L’ambassadeur d’Israël en Ukraine a conclu un accord avec la milice néo-nazie Praviy Sektor, elle-même soupçonnée d’être responsable de la majorité des morts à Kiev le mois dernier, selon des informations diffusées au cours du week-end par l’Agence Télégraphique Juive (JTA) et l’agence Associated Press.
Le protocole conclu entre l’ambassadeur d’Israël à Kiev Reuven Den Il et le chef de la milice Dmitry Yarosh aurait une visée « défensive ».
Selon la version de la rencontre diffusée par le site web de l’ambassade, le chef de Praviy Sektor aurait pris l’engagement de ne pas s’en prendre à des cibles juives, étant sous-entendu qu’il aurait alors un blanc-seing pour toute autre forme de xénophobie, anti-russe par exemple.
Le renoncement à des activités anti-juives de la part des nervis de Praviy Sektor, honteusement qualifiés de « combattants de la liberté » par BHL, Hollande et Fabius, est lui-même des plus hypothétiques.
Praviy Sektor se réclame ainsi depuis sa création de Stepan Bandera, un nationaliste ukrainien allié de Hitler pendant la deuxième guerre mondiale, et dont les partisans de l’époque avaient clairement participé au génocide des juifs.
De même qu’il y a 70 ans, Hitler et ses alliés combattaient le « judéo-bolchévisme », les miliciens de Praviy Sektor et leurs partenaires (membres du nouveau gouvernement) de Svoboda prétendent lutter « contre la mafia russo-youpine ».
L’ambassadeur israélien sait tout cela.
Il y a quelques jours, la JTA avait publié un reportage stupéfiant, sur d’ex-soldats de l’armée israélienne ayant prêté main-forte aux miliciens de Praviy Sektor dans les émeutes ayant conduit au renversement de l’équipe (pro-Moscou) de Viktor Ianoukovitch.
La lecture de cet article laissait à penser qu’il s’agissait là d’initiatives individuelles de « têtes brûlées », sans implication de l’Etat d’Israël. Le pacte conclu par l’ambassadeur donne un éclairage nouveau à une telle collaboration.
Parallèlement, l’agence américaine Associated Press, a publié une enquête sous le titre « Qui étaient les snipers de Kiev ? Kiev et Moscou se rejettent la faute ».
Ses résultats tendent à conclure qu’au cours des journées sanglantes des 18, 19 et 20 février, où une centaine de personnes ont trouvé la mort et des centaines d’autres ont été blessées, toutes les victimes (policiers, manifestants, civils non manifestants) ont été la cible d’armes de même calibre, employées par une seule des deux forces en présence, et non les deux.
Mais qui ? Le gouvernement de Ianoukovitch et sa police (dont 13 membres ont quand même été abattus, et des dizaines d’autres blessés grièvement par balles), ou bien « l’opposition » ?
Le ministre de la santé du nouveau gouvernement (anti-russe, donc) Oleh Musiy, un médecin ayant prodigué des soins aux blessés pendant l’insurrection- a affirmé à Associated Press que la similitude des blessures par balles relevées, tant chez les opposants que dans les rangs policiers, est la preuve que les snipers avaient pour objectif d’exacerber les violences, pour parvenir au renversement de Ianoukovitch.
Il en conclut cependant, qu’il faut y voir la main des forces spéciales … russes, désireuses d’un renvoi de Ianoukovitch, comme prétexte à une intervention militaire.
Côté russe, on dit naturellement le contraire, avec la révélation d’une information très compromettante pour l’Occident (OTAN, Union Européenne), non démentie à jour.
En l’occurrence, une conversation téléphonique, interceptée par les Russes, entre le ministre des Affaires étrangères de l’Estonie Urmas Paet et Lady Caherine Ashton, responsable de la politique étrangère pour l’Union européenne.
Au cours de cet appel téléphonique, en date du 26 février, Urmas Paet, qui vient d’effectuer un déplacement à Kiev, indique à son interlocutrice de l’Union européenne que des manifestants (anti-Ianoukouvitch) lui avaient affirmé que c’étaient bien les opposants à Ianoukouvitch qui étaient derrière les tirs mortels de snipers.
Paet ajoute, à l’attention de Catherine Ashton, qu’il a rencontré un médecin, la doctoresse Olha Bogomolets. Cette dernière, qui avait soigné des victimes sur le terrain, lui a affirmé que policiers et civils avaient été tués par des balles identiques. Le ministre estonien conclut : « on est donc de plus en plus convaincu que ce n’était pas Ianoukovitch qui commandait le tir, mais quelqu’un qui fait aujourd’hui partie de la nouvelle coalition gouvernementale ».
