On Saturday, March 18, people from all across the country will gather outside the White House in Washington, D.C., to demand an end to the war in Ukraine and all the endless wars the government is waging with our blood and our tax dollars.
In the last year, Congress has appropriated more than $116 BILLION for the Ukrainian government. That’s more than it spent here at home on education, cops – even prisons. The goal isn’t to help the people of Ukraine, but simply to “weaken Russia,” as was recently stated by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin – even at the risk of a catastrophic nuclear war that could end all life on Earth.
Meanwhile, back home, evictions are skyrocketing. Supplemental SNAP benefits have ended. Millions are being forced off Medicaid. Credit card debt is at an all-time high because people have run through their savings and are now deep in the hole just trying to put food on the table.
The March 18 demonstration will make the connections between the human and financial toll of U.S. militarism at home and abroad:
Peace in Ukraine – No weapons, no money for the Ukraine war!
Abolish NATO – End U.S. militarism & sanctions!
Fund people’s needs, not the war machine!
No war with China!
End U.S. aid to racist apartheid Israel!
Fight racism & bigotry at home, not other peoples!
U.S. hands off Haiti!
End AFRICOM!
End Sanctions on Syria!
This protest represents the coming together of more than 200 organizations, including the ANSWER Coalition, United National Antiwar Coalition, Black Alliance for Peace, Code Pink, Veterans for Peace, International Action Center, Struggle-La Lucha, DSA International Committee, Shenandoah Valley Antiwar Coalition, Dissenters at UVA, Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality and the Defenders’ Odessa Solidarity Campaign.
Join with us in this historic demonstration and make the warmakers listen to the will of the people!
At this point, we know of carpools and vans being organized from Hampton Roads, Richmond and Norfolk:
HAMPTON ROADS
Hampton Roads Coalition for Peace & Planet
peaceandplanet757@gmail.com
RICHMOND
Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality & Odessa Solidarity Campaign
DefendersFJE@hotmail.com
Phone or Text: 804-644-5834
ROANOKE
Plowshare Peace Center
To find a ride or provide a ride: 540-989-6875 or hbeskar@gmail.com
June 22, 2022, was the 81st anniversary of Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, and a prominent German antiwar activist took the occasion to publicly question why the German government is now supporting neo-Nazi organizations in Ukraine.
As a result, that activist is now facing the possibility of up to three years in prison.
Heinrich Bücker runs Berlin’s popular Coop Antiwar Cafe, which since 2005 has been a gathering space for activists working on a wide range of issues. Since 2019 the cafe has co-organized the weekly event “Frente Unido América Latina” in front of the U.S. Embassy. He’s a member of the “Kommunistische Platform” in the party DIE LINKE; a member of the League of Anti-Fascists; and represents the U.S.-based World Beyond War in Berlin. The cafe also represents the “Aufstehen” Initiative in Berlin Mitte, backing the left politician Sahra Wagenknecht and organizing left events against sanctions and for peace.
On June 22, Bücker gave a speech at an event hosted by Berlin’s Friedenskoordination (Peace Coordination) at the Soviet War Memorial in Berlin’s Treptower Park, in which, according to a statement on the antiwar cafe’s website, he said that “… it seems incomprehensible to me that German politics should again support the same chauvinistic and especially Russophobic ideologies on the basis of which the German Reich found willing helpers in 1941. The SS and Wehrmacht used Ukrainian national-fascist organizations as repressive and murderous squads against their own countrymen, including millions of Jewish men, women and children.”
The collaboration of ultra-nationalist Ukrainian organizations with the Nazi occupation is a matter of historical record. And, before the present war, Western mainstream media would routinely report on the existence of present-day fascist organizations in Ukraine, such as the Azov Battalion, Right Sector, National Militia, C-14 and many others. (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cohen-ukraine-commentary/commentary-ukraines-neo-nazi-problem-idUSKBN1GV2TY)
But that coverage has now ended.
On Oct. 19, Bücker received a letter from the Berlin State Criminal Police Office notifying him that he was under investigation for possible violation of Paragraph 140 of the German Criminal Code, which has to do with disturbing the public peace. A violation of the statute can be punished by a fine or a prison sentence of up to three years. The investigation was apparently prompted by a complaint by a Berlin attorney upset about Bücker’s speech.
“In Germany, we are currently experiencing a narrowing of the space for debate and massive restrictions on freedom of expression, caused by one-sided reporting in the mainstream-media,” Bücker writes. “There are now a number of individuals who are in the focus of the German criminal investigation authorities. Similar tendencies are also reported from other EU [European Union] countries.”
The Coop Antiwar Cafe itself also has come under attack. In addition to threatening emails, the cafe’s front windows were recently smashed.
