukraine reaffirms its determination to carry forward its defence reforms, to strengthen democratic and civilian control of the armed forces, and to increase their interoperability with the forces of NATO and Partner countries. NATO reaffirms its support for Ukraine's efforts in these areas.
"4. Ukraine welcomes NATO's continuing and active adaptation to meet the changing circumstances of Euro-Atlantic security, and its role, in cooperation with other international organisations such as the OSCE, the European Union, the council of Europe and the western European Union in promoting Euro-Atlantic security and fostering a general climate of trust and confidence in Europe."
The Charter also established the degree of NATO involvement in strategically important areas within Ukraine, such as:
- civil emergency planning and disaster preparedness;
-
civil-military relations, democratic control of the armed forces,
and Ukrainian defence reform;
- defence planning, budgeting,
policy, strategy and national security concepts;
- defence
conversion (to NATO standards);
- NATO-Ukraine military
cooperation and interoperability;
- economic aspects of security;
- science and technology issues;
- environmental security issues,
including nuclear safety;
- aerospace research and development, through the Advisory Group for
Aerospace Research & Development;
- civil-military coordination of
air traffic management and control.
The danger to the world's people posed by the Jean
Chrétien and Stephen Harper campaign for Ukraine's integration
into NATO came to the fore at the Bucharest Summit in the capital of
Romania on April 2-4, 2008, the clearest example of this pressure and
its danger to peace. The venue symbolized the expansion of NATO from
the Baltic to the Black Sea, the host government's aims for a "Greater
Romania" (including Moldova and parts of Ukraine), and set new goals
for years to come. Enlargement of NATO, NATO's crisis in Afghanistan
and, for the first time, energy security, were dominant themes. The
Bush and Harper administrations demanded the immediate admission of
Ukraine and Georgia. France and Germany opposed the move for fear that
it would unduly antagonize Russia, on which the EU depended for a
substantial amount of its energy. German Chancellor Angela Merkel
prevented, against U.S., British and Canadian insistence, Ukraine and
Georgia's further rapprochement to the war alliance and not solely out
of fear that NATO's eastward expansion could seriously jeopardize
German-Russian cooperation. The Konrad-Adenauer Foundation (associated
with the Christian Democratic Union of German Chancellor Angela Merkel)
had already warned at the end of 2006 that the U.S. sought "to include
more pro-American oriented countries into the Alliance" to strengthen
its own domination. In doing so, George W. Bush and Harper in 2008
committed to support Ukraine and Georgia's admission to NATO. This was
like plunging a sharpened dagger deep into Russia's heart, becoming a
proximate cause of the war between Georgia and Ossetia backed by Russia
in August, 2008 and stoking conflict between the Baltic states and
Russia. (On this matter Harper was publicly backed by Bob Rae, then
Interim Leader of the Liberal Party.) If Georgia had been admitted, it
could have used Article V of the NATO Charter and transformed the 2008
August War with Russia into a regional if not an international war.
Activists
from the Ukrainian Communist Party and Russian Bloc party,
hold a banner reading
"No NATO!" and chanting
"Yankee Go Home!" during a protest as the U.S. Navy
frigate Klakring
sails into the Ukrainian city of Sevastopol, the main base of the
Russian Black Sea Fleet
on March 25, 2009. Following the 2014 coup, the Ukrainian Communist
Party was banned
along with the public display of "communist symbols."
Nevertheless, during the August War, the Harper government activated the HMCS Ville de Québec to be deployed to the Black Sea as part of a NATO fleet, away from its normal area of operations in the eastern Atlantic (and murky missions in the Caribbean Sea, off the coast of Venezuela, etc.). According to reports from the Canadian Press and Chronicle Herald at the time, NATO was deploying this highly armed fleet of warships to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, including the Canadian frigate HMCS Ville de Québec fully three weeks before the onset of the Georgian aggression. One hundred and twenty-seven Pentagon advisers were already stationed in Tiflis. It is self-evident that the USA quarterbacked the aggression. On the eve of calling the 2008 federal election, then Defence Minister Peter MacKay personally rushed to Halifax to recall the warship and instead redeployed the HMCS Halifax to Somalia with the pretext of providing food aid.
The result of the NATO-Ukraine Charter on a Distinctive Partnership is that Ukraine became a base where NATO and the U.S. and Canadian Forces trained its infantry and naval forces.
Participation of Infantry, Maritime and Air Force
in Aggressive Exercises
In 1997, the U.S. launched the annual infantry
manoeuvre
"Rapid Trident" (originally called "Peace Shield") in Western Ukraine.
Four were held between 1998 to 2001 and one in 2003.
Ukraine's Ministry of Defence states that the aim of "Rapid Trident" is to "exercise with modern technologies, to improve interoperability between units and HQs of participating nations, practical use of experience of peacekeeping operations and previous exercises, increase the level of interoperability and cooperation between service personnel of different nations."[1]
U.S. and NATO troops stationed in or regularly deployed to European countries such as Ukraine constitute a sort of "foreign legion," a "police baton" in the hands of the reactionary forces. The U.S. Field Service Regulations openly say that "land forces in oversea areas are... a means by which the United States can assist its allies to deal with disorders inspired and directed by hostile states" (p. 12).
According to "Unified Command Plans" adopted by the U.S. Defense Department, Ukraine, Byelorussia, Moldavia and the Caucasus from October 1, 1998 were deemed to be zones under command of NATO, which is based in Western Europe. These designated zones were nothing less than a potential theatre of war manoeuvres. In 1999, the U.S. launched its annual Exercise BAGRAM with Poland, in which the Canadian Forces now participate.
Following the neo-liberal "Orange Revolution" of 2004 in Ukraine that installed the banker Viktor Yushchenko, financed in part by Canadian cash and with the participation of Ukrainian Canadians and an election team of 400 "observers," the pace of Canadian military involvement was accelerated.
Out of all the countries of Europe, the Canadian Department of National Defence designated the armed forces of three countries as "strategic partners" of the Canadian Forces: Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania, all of which border Russia -- the intermare.[2]
In parallel with the U.S. "Rapid Trident" exercises,
the
Canadian Forces launched annual "Maple Arch" army exercises under
its sponsorship, focusing on "interoperability" of the infantry
forces from Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania. A focus of
interoperability is the quality and nature of combat training:
the armies within the alliance must be confident that the
subordinate Ukrainian forces are an effective fighting force
ready for redeployment in conflict zones abroad. NATO relied on
two key methods to "tame" the Ukrainian army: holding such joint
military exercises and improving the combat effectiveness of the
Ukrainian military during NATO operations abroad.
Demonstrations in Ukraine, July 9, 2007 against "Seabreeze" NATO
military exercises
in Black Sea.
