OPPOSE NATO, RUSSIAN INTERVENTION IN CRIMEA, AND THE IMF

March 10, 2014

Dear Friend of the Campaign for Peace and Democracy,

As the U.S. sends fighter jets and military personnel to Lithuania and announces plans to increase its military presence in Poland, and as Russia tightens its grip on Crimea and arrests anti-war activists in Moscow, we are writing to call your attention to two important documents about the Ukrainian crisis, “The British anti-war movement should be standing with anti-war protesters in Russia,” by Mike Marqusee, and a statement by the Ukrainian Left Opposition.

We also want to alert you to messages the Campaign for Peace and Democracy is sending to the following individuals, and we urge our supporters to do the same: (If possible, please send us copies of your messages.)

To Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling on him to release anti-war protestors from prison in Moscow and to withdraw Russian armies that have been recently deployed to Crimea, whether or not they are wearing Russian insignia. [1]

To U.S. President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, calling on them to cease their escalating response to Moscow. Rather than sending weapons and personnel to the Baltic countries and Eastern Europe, the U.S. should withdraw from NATO, and call for its dissolution. NATO stands as an ongoing military threat not only to Europe but to countries targeted in “out of area” missions in the Middle East and elsewhere — a threat that is used to justify Russian aggression in Ukraine, Georgia, and throughout Russia’s “near abroad.” [2]

To Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, calling on the IMF to aid Ukraine without demanding neo-liberal “reforms” that will impose the kind of harsh austerity on the Ukrainian people that has already wreaked such havoc on people in Greece and other countries. [3]

To the Ukrainian parliament, the Rada, urging it to take measures to foster a peaceful and democratic future for their own people, and to promote peaceful relations with Russia and Europe as a whole, allowing linguistic freedoms for people throughout the country, and refusing to acquiesce in punishing “reforms” that will result in unfair hardship for millions of Ukrainians. [4]

To the IMF, the U.S., the European Union, and Russia, calling on them to offer economic assistance to Ukraine without demanding retrograde economic conditions or alignment with Western or Russian blocs. [5]

The first document we are sending, entitled “The British anti-war movement should be standing with anti-war protesters in Russia,” was written by Mike Marqusee for the British left journal Red Pepper [6]. Marqusee argues that “It really should be easy enough to condemn Russia’s action in Ukraine while at the same time rejecting and campaigning against US-EU military intervention. Sadly, there are some in the anti-war movement who see this as an awkward proposition…. At this moment, in relation to Ukraine, imperial hypocrisies, Western and Russian, seem boundless. We won’t be able to offer an alternative to this hall of mirrors by matching one double standard with another. It’s always a corrupting practice, as a left wing version of realpolitik takes the place of a politics of solidarity.”

Marquesee’s argument applies equally to the American anti-war movement. The United States government, in spearheading the expansion of NATO to nine East European countries and to Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, bears enormous responsibility for the ongoing militarization of Europe after the Cold War. We must oppose that expansion and call to roll it back, immediately. But we reject the Cold War logic that justifies aggression by one side by invoking the crimes of the other: we in the peace movement must unambiguously condemn the Russian intervention in Crimea.

As the socialist Left Opposition in Ukraine says in the second document cited below, “We are for the self determination of Crimea only after the withdrawal of the Russian armies that are carrying out this flagrant intervention.” [7]

While supporting the Maidan uprising against the corrupt and authoritarian Ukrainian president Victor Yanukovitch, the Left Opposition is critical of the leaders of the Maidan movement, noting that “The justification of Putin’s aggression is the nationalist hysteria that the leaders of the Maidan have ignored. Aggressive xenophobic jokes were treated as normal, and even today on anti-war pickets we are still hearing provocative slogans like ‘Glory to the nation! Death to its enemies!’”

But the Left Opposition goes on to say that “the Maidan was not uniform – radical nationalists really bespoiled the protest with xenophobia, but fortunately they did not determine the Maidan’s demands. The population of Eastern and Southern Ukraine, as well as the members of ethnic minorities should know that there stood on the Maidan many representatives of those forces who uphold internationalist, left and democratic positions.” The statement declares that “citizens of Western and Central Ukraine should press the new [Ukrainian] government not to allow linguistic discrimination, destruction of monuments or the incitement of unnecessary hostility. Ukrainisation led by the oligarchs can be realised only in a chauvinist key. It is necessary to review language policy and to broaden the right to use the native language in those regions where it is needed.”

We hope you find these documents useful.

In peace and solidarity,

Joanne, Tom

Joanne Landy and Thomas Harrison
Co-Directors
Campaign for Peace and Democracy
www.cpdweb.org