Along with his June 22 speech, Bücker also initiated a statement on the war in Ukraine that questioned the official line that it’s simply an act of unprovoked Russian aggression. Instead, the statement, posted on the cafe’s website, points to the steady eastward expansion of NATO up to the very borders of Russia, and U.S. and European support for the 2014 coup that drove out the elected president of Ukraine and brought in a right-wing government anxious to join NATO and hostile to both Russia and the country’s ethnic Russian minority.
Another reason for the police interest in Bücker could be the prominent role he has played in promoting an anti-imperialist statement on the war in Ukraine initiated by the U.S-based Odessa Solidarity Campaign, a project of the Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality. That statement, similar to the one initiated by the Coop Antiwar Cafe, has been endorsed by more than 230 organizations and individuals in 22 countries, with nearly two-thirds of the endorsers from Germany.
Meanwhile, in the United States, the African People’s Socialist Party is calling for support in the face of expected indictments of four of its leaders and prominent supporters who have been actively speaking out against U.S. support for Ukraine. The APSP is a Pan-African organization that for the past 50 years has been opposing U.S. wars at home and abroad.
In response to the police pressure, Bücker’s allies and supporters in Germany have been preparing a united defense effort. Stay tuned for new developments and calls for solidarity.
For more information on repression directed against antiwar activists and efforts to support them, see:
Phil Wilayto is editor of The Virginia Defender newspaper and coordinator of the Odessa Solidarity Campaign. He can be reached at: DefendersFJE@hotmail.com.
The Odessa Solidarity Campaign has initiated the below statement on the war in Ukraine. We invite other organizations and individuals to endorse it. To do so, please send the following information to DefendersFJE@hotmail.com:
Your name
Your email address
Your city and country
The name of your organization, if any
Is this endorsement by your organization or you as an individual?
An anti-Imperialist position on the crisis in Ukraine
The war in Ukraine is raging on with no end in sight. People are suffering, and fears are rising that the conflict could widen and even involve nuclear weapons. Many well-meaning people are calling for a ceasefire and negotiations.
We all want peace, but it does no good to promote solutions that don’t take into account what led up to the war in the first place:
Back in 1991, as the Soviet Union was collapsing, the U.S. government promised that NATO would not expand “one inch” eastward. But since then, all 14 new NATO members have been former Soviet states or allies. Sweden and Finland are expected to join soon. Both Georgia and Ukraine, which border Russia, have asked to join. That would complete the encirclement of Russia’s western flank. It would be as if Russia were building an anti-U.S. military alliance of all South and Central American countries and was about to admit Mexico. Obviously, the U.S. would see that as an existential threat.
When Ukraine first became an independent state in 1991, Ukraine and Russia were at peace. But in 2014, the U.S. backed a violent, right-wing coup that brought to power an anti-Russian government that openly embraced neo-Nazi, paramilitary militias hostile to Ukraine’s Russian minority.
This new situation, which included the massacre on May 2, 2014, of at least 42 anti-coup protesters in Odessa by a fascist-led mob, was seen as gravely threatening by the heavily ethnic-Russian areas of eastern and southern Ukraine. The result was Crimea voting to rejoin Russia, which it had been part of until 1954, and Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbass region declaring themselves independent.
Then Ukraine, Russia, Donetsk and Luhansk agreed to allow those two entities to become autonomous areas within a united Ukraine. But Ukraine never implemented the terms of those Minsk Agreements, and instead carried out a military campaign to retake the separatitst region, with the loss of some 15,000 lives.
Meanwhile, since at least 2014, the U.S. and other NATO countries have carried out regular, massive joint military exercises with Ukraine – land, sea and air – right up to Russia’s borders.
In late 2021 and early 2022, President Putin of the Russian Federation offered to hold negotiations with the U.S. and NATO to discuss Russia’s security concerns, but the offer was ignored. This was before Russia recognized the independent republics in the Donbass. Subsequent Russian offers to negotiate also were rejected.
By February 2022, Ukraine was intensifying its war in the Donbass, leading Russia to intervene, with the stated purpose of defending the people of the Donbass and “demilitarizing” and “de-Nazifying” Ukraine. Whether people agree with that action or not, it was anything but “unprovoked.”
Since then, as of Sept. 18, the U.S. Department of Defense admits to providing $16.1 billion in military aid to Ukraine. Other estimates have it as high as $40 billion – not counting aid the U.S. says is coming from 50 other allied countries – ensuring that the war will continue indefinitely. What began as a conflict between Russia and Ukraine has become a proxy war by the U.S. and NATO against Russia, with Ukrainians as cannon fodder.
It isn’t necessary to endorse the Russian intervention in order to see that the real provocations for the war were the relentless eastward expansion of NATO; the U.S. support for the right-wing, anti-Russian coup of 2014; and the continuing and expanding war by Ukraine to retake the Donbass.
This being the case, we call on all peace and antiwar activists around the world to demand:
No to all U.S./NATO support for Ukraine!
No to all U.S./NATO military actions in Ukraine!
No to all U.S./NATO sanctions against Russia!