In September 1997, the same year that "Rapid Trident" was launched, the U.S. launched its annual "Sea Breeze" naval-military manoeuvres -- presented as "multinational exercises" -- in the Crimea, Odessa and Black Sea coastal regions, which focuses on taking control of the strategic Black Sea and converting it into an American lake. Maritime Command of the Canadian Forces regularly participated, either by deploying a warship or specialists as observers. In particular, armed forces from Black Sea riparian nations participated -- units from NATO countries Turkey and Romania, but also the non-NATO nations Georgia and Ukraine. On October 25, 1998 thousands of U.S. marines "invaded" the shores of Odessa during the "Sea Breeze" exercise, with U.S. warships participating in full war conditions. The aim of the war manoeuvres was to ascertain and learn about the terrain of the former Soviet Union and the Black Sea region.
Thousands of Ukrainians repeatedly protested against
these NATO combat manoeuvres and the "visits" of U.S. warships to the
Crimea and Black Sea ports such as Odessa in the spirit of No Harbour
for War. During the July 14-26, 2008 exercises, Ukrainian anti-NATO
protesters set up camps along the Black Sea coast, held rallies, and
reportedly attempted to prevent foreign warships participating in the
exercises from leaving the port of Odessa. A poll conducted in June
2008 by the Razumkov Center pollster indicated that at least 60 per
cent of Ukrainians oppose NATO membership. "Sea Breeze" 2008 involved
14 ships, 17 aircraft and more than 2,200 personnel from Ukraine, the
U.S., Canada and 13 other countries, including NATO members. At the
conclusion, Vice Admiral Ihor Tenyukh, the Ukrainian navy chief, stated
that during the exercises the participants conducted 55 air sorties,
410 paradrops, and 76 naval drills with live firing at sea targets. The
admiral, a graduate of a U.S. training course, was to commit treason
during the 2014 coup d'état.[3]
Ukrainians oppose "visit" of U.S. president George Bush to Kiev
enroute
to the 2008 Bucharest NATO Summit, April 1, 2008.
Since the creation of the Standing NATO Response Force Maritime Group 1 Fleet and the NATO transformation pushed by then U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (2001-2006), Maritime Command has regularly participated in NATO Fleet patrols of the Black Sea, which have become ceaseless. Canada currently deploys a warship to NATO's "assurance and deterrence" mission in Eastern Europe.
Regarding the air force, Canadian CF-18 fighter jets began operating in Romania for the first time during the summer of 2014, when six jets took part in exercises at Campia Turzii. The three-month-long exercise was the first overseas mission involving the newly-created Royal Canadian Air Forces' 2 Wing, an air expeditionary force tasked with being ready for rapid deployment in Canada or anywhere around the world. Making clear the offensive purpose of 2 Wing, Lt.-Col. Luc Girouard told Postmedia foreign affairs correspondent Matthew Fisher at the time, "We learned our lessons from Haiti, Aviano and Libya. We need to deploy quickly and we need people with experience to do it. That is our raison d'étre. It is a concept that has been developed over the years."
Less than three weeks after announcing with considerable fanfare the withdrawal of Canada's CF-18 fighter jets from the Mideast war in Syria and Iraq, the Liberal government revealed on February 24, 2016 that four of these aircraft would deploy directly to Romania for joint exercises with the NATO member's air force. One hundred Canadian military personnel took part in the month-long training exercises from a Romanian air force base in Constanta. While not formally being conducted through NATO, exercise "Resilient Resolve" was nonetheless an important part of the alliance's military build-up throughout Eastern Europe aimed at encircling and isolating Russia. Romania is one of the six Eastern European countries where NATO agreed to establish forward command bases in the wake of the Ukraine crisis in 2014 -- bases which became operational in the early part of 2016.
Notes
1. "Armed Forces Participation in International Military Exercises," Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
2. According to the Department of Foreign Affairs, "In February 1998, Canada was the first North-Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) country to ratify Polish accession to the North Atlantic Alliance. Since then Canada has become a leader among NATO countries in language and peacekeeping training in Poland, with hundreds of Polish officers and senior general staff having received training in Canada and Poland."
In addition, Polish paratroopers were brought to the Chaudiere-Appalaches region of Quebec for training in winter warfare in the "Rafale Blanche" exercises. The aim of the 2012 exercise in the St-Éphrem-de-Beauce, La Guadeloupe and St-Daniel areas was "to perform combat manoeuvres in winter in an unfamiliar place, where it will be possible to interact with people and use the equipment and military vehicles."
In September 2014 Canada assumed co-command with Portugal of the NATO Baltic Air Policing task force based in Siauliai, Lithuania, deploying "approximately 135 personnel, four CF-188 Hornet fighter jets along with a mission support element." On January 5, 2015, the ATF Command was transferred to Poland.
Since February 2016 Canadian Forces soldiers have been
stationed in Poland as part of NATO's "Operation Reassurance"
and it has assumed command of a NATO brigade based in Latvia.
3. During the putschist rally in Kiev on January 19, 2014 Tenyukh called for members of the Armed Forces to defy "illegal" orders from those in power -- an act of treason. He was quoted as saying "Tomorrow the regime will enslave you too. Therefore we are calling on you to fulfill your military oath of loyalty to the Ukrainian people, and not to the authorities who have gone off the rails." In February 2014 Tenyukh was appointed Minister of Defence of Ukraine by the coup government. In less than a month after the appointment he resigned due to his indecisiveness during the Crimean crisis, during which the Admiral of the Ukrainian Navy and thousands of soldiers defected to Russia. He was replaced by Lieutenant-General Mikhail Koval, who like Tenyukh, was a member of the fascist Svoboda Party.
Subordination of Military Training and
Intelligence to NATO's Aims
A study of the Ukrainian armed forces points out that despite the breakup of the Soviet Union, "the Ukrainian Armed Forces inherited a considerable part of the weaponry and military equipment deployed in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, as well as military colleges located on its territory. As a result, Ukraine was still able to train officers of all levels despite the deplorable state of its army and failure to develop its military capability over the last 20 years. Notwithstanding repeated changes in the country's leadership and political instability, the army's infrastructure and training methods were still largely rooted in the Soviet past."
It further states:
"This feature of the Ukrainian military shaped the mindset of the average officer trained in the post-Soviet period. Unlike Georgia, which has fully outsourced military training to the United States, Ukraine preserved traditions of military and theoretical training of career officers that had been developed over the preceding decades.
"It goes without saying that those pushing Ukraine towards a Euro-Atlantic future were uncomfortable with this state of affairs. It is for this reason that the core documents of Ukraine-NATO cooperation attach special importance to military education and training reform."
Canada has been in the forefront in imposing NATO standards on the Ukrainian armed forces with regard to training, weapons and equipment, tactics and operations, and military doctrines. The Ukrainian armed forces has exhibited resistance to the conversion from the Soviet military doctrine to that of NATO.
