Ukraine – Pike & Hurricane

YNTR – April 2020: Forest fires in Chernobyl, new fask force in Sahel, Maduro accused of drug trafficking, and more

EditorChief — Sun, 19 Apr 2020 08:50:27 +0000

Ukraine. Forest fires near the defunct nuclear plant of Chernobyl caused radation in the area to rise 16 times above the normal level. Police arrested a suspect who is accused of causing the fires that started in early April by setting grass and rubbish on fire. While the fires increased the level of air pollution in Kiev – located around 90km south of Chernobyl – making them the worst in the world, authorities claimed there was no rise in radiation levels in the Ukrainian capital. While reports said the fires were getting dangerously close to the nuclear power plant and waste storage facilities, the government assured that the fires were contained and under control.

Sahel. Eleven European states have formed a new task force, named “Takuba”, to fight terrorism in Mali and the Sahel. The states supporting the project are Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and Sweden. The French-led task force is also supposed to support the French “Barkhane” mission in the Sahel as well as the joint troops of five Sahel states.

Venezuela. The United States are accusing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro as well as other high-ranking politicians of drug trafficking and narco terrorism and offered a bounty of $15 million for the arrest of Maduro. According to US federal authorities, Maduro cooperated with dissident FARC members to “flood” the US with cocaine. The US government, which supports Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guidó, already imposed sanctions against Venezuela under Maduro for human rights abuses and argues that Maduro is responsibile for Venezuela’s economic and political crisis.

WHO. US President Donald Trump has accused the World Health Organisation (WHO) and European states of knowingly allowing covid-19 to spread beyond China. Consequently, hesuspended funding for the WHO. The UN agency had declared a global health emergency on Janaury 30. The day after, Trump announced a ban on all foreign nationals entering the US from China. He said: “Tragically other nations put their trust in the WHO and they didn’t do any form of ban and you see what happened to Italy […]”. Meanwhile, New York Times data suggests that almost 40 000 Americans and authorised travellers were able to enter the US from China since the travel ban was put into action on February 4 whereas Italy introduced a complete ban on all people travelling from China on January 31. The WHO criticised Trump’s travel ban for “increasing fear and stigma, with little public health benefit”, and Democrats and disease experts claim that the travel ban has little effect as the coronavirus had already started to spread within the US as well as internationally.

WFP. Due to fundig shortfall the World Food Programme (WFP) was forced to reduce their support for refugees in Uganda by 30% and for Yemen by 50%. In Uganda, 1.4 million refugees rely on food rations distributed by the WFP. Activists fear that these cuts will make refugees’ lives in midst the nationwide shutdown due to the coronavirus even more complicated. A speaker of the WFP said that due to a critical lack of finances they had no other option but to reduce their aid for Yemen by half, despite the humanitarian crisis in the country. According to the UN, about 80% of the Yemini population is dependent on aid. Starting in mid-April they will receive support every second month as opposed to every month.

Syria. For the first time, the UN’s Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) explicitly names the Assad regime as those responsible for the poison gas attacks of 2017. They accuse the Syrian air force to have used sarin and chlorine gas in attacks on Syrian cities in late March 2017. Human rights organisations see the OPCW’s report as a milestone in the investigation of war crimes.

Israel. On the way of forming a new government, opposition leader Benny Gantz, who holds the mandate to form a government, has been asking for more time. This was denied to him by President Rivlin. The possibility of a unity coalition that was in sight is slipping away. Since no party has a clear majority, the mandate goes back to the parliament and a fourth election round in Israel could be the consequence.

USA. Senator Bernie Sanders ended his campaign for the nomination as presidential candidate, saying “the path toward victory is virtually impossible.” Thus, Joe Biden is the only remaining candidate of the Democrats. Sanders wants to leave his name in the ballot, but assured that he is supporting Biden in the political fight against Donald Trump. Sanders is known to not only run a presidential campaign, but to mobilise the US American progressive left and to have created a movement concerned with social and environmental justice.

Photo Credits

pi-IMG_5623, zhrefch, CC0 1.0

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A New Hope –Not Only a Star Wars Story

Nina Kolarzik — Sat, 10 Mar 2018 18:01:59 +0000

When I heard about the theme of this edition, hope, the first thing that came to mind was Star Wars.

“But I cannot write about Star Wars in the UF magazine”, I thought.

“Why not?”, the others asked.

And they are right: fiction books and movies mirror what is happening in our world, and Star Wars has grown into a whole universe of stories, which deals with political and social issues we face in the real world. It is a reflection of recurring situations on Earth, only with planet systems instead of nation states.

How do I relate issues in real world politics to the first Star Wars movie “A New Hope”? In Star Wars, hope was materialised in the form of the Rebel Alliance’s successful strikes against the Galactic Empire. Rebellion is a recurring feature in most science-fiction stories. Rebellious groups represent the oppressed people’s hope for a better world. And so I asked myself, how justified is this hope? Do rebellions often succeed? And what do books and movies teach us?

