By Vestnik Kavkaza
“Within the framework of decentralization of power we are ready to give additional guarantees to the Russian-speaking population and languages of other ethnic minorities. This is our position which won’t be changed,” the acting prime minister of Ukraine, Arseny Yatsenyuk said. However, human rights activists doubt that the rights of ethnic minorities would be protected.
The Moscow Bureau for Human Rights developed a report headlined “The Ukrainian political crisis: Human Rights Dimension (destruction of the legal order; violation of civil freedoms; discrimination).” Alexander Brod, Director of the Bureau, a member of the Council under the President of Russia for Human Rights, thinks that “the political crisis in Ukraine, which came amid a violent conflict between the authorities and the opposition, led not only to paralysis, but also to an actual cessation of the full-scale activity of the law-enforcement agencies, i.e. the backbone of any state. The law-enforcement structures were partially demoralized and stopped fulfilling their duties. And the vacuum began to be filled up by radical structures of a criminal and nationalistic character. Representatives of the so-called self-defense of the Maidan, radical nationalists, came onto the streets to put things in order, using chaos.”
All these things reduced the level of social security and created a serious threat to the lives and property of common citizens. “Unknown people who call themselves self-defense units and hide behind patriotic slogans occupy administrative posts in markets and shopping centers and impose taxes on businessmen and squeeze money,” Brod says.
According to him, this creates a dangerous precedent and is leading Ukraine into civil war: “We speak about numerous attacks on Jews, the violation of an Orthodox church in the Zhitomir Region. A Hungarian monument was violated in the Transcarpathian Region on March 12. The MP and People’s Artist of Ukraine, the well-known musician Yan Tabachnik, was insulted on the grounds of national origin.”
Moscow human rights activists would like the report to be studied by international organizations: the UN, the OSCE, Human Rights Watch. We urge to coordinate cooperation with social organizations of Israel, the USA, unions of ethnic groups which represent ethnic minorities in Ukraine – the Hungarians, the Polish, the Romanians – to inform them about the true situation in modern Ukraine. I believe the situation is getting worse. Probably the Southeast of Ukraine will hold referendums and declare its independence, i.e. we could get several unrecognized republics. Of course there will be numerous attempts to suppress these acts, but local citizens will serious resist this.”