The Canadian forces placed a special focus on the training of officers in the English language in a sort of imperialist division of labour by the Anglosphere; Britain trains the Georgian armed forces. Every year scores of Ukrainian officers and soldiers benefit from internships and training sessions held in Ukraine and Canada with the aim of converting that army over the years from a Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking force to an English- and Ukrainian-speaking force. Although it is not a member of NATO, Ukraine is the third-largest recipient of the 68 countries' armed forces that are involved in Canada's Military Training Assistance Program (MTAP). Further, the best students are sent to military education institutions in NATO member states for advanced studies, to serve as interns in armed forces of allied nations, and to take part in NATO exercises.
Annually, around 50 attendees from Ukraine go through MTAP. Since 1993 more than 1,000 military men and civil personnel of the Ministry of Defence and the Armed Forces of Ukraine have completed the program. According to MTAP, its "language training improves communication between NATO and other armed forces" and its "professional development and staff training enhances other countries' compatibility with the CFs [Canadian Forces]." At a broader level, MTAP states that its training "serves to achieve influence in areas of strategic interest to Canada. Canadian diplomatic and military representatives find it considerably easier to gain access and exert influence in countries with a core group of Canadian-trained professional military leaders."
Canada also oversees training for international "peace operations." The fact that Ukrainian soldiers and officers have been involved in overseas combat operations is also little known to Canadians. Ukrainian troops were in Iraq from the very start of this war of aggression and have been deployed to Afghanistan and Kosovo. This is the logical result of the agreements Ukraine signed with NATO, its commitment to interoperability and the numerous exercises held at the Yavoriv PfP Training Center and abroad. Meanwhile, Ukraine used peacekeeping operations and training as cover for enhancing the army's interoperability with NATO. The operations, for which the Ukrainian army was purportedly preparing, had nothing in common with keeping peace. In fact, NATO used peacekeeping as a pretext to create its infrastructure and gain a foothold on Ukrainian territory.
As part of attempts by the U.S. and NATO to encircle and isolate Russia adopted by the Wales Summit in September 2014, Canada began providing training to the armed forces aligned with the coup regime in Kiev as early as December 2014. A December 8, 2014 item in the Globe and Mail reported that Canada was the first member of NATO to publicly send soldiers to "help train" Ukraine's military. Then Minister of Defence Rob Nicholson was in Kiev at the time to announce that Canadian soldiers had begun arriving to train Ukraine's military police. The next year, this was made an official mission with the announcement by the U.S. Department of Defense that "Canada will be joining the DoD-State Department initiative to help train members of the Ukrainian National Guard." The National Guard is a component of Ukraine's armed forces made up of mostly privately-funded and assembled, largely fascist or neo-Nazi militia and paramilitary groups established during and after the 2014 coup.
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At the same time, Canada began providing military intelligence. The Globe and Mail reported on February 12, 2014 that the Harper government was negotiating with the coup regime to provide the Ukrainian military high-resolution images from Canada's RADARSAT-2 satellite twice per day. "RADARSAT-2, a satellite launched in 2007, is operated by Richmond, BC's MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates for the Canadian government and is used for everything from coastal surveillance by the military to mapping and keeping track of sea ice, crops, pollution and ships," the Globe informed. It added, "The Canadian government will stipulate in the agreement that the satellite pictures should only be used to help Ukraine take defensive measures and not offensive operations such as targeting opposing forces." "Defensive measures" presuppose an aggression against Ukraine or an invasion, neither of which was the case. If the surveillance was not needed for defence, then what is its purpose?
On March 21, 2014 the deployment of an official Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) observation mission to Ukraine was decided to last for an initial period of six months on the formal request of the coup government, with ten Germans participating in the mission. Within five weeks, three German military observers were captured on April 27 along with three other officers from NATO countries in the embattled eastern Ukrainian city of Slavyansk. The Germans being held in Slavyansk, however, were not on a mission for the OSCE. They were on a mission as military observers on behalf of the German Bundeswehr. They could not produce an international mandate. The Bundeswehr called their activities in the Ukraine "unusual." The fact that they traveled into the embattled city of Slavyansk raised even more questions. A few days later, the Ukrainian armed forces stormed Slavyansk. With the exposure of the secret role of the Germans, Harper stepped to the plate and announced on April 30, 2014 that Canada would now lead the OSCE Verification Mission.[1]
In July 2016 Trudeau said additional Canadian monitors would be added to the OSCE mission in eastern Ukraine. This mission has frequently been used to pin the blame on Russia for clashes and to uphold the interests of the NATO powers.
Canada also takes part in the financing, construction
and repair of Ukrainian military infrastructure, including to
facilitate its training role and military exercises. One example is the
International Peacekeeping and Security Center (IPSC) in the village of
Starichi near Lvov in northwestern Ukraine. It has become one of the
key elements of this infrastructure and is the main base for both the
"Rapid Trident" and "Maple Arch" exercises, the largest annual
Ukraine-U.S. military exercises.
Canadian and U.S. training of the hastily-formed
National Guard and the infantry military exercises they sponsor in
Ukraine are also held at the IPSC in Starichi. IPSC is being upgraded
not only for purposes of meeting NATO standards, which have become the
guiding light of the Ukrainian defence department, but for actual use
by NATO.
The IPSC also offers training in English-language military terminology, and is involved in drafting documents on the incorporation of NATO standards in Ukrainian armed forces combat training programs. It is for these reasons that IPSC hosts not only Maple Arch but also Rapid Trident. The IPSC can accommodate up to 1,790 Ukrainian and NATO servicemen in three barracks -- Tsentralnaya, Gvardeyskaya and Inzhenernaya -- and is called NATO's closest neighbour, since it is only 10-15 kilometres away from the border with Poland. It has a ramified road network and three airfields -- Sknyliv, Stryy and Cherlyany which can receive foreign participants. The Yavoriv operations site is the largest military firing range in Europe, covering 40,000 square kilometres.
The IPSC has a 28x15 kilometre training area, which can be used to hold large-scale exercises involving air forces, artillery, paratroopers, ground troops and armour. According to the Ukrainian Defence Ministry, the IPSC includes training facilities for gunners, divers, paratroopers, tank crews and engineers, as well as everything required for small arms practice and tactical, specialized troops and even psychological training.
In addition to the IPSC, Canadian military units have at their disposal smaller centres in which training is being conducted.
Note
1. The OSCE subsequently took up the investigation of the murky details surrounding the crash of a Malaysian Airlines (MH 17) Boeing aircraft in Eastern Ukraine, around which an unprecedented disinformation campaign was launched. Since 2014 the OSCE spokesman has been Michael Bociurkiw, a Canadian journalist and pro-coup activist. Already in 2012 the Harper government had sent him as an observer of the Ukrainian election. According to a report on Pravda.ru, Bociurkiw was the son of Bohdan R. Bociurkiw, a native of Galicia who was "a follower of the Bandera terrorist forces and arrested by Polish secret services back in the times." Nevertheless, Bociurkiw was first on the scene of the crash. His initial report that the numerous small holes in the arcraft's cockpit were caused not by a missile but by machinegun rounds has never been answered. Important questions about the circumstances in which the forensics were undertaken remain unanswered as well. For example, why did Ukrainian troops force the experts to halt their on-site investigation of the crash, after only a few days, by launching attacks on rebel positions in the immediate vicinity?