No to NATO and all U.S. wars and occupations everywhere in the world!
The OSC statement has been translated into German, Hungarian and Italian. It is posted on the websites of the Coop Antiwar Cafe in Berlin, Germany, and the Hungarian website Balmix:
On May 2, 2014, just a few months after the U.S.-backed right-wing coup that overthrew the elected president of Ukraine, a large mob led by openly fascist organizations murdered at least 42 people in the Black Sea port city of Odessa. This is what has come to be known as the Odessa Massacre.
After the coup, the victims had been petitioning for the right to elect their local governors, instead of having them appointed by the federal government, which was now hostile to the Russian ethnic minority in the country. The mob drove the petitioners into the five-story House of Trade Unions on Kulikovo square and set it on fire. Some of the victims died from the flames, some from the smoke, others from jumping from the windows and then being beaten- to death when they hit the ground.
To date, not one of the perpetrators has ever been punished for their crimes, and the Ukrainian government has never allowed an international investigation into the massacre.
The Odessa Solidarity Campaign was founded after three U.S. peace activists – Phil Wilayto, Bruce Gagnon and Regis Tremblay – returned from attending the second annual memorial held at the site of the massacre. The three were responding to an appeal by the Council of Mothers of May 2, an organization of relatives of the victims, to come to Odessa as International Observers because several fascist organizations were threatening to attack the memorial.
Ever since, the OSC has called for local events on May 2 to honor the victims of the massacre and support the demand by the victims’ families for an international investigation. This year’s actions were especially important because they drew attention to the existence of the fascist movement in Ukraine, which has only grown since the 2014 coup. Allusions to this fascist movement are routinely dismissed by the U.S. government and mass media as Russian propaganda, but we have seen this movement with our own eyes and have been following and reporting on it since 2016.
This year the OSC worked with two other organizations – the Union of Political Emigrants and Political Prisoners in Exile and the Coop Antiwar Cafe of Berlin – to promote activities around May 2. The three organizations jointly issued a May 2 Appeal for International Solidarity with the People of Odessa that called on organizations around the world to hold local events to mark the Odessa Massacre.
They also released an educational webinar about the massacre and the war in Ukraine.
Following is a report on the 2022 solidarity actions.
NOTE: If your organization held an activity on May 2 and it’s not listed here, please send the information to: DefendersFJE@hotmail.com.
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May 2, 2014, Odessa, Ukraine: A fascist-led mob sets fire to the House of Trade Unions in Kulikovo square, killing at least 42 progressives, just months after the right-wing coup.
ODESSA, UKRAINE
Ever since the Odessa Massacre of May 2, 2014, the antifascist people of Odessa have held memorials at the site of the killings, including major gatherings each year on the actual anniversary. This year, the head of the Regional Military Administration imposed a curfew from the evening before May 2 until the morning after. No one was allowed on the streets. Public transportation was shut down. Meanwhile, many people thought to be insufficiently loyal to the right-wing government were arrested and charged with subversive activity, part of a wave of repression that has been sweeping the country. The general repression began with the Russian intervention on Feb. 24, but has since spread widely, with many thousands now charged with subversive activity, often for merely expressing opinions critical of the government on blogs and social media
Members and friends of the Odessa Solidarity Campaign hold a vigil outside the federal courthouse in Richmond, Virginia.
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA – USA
On May 2, the Odessa Solidarity Campaign held a vigil outside the federal courthouse in downtown Richmond. The OSC is sponsored by the Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality, which publishes the quarterly newspaper The Virginia Defender, which in its last two issues has carried major articles opposing the U.S. position in Ukraine. The 18-year-old newspaper has a statewide circulation of 15,000.
In addition to the webinar mentioned above, OSC coordinator Phil Wilayto presented on a webinar organized by the International Action Center and was interviewed several times by the Russian news outlet Sputnik International, with some of the interviews picked up by major news outlets in India, South Africa, Venezuela and Lebanon. (See WEBINARS and INTERVIEWS below.)
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – USA
On May 2, the New York-based International Action Center broadcast an educational webinar on May 2 and the war in Ukraine. “Reckoning with the Ukraine Government’s Armed Nazi Militias.” The presenters were Leonid Ilderkin, member of the coordination council of the Union of Political Refugees and Political Prisoners of Ukraine; Phil Wilayto, OSC coordinator; Alexey, a survivor of the Odessa House of Trade Unions massacre currently living in Luhansk; and Sara Flounders and Teddie Kelly of the International Action Center.
Socialist Unity Party members and friends hold a May 2 memorial in Baltimore.
