Malaysian Airlines Flight MH-17 crash

In South Africa, the media follows a dominant narrative of Western imperialism and its embedded news agencies in claiming that the Malaysian Airlines Flight MH-17 air crash in the Donetsk (now declared a republic by those fighting against imperialism), was undoubtedly the work of the ‘rebels' or even the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, personally. Putin must be held accountable, the West goes on to say.

Unfortunately, these are the views we are being bombarded with. Business Day's editorials, "Let Russia do the right thing" and, the "Second Take", straight from theNew York Post, "Time to rein in Putin is now" (Tuesday 22 July 2014, p. 8) are typical examples. The sentence has been handed down here, as the title "Time to rein in Putin is now" clearly spells out.

But who conducted the investigation and prosecution and what legal and moral standing do they have? There was no such. This comes in the same way as that BIG LIE: Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

We must be returned to the era of George W. Bush's unilateralism and military aggression, this is the way forward, we are being told. "Resurrect Bush administration plans to deploy a missile-defence system in Eastern Europe", so says "Time to rein in Putin is now" published by the Business Day. What is not being said, however, is that it is exactly this same plan and its associated manoeuvres by the US and its West European allies and their support for neo-Nazi rebels who staged a coup d'état against a democratically elected government, followed by mock elections to legitimise the coup, that led to a war in Ukraine.

Were it not of this imperialist interference and regime change, the war in Ukraine, as in Syria, would probably not have occurred. This also applies to the consequences, such as the apparent downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH-17 - if it is later confirmed by independent and scientific investigation that it was indeed shot down. There can be no doubt that those who would have committed such a deadliest attack against civilians have violated fundamental human rights - the important of all, the right to life, as well as international law.

The culprits therefore have to be found, and justice must prevail, all within the framework of international law. But the short-cut with which Obama and his European allies rush to conclusions is dangerous and must be condemned. This type of propaganda has been used before, to deviate attention from, and conceal, the truth. It has also been used to make war and kill millions of people. The wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, to mention but a few, were imposed in a similar manner.

In fact almost a year ago, heart-rending photographs of Syrian children poisoned by sarin gas were posted throughout the world and Syrian government forces were blamed. The United States was preparing to bomb Syria based on this report. Later it was proved conclusively that those children were Alawite children kidnapped by US sponsored Jihadists fighting to bring down the secular government of Syrian President Bashar al Assad.

Not only was it strange to see that the gassed children were together in rows without any adults, parents of those dead children positively identified a number of them. It was also reported quite definitely that the Jihadists (only a minority of whom were Syrians) had access to sarin gas - something denied by the US and its European allies who continue to finance these disgusting terrorists.

Back to Ukraine: during the Second World War, Ukrainian nationalists, mostly from the region of Western Ukraine around Lviv, led by Stephan Bandera, formed the Ukrainian Waffen SS Galician, Nichtengall, and Roland Divisions that collaborated with the Nazis. They were known for their extreme brutality to Jews and Poles. They were hated in particular by the people of Eastern Ukraine who supported the Soviet Union and fought bravely and ferociously against the Nazi occupation.

Backed by the US and West European governments, the democratically elected (but admittedly weak) government of President Yanukovych was overthrown in a coup d'état by the Banderovtsy Nazis. Not surprisingly, many Ukrainian citizens (not only ethnic Russians) have resisted Nazi rule and have established the People's Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.

Fighting for their very existence, these people had no military capacity - according to Donetsk Prime Minister Alexander Boroday - even the kind of missiles that can bring down a civilian aircraft from above the clouds. Clearly the only people to benefit from the bringing down of the airliner are the Ukrainian Nazi government and its Western backers.

The recent press conference held by Boroday has not been mentioned by the South African media.

Why?

It has not been mentioned by the Western media anyway.

The press conference offers an alternative view to what we are being bombarded with from Western news agencies. We have the excerpts of the statement in this issue of Umsebenzi Online. It is argued that Malaysian Airlines Flight MH-17 was shot down from the air by the neo-Nazis who took over Ukraine supported by the US and its West European allies. 

Alex Mashilo is SACP spokesperson and Ian Beddowes is ZCL General Secretary.

Press-conference of Alexander Boroday, Prime Minister of the People's Republic of Donetsk. 20 July 2014

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Can I start?

Well. I think all of you are interested in the dismal situation concerning the airplane. I have the following to say:

First, yesterday the team of experts still did not arrive, except for those experts that were already present, the fourteen representatives of OSCE and four experts from the Ukrainian side that are solely concerned with the technical aspects of the catastrophe. That is why yesterday in the evening we had to take the decision and start removing the bodies from the site of the tragedy since, as I already explained [the day before -- G.B.], we could not wait any longer. The heat is 30 degrees Celsius, the victims' bodies are scattered over a huge territory, and we cannot ensure their preservation even in the most basic sense of the word, because the territory is rife with wild beasts and stray dogs. All of that compelled us, despite the absence of expert observers, who are so long in coming, to start organised removal of the bodies of the deceased.

As of today, 196 bodies of the victims of the crash have been removed from the site and transferred, in a railway refrigerator car, to the city of Torez, where they are presently kept. Right now, or at least as of an hour ago, a group of OSCE observers is working in Torez, who are examining the bodies. There are still _no other_ experts on these subjects on our territory. The only news I can bring is that we have established contact with a group of experts from Malaysia, who, 12 persons in number, are expected to arrive later today. They are coming via some convoluted route, but at least they _are_ coming. I hope that they will arrive here, and first of all will start by examining the victims' bodies and performing all the necessary procedures concerning these bodies.

Other than that, I remind you that the OSCE group, contrary to what foreign media reports, has started its work quite some time ago. They are now operating on the site of the crash for the third day consecutively. They are present there today, they were present there yesterday, they were present the day before yesterday. Yesterday in the evening we had a meeting with the OSCE representatives. They expressed their gratitude for the opportunity to work; the only complaint they had was that together with them we allowed a number of journalists to the site. The OSCE observers were extremely unhappy that journalists are present. They called this situation a circus. We questioned their opinion on the freedom of press, whether they are against that; they claimed they were not against, however they would rather not see representatives of the press near them. We are not enemies of free press either, so we do not see it as our duty to deny the journalists access to the site. Thus the OSCE observers will have to work at the site of the tragedy together with you.

I expect that you also have numerous questions concerning the so called "black boxes". As you see, I anticipate those questions. I can inform you that our side has discovered, as of today, certain technical devices on the plane, which we suppose to be these "black boxes".  I have to stress: since the People's Republic of Donetsk has no specialists on the subject of airplane security, we cannot be certain. However we conjecture that these objects are the devices in question. These objects have been transferred to Donetsk and are placed under my personal supervision. We are awaiting for the representatives of a specialized organization, in this case ICAO, to hand over these pieces of airplane equipment. We are _waiting_.

I receive various rumours disseminated by the press that the bodies of the victims that we are now continuing to collect from the site will in the nearest future be transported to Kyiv, Mariupol or someplace else. This is not so. We have no intention to transport these bodies anywhere until the experts arrive. We are awaiting the expert observers. We are now awaiting them for the fourth day. We hope some of them will reach us. We have the information about the 12 people from Malaysia, but we have _no definite information_ about the other expert observers. We cannot understand why they are still staying in Kyiv. I stress it once again that we are ready to do everything in our power to ensure their security. The territory controlled by our forces is relatively safe for them. I use the word "relatively" because our country is in the state of war with Ukraine. The war is undeclared, but it is a full-fledged war. However we will do everything in our power in order to ensure the safety of observers and experts and give them the opportunity to perform their duties.

I would also like to make the following statement. It is our opinion that the Ukrainian side, by various means, deliberately delays the arrival of experts to the site of the crash, because it does not want the world community to learn the truth of this horrible tragedy.

Alexander Boroday, Prime Minister of the People's Republic of Donetsk, declared so early this year Ukraine after the people in large parts of the east and other areas in the country did not accept the coup by the neo-Nazis  

These articles first appeared in the SACP's online journal, Umsebenzi Online.

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