Seizing and "Reforming" the
Military and Police Power
In addition to training, the Trudeau government stresses that the Canadian Armed Forces will now be "transitioning over time to support strategic institutional reform of Ukraine's defence establishment." CBC reported this March that, "Canada's focus will in time turn to the upper echelon of the defence force to ensure changes in tactics, strategies and ethos are solidified in military culture." This means to bring Canada's military presence in Ukraine under direct control of the United States and to bring those operations into conformity with U.S. plans of hegemony and war. How this was done is worth examining in brief.
All military "support" from Canada is actually funneled through the little-known U.S.-Ukraine Military Commission. Formed in 2014, it then invited Canada and Britain to join its ranks. It is now called the "Multinational Joint Commission on Defense Reform and Security Cooperation with Ukraine." Despite the bilateral appearance suggested by the name, it is a U.S. agency that operates outside of NATO and outside of the United Nations.[1]
Not only are Ukrainian officers trained by the U.S. and other NATO powers, they are also evaluated as potential candidates to take over top military and civilian positions in the future. NATO gives the U.S. imperialists the "legal" chance to install its agents in the armed forces of its NATO allies, to prepare and carry out military and fascist coups (similar to the one carried out in Greece in 1967).
On February 23, 2014 the U.S.-backed coup government of Ukraine appointed Ihor Tenyukh, the admiral and commander of the Ukrainian Navy from 2006 until 2010, to be its Defence Minister. Tenyukh was a member of the fascist Svoboda Party and activist in the Maidan insurgency. Tenyukh had been trained by the U.S. Department of Defense; in 1994, he graduated from the U.S. Defense Language Institute, and in 1997 he became a faculty member at National Academy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to prepare officers on an operational-strategic level. Tenyukh's links with the Americans were consolidated during the "Sea Breeze" exercises when he commanded Ukraine's Black Sea Fleet.
The Canadian program to support and "reform" the military and police power involves cooperation with longtime fascist leaders who are integrated into the structures of the Ukrainian state. Formally, the President of Ukraine presides over the National Security and Defence Council and is commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Members of the council include the Prime Minister, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and of Defence, the director of the SBU Intelligence Service and high-ranking military officials. The chair of the council designates a secretary or director. From March to August 2014 Andriy Parubiy was officiated as secretary of the National Security and Defence Council.
Parubiy co-founded the Social-National Party of Ukraine
in 1991, a neo-Nazi party which glorifies the wartime activity of
anti-Semitic collaborators in the Second World War. Later, he was
considered the "commander of the Maidan" to overthrow the Yanukovych
government in 2014 and was shown on television personally beating
Communist-led demonstrators. He organized the coup regime's
"anti-terror missions" in Eastern and Southern Ukraine, which were
launched immediately following the April 2014 visit of then-CIA
Director John Brennan. In his role as Speaker of the Ukrainian Rada,
Parubiy was officially welcomed by both the Harper and Trudeau
governments in 2015 and 2016 respectively, where he appealed for more
arms. Dmytro Yarosh, the leader of Right Sector and commander of the
extremist "Tryzub" ("Trident") organization since 2005, was named
assistant to Parubiy in March 2014. Svoboda's Oleh Makhnitskiy became
parliamentary inspector of the Attorney General's Office.
In 2016, the Ukrainian National Security and Defence Council adopted a program for the restructuring of Ukraine's arms production as well as the military in line with NATO standards. Soon after, on May 20, 2016, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko declared, "We are beginning real reorganization of the defence and security sector in order to join NATO." He stressed that Ukraine had not been directly making steps for immediate accession to the NATO bloc, but called the move "The Rubicon" that Ukrainian armed forces and the arms industry would have to "pass" to adapt to NATO standards, as reported by TASS. This means that in applying these standards, the Ukrainian government will essentially be reporting to supranational agencies. On May 28, 2016 Poroshenko appointed as his "non-staff" advisor Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who was Secretary General of NATO from August 1, 2009 until September 30, 2014.
The mechanism to bring about "strategic institutional reform" was then established: the "Joint Commission on Defense Reform and Security Cooperation," chaired by three retired generals from the U.S., Britain and Lithuania:
- John Abizaid, former U.S. Army commander of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and the U.S-led invasion of Iraq, who suppressed the report by Major General Antonio Taguba on the infamous U.S. officially-sanctioned, systematic torture of the detainees at Abu Graib;
- Sir Nick Parker of the United Kingdom, former land commander of the British army, a NATO commander in Afghanistan and the Iraq occupation, recipient of a U.S. Meritorious Service Award with previous service in Northern Ireland and the Sierra Leone Civil War; and
- Major General Jonas Andriškevičius, former commander of the armed forces of Lithuania (appointed in October 1993 to take that country into NATO through the Partnership for Peace program), which contributed funding to the Maidan.
In January 2017, this group added Jill Sinclair, a
former Canadian assistant deputy minister of defence and an operative
in the Privy Council Office and associated with the Liberal think-tank
Canadian International Council and the Canada 2020 Ottawa Forum. Prior
to this, she had an extensive career with the Department of Foreign
Affairs, including as executive director of the secretariat of Jean
Chrétien's International Commission on Responsibility to Protect
in 2000.
Canada's military deployment has the aim to promote the bankrupt anti-communist theory of "two extremes" to confuse Canadians and Ukrainians alike on the aims and nature of the forces in operation. This operates on two levels: the "separatists" (i.e., communists) and the fascist militia are fighting each other, while the government and state agencies of military and police power are the middle-ground opposed to and above each.
Canada's Department of National Defence and media further promote the "reform" of the Ukrainian armed forces with the language of liberal paternalism and "responsibility to protect." They see these "reforms" of the military and police power of Ukraine as a moderate middle ground between the "two extremes" of violence and chaos characterized by maximizing the unfettered fanaticism of the fascist "volunteer" militias of Pravi Sektor and the "top down," "one size fits all," "Soviet era" government military policy-making and its military and police power. It is, in their words, a promising foundation for solidifying "military culture."
Note
1. The Globe and Mail reported on December 8, 2014 that "Canada is operating independently of NATO to provide additional military assistance that will help Ukraine defend itself from Russia." Steve Chase, "Canada to offer Ukraine military aid outside of NATO," Globe and Mail, December 8, 2014.