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – USA
Baltimore solidarity activists held a memorial next to the Harriet Tubman Solidarity Center, reading the names of those who died in the Odessa Massacre, mounting a memorial on a fence and performing a rendition of Woody Guthrie’s “All You Fascists Bound to Lose.” The commemoration was initiated by the Baltimore Socialist Unity Party.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – USA
The Socialist Unity Party’s John Parker, a candidate for U.S. Senate from Los Angeles, Calif., traveled on a fact-finding mission to the People’s Republic of Luhansk in the Donbass and later participated in a ceremony May 2 at the Odessa Memorial in Moscow. The SUP also produced a webinar, “Voices from Donbass – Stop the War Lies.”
Members of The Fire This TIme Movement for Social Justice show solidarity from Vancouver, Canada.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA
The Fire This Time Movement for Social Justice carried out a social media campaign to educate the public about May 2.
Hundreds of people march to the Ukrainian Embassy in Moscow to commemorate the Odessa Massacre victims.
MOSCOW, RUSSIA
The Union of Political Emigrants and Political Prisoners of Ukraine helped organize a procession to the Ukrainian Embassy. Local people carried posters, photographs and flowers to honor the memory of those killed at the House of Trade Unions in 2014. Video HERE.
For the eighth year in a row, leftists in Penza, Russia, hold a May 2 solidarity event.
PENZA, RUSSIA
A memorial was held in the provincial capital of Prenza. Activists with the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the Left Front and the Leninist Communist Youth Union laid flowers at the monument to the Fighters of the Revolution on Sovetskaya Square in memory of all those who died in the Odessa House of Trade Unions in 2014. This is the eighth consecutive year in which similar memorials have been held in Penza by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the Left Front. See a detailed report HERE.
In an action called by the Coop Antiwar Cafe, activists gather near the U.S. Embassy in Berlin to remember the Odessa Massacre.
BERLIN, GERMANY
Despite harassment from provocateurs and the police, the Coop Antiwar Cafe sponsored two May 2 events in Berlin. The first, near the Ukrainian embassy, was shut down by police because some of the images of Ukrainian neo-Nazis that were displayed included their fascist symbols, which are banned in Germany. The second event was held at Pariser Platz by the Brandenburg Gate in front of the U.S. Embassy, where there were some provocateurs. Despite the opposition, the organizers read the appeal for international actions on May 2 that was issued by the Antiwar Cafe, Union of Political Emigrants and Political Prisoners of Ukraine and the OSC. There also were remarks by the chair of the German Communist Party.
One national and three regional Italian television stations broadcast a documentary on the Odessa massacre. This was part of “Forbidden Peace,” a special event also broadcast on these stations, in which actors, journalists, writers, philosophers, poets and citizens united to say what is really happening in Ukraine, pointing out the responsibilities of the United States, Europe and NATO.
No details yet, but we have been told an action took place.
TURKEY
A leftist organization posted an online report on the Odessa Massacre.
VIENNA, AUSTRIA
A group of Turkish communist emigrants held an activity.
SPAIN
The Galician Committee of Support to Donbass carried out a social media campaign to remind the public about the Odessa Massacre and other attacks that have taken place since. “Go ahead with denazification! Long live Donbass and anti-fascist Ukraine!”
Reckoning with Ukraine’s Armed Nazi Militias – by the International Action Center. Presenters: Leonid Ilderkin, member of the coordination council of the Union of Political Refugees and Political Prisoners of Ukraine; Phil Wilayto, coordinator of the Odessa Solidarity Campaign; Alexey, a survivor of the Odessa House of Trade Unions massacre currently living in Luhansk; and Sara Flounders and Teddie Kelly of the International Action Center.
Statement on the Present Crisis in Ukraine– Issued jointly by The Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality; Odessa Solidarity Campaign; and The Fire This Time Movement for Social Justice (written four days after the invasion)
Political Repression in Ukraine – by Phil Wilayto for The Virginia Defender – March 28, 2022. The U.S. media is full of stories about what it calls political repression in other countries, but is strangely silent when it comes to Ukraine.
INTERVIEWS
Finland, Sweden Applications for NATO Membership Add to Regional Instability – US Activist – Virginia Defender editor Phil Wilayto on what it means for Sweden and Finland to join NATO. This interview was with the Russian news outlet Sputnik International, which is now banned from broadcasting in Europe. However, the interview was carried by several other large media outlets, including United News of India, that country’s second-largest news agency, and Independent Online (IOL), a major news and information website based in South Africa.
Remembering the 2014 Attack on Odessa– Odessa Solidarity Campaign coordinator Phil Wilayto on the online program “By Any Means Necessary” with Jacquie Luqman and Sean Blackmon (April 23, 2022).
Prepared by the Odessa Solidarity Campaign of the Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality
Eight years after the Odessa Massacre, a new wave of repression has been unleashed on the people of that city in southern Ukraine.
According to the mainstream Odessa Journal, the Department of Strategic Investigations of the National Police is claiming that Russian operatives are planning to incite riots in Odessa on May 2 with the goal of overthrowing the government.
