© TACCThis would never be allowed in the US, according to FBI agents. Police would counter with deadly force.
What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.
Press TV: Our guest in New York [Mr. Peter Sinnott] is basically saying that the situation in Ukraine has nothing to do with external forces and is basically homegrown and a simple reaction to a government that the people no longer wanted, your take, sir.
Jatras: I think it's much more complicated than that. Certainly there are strong homegrown elements in Ukraine because there are very sharp divisions among people in Ukraine.
In the United States, we're familiar with the concept of the red states and blue states, and the divisions in Ukraine are far sharper and far more fundamental than even those in the United States.
Regarding this idea for example that the European orientation for Ukraine is something that the Ukrainian people wanted, this is not entirely true. Yes, a very large portion of the Ukrainian people want that but a very large portion of the Ukrainian people want a close relationship with Russia.
That's why it's a huge mistake of the Western powers to insist that Ukraine must have a single, pro-Western orientation.
Let's keep in mind too, the European Union was never offering Ukraine membership. They went out of their way to offer even the distant prospect of membership that this was purely a trade agreement and one that would lock Ukraine into a Western orientation essentially against Russia and against Ukraine's economic benefit especially in the eastern part of the country.
As far as this out of control violence goes, there has to be at least two, possibly three episodes in the last week where government forces pulled back in accordance with agreements signed by the opposition and then more radical elements of the crowd attacked the police with deadly force, with rocks, with Molotov cocktails, with clubs, and eventually with firearms, and the police then defended themselves.
Perhaps then there were some overreactions but let's not pretend that this is a case of the authorities attacking peaceful demonstrators. These people were mobilized for violence and they explicitly said we want a civil war situation, and that's what they're getting, it seems.
This is a very dangerous situation that, I think, has been embedded and fanned by Western governments.
Press TV: Mr. Jatras, you just brought up an interesting point when you talked about the police and reacting to the demonstrators. As an American, when I was looking at the video and thinking, well, if this had been in the United States, how the police would have been reacting as it was a major attack by the demonstrators.
Why do you think - was it an order from the government, basically, that it appears that, as a matter of fact, that the police did not react or was not aggressive when the demonstrators at that point in time appeared to have been very aggressive with them?
Jatras: Absolutely. Let's look at Tuesday morning when the parliament was considering a bill to return to the 2004 constitution, there was a march on the parliament by the demonstrators and there was a video of the police being attacked, hunkering under their shields as they're being pummeled by people with clubs, rocks thrown at them, Molotov - they tried to run them over with a truck!
I happened to ask two FBI agents here in Washington how would you react? How would law enforcement here in Washington react if that kind of violence were directed against the police?
They said, 'we would put them down. There is no question. We would not even wait for them to use their weapons. The fact that they were brandishing their weapons would be enough for us to employ deadly force'. That's the standard that would be used here.The Ukrainian police did not do that.
Press TV: And yet in the middle of this, the police, the security forces did not react in that way, then we saw though the EU talking about sanctions against the Ukrainian government at that point in time. Why is that the case?
Our guest in New York said that, basically as I said in the beginning, it's homegrown. Why did the EU want to get involved and talk about implementing sanctions against a government that, as you just said, they were just responding perhaps even less aggressive than many of these Western countries and perhaps even Eastern ones would have responded if they had had a similar situation? Why the sanctions?
Jatras: I would hesitate to suggest that Western governments were deliberately trying to incite violence. However, the effect of what they were doing had that result. When you tell both sides, when you warn both sides you must not engage in violence, but you also tell them that only one side will be held responsible, that's essentially an incentive for the other side to launch violent attacks knowing that your opponent will be blamed for any response. That's what happened on several occasions.
Press TV: Mr. Jatras, where does Ukraine go from here?
Jatras: I think it's very unclear. There was an agreement signed yesterday by the three opposition leaders, by President Yanukovych and witnessed by three foreign ministers from Europe. The ink was not even dry when it was violated by the opposition who essentially used it as a carte blanche to seize control in Kiev, to declare the president out of office and to essentially take over the administration of the government, as they claim.
Mr. Yanukovych does not accept that. He's in Kharkov with parliamentarians from the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine. They are not accepting this, what amounts now to a power grab.
I think we now have a standoff that could devolve into a civil war situation if something is not done that can be binding to restore the rule of law and the constitutional order. We're very far from that now.
Press TV: What needs to be done, in your perspective, in order to avoid what you say could turn into a civil war?
Jatras: I think there has to be negotiation for some kind of a power-sharing scheme, perhaps based on the 2004 constitution.
But I don't know what can be done when the other side, the opposition side, signs agreements and does not keep them. I don't know how to solve that problem.
Reader Comments
to our Newsletter