Psychological Warfare
On top of organizing military integration, Canada is involved in the creation of a ramified network of information offices in Ukraine, many based in universities. The first and principal one in Kiev, called the NATO Information and Documentation Centre, established with the support of the Office of Public Diplomacy in 1997, has been quietly operated by the Canadian government since 2005. The goal is to create elite opinion on the progress made for NATO integration and progress under the Individual Partnership Action Plan, and combat the movement against joining NATO and against the "visits" of U.S. and NATO warships to its Black Sea ports. It forms a base for political and ideological intervention and subversion in the internal affairs of Ukraine.
The Canadian-operated NATO Information and Documentation Centre, co-sponsored the Kiev Security Forum of Arseniy Yatsenyuk's Open Ukraine Foundation inaugurated in September 2007 with funds from the German Marshall Fund, the U.S. and Polish embassies, banking and financial firms, and such oligarchs as Viktor Pinchuk, who has intimate connections to the Clintons (being the largest foreign donor to the Clinton Foundation), Tony Blair and Chrystia Freeland, whom he employed as moderator of his Yalta Economic summits and his "Ukraine Lunch" at the Davos Summit. The Forum provided a high profile platform to boost the political credibility of Yatsenyuk, known as a "technocrat" who was openly designated by the U.S. State Department in 2014 to become prime minister ("Yats is our man," as Victoria Nuland put it), illustrating how political and ideological intervention and subversion accompanies military integration and "interoperability." The Halifax International Security Forum, inaugurated in 2009 by the German Marshall Fund with financing from the Department of National Defence, and falsely presented as a uniquely Canadian initiative by the regional and national media, was modelled directly on the Kiev Forum and organized by the same American cadre: David Van Praagh, head of the Balkan Trust, who has dual U.S.-Canadian citizenship and is former senior policy advisor to MacKay (2005-6) and David J. Kramer, president of Freedom House from 2010 and now with the McCain Institute. Kramer was a political appointment in the Bush administration in the Condoleezza Rice-led State Department as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, responsible for Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus affairs from July 2005 to March of 2008.
Since December 2008 the Kiev Security Forum has been
headed by Natalia Nemyliwska, who went to school at the University of
Toronto and served in the Ontario Liberal government before going to
Ukraine. She was then appointed first deputy Director, NATO Information
and Documentation Centre, Kiev, Ukraine, and Acting Director of the
Centre in June 2009. She was appointed the Director of the Centre in
February 2011. Her official biography from the Kiev Security Forum
states, "She speaks English and Ukrainian fluently, with a good working
level of Russian." See here.
Training and Exercises in Information Warfare and
Psychological Operations
Toronto demonstration, June 23, 2014 supporting Donbass.
Officials tell media that as part of the current mission of the Trudeau government, the Canadian military has been given "an up-close look at hybrid warfare techniques such as signals jamming and cyber-attacks on electrical grids" allegedly used by "separatists" -- as if the Canadian Forces too are benefiting from their Ukrainian "colleagues." CF Information Warfare is in fact long-standing, as seen in military operations against the Indigenous peoples in Oka, Ipperwash and Gustaffsen Lake as well as its internal 2007 manual on counter-insurgency. CF Information Warfare doctrine also provides for the organized involvement of NGOs in military operations. On September 4, 2014 the Harper government advanced $1 million through NATO Trust Funds "to build up Ukrainian command and control and communications and computer capabilities to implement NATO standards throughout the Ukrainian Armed Forces."[1]
This training also includes:
- A military propaganda campaign to promote the psychosis that any criticism of the Canadian, U.S. and NATO build-up constitutes "Russian disinformation" and "fake news."
- Canada's training of military police and the new National Police Force, announced in July 2015, and the creation of U.S.-style SWAT teams called KORD in Special Ops and Black Ops.
To this end, Canada sponsors, under the pretext of human rights, a small Crimean Tatar organization (Mejhlis) linked to the pan-Turkic strategy of Erdogan's Turkey -- with an allied para-military force of an estimated 350 "Tafriki" terrorists from Crimea who have fought in Syria -- that was designated as a terrorist organization by Russia. Before the plebiscite of the people of Crimea to join the Russian Federation in 2014, one can search in vain for a single word uttered by any Canadian politician on behalf of the Crimean Tatars.
Note
1. This is also part of developing interoperability between Ukraine and NATO communication and information systems, i.e., channels for transmitting and sharing military and political information. To prove its commitment to Euro-Atlantic integration, Ukraine agreed to transfer classified military information to NATO intelligence divisions. The plan also provided for upgrading state telecommunication and information systems where NATO classified information may pass, in accordance with NATO requirements and standards. Under the pretext of "information security," the Ukrainian military were also invited to "exchange classified information with NATO on military planning and reform."
Collaboration with Ukrainian Fascist Forces
Demonstration in Ottawa October 5, 2015 demanding Canadian government
end its support for Ukrainian fascists, which continues to this day
under the Trudeau Liberal government.
Less than three weeks after a
meeting between Justin
Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland with officials of the Ukrainian Canadian
Congress (UCC) preceding the 2015 federal election, the Canadian Forces
deployed a contingent of cadets from the Royal Military College (RMC)
in Kingston as well as members of different branches of the CF to
participate in "Ukrainian Remembrance Day" events in the Toronto suburb
of Etobicoke on November 8, 2015 and 2016. Three flags led a parade
along Scarlett Road: the U.S. Stars and Stripes and the Ukrainian and
Canadian flags, immediately followed by the red and black Banderite
flag of the "Ukrainian Insurgent Army" (UPA) and Right Sector (Pravy
Sektor). They joined in the march with Waffen SS Galizien veterans --
the murderers of Ukrainian, Polish, Armenian, Russian and Jewish people
-- organized in the Ukrainian War Veterans Association of Canada who
marched as "freedom fighters." The Waffen SS (formally listed as
the 14th Grenadier Volunteer Waffen-SS Division (Galician No. 1) was
classified as a criminal organization by Nuremberg. Far from being a
Remembrance Day it was a Day of Shame, a dishonouring of the dead.
Cadets from Royal Military College, as well as representatives of the
Canadian Armed Forces, participate in "Ukrainian Remembrance Day," in
Etobicoke, November 11, 2015, alongside supporters of the fascist
Ukrainian formations from World War II and supporters of neo-Nazi
organizations that are part of the current coup regime.
