[Marxism] Kiev: 'There Is An Orange Rampage. It Is All American. It Is A Nightmare'

["David Quarter" <davidquarter@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

From:                   Rick Rozoff


http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3113366a12,00.html


Reuters
November 29, 2004


Eastern Ukraine angry at attempt to overturn poll



-"I am from Kiev, and I can tell you what is being
done there. There is an orange rampage. It is all
American. It is a nightmare."


DONETSK - Anger at the bid to overturn the
presidential election victory of local son Viktor
Yanukovich rose in Ukraine's Russian-speaking east
overnight, as did fears the country could split.

The orange colours of opposition leader Viktor
Yushchenko, who says fraud robbed him of victory in
the poll, dominate the streets of Kiev, but in Donetsk
Yanukovich's blue-and-white is everywhere with ribbons
on cars and buildings.

Yanukovich's wife Lyudmila whipped up a
thousands-strong rally in the Donetsk city centre with
fierce criticism of Yushchenko, who eastern Ukrainians
accuse of serving the West.

"I am from Kiev, and I can tell you what is being done
there. There is an orange rampage. It is all American.
It is a nightmare," she told a crowd of 4000 cheering
supporters waving blue flags, ribbons and balloons.
....
Ukraine's industrial east, where snow-covered slag
heaps tower over pit-heads, has little in common with
the Ukrainian-speaking west.
....
[E]asterners were increasingly angry at what they see
as a bid to invalidate their votes for Yanukovich, a
former Donetsk governor.

"Every day we work underground, in conditions that
could kill us. Yet they refuse to allow our votes to
matter," said miner Vladimir Chibulsky, standing
outside the "Trudovaya" coal mine near Donetsk.

The dispute pitting Yushchenko's supporters in western
and central Ukraine against the prime minister's
backers in the east has prompted new fears the country
could disintegrate.

Many in Donetsk's mines agreed.

"I worry that Ukraine could disappear, but if there is
no other way out then I am ready to support it," said
Andrei Kozak, clad in helmet and boots before going
down to the coalface.

Mine managers said Ukraine needed the coal produced in
Donbass and that prevented workers from leaving en
masse to demonstrate in the capital.

A few hundred miners went to Kiev last week, raising
the spectre of clashes in Romania in the early 1990s,
when coal miners poured into the capital Bucharest to
break up opposition rallies and smash public property.


But most miners rejected any notion of resolving
Ukraine's fate in street battles in Kiev, 700km to the
west.

"The opposition is trying to provoke us into fighting.
But Yanukovich was right when he told us to be
careful," said Chibulsky as he donned his work clothes
for another shift. "As soon as the first drop of blood
is spilled, how can we stop it?"




                

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