May 2 is the anniversary of the massacre in 2014 in which a fascist-led mob murdered at least 42 progressives at Odessa’s House of Trade Unions. This took place just a few months after the U.S.-backed, right-wing coup that brought an anti-Russian, pro-NATO government to power with the open support of neo-Nazi organizations.
Every year on May 2, thousands of Odessans gather at the site of the massacre to peacefully remember their dead and demand justice for the victims. This year, In anticipation of these “riots,” the regional military administration is imposing a curfew on May 2 for the entire city. All public transportation will be shut down. Mass arrests are already being carried out.
Obviously, the authorities are afraid that the people of Odessa will once again gather in a memorial that exposes the government’s tolerance of and collaboration with openly fascist organizations – not the narrative being promoted by Washington and the mainstream Western media.
If the people of Odessa are unable to speak, we must raise our voices in solidarity with them and their demand for justice.
The Odessa Solidarity Campaign
The Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice and Equality is a multi-issue, all-volunteer activist organization based in Richmond, Virginia, USA. In addition to our 20 years of community struggles, we’ve always been involved in opposing U.S. wars. And we know very well that Washington lies about those wars. It lied about Vietnam, it lied about Iraq and it’s lying today about Ukraine.
In 2016 we traveled to Odessa to stand in solidarity with the people of that city as they commemorated the second anniversary of what has been called the worst civil conflict in Europe since World War II. After returning to Richmond, we founded the Odessa Solidarity Campaign to support the anti-fascist people of Odessa and their demand for an international investigation into the massacre, something the Ukrainian government has never allowed. Each year we have encouraged local actions to remember the massacre and support the demand of the people of Odessa for justice.
Who’s responsible for today’s war in Ukraine?
Today Ukraine is involved in a terrible war. We do not support the Russian attack on Ukraine, but we are trying to explain what made it inevitable: the steady expansion of NATO to the very borders of Russia and U.S. support for the right-wing coup of February 2014 that set the stage for the Odessa massacre and everything else that followed.
It’s vitally important to understand the role that the U.S. government is playing in the current war.
According to The New York TImes of April 30, President Biden is asking Congress to authorize $33 billion more in aid to Ukraine: “The request represented an extraordinary escalation in American investment in the war, more than tripling the total emergency expenditures and putting the United States on track to spend as much this year helping the Ukrainians as it did on average each year fighting its own war in Afghanistan, or more.”
This “aid” is in addition to the ongoing training of Ukrainian soldiers, sending thousands of additional U.S. troops to Europe and providing intelligence to the Ukrainian military.
It is inconceivable that Washington is doing all this without at the same time telling Ukraine how to conduct the war. This is not a war between Russia and Ukraine, it’s a proxy war by the U.S. against Russia, a war that has been long in the making.
It’s an old truism that the first casualty of war is truth. But no matter how many times we’ve been lied to about Washington’s wars, people still tend to give the warmakers the benefit of the doubt, especially when virtually all the news media is repeating the official line.
What can we do?
We can educate ourselves. This packet of information is meant to try and counter the lies we’re being told about Ukraine, the war and who is responsible for the current tragedy. Please take the time to educate yourself about this war that has the potential to ignite a much broader conflict, one in which there will be no winners.
We can raise our voices in solidarity with the anti-fascist people of Odessa and all of Ukraine. Gather a few of your friends and co-workers, hold up signs saying “We remember the Odessa Massacre and Demand Justice for the Victims!” Take a photo and post it on social media. Then send us the photo, with the name of the city and sponsoring organization. We’ll compile and promote the photos and make sure the world knows that people do remember, and do care.
So far we know of actions planned for May 2 in Richmond, Baltimore, Vancouver, Berlin and Moscow, as well as webinars planned by the International Action Center and jointly by the Odessa Solidarity Campaign, the Coop Antiwar Cafe in Berlin and the Union of Political Emigrants and Political Prisoners of Ukraine.
And finally, let us know if you’d like to stay in touch and work together to support justice in Ukraine.
Kat McNeil – Member, Antiwar Committee of the Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality
Presenters:
Phil Wilayto – Editor, The Virginia Defender newspaper, and coordinator, Odessa Solidarity Campaign, speaking on what led up to the present situation: the steady eastward expansion of NATO and U.S. support for the right-wing coup of 2014.
Leonid Ilderkin – Member, Coordination Council of the Union of Political Emigrants and Political Prisoners of Ukraine, speaking ON the current wave of repression against all dissidents in Ukraine.
Heinrich Buecker – Founder, Coop Anti-War Cafe Bar, a meeting place for local and international peace activists in Berlin, Germany, reporting on the reactions in Europe to the situation in Ukraine by the various governments and by the peace movement.
Statement on the Present Crisis in Ukraine – Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality; Odessa Solidarity Campaign; The Fire This Time Movement for Social Justice – Feb. 28, 2022
The Odessa Solidarity Campaign is honored to share this video that has been created by people of Odessa in defiant commemoration of the May 2 Massacre: “MAY 2 IN ODESSA: IN MEMORY OF THE EVENTS.” It has also been posted by many other websites, including Poland’s Strajk.eu.