By marching with Ukrainian fascists, including the openly racist neo-Nazi Right Sector party present at the event, the Trudeau government and the Canadian Forces betray veterans and mock the victims of Hitlerite fascism. In 2010, the UCC called "upon the Government of Canada to make changes to Canada's War Veterans Allowance Act by expanding eligibility to include designated resistance groups such as [the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN)]-UPA." The UCC is trying to claim Canadian veterans of Ukrainian descent as their own, including all those Canadian veterans who fought against fascism during the Second World War. There is a serious problem with this! Canadian veterans of the Second World War fought against fascism and for the defeat of the Hitlerites; their ranks included an estimated 69,000 soldiers of Ukrainian origin. The 1.5 million Ukrainians who died as soldiers in the Red Army fighting the Nazis are also entitled to great respect by all peoples. The "Remembrance Day" held with the participation of pro-Nazi Ukrainian forces posing as "veterans" is a testament of how the liberal-fascist alliance is being pushed under the political leadership of the Trudeau Liberals to serve the demands of the ruling elite and the absolutely pragmatic and rotten nature of liberalism in the modern conditions.[1]
This collaboration has also
led to the conversion of
the
Royal Military College in
Kingston, Ontario into a centre for indoctrination of officer
cadets for heroizing
Ukrainian fascist forces. Established in 1876, RMC is a centre of
the Department of
National Defence for training officer cadre from the middle and upper
social strata as
well as for military history and geopolitical studies. This was
exemplified by the
showing of the film The Ukrainians/Les Ukrainiens: God's Volunteer
Battalion on
February 22, 2016 for an audience of "nearly 200 officer cadets and
professors." The
film extols the virtues of the so-called volunteers organized by
Ukrainian oligarchs into
mercenary organizations, such as the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, to
carry out
aggression and commit war crimes against eastern Ukraine.[2]
Notes
1. The November 8, 2015 event in Toronto was not an anomaly. On January 21, 2007 the UCC, Toronto branch, recognized Ukrainian veterans of Carpathian Sich, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the First Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army and the Canadian forces. With much pomp and ceremony, the veterans were acknowledged for their courage and determination in fighting for an independent, democratic Ukraine. (Alexandra Stadnyk, "Ukrainian Canadian Congress Recognizes UPA Veterans," February 5, 2007.)
On Remembrance Day 2009, Paul Grod, President of the UCC, paid tribute to veterans of the Ukrainian Waffen-SS Galizien and the OUN in the name of his entire imagined community of 1.2 million people:
"As Ukrainian Canadians we [...] remember and pay tribute to the millions of men and women who perished fighting for the freedom of their ancestral Ukrainian homeland. The men and women of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, the 1st Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists." ("Ukrainian Community Honors Veterans on Remembrance Day.")
The UCC includes as a member organization the Brotherhood of Veterans of the 1st Division of the Ukrainian National Army, as the veterans of the 14th Grenadier Division Galizien of the Waffen-SS prefer to call themselves.
When the president of the Canadian society of veterans of the Waffen-SS Galizien passed away in January 2010, one Levko Babij (1927-2010), Grod immediately claimed on January 12 that "he will be remembered as a hero of Ukraine who fought during WWII for her independence as well as a great Ukrainian Canadian who loved Canada, his Ukrainian heritage and his family and friends."
2. The aim of this film is clearly to inspire unquestioning obedience in the Canadian Forces for Canada's official support of the neo-Nazi forces which have taken over Ukraine and NATO's encirclement of Russia. According to an article posted on New Pathway, "The film documents the lengthy Battle for Donetsk Airport that witnessed Ukrainian volunteers stepping forward to defend Ukraine, the regular army having been caught unprepared for both the Russian occupation of Crimea (February-March 2014) and subsequent incursions into eastern Ukraine; this documentary evoked the chaos, destruction, and heroism of close quarters combat." The "volunteers," "Professor Lubomyr Luciuk, the evening's organizer, described as 'Ukraine's minutemen.'" The article is written by Luciuk. (New Pathway, March 15, 2016). The newly-built international airport was completely destroyed by the fascist assault. Luciuk helped create the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (UCCLA) in reaction to the formation of the Deschênes "Commission of Inquiry on War Crimes" to whitewash the war crimes of Nazi collaborators in the Ukraine. In its own words, it was founded "in 1984 to meet the defamatory accusations that 'Ukrainian war criminals' were being harboured in Canada."
For information on Luciuk, see Peggy Morton, "War Crimes, Ukrainian Nationalists and the Canadian State," TML Weekly, March 18, 2017.
Arms Production, Transfers and Secret Shipments
In parallel with the foreign military training, the Ukrainian arms industry, blocked by NATO sanctions from working with its former Russian customers, is converting its production to meet NATO's codification and standardization. NATO standardization is a dictate to open the doors of the "allies" to the giant arms oligopolies and to take over national defence production. The privatization of the state-owned Ukroboronprom, comprising 134 defence companies employing tens of thousands of workers, mainly in Central and Southern Ukraine, tops the agenda.
CBC reports, "Canadian companies are also finding plenty of opportunity as Ukraine retools its defence industry. Pratt & Whitney Canada, Esterline/CMC Electronics, IMP Aerospace, and L-3 Wescam all have joint projects with Ukroboronprom." On March 10, TASS reported a statement from Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova who said, "according to the information that we have, Canada has begun to supply the Ukrainian military with ammunition that is sure to be delivered to the conflict zone."
|
|
While maintaining the pretense that it was supplying "non-lethal" weaponry, Canada privatized the supply of lethal weaponry to the fascist militias through the creation of Army SOS, a so-called NGO organized by the highest levels of the state through the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, as well as by the Canadian unit of Pravi Sektor (Right Sector) terrorist organization. The armed organization, which played a major role in overthrowing the Yanukovich government, originated as an alliance of right-wing extremist groups. Army SOS maintains a warehouse and a drone factory in Kiev. It has supplied military equipment, including parts for weapons such as sniper rifles, tripwire detonators, targeting software, encrypted communication equipment and drones, directly to the front lines. This has frequently meant bypassing Ukrainian government control and working directly with "nationalist" and outright fascist militias, over which the Kiev regime has only partial control. Wrote Mark MacKinnon in the Globe and Mail, "Most obviously, the fundraising campaign is going where no country, including Canada, is willing to go -- supplying sometimes-lethal equipment to Ukrainian fighters, including irregulars."
Lenna Koszarny, head of the Kiev arm of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, is in charge of distributing arms from both Army SOS and the Department of National Defence. An activist in the "Orange Revolution," Koszarny is an investment banker, who became head of Horizons Capital when Poroshenko appointed Natalie Jaresko, an American citizen and former U.S. State Dept. official, his Minister of Finance in December 2014. Horizons Capital is an official "partner" of the Atlantic Council of NATO, an elite U.S. think-tank and propaganda centre.
At the same time, the Canadian government gave the fascist organization Right Sector and the neo-Nazi Svoboda party, which has had an office in Mississauga, Greater Toronto Area since 2010, carte blanche to publicly recruit Canadian nationals to join fascist and terrorist militias in violation of Canadian law, specifically the Foreign Enlistment Act, 1939, which makes it illegal for Canadians to enlist in conflicts where the Canadian government was not a belligerent, and still applies to this day.