Two Rebellious Movements: The Rebel Alliance vs Euromaidan

Rebellions are understood as armed resistance against an authority, a government or a leader. Star Wars movies and reality have their differences and similarities, comparing the Ukrainian Revolution of 2013-14 to the movie can help us to understand these.

For those who do not know Star Wars, the Rebel Alliance formed itself during the last wars, when the Galactic Empire arose. In “A New Hope”, it is fighting an insurgency war against the Empire to overthrow it and to create a new democratic Republic.

As a comparison, take the Ukrainian Revolution. It started of as a student protest against the Ukrainian government, who did not want to sign an EU association agreement. These protests then developed into a revolution, aiming to replace the ruling government.

Both cases are rebellions aiming to overthrow a ruling government. But while the Ukrainian Revolution started out peacefully, the Rebel Alliance was formed from pre-existent, violent resistance movements.

The main difference is that in reality things are not that clearly separated into the good and the bad. The relations between affected parties are far more complex, and the international community and law play a much bigger role, restricting parties’ use of violence and ability to manoeuvre.

At first sight, both rebellions were successful—the Empire got defeated, the Ukrainian president Yanukovych fled and a new parliament was elected. But you have to keep in mind that in recent years, new Star Wars episodes came out, with new rulers, new problems, and new rebels. The parliamentary elections in Ukraine and the Russian annexation of the Crimean peninsula were followed by riots and conflicts in Eastern parts of the country. This raises the question: at which point can a rebellion be called a success, when the long-term effects are not immediately visible?

Learning through Movies

Movies do not often deal with the long-term effects and how daily life continues after a happy ending. But we can still learn a great deal from movies and books, as dozens of Star Wars interpretations and analyses can point out. You can come across books, such as “Sex, Politics, and Religion in Star Wars” and “Harry Potter and International Relations”. The stories show us examples of courage and wisdom, of violence and cold bloodedness, and of political wit and military strategies.

According to Christine Cornea from Edinburgh University, writers draw inspiration from reality to their stories, and give us something new to learn about since “science fiction has become a significant and widely accepted element of cultural reality.”

With the heroic imagery of the rebels in movies, these stories can give us hope. Movie-rebels succeed far more often than rebels in reality. And no matter how small the chances of success are, there is always some hope. Of course, in reality rebellions can be either in the right or wrong—the government is not always on the dark side.

Whether rebellions in reality fail more often than in movies, and whether they actually create change socially or politically—hope is the one thing that drives them forward. Hope is what most people need. Governments and rebellious leaders know that. The more I learn about the complex interactions and dependencies in the world, the more often I think: is it worth the fight? Does it even make sense to fight a superior power? But the moment you want to give up, thinking it is useless to carry on, something you do not learn about at university, pushes you forward: hope.

By Nina Kolarzik

Photo Credit:

Soldiers of the Rebel Alliance: Michael Neel (CC BY 2.0)

Ukrainian Revolution: Ivan Bandura “Climbing the crane for a better view” (CC BY 2.0)

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Ukraine: Revolution of Dignity

Charlotta Lahnalahti — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 14:42:00 +0000

Ukraine, and all of Europe, has been on edge for the last months as student protests which started in November of 2013 turned into violent conflicts in January of 2014. Having interviewed a Ukrainian student, Dima Kharchenko, who had been taken part in the revolution.

“I do not know where to start. It seems like so much has happened in the past couple of months. Firstly, I would like briefly touch on what preceded the revolution. The disagreements originate from 2010 when Yanukovych was elected as the president with previous vote falsifications, especially in the East, closer to the Russian border. After he was declared the president, Yanukovych launched a bunch of new policies, which were generally aimed at recreating the state where the majority of people served directly under the President and those beside him – including his so called “family”. Consequently, these policies led to the spread of deep corruption within the system and the worsening of human rights During the process of adapting the new policies, the citizens became unsatisfied with his rule, for reasons including his ignorance of public opinion.

However, Yanukovych tried to gather support by maintaining the Euro-integration process between Ukraine and the EU, which is an idea that appears to be popular in Ukraine. Throughout 2013, Yanukovych traded both with Russia and the EU, changing sides whenever one supported Ukraine more than the other. In the end, Putin persuaded Yanukovych to delay signing the Association Agreement (EU AA) with the EU on November 21st. This long feared decision led to peaceful student protests in Kiev, especially in the Independence Square, which is also known as the Maidan Nezalezhnosti. The protestors demanded that Yanukovych sign the deal with the EU despite Russia’s reluctancy. Since the protestors were advocating the signing of the EU AA deal, they renamed the place to “EuroMaidan”. When it was clear that the agreement would not be signed after all, people started to go home. The night before EuroMaidan was to be disbanded, the Ukrainian special riot police, Berkut, attacked the protesters and journalists, severely beating them near and around Maidan. This is said to be the turning point which transformed the countrywide peaceful protests against the current government, to violent clashes between the government forces and the opposition.

As an outsider, a fact that has not been widely discussed in the international media, is that Yanukovych is a previously convicted criminal who has been imprisoned twice. The decisions led by him to attack the protestors and later not allowing flexibility in negotiations thus show such methods are perceived as justified and routine for this ex-con. His war-crime-like actions further decreased his credibility and the legitimacy of his power in the eyes of the international community, and dug himself a deeper grave. Even though Ukraine is not a fully democratic country, due to corruption, and it holds close bonds with Russian and Belarussian regimes, such open violence against peaceful demonstrators is simply unacceptable by the society and cannot be justified by any means.

Briefly, people of Ukraine are fighting against the authorities which have continuously, for three years, oppressed the population through deliberately ineffective government and structural violence. Even though the Western media says people are solely fighting for further EU integration, it is a false assumption. EU integration seemed like an open door to a democratised Ukraine, which was closed by Yanukovych and sparked violence. People are struggling because they are fed up with the government and its ineffective actions.

The issue in Ukraine has been called many names, such as Eurorevolution, Revolution of Dignity, and the Euromaidan revolution. I like the sound of the Revolution of Dignity most, since we are fighting for our basic citizen rights over the dictator rule. Living through these events, I have come to think that, at times, further happiness can be achieved just through collective struggle. Even though the clashes that are ongoing and create a dreadful atmosphere, many people are happy to be there. People are demonstratingbecause they are willing to fight, not because they are forced to. Maidan looks catastrophic and depressive today, but people attending seem happy and help out with whatever they are capable of. It is difficult to acknowledge and realise that all the things happening here are happening to my country and its people. It is especially hard to realise the fact that people are dying for a better future, because of a student revolution that started so peacefully.

And here I stop, I am leaving to Maidan and will continue writing as soon as I come back.”

The next day on the 22nd of February, I receive a message from Dima at 13.03: “Yesterday, at Maidan, the situation was calm. No clashes and no fire. Instead, there were dozens of coffins carried near the Maidan,( heroes to whom we said goodbye. Afterwards I went to Sophiyska Plosha (Sophiyska square) where the oldest church of Kiev is located. There we lit candles and mourned for a hundred of those, who sacrificed their lives in the battles of last months. You could stand there forever watching the candles burn and people sitting nearby and praying, but it is, though, too sad to watch it.”

Later on the same day I receive a live feed message from Kiev at 16.25:

“Our Parliament has voted to impeach Yanukovych and has set a new election for May 25th! – D”

23rd of February:

“Regarding the future of Ukraine, I, as for many others, hope and believe that people will learn their lessons from 2004 when Yanukovych was chosen and will rely on the newly chosen politicians. This also requires challenging them and recreating the entire system in general, in order to eradicate all the corruption and other flaws which have spread all over [the country] during the last 10 years. I hope that our old Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, who was imprisoned by Yanukovych in 2011, will get back to politics. I am not dreaming of this ideal-democracy-bullshit, but I truly wish that Ukraine would evolve into something that people could call a country of active citizens.”

Since messaging with Dima, Tymoshenko has been freed from imprisonment and continued closely in politics with the interim president, Olexander Turchynov who was named as the spokesperson by the parliament. Turchynov states that the country is under the risk of separatism between Russian speaking East Ukraine and the rest due to the eviction of Yanukovych. The ex-president fled to Russia after being wanted for mass-murder and gave a speech on February 28th from Moscow. Unknown Russian troops entered the Russian speaking part of Ukraine, Crimea which is a southeast peninsula in the Black Sea, monitoring its airport and raised Russian flags to Crimean parliament building. Since then, most of the troops have left having created suspicion of Russia monitoring possible Ukrainian mobilization in Crimea where the new government are least popular.

What will happen to Ukraine in the following months is hard to predict. A big country, of more than 45million citizens, needs a strong, reliable government but stability requires a fashion of active citizenship to challenge the power of the authorities. According to many scholars, states are built for its population, but in the contemporary liberal economic world, self-interests are the driving forces in today’s politics. This was also be a possibility in Ukraine’s case where Yanukovych strived for more power, undermining the legitimacy of his rule.

Active and educated pioneers, such as Dima, are examples for students and citizens who seek to create an inclusive and participatory political processes and sustainable security methods for post-conflict Ukraine.

By Charlotta Lahnalhati

Image Credit:

Picture 1: streetwrk.com, licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0
Picture 2: Sasha Maksymenko, licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

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