And this video from the International Union of Antifascists is about what happened in Odessa on May 2, 2021: “Odessans, you are beautiful: the House of Trade Unions was drowend in flowers in memory of those who died on May 2.”
And just so you can see what these brave people are up against, here is an RT report and video of neo-Nazis marching on May 2 through Odessa:
The following cities held events on May 2, 2021, to commemorate the 7th anniversary of the Odessa Massacre of 2014. To add your event to this list, please send the date, time, location and name of the sponsoring organization to the Odessa Solidarity Campaign at: DefendersFJE@hotmail.com.
ODESSA, Ukraine
Defying threats by the fascists who were marching nearby, these courageous Odessans gathered throughout the day of May 2 at the site of the Odessa Massacre to honor the vicitms and contnue to press their demand for an international investigation. See the video posted above.
Here is a report direct from Odessa on the events of May 2:
A show of solidarity by the Mobilization Against War and Occupation (MAWO) in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. http://www.mawovancouver.org)
BERLIN, Germany
NOTE: The Coop Antiwar Cafe in Berlin has done a great deal to promote May 2 solidarity actions and to gather endorsers on the International Statement of Solidarity. There website is here:
Solidarity vigil, with Oleg Musyka, survivor of the Odessa Massacre, in Berlin.
Solidarity vigil, with Gina Pietsch, in Berlin.
HAMBURG, Germany
BUDAPEST, Hungary
Supporters of justice in Hungary gather May 1 in Budapest’s Municipal Park to express their solidarity with Odessa. A speech was given on behalf of the Organisers for the Left (SZAB). It appears here in English:
Events by the International Union of Antifascists at the Embassy of Ukraine in Chisinau and the Consulate of Ukraine in Balti “to honor the memory of the innocent killed Odessa residents in the House of Trade Unions.WE WILL NOT FORGET – WE WILL NOT FORGIVE!”
Twenty antiwar and justice activists, the majority youth and women and a third African-Americans, gather in front of the Federal Courthouse in Richmond, Virginia, USA, to express solidarity with the people of Odessa in an event organized by the Odessa Solidarity Campaign. Photo: Charles Brown.
THE BACKGROUND: May 2, 2021, marks the seventh anniversary of the Odessa Massacre, when a massive mob led by openly fascist organizations murdered scores of people at the House of Trade Unions in Odessa, Ukraine. In February of that year, a right-wing coup backed by the U.S. government overthrew the elected president of Ukraine, unleashing neo-Nazi organizations against anyone thought to oppose the coup, especially Ukrainian citizens of Russian ancestry.
It was that coup – rarely mentioned by any Western media in coverage of the region’s current rising tensions – that led to the majority-ehtnic Russian people of Donetsk and Lugansk to declare themselves independent of Ukraine. For the same reason, the majority-Russian ethnic people of Crimea held a referendum in which they decided to reunite with the Russian Republic, which they had once been a part of. It was the right-wing coup that precipitated these events, not “Russian aggression.”
On May 2, in Odessa, a multi-ethnic city on the Black Sea, progressives had gathered outside the House of Trade Unions on Kulikovo square and were gathering signatures on a petition demanding that the Odessa province have the right to elect its own governor, rather than be appointed by the new right-wing central government.
Without warning, they were attacked by a much larger, fascist-led mob. They retreated into the five-story trade union building, which the mob then set on fire. At least 42 people died from the flames, smoke inhalation or from being beaten to death after jumping from the building’s windows to escape the fire. To date, not one person has been convicted of participating in the massacre, even though there are scores of cellphone videos of the events. (Just google “May 2, 2014, Odessa.”) Further, the Ukrainian government has never allowed an independent international investigation of the tragedy. Meanwhile, the U.S. government continues to support both the Ukrainian government and the neo-Nazi organizations that back the coup and led the attack in Odessa.
Some of these organizations, including the Azov Battalion, have linked up with U.S. white-supremacist groups, providing them with paramilitary training.
Each year on May 2, despite the threat of attacks by the fascists, Odessans gather at the site of the massacre to pay their respects to those who died there. And each year, antifascist organizations throughout the world hold local actions to show their support and to press the Odessans’ demand for an international investigation into the tragedy. (For more information on the Odessa Massacre, see: https://odessasolidaritycampaign.org.)
This Statement was initiated by the U.S. organizations Odessa Solidarity Campaign (http://odessasolidaritycampaign.org) and Solidarity with Novorossiya & Antifascists in Ukraine (https://www.facebook.com/UkraineAntifaSolidarity) and is supported by the Union of Political Emigrants and Political Prisoners of Ukraine, among many other organizations.
No U.S.-Ukraine War on Donbass and Russia!
Stop the Drone Strikes on Civilians!