This fundraising is done openly, and the Harper government even approved charitable status for Army SOS to facilitate its work. They received further support from the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star. The owner of a Toronto optometrist firm, one Richard Hareychuk, boasted to the Globe and Mail columnist about how much money he and his associates were raising, saying "he raised funds for Army SOS because it gets help to those actually doing the fighting, regardless of whether it's the regular army or the volunteer battalions."
In August 2016 then-Minister of Citizenship and
Immigration Chris Alexander, NDP MP Peggy Nash and Ontario Liberal
Premier Katherine Wynne participated in Toronto's Ukrainian Festival,
which featured a recruiting and fundraising booth for the Right Sector
organization.
There are reports that Canada also participated in a clandestine program of weapons shipments to Ukraine. In a detailed article tracking the international flights and route of a Ukrainian Antonov (AN 124) that was apparently ferrying arms from a number of NATO and U.S. air terminals over the course of a year to Ukraine and other countries, American journalist Wayne Madsen reported in February 3, 2015 that:
"On May 14, 2014, the Ukrainian Antonov was seen at Calgary International Airport in Alberta. Calgary is a major nexus for the Canadian and American military-industrial complex, hosting Raytheon Canada's missile production division and plants producing the rotary Phalanx machine gun and infrared and targeting equipment for armored vehicles, and General Dynamics, Harris Corporation, and NovAtel factories manufacturing everything from avionics systems to satellite communications gear." Plane spotters have also on more than one occasion seen huge yellow and blue Antonovs at Edmonton and Toronto airports and posted photos on their web sites.
Madsen went on to enumerate the many places this massive military transport plane had appeared in the previous year, including Calgary.[1]
Note
1. Wayne Madsen, "American Lethal Military Aid to Ukraine is a Throwback to Iran-Contra Days," Strategic Culture, February 3, 2015.
Implementing "Community Policing"
Canadian police are deployed in Ukraine in two separate, multi-year missions related to "reforming front-line police forces in Ukraine as well as providing strategic advice on broader security sector reform, with the long-term goal of contributing to the rule of law, minimizing social unrest, maintaining security and improving the relationship between citizens and police."[1] One operation consists of working directly with the Ukrainian National Police and the other with the European Union Assistance Mission for Civilian Security Sector Reform (EUAM Ukraine). The Canadian government has allotted $8.1 million for the missions.
The acting head of Ukraine's National Police is Vadym Troyan, formerly deputy chief of the National Police and head of Kiev police. Until his appointment in Kiev in 2014, Troyan was deputy commander of the Azov Battalion, a neo-Nazi militia accused of torture and war crimes, and a member of the group "Patriot of Ukraine," the paramilitary wing of the fascist "Social-Nationalist Assembly."
The Canadian operations are focused on implementing a "community policing" or "community-based policing" model as opposed to what media are referring to as an "old Soviet top-down model." A March 16 Winnipeg Free Press article gives an overview of the four-week course led by Canadian trainers:
"The Ukrainian officers spend the first few days in a classroom before moving into the gym for hands-on training, where they're taught everything from proper handcuffing to use of physical force against a suspect. From the gym they move to scenario-based training, where instructors play a variety of roles and teach officers how to deal with everything from an aggressive individual holed up in a government office to someone intoxicated in the park."
"Canadian police officers are also trying to introduce the concept of community-based policing to Ukraine, including helping set up a neighbourhood-watch-style program in the city of Vinnytsia [the political base of Ukrainian President and food product oligarch Petro Poroshenko]. But as [RCMP officer] Sarah Drummond tells me, it isn't easy to shift the mindset of Ukrainian officers away from the more traditional, top-down model of policing to one that asks them to be proactive and form strong relationships and partnerships with their communities."
Community Policing Model
"Community policing" or "community-based policing" is a reactionary theory of crime prevention and policing based on the U.S. "broken windows theory." The latter was proposed by two conservative academics, James Q. Wilson and George Kelling in 1982 and "links disorder and incivility within a community to subsequent occurrences of serious crime."[2] The theory was subsequently put into practice by many of the most notorious and racist U.S. police departments such as the NYPD. The "broken windows theory" called for a shift in focus from solving serious crimes to aggressive enforcement against petty offences such as graffiti, toll or fare evasion, public intoxication or urination, panhandling and squeegeeing under the questionable premise that this will also reduce the occurrence of serious crimes.[3]
The program of "community policing" therefore focuses the resources of police officers on "crime prevention" through the broken windows approach, as opposed to the investigation of crimes. It also calls for close collaboration with "community members" and "leaders" through direct relationships with police. "Community policing" became U.S. policy on a national scale under the Clinton administration in 1994 with the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 creating an Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) within the Justice Department. In a 2014 document the COPS office explained, "In his 1994 State of the Union address, President Bill Clinton pledged an additional 100,000 community policing officers to reduce violence and prevent crime in America's neighbourhoods" and stated that the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act put this into practice.[4]
Implementation of "Community Policing" in Ukraine
In July 2015 Ukraine launched a new police force, under the guidance of deputy interior minister Eka Zguladze, the former Minister of Internal Affairs of Georgia. Zguladze is one of several former ministers in the pro-U.S. Georgian government of Mikheil Saakashvili, including Saakashvili himself, to be given Ukrainian citizenship by President Poroshenko so they could be put in charge of major portfolios. Saakashvili was the appointed Governor of Odessa until November 7.
The new police force received $15 million in funding from the U.S., along with funds from Canada, Australia, Japan and other countries. The force was referred to as the "patrol police" due to their focus on a visible presence to prevent and punish petty crime, and later became called the National Police. This force was initially trained by the U.S. and features U.S.-style, U.S.-made uniforms. The new police salary was reported as three times the salary of the old police force, called the Militsiya, allegedly to deter corruption.
In line with the focus of the "community policing" model, a December 2015 article in Foreign Policy states, "To date, Ukraine's new police have been focused on a myriad of petty matters: smoking in public places, homeless people sleeping in tourist areas, and cars parking around bus stops. But the new policing model in Ukrainian cities does not explain how bigger and more violent crimes are prevented through policing small things."[5] The new police received 10 weeks of training, "roughly half the length of a basic training course received by a police officer in the U.S. state of New York and a fraction of the four or more years that an officer of the old Ukrainian militsiya would have spent studying," a September 2015 Foreign Policy item reports.[6]
The first chief of the new National Police was Khatia
Dekanoidze, another former Georgian cabinet minister. After her
resignation on November 14, citing the fact that "unfortunately, my
powers and will were not sufficient for sharp changes," the position
went to the neo-Nazi Vadym Troyan. Interior Minister Arsen Avakov
stated that Troyan would continue the process of police reform and
recruitment of officers.[7]
Subsequently, Troyan in an October 8 article he authored
in Ukraine's Weekly Mirror
cited significant increases in recorded crimes such as theft, robbery,
fraud and violent attacks, and blamed this on the presence of
internally-displaced persons from fighting in Ukraine's east. Increases
in robberies could be correlated to concentrations of refugees, Troyan
argued. Citing the large number of police officers who stayed in their
positions following Crimea's decision to join the Russian Federation
and the proclamations of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics,
Troyan praised the role of the private militias organized to
suppress resistance. It was from these groups that the leadership of
the new National Police came, he said.[8]
The Kyiv Post on November 18 reported, "Troyan, who is reported in charge of all surveillance at the National Police, has been accused of conducting surveillance over journalist Pavlo Sheremet, who was killed in a car bomb explosion in central Kyiv on July 20."[9]
Among those sending police trainers to Ukraine is the Toronto Police Service (TPS). The TPS is widely criticized for its practice of harassing and "carding" national minority youth, and has been disgraced in recent years by police killings of Sammy Yatim and Andrew Loku. An October 4, 2016 article by the TPS titled, "Community Policing in Ukraine" informed that Sergeant Dale Corra and Constable Gregory Boltyansky were sent to Ukraine to design community policing programs. "Community policing is new to them and we are starting from scratch," Corra said.
