Vol. 79/No. 21 June 8, 2015
On May 27 a coalition of trade unions, including the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine and the independent miners union, held the first of a planned series of protests outside the Cabinet of Ministers in Kiev. The demands include doubling the minimum wage, automatic escalators on all wages to offset inflation, payment of outstanding back wages, reversing hikes in workers’ utility prices, and restoration of “the social rights and guarantees of workers, pensioners, Chernobyl liquidators and victims of the nuclear disaster.”
At the same time, the administration of President Barack Obama, seeking to cement his ‘legacy’ as an enlightened man of peace, is pushing a “reset” with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Their goal is close collaboration to force a coalition in the Middle East, based on Moscow’s allies, Iran and Syria, as well as Iraq, to defeat the Islamic State and achieve stability — and to do so without U.S. “feet on the ground.”
The Obama administration has made clear its willingness to accept Moscow’s insistence on a “buffer zone” between central Europe and the Russian border, particularly in eastern Ukraine.
This shift was signaled with Secretary of State John Kerry’s May 12 visit to Sochi, Russia, where he met with Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. In a joint news conference with Lavrov afterward, Kerry said they found “a fair amount of agreement” on the conflict in Ukraine, which “will be resolved by the full implementation of Minsk,” referring to the agreement brokered by the German and French governments in February.
That agreement produced a shaky cease-fire between pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, who continue to receive arms and fighters from Moscow, and the Ukrainian army and volunteer combatants. It calls for the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk currently held by the separatist forces to have greater autonomy within Ukraine, assuring Moscow will continue to wield substantial influence in the region along Russia’s southwestern border.
“If and when Minsk is fully implemented,” Kerry said, “it is clear the U.S. and EU sanctions [against Moscow] can begin to be rolled back.” The Russian annexation of Crimea, which Washington accepts as an accomplished fact, was not mentioned.
“The United States and Russia remain closely aligned” in talks to reach a nuclear deal with the Iranian government, Kerry stressed.
The following day Kerry briefed his counterparts at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Turkey. At that meeting there was a “slight but palpable change in the overall atmosphere and rhetoric,” the Moscow Times reported. “No one has mentioned the possibility of sending weapons to Ukraine, and the word ‘separatists’ has been broadly used instead of ‘Russian-backed insurgents.’”
Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland visited Moscow May 18 for more discussions, and Daniel Rubinstein, Washington’s special envoy for Syria, was there at the same time.
The following week U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron and Putin agreed to talks between London and Moscow aimed at greater collaboration in Syria.
The governments of the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are increasingly nervous about Putin’s moves to dominate what Moscow considers to be Russia’s “near abroad.” The defense ministers of the three countries, all members of NATO, sent a joint letter to the U.S.-organized military alliance asking that permanent brigades of NATO troops be stationed in their countries. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said they would “assess” the request, but made no commitment.
Workers squeezed by bondholders
The Ukrainian government faces a June 15 deadline to renegotiate $23 billion in bonds held by private investors, as a condition to receive the next portion of a $17.5 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. The largest of these bondholders, U.S.-based Franklin Templeton Investments, leads a group of creditors who refuse to accept Kiev’s proposal that they take a “haircut” — that is write off some of the loans.“Ukraine’s debt should be reduced,” wrote former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers in the Financial Times May 18. He praised the Poroshenko “reform-minded” government for “political courage in combating corruption and moving aggressively to curb energy subsidies,” and described the speculators who refuse to accept debt reduction as “selfish” and “irresponsible.”
Summers’ concern is that speculators’ insistence on full payment, bankrupting Ukraine, would be a deterrent to any country’s rulers aligning themselves with Washington.
The May 23 Economist said, “Ukraine must be allowed to impose a write-off on most of the principal that its private creditors are owed” if “the West” wants to make an orientation to the Western capitalist powers attractive.
The “reforms” Summers praises have hit working people hard. These include slashing spending on education, health care and pensions; raising taxes, including more enforcement of the regressive value-added tax; and quadrupling the household price of natural gas.
Inflation is rising, and Ukraine’s gross domestic product fell 17.6 percent in the first three months of the year, compared to the same quarter in 2014.
Meanwhile, in a blow to political rights, Poroshenko signed laws May 16 banning “Communist and Nazi” symbols and forbidding saying anything positive about Ukraine’ history from the Russian Revolution of 1917 to the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991.
These laws amount to “criminalization of certain points of view, with serious periods of imprisonment, and restrictions even on academic freedom,” said Halya Coynash of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group.
Related articles:
Moscow cracks down on Tatars in Crimea
Workers struggles exploded following collapse of USSR
Help send ‘Militant’ reporting team to Ukraine
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