Stop Killing Children!
Justice for the Victims of the 2014 Odessa Massacre!
For seven years now, the right-wing government of Ukraine, supported by the United States and other Western powers, has been at war with the people of the independent Donetsk and Lugansk republics in the Donbass region of Eastern Europe. Some 14,000 people have been killed, according to the United Nations. The people of Donetsk and Lugansk live under a brutal military blockade imposed by Ukraine and its Western allies.
On March 22, a 71-year-old pensioner was killed by sniper fire near the capital of Donetsk.
On April 3, in Aleksandrovskoye, Donetsk, a Ukrainian military drone strike killed five-year-old Vladik Shikhov and wounded his 66-year-old grandmother.
On April 4, another Ukrainian drone strike wounded a civilian in Nikolaevka, Lugansk.
Many members of the antifascist People’s Militia have also been killed while defending residents.
Since January, Ukraine has been building up its military forces on the front line of the conflict. It uses prohibited weapons, targets civilians, schools and homes in violation of international law and regional ceasefire agreements.
Battalions of troops affiliated with neo-Nazi organizations have been sent to the region, replacing regular Ukrainian army troops. But the Ukrainian and U.S. governments and mainstream media blame Donetsk and Lugansk for taking steps to defend themselves, and threaten Russia for pledging to protect the people there if Ukraine invades.
Meanwhile, workers of all nationalities across Ukraine suffer repression, joblessness and price hikes while their government sells off the country’s resources to Wall Street.
The U.S. government, under both the Trump and Biden administrations, desperately wants to stop the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project that would allow Germany and other Western European countries to purchase Russian gas. Children, elders and other civilians in Donetsk and Lugansk are considered expendable targets by Kiev and Washington as they try to provoke a crisis to give them an excuse to further NATO military expansion and punish Russia.
In recent days, the U.S. and NATO have been warning of a Russian military build-up near the Ukrainian border, but never mention that one of the largest U.S. Army-led military exercises in decades has begun and will run until June: Defender Europe 2021, with 28,000 troops from 27 countries operating in a dozen countries from the Balkans to the Black Sea, which borders both Russia and Ukraine.
This is where the real danger of war is coming from. We say no!
Our joint call for international actions is related as well to another horrific tragedy.
May 2, 2021, marks the seventh anniversary of the Odessa Massacre, when a massive mob led by openly fascist organizations murdered scores of people at the House of Trade Unions in Odessa, Ukraine. In February of that year, a right-wing coup backed by the U.S. government overthrew the elected president of Ukraine, unleashing neo-Nazi organizations against anyone thought to oppose the coup, especially Ukrainian citizens of Russian ancestry.
It was that coup – rarely mentioned by any Western media in coverage of the region’s current rising tensions – that led to the majority-ehtnic Russian people of Donetsk and Lugansk to declare themselves independent of Ukraine. For the same reason, the majority-Russian ethnic people of Crimea held a referendum in which they decided to reunite with the Russian Republic, which they had once been a part of. It was the right-wing coup that precipitated these events, not “Russian aggression.”
On May 2, in Odessa, a multi-ethnic city on the Black Sea, progressives had gathered outside the House of Trade Unions on Kulikovo square and were gathering signatures on a petition demanding that the Odessa province have the right to elect its own governor, rather than be appointed by the new right-wing central government.
Without warning, they were attacked by a much larger, fascist-led mob. They retreated into the five-story trade union building, which the mob then set on fire. At least 42 people died from the flames, smoke inhalation or from being beaten to death after jumping from the building’s windows to escape the fire. To date, not one person has been convicted of participating in the massacre, even though there are scores of cellphone videos of the events. (Just google “May 2, 2014, Odessa.”) Further, the Ukrainian government has never allowed an independent international investigation of the tragedy. Meanwhile, the U.S. government continues to support both the Ukrainian government and the neo-Nazi organizations that back the coup and led the attack in Odessa.
Some of these organizations, including the Azov Battalion, have linked up with U.S. white-supremacist groups, providing them with paramilitary training.
Each year on May 2, despite the threat of attacks by the fascists, Odessans gather at the site of the massacre to pay their respects to those who died there. And each year, antifascist organizations throughout the world hold local actions to show their support and to press the Odessans’ demand for an international investigation into the tragedy. (For more information on the Odessa Massacre, see: https://odessasolidaritycampaign.org.)
The people of the United States, United Kingdom, the countries of the European Union or any other country would gain nothing from a war with Russia, the only purpose of which would be to promote the profits of Big Oil, other corporations and banks. We are the ones who would pay the price, in blood and resources. We don’t want U.S. troops or any other soldiers to be sent to fight and die in another needless conflict. And we cry out against the U.S. proxy regime in Ukraine killing our sisters and brothers in Donetsk and Lugansk.
End U.S. aid to the Kiev regime! End all U.S. wars and sanctions!