Mercredi 5 mars, Paet a confirmé publiquement l’authenticité de la conversation divulguée par les médias russes. Il a dit qu’il ne faisait que rapporter les propos du Dr Bogomolets, « une personne faisant incontestablement autorité ».
Depuis ces révélations fracassantes, la Dr Bogomolets s’est mise aux abonnés absents.
Voici maintenant (en anglais), les dépêches de la Jewish Telegraphic Agency, puis celle d’Associated Press.
Dépêche de la JTA
Israeli envoy opens ‘hotline’ with Ukrainian ultra-nationalist
Agreement aims to ‘prevent provocation’ and denounce the anti-Semitic tendencies of Ukraine’s nationalist camp.
By JTA | Mar. 7, 2014
Israel’s ambassador in Kiev, Reuven Din El, opened a hotline with a Ukrainian ultra-nationalist movement to “prevent provocations,” according to an agreement reached last week.
The agreement came at the end of a meeting between Din El and Dmitry Yarosh, the leader of the Right Sector paramilitary group, which participated in the overthrow of the government of President Viktor Yanukovych.
In the meeting, “Dmitry Yarosh stressed that Right Sector will oppose all [racist] phenomena, especially anti-Semitism, with all legitimate means,” the embassy wrote on its website.
“The parties agreed to establish a ‘hotline’ to prevent provocations and coordinate on issues as they arise,” it said.
Yarosh’s troops had a decisive role in the revolution that forced Yanukovych to flee to Russia.
Last month he told the Ukrainian Pravda newspaper that his outfit shares many beliefs with the xenophobic Svoboda party and cooperates with it, but rejects the xenophobia displayed by Svoboda members and leaders.
“We have a lot of common positions on ideological issues, but there are big differences. For example, I do not understand racist elements and I do not adopt them,” he said.
Yarosh said that “non-Ukrainians” should be treated according to principles set forth by Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera.
A one-time ally of Nazi Germany who later turned against the Nazis, Bandera said non-Ukrainian allies should be treated as brothers and neutral parties should be respected.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center and other Jewish organizations have condemned the glorification in Ukraine of Bandera, whose troops are believed to have killed thousands of Jews when they were allies of the Nazis in 1941.
Svoboda lawmakers have regularly used the pejorative “zhyd,” which is equivalent to “kike,” to describe Jews.
In response to protests from Jewish leaders, Svoboda argued “zhyd” was a correct and neutral, albeit archaic term. Svoboda’s leader, Oleh Tyahnybok, has in the past referred to a “Moscow-Jewish mafia” which he said ruled Ukraine.
Din El and Tyahnybok spoke in March 2013 in a meeting which the Israeli foreign ministry said was not coordinated with Jerusalem.
Dépêche d’Associated Press
On whose side were the Kiev snipers? Russia and Ukraine trade blame
Forensic evidence suggests that snipers were targeting both sides of the standoff at Maidan.
By The Associated Press | Mar. 8, 2014
One of the biggest mysteries hanging over the protest mayhem that drove Ukraine’s president from power: Who was behind the snipers who sowed death and terror in Kiev?
That riddle has become the latest flashpoint of feuding over Ukraine — with the nation’s fledgling government and the Kremlin giving starkly different interpretations of events that could either undermine or bolster the legitimacy of the new rulers.
Ukrainian authorities are investigating the February 18-20 bloodbath, and they have shifted their focus from ousted President Viktor Yanukovych’s government to Vladimir Putin’s Russia — pursuing the theory that the Kremlin was intent on sowing mayhem as a pretext for military incursion.
Russia suggests that the snipers were organized by opposition leaders trying to whip up local and international outrage against the government.
The government’s new health minister — a doctor who helped oversee medical treatment for casualties during the protests — told The Associated Press that the similarity of bullet wounds suffered by opposition victims and police indicates the shooters were trying to stoke tensions on both sides and spark even greater violence, with the goal of toppling Yanukovych.
« I think it wasn’t just a part of the old regime that [plotted the provocation], but it was also the work of Russian special forces who served and maintained the ideology of the [old] regime, » Health Minister Oleh Musiy said.
Putin has pushed the idea that the sniper shootings were ordered by opposition leaders, while Kremlin officials have pointed to a recording of a leaked phone call between Estonia’s foreign minister and the European Union’s foreign policy chief as evidence to back up that version.
This much is known: Snipers firing powerful rifles from rooftops and windows shot scores of people in the heart of Kiev. Some victims were opposition protesters, but many were civilian bystanders clearly not involved in the clashes. Among the dead were medics, as well as police officers. A majority of the more than 100 people who died in the violence were shot by snipers; hundreds were also injured by the gunfire and other street fighting.
