THE ouster of pro-Russian President of Ukraine Viktor F. Yanukovych has brought victory to the pro-Western protesters who want to join the European Union (EU) but in the process it brought another tragedy in which the nation is now on the brink of war. The Ukrainian uprising cost over 100 lives to force President Yanukovych to flee to Russia. Meanwhile the revolutionaries in Kiev passed noisy week-end celebrating the victory only to see that their southern Peninsula of Crimea has been tactically taken over by Russia. Russian irregular forces are now guarding the Ukrainian army base asking them to surrender. The fact is that the south-east Ukraine is inhabited by Russian ethnic groups who also speak Russian as their language. Now with the taking over of power in Kiev by pro-western ultra-nationalist, the Russian speaking people feel threatened and Russia has taken advantage of the threat by taking over control of Crimea while the rest of the eastern region of Ukraine also remains vulnerable to Russian threat. However, we can’t accept such tactical takeover and urge both sides to resolve the crisis through dialogue.
The uprising started with President Yanukovych’s cabinet dumping of an agreement signed by the previous pro-Western administration to bring the country closer to EU. Yanukovych government replaced it with closer trade ties with Russia from which Ukraine got independence only two decades ago but having cultural, economic and ethnic ties of past centuries. Anti-government protesters flared up with the dumping of the trade agreement with the EU which ended with the president’s overthrew and installation of a new pro-Western government in Kiev. As we see, the incidence was a total reverse from a pro-Russian stance to a pro-Western switch, mainly orchestrated by revolutionary forces without seeking a middle ground to protect the nation’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in a multi-ethnic nation.
We believe that Ukraine can’t ignore its history of past association with Russia while at the same time it has the legitimate right to come closer to the Western Europe to enjoy greater freedom and better standard of life. The revolutionaries have mishandled their victory to invite a new crisis of national territorial integrity while removing a dictator who had failed to understand their hopes and aspirations. In this case, we equally blame European and US leaders who have lured the anti-Russian forces in Ukraine to break with Russia. But now when Moscow has mobilized its occupation forces to Crimea, they are only using threats against President Vladimir Putin without matching it with actions. Their threat of freezing Russian assets, trade isolation and boycott of G-8 meeting in Russian city of Sochi is not enough to dissuade Putin from taking actions which aims at destabilizing its Black Sea fleet and other strategic interest on its door to be dominated by the West.
In fact the Western leaders have similarly encouraged the freedom loving people of Syria to rise in revolt against President Bashar al-Assad but when they are dying in a prolonged war, the US and EU leaders are waiting in the rear only see more killings and destruction of innocent lives in Syria. The West is also encouraging the Egyptian military to kill the civilians tolerating the overthrow of elected President Mohammad Morsi. The same thing is noticeable in Bangladesh where the western leaders denounced the one-sided election and yet using appeasing language now to placate the government. They are causing crisis at many global points without working to resolve it.