In solidarity with the progressive people of Ukraine, we demand the following:
1 – An independent international investigation into the Odessa Massacre of May 2, 2014.
2 – An end to support by the governments of the United States and other Western powers for the neo-Nazi organizations such as Right Sector, Svoboda Party, C-14 militias and the Azov Battalion.
3 – An end to military support for the Ukrainian government in its war on the people of Donbass, who refuse to be dominated by the right-wing government.
4. Pressure the Ukrainian government to outlaw the neo-Nazi organizations in Ukraine.
5. Ban entry to the U.S. or countries of the European Union and their allies by any members of Ukrainian neo-Nazi organizations.
6. An international Investigation into the financing of Ukrainian neo-Nazi organizations by Ukrainian official leadership, with the imposition of international sanctions on those found guilty.
Further, we call on all progressive organizations around the world to hold vigils, rallies, public meetings and other events on May 2 to raise the above demands.
ENDORSERS (as of May 6, 2021):
ORGANIZATIONS:
Union of Political Emigrants and Political Prisoners of Ukraine
Communist Party of the Donetsk People’s Republic
Trade Unions’ Federation of Lugansk Peoples’ Republic
Union of Lugansk Lands, NGO
Borotba Association – Ukraine, Donbass
Red Square / Molotov Club
Odessa Solidarity Campaign – USA
Solidarity with Novorossiya & Antifascists in Ukraine – USA
Anti-NATO Group Berlin – Brandenburg, Germany
Art Coupe – NGO Association – Italy
Centro di Iniziative la Verità e la Giustizia – SOS Resistent Ukraine / CIVG – Italy
Communist Party of Brazil
Coop Anti-War-Café – Berlin, Germany
Council of Federal Coordinators of the All-Russian Youth Movement for Patriotic and Moral Education of Youth “Volunteer Company of the Combat Brotherhood“ – Russia
Fire This Time – Vancouver, Canada
Frente Unido América Latina – Berlin, Germany
Friedensglockengesellschaft e.V. (Member, World Peace Bell Association (WPBA)), Anja Mewes, chair – Berlin, Germany
Global Harmony Association (GHA), Dr. Leo Semashko, State Councilor of St. Petersburg – Russia
Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space
International Action Center
International Union of Antifascists
Mobilization Against War & Occupation (MAWO) – Vancouver, Canada
STATEMENT BY THE UNION OF COMMUNITIES OF THE LUGANSK REGION
It is well known that in Odessa on May 2, 2014, militants of the extremist organization “Right Sector” and football fans destroyed a tent camp on Kulikovo Pole, where there was a peaceful collection of signatures for holding a referendum on the federalization of Ukraine and granting the Russian language the status of the state language. Then the radicals set fire to the regional House of Trade Unions, in which people took refuge. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, 48 people died in the riots, about 250 people were injured.
This day showed the whole world that Ukraine as a rule of law no longer exists. This is a country whose government adheres to the ideological views of neo-fascism. And confirmation of these words is the fact that until now the real perpetrators of this terrible tragedy have not been punished. Not only is the Ukrainian investigation, under the leadership of the leaders who came to power through a coup d’etat, doing everything to establish the version about the guilt of the victims themselves, who were in the House of Trade Unions – allegedly a fire broke out due to the fact that they threw from windows and from the roof Molotov cocktails, which is an absolute lie, for which there is a lot of evidence in documentary videos from that day.
Residents of Donbass are very close to this pain. I am convinced that all those responsible for the crimes committed against the people of Donbass and Odessa will be punished. We must remember this, for us this memory is sacred. Kingdom of heaven and blessed memory to all Heroes of New Russia!
Chairman of Board of
Interregional public organization
«Union of communities of Lugansk region» О.К.Akimov
STATEMENT FROM CHERIANO LAGHETTO, ITALY: “REMEMBER ODESSA”
This year marks the seventh anniversary of the terrible tragedy that took place in Odessa (Ukraine) May 2, 2014. On that day, dozens of Odessa residents were killed and killed by Ukrainian nationalists.
Seven years later, this crime remains unsolved, the Ukrainian authorities continue to harbor criminals. The relatives and friends of those killed and injured lost all hopes for a fair investigation.
And attempts to perpetuate the memory of the victims are met with aggressive opposition from the nationalists coming out. The authorities of the state of Ukraine and the mayor’s office of Odessa took a wait-and-see attitude.
But there is a small town of Cheriano Laghetto in Italy, where people with a “big” heart and a courageous mayor named Dante Cattaneo live, who did not remain indifferent and did not fear threats from the Ukrainian Embassy in Italy, were appropriated, in November 2014, by one of the squares of the city named “Square of the Martyrs of Odessa”.
Every year since 2015, on May 2, residents of the town and its deputy mayor lay flowers at the memorial.
And this year they will come to the memorial again, lay flowers and freeze in a moment of silence.
Odessa Solidarity Campaign 