On Tuesday, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov signaled that investigators may be turning their attention away from Ukrainian responsibility.
« I can say only one thing: the key factor in this uprising, that spilled blood in Kiev and that turned the country upside down and shocked it, was a third force, » Avakov was quoted as saying by Interfax. « And this force was not Ukrainian. »
The next day, Prosecutor General Oleh Makhntisky said officials have found sniper bullet casings on the National Bank building a few hundred yards up the hill from Maidan, the square that became the center and the symbol of the anti-government protests. He said investigators have confirmed snipers also fired from the Hotel Ukraine, directly on the square, and the House of Chimeras, an official residence next to the presidential administration building.
Deputy Interior Minister Mykola Velichkovych told AP that commanders of sniper units overseen by the Berkut police force and other Interior Ministry subdivisions have denied to investigators that they had given orders to shoot anyone.
Musiy, who spent more than two months organizing medical units on Maidan, said that on Feb. 20 roughly 40 civilians and protesters were brought with fatal bullet wounds to the makeshift hospital set up near the square. But he said medics also treated three police officers whose wounds were identical.
Forensic evidence, in particular the similarity of the bullet wounds, led him and others to conclude that snipers were targeting both sides of the standoff at Maidan — and that the shootings were intended to generate a wave of revulsion so strong that it would topple Yanukovych and also justify a Russian invasion.
Russia has used the uncertainty surrounding the bloodshed to discredit Ukraine’s current government. During a news conference Tuesday, Putin addressed the issue in response to a reporter’s question, suggesting that the snipers in fact « may have been provocateurs from opposition parties. »
That theory gained currency a day later when a recording of a February 26 private phone call between Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton was leaked and broadcast by the Russian government-controlled TV network, Russia Today. In the call, Paet said he had heard from protesters during a visit to Kiev that opponents of Yanukovych were behind the sniper attacks.
Paet said another physician who treated victims, Dr. Olha Bogomolets, told him that both police and protesters were killed by the same bullets — and « there is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind snipers it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new [government] coalition. »
On Wednesday Paet confirmed the recording was authentic, and told reporters in Tallinn that he was merely repeating what Bogomolets had told him. He said he had no way of verifying the claims, though he called Bogomolets « clearly a person with authority. »
Bogomolets couldn’t be immediately reached by the AP for comment. She did not answer repeated calls to her cellphone or respond to text messages.
In an interview earlier this week with a correspondent from British newspaper The Telegraph, Bogomolets said she didn’t know if police and protesters were killed by the same bullets, and called for a thorough investigation.
« No one who just sees the wounds when treating the victims can make a determination about the type of weapons, » she was quoted as saying. « I hope international experts and Ukrainian investigators will make a determination of what type of weapons, who was involved in the killings and how it was done. I have no data to prove anything. »
Musiy, the health minister, dismissed Bogomolets’ conclusions that opposition leaders were behind the sniper attacks, saying he considered her a capable doctor but « not competent to speak about this, and her comments do not correspond with reality. »
On Thursday, Russia’s UN envoy said he discussed the leaked phone call during a closed-door meeting of the UN Security Council.
If the call represents the truth, Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters, « it is hard to imagine how such a parliament […] can be regarded as a legitimate parliament that can pass legitimate decisions on the future of Ukraine. »
A former top security official with Ukraine’s main security agency, the SBU, waded into the confusion, in an interview published Thursday with the respected newspaper Dzerkalo Tizhnya. Hennady Moskal, who was deputy head of the agency, told the newspaper that snipers from the Interior Ministry and SBU were responsible for the shootings, not foreign agents.
« In addition to this, snipers received orders to shoot not only protesters, but also police forces. This was all done in order to escalate the conflict, in order to justify the police operation to clear Maidan, » he was quoted as saying.
One of the victims of the snipers was Alexander Tonskikh, 57. He told AP that at around 10 A.M. on February 20, he and dozens of opposition fighters moved south out of the main battleground on Maidan.
Riot police withdrew suddenly, he said, and an instant later snipers began firing from at least two different directions, from what seemed to be the rooftops of government buildings, between 200 and 300 yards away.
He said dozens of people were « mown down like grass » as he and others crouched behind a waist-high stone wall, holding wooden clubs and metal riot shields.
At least 10 people, he said, were killed instantly, and many others wounded. The bodies piled up on top of each other like fallen tree branches.
Shooting then began from a third direction, he said. As he crouched with his back to a tree, he was hit by a bullet that entered his right arm, went through his right side, punctured his lung and lodged just below his heart. He then lost consciousness.
CAPJPO-EuroPalestine