Commenting on the training Canada is providing, Edmonton Police Sgt. Colleen Mooney was quoted in a March 22, 2016 CBC News report:
"The vast majority of [the recruits] were policing in conflict zones across the eastern border, so knowing that they were going back to that, after getting to know them, was difficult for me. [...] They're basically brand new police officers that have been identified as strong leaders during their short tenure with Ukraine patrol police. In Edmonton they wouldn't even be out of recruit training yet."[10]
This further indicates that Canada's police training mission constitutes, like its military training mission, intervention in the civil war in Ukraine. Canadians should demand answers from the Canadian government as to what is the nature of this mission. Furthermore, discredited anti-people theories such as "community policing," taught by police forces which are in serious disrepute in the eyes of Canadians, will not bring security or the rule of law to the people of Ukraine.
Notes
1. RCMP
Current
Operations:
Ukraine.
2. "Broken Windows Theory," Encyclopedia Britannica. The theory was explained by pop pseudo-sociologist Malcolm Gladwell in his book The Tipping Point as follows:
"If a window is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by will conclude that no one cares and no one is in charge. Soon, more windows will be broken, and the sense of anarchy will spread from building to the street on which it faces, sending a signal that anything goes."
3. Maggie Penman, Renee Khlar, Tara Boyle, Jennifer Schmidt, Shankar Vedantam, "How A Theory Of Crime And Policing Was Born, And Went Terribly Wrong," NPR, Hidden Brain. November 1, 2016.
4. COPS states, "Community policing promotes organizational strategies that support the systematic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques to proactively address the immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues such as crime, social disorder, and fear of crime. Rather than simply responding to crimes once they have been committed, community policing concentrates on preventing crime and eliminating the atmosphere of fear it creates. Earning the trust of the community and making those individuals shareholders in their own safety enables law enforcement to better understand and address both the needs of the community and the factors that contribute to crime." (The COPS Office: 20 Years of Community Oriented Policing, U.S. Department of Justice, 2014.)
The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 became notorious for, on top of dramatically increasing the number of police officers on the streets, contributing to mass incarceration of Black youth in the U.S. The Act was the context for the now-infamous comments by Hillary Clinton in 1996 calling Black youth "super-predators." Clinton said, "We're making some progress. Much of it is related to the initiative called 'community policing.' Because we have finally gotten more police officers on the street. That was one of the goals that the president had when he pushed the crime bill that was passed in 1994." A few lines later Clinton referred to "an organized effort against gangs," saying, "they are not just gangs of kids anymore. They are often the kinds of kids that are called superpredators -- no conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first, we have to bring them to heel."
Hillary Clinton took the term "superpredator" from academic John Dilulio Jr. who in 1995 wrote an article "The Coming of the Super-Predator." He stated, "There is even some evidence that juveniles are doing homicidal violence in 'wolf packs.' Indeed, a 1993 study found that juveniles committed about a third of all homicides against strangers, often murdering their victim in groups of two or more. Violent youth crime, like all serious crime, is pre-dominantly intra-racial, not interfacial. The surge in violent youth crime has been most acute among black inner-city males."
Canada's Department of Justice describes the shift to "community policing" in the country, noting that by the early 1990s this model was adopted in words if not in practice by police forces across the country. It states that "Traditional policing adopts the crime control model as its primary orientation. Community policing incorporates a mixture of order maintenance and community service (Wood, 1996)."
5. Erica Marat, "The Problem with Ukrainian Police Reform," Foreign Policy, December 29, 2015.
6. Masha Gessen, "The Cops Who Would Save a Country," Foreign Policy, September 8, 2015.
7. Arsen Avakov, Ukraine's Interior Minister is one of a number of prominent figures associated with the fascist Ukrainian National Front party created on March 31, 2014 following the U.S.-backed coup. Its first 10 candidates for election in 2014 included:
- Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the first Prime Minister of the coup government (it collapsed in July 2014);
- Tetiana Chornovol, member of "nationalist" groups and widow of a slain neo-Nazi Azov Battalion member;
- Oleksandr Turchynov, Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine and the acting President of Ukraine immediately following the coup;
- Andriy Parubiy, founder of the fascist Social-National Party of Ukraine and former leader of its paramilitary group, Patriot of Ukraine, now Chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament;
- Vyacheslav Kyrylenko, author of attempts to repeal Ukrainian laws defending minority languages;
- Yuriy Bereza, commander of the Dnipro-1 battalion accused of blocking humanitarian aid to eastern Ukraine in December 2014. Later, as an MP, Bereza threatened to "burn down Crimea, with all of its residents if needed."
8. Вадим Троян, “Війна на кримінальному фронті,” gazeta.dt.ua. October 8, 2016.9. Sheremet, a journalist and liberal critic of the governments of Russia and Belarus, wrote his last blog post on March 20, 2016 about the possibility of another coup in Ukraine, this one led by the Azov battalion, the former militia of National Police chief Troyan. Sheremet wrote:
"We need such volunteers as Biletskyi's Azov or Teteruk's Myrotvorets fighters to be our baseline, not the strange camouflaged people who are currently blocking the work of the anti-corruption prosecutors under the Solomyanskyi District Court for Kiev City."
10. Wallis Snowdon, "Edmonton police officer takes expertise to Ukraine," CBC News, March 22, 2016.
Along with the new "Patrol Police" or National Police, various volunteer paramilitary groups tasked by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine are referred to as "Special Tasks Patrol Police. These "Patrol Police" consist of privately-funded volunteer militias operating under the auspices of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, carrying out "anti-terror" operations in the east of the country and taking part in combat operations in the Keiv government's war against the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics. The quote from CBC News that the recruits "were policing in conflict zones across the eastern border" suggests overlap between the new National Police and the "Special Tasks" police militias, or that Canada is training both.
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca