Pakistan’s Prime Minister Accuses U.S. Diplomat of ‘Conspiracy’ to Overthrow His Elected Government

NATO’S AFRICAN HYPOCRISY

The West wants African countries to condemn the war in Ukraine, but doesn’t want to hear their views on conflicts in Libya or Yemen. Why not? African Stream’s Clinton Nzala outlines the double standard during a discussion on Bolivia’s Kawsachun News. pic.twitter.com/ecuJ9Xslr9

— African Stream (@african_stream) April 11, 2023

The West wants African countries to condemn the war in Ukraine, but doesn’t want to hear their views on conflicts in Libya or Yemen. Why not? African Stream’s Clinton Nzala outlines the double standard during a discussion on Kawsachun News.

CHISINAU, Moldova—Nestled above the Black Sea, between the war zone in Ukraine and the eastern limits of NATO territory in Romania, sits the tiny, oft-forgotten landlocked nation of Moldova. Among the poorest countries in Europe by just about any relevant metric, it has been overwhelmed by Ukrainian refugees in the three weeks since the outset of what Russia calls its “special military operation” (спецоперация) in Ukraine.

More than 359,000 people of the 3.38 million who have fled Ukraine since February 24 have passed in and out of the country, according to the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees. Roman Macovenco of the Moldovan Consular Directorate confirmed at least 300,000 Ukrainians had crossed through Moldova. The vast majority came through the border town of Palanca, just 57 kilometers (or 35 miles) from Ukraine’s Odessa. Many wound up in Chisinau, the tiny country’s capital. As of March 14, roughly 100,000 remained in Moldova.

Primarily due to its limited capacity and even more limited financial resources, Moldova is a transitional zone for refugees. Though, the length of their stay depends on their economic status. Moldovan Ministry of Interior Principal Specialist Olesea Sirghi and Macovenco said the refugees who remain for more than two days cannot afford passage to EU countries.

‘Oligarchs Who Drink, Complain and Chase Women’

This reporter learned from local people that the first wave of refugees was made up of almost exclusively wealthy elites.

Misha Tsarkisan is a Georgian migrant who has lived for years in Moldova and does maintenance work near one of Chisinau’s primary refugee centers. He described the initial wave as “oligarchs, who came to drink, complain and chase women.”

Similar sentiments can be heard everywhere in the capital, though they are often expressed with more nuance. Ion Popov, 25, moved his coffee truck near a bus depot that dealt with the influx of refugees. He told Toward Freedom the arrivals were as mixed in their attitudes and temperament as any group might be.

“The rich loaded their things up in their cars with as much money as they could gather, and have generally behaved rudely,” Popov said. “I don’t know how you can be in such a situation and expect to make demands. But you know, many of these people are just caught in a bad situation, and many of them are perfectly decent.”

Moldova’s split identity, vacillating between former Soviet, Russian, Romanian and independently Moldovan, lends to these simmering tensions.

For less affluent refugees, the primary destination is the International Exhibition Center MoldExpo, the largest complex of any sort in the country. The scene on March 14 featured police checkpoints, buses coming and going, and makeshift kiosks-turned-sleeping-quarters. Visitors ranged from young volunteers to European reporters, as well as a troop of “Dream Doctors.” These entertainers were dressed as clowns to provide limited medical care. An Israeli non-governmental organization (NGO) had flown them in from Tel-Aviv (Occupied Jaffa).

The center itself is a collection of concrete buildings, offset from a wooded park that boasts a Soviet-era “Hall of Fame” featuring a collection of statues: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and the towering centerpiece, Vladimir Lenin.

Inside the center, refugees are served food and drink, and can access donated items, such as clothing, diapers and medical equipment. About 200 people appeared to be in that case, sleeping on cots. The majority came from the southwestern Ukrainian cities of Odessa and Mykolayiv, but also from the capital, Kyiv.

From Chisinau, NGO-sponsored buses take off to EU countries, but most especially to Germany and Poland. In some cases, the embassies of EU countries are paying for the buses. According to the aforementioned Moldovan officials as well as an NGO representative, the EU has pledged about $20 million in support funds to Moldova. Far more buses await at the Romanian border, as Romania simply has more infrastructure as well as the presence of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United Nations. People with even modest means appeared able to find a way to arrange passage to Romania. But those Ukrainians who are completely destitute often remain in the shelter.

Refugees Speak Out

Contrary to the narratives with which the Western public has been inundated, Ukrainian refugees expressed largely divergent positions on the causes and potential outcomes of the conflict. This reporter witnessed EU-zone reporters gravitating toward the far fewer refugees who held pro-Kyiv positions. Not a single foreign press crew had a Russian- or Ukrainian-speaking member in tow, making it less likely they would hear from working-class Ukrainians, who mainly spoke Ukrainian or Russian.

Toward Freedom spoke at length in Russian with several refugees. What stood out was how few of them lent unequivocal support to the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Alex Kirillov, a 40-year-old restaurateur originally from Donetsk, had left Kyiv four days earlier with his wife and three children. His main focus on the situation back in Ukraine was what he called a “real problem with nationalist aggression.” He saw no way out of the war without compromise and neutrality. Kirillov said the war had begun eight years ago. “Zelensky’s breaking of the Minsk agreements [ceasefires in Donbass brokered between Moscow and Kyiv] was the only reason this new stage of the war began.” He described pre-2014 Ukraine as “very calm, not as stable as the USSR, but much better than after Maidan, when things became economically unstable and full of war.” Maidan was the series of 2013-14 protests that led to the coup that ousted democratically elected President Victor Yanukovych. Kirillov said the U.S. and NATO supply of weapons to Ukraine worsened the situation. “But, then of course, allies must do this.” He was adamant that Putin, whom he disliked, had zero intention of going past Ukraine, or of even annexing Ukraine itself, and that it was naive to believe otherwise.

Claims have emerged that Russian and Ukrainian troops are being violent toward civilians and journalists. “We have no idea about any of this, as there is so much propaganda,” Kirillov said. “My house is safe, but we did hear bombs, and wanted to leave with the children.” Zelensky, in his eyes, had unwittingly allowed the United States to “poke the Russian bear.” He reiterated Ukrainians and Russians had always seen one another as brothers, a refrain this reporter repeatedly heard from refugees living at the MoldExpo. Then a large white charter bus appeared, he and his family said their goodbyes, and they were off to Belgium.

Oksana Novidskaya, from the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolayiv, found herself in the center with her two teenage children. Her 19-year-old daughter, Sofia, carried a 2-year-old. Novidskaya said a bomb went off near her former classmate’s house. That’s when she decided to leave with her children. “I am not interested in politics, nor do I understand them,” she said. “But I want Russia to stop attacking. All I know is that Russians and Ukrainians should help each other.” Her brother stayed back to fight with the Ukrainian army. As of March 11, he was still okay. When this reporter inquired about her thoughts on the Donbass, Novidskaya did not wish to discuss. Later, she secured a ride to Romania, so she could get to where her mother lives in Italy.

‘The West Was Silent’

Meanwhile, emphatic in opposition to the Ukrainian government was Alec Shevchenko, a 70-year-old former prosecutor from Kharkiv. He approached this reporter, eager to share his perspective, speaking with such vigor that a few dozen other refugees gathered around to witness the conversation.

“This war started when the Ukrainian government began bombing homes in Donbass! The West was silent then. Millions of people live there, you know?”

A civil war began in Ukraine in 2014 after the majority Russian-speaking Donbass region containing two provinces, Donetsk and Lugansk, began breaking away from Ukraine after witnessing the neo-Nazi and nationalist-infused Maidan protests. The provinces announced their secession as independent republics after holding successful referenda. The 2015 Minsk agreements were intended to end the fighting. However, the Ukrainian government has violated the agreements to appease nationalists and neo-Nazis. Since then, more than 14,000 people have been killed in the eastern Ukrainian region and 1.5 million have been displaced.

Shevchenko, who had lived in Ukraine his entire life, then lit a cigarette and demanded this reporter take one as well. “After the Nuremberg Trials, there were no more fascists in the USSR. People from all the Soviet republics—Tajiks, Georgians, Russians, Ukrainians—all lived together happily. But after 1991, suddenly there were some Nazis again. And after 2014, they began to dominate things in Ukraine.”

He grabbed this reporter’s notebook, and wrote down in Roman letters: “AYDAR, AZOV, DNEPRI, TORNADO”

Those are the names of Ukrainian military battalions. Then Shevchenko drew a swastika, and said in English, “These guys!” In his view, explicit Nazis were a minority in the government itself, which he described as full of “actors, athletes, ballerinas and clowns.”

The former prosecutor went on to say the United States and Kyiv had protected and encouraged the military battalions. Putin, in his eyes, was someone who moved deliberately. “He protects his people and his borders. If he was aggressive, like Hitler—as they are saying in Europe—he would have invaded Ukraine 8 years ago.” He gave a strong stare, and said, “Write this down: 80 percent of the Ukrainian people are glad that the Russian army has come. But they are terrified to say so publicly, especially now, because these Nazis will kill them.” The surrounding crowd appeared unfazed at his commentary.

Recent polls on the war have relayed Russian and U.S. public opinions. However, one poll conservative British billionaire Michael Ashcroft conducted March 1 to 3 claims most Ukrainians disfavor Russia, see Russians as kin, favor Europe, approve of NATO expansion, prefer not to leave Ukraine and wish to pick up arms to defend Ukraine.

What was clear in these and other exchanges is the reality of the East-West split in Ukraine, with anti-Russian sentiment the strongest in the west. “[Russians] would never want to kill Ukrainians for no reason,” one refugee, Dima Chumak, 48, of Mykolayev, told Toward Freedom during the conversation with Shevchenko. “But the nationalists want to kill Russians in the east for fun.” What is certain is, like in Syria, Iraq and other U.S.-inspired conflicts, public opinion on the ground is not as uniform as the Western press makes it seem.

Fergie Chambers is a freelance writer and socialist organizer from New York, reporting from eastern Europe for Toward Freedom. He can be found on Twitter, Instagram and Substack.

Editor’s Note: The writer recently visited Grenada and the following is his analysis.

Today marks the 38th anniversary of 7,300 U.S. troops—accompanied by U.S.-trained Caribbean Community (CARICOM) soldiers calling themselves, “The Caribbean Peace Force”—invading the tiny island of Grenada. What lessons can we learn from the 4-and-a-half-year revolution launched in the land of Julio Fedon, Jacqueline Creft, Maurice Bishop and the 112,000 people of Grenada? In a hemisphere on fire, with class struggle and anti-imperialism on full display from the streets of Medellín to Mexico City, where does Grenada line up in the global class struggle in the 21st century?

The “Revo” 

On March 13, 1979, the leaders of Grenada’s New Jewel Movement overthrew the hated and feared neocolonial puppet, Prime Minister Eric Gairy, setting in motion a memorable revolutionary experiment in Caribbean history. Those who lived through the 1979-83 Grenadian Revolution were forever transformed.

Grenadian and University of West Indies Professor of Political Science Wendy Grenade charts some of the gains made during the short period:

“Raising levels of social consciousness; building a national ethos that encouraged a sense of community; organising [sic] agrarian reform to benefit small farmers and farm workers; promoting literacy and adult education; fostering child and youth development; enacting legislation to promote gender justice; constructing low income housing and launching house repair programmes; improving physical infrastructure and in particular the construction of an international airport; providing an environment that encouraged popular democracy through Parish and Zonal Councils etc.”

Slogans and billboards emblazoned the country’s landscape:

• “Never Too Old to Learn”
• “Education Is Production, Too”
• “Every Worker a Learner”
• “Women Committed to Economic Construction”

Angela Davis captured what “the revo” meant to the Black nation within the United States in saying, “The experiences that I’ve had here in Grenada have confirmed in a very powerful way where we are headed, what the future of the entire planet ought to look like—this beautiful, powerful militant revolution.”

The chief spokesperson of the revolution, Maurice Bishop, famously came to New York City in June 1983, inspiring a crowd of thousands of African-Americans and anti-imperialist activists, as he detailed his people’s achievements under the nose of empire.

 

The Children who Fought to Save #MauriceBishop 🇬🇩 Glen “Pharaoh” Samuel was one of them who barely escaped the 1983 massacre.

#CIA hard at work in #Grenada pic.twitter.com/BoMpSnWQU6— Danny Shaw (@dannyshawcuny) August 24, 2021

Glen “Pharoah” Samuel was a middle-school pupil at the time and was part of a crowd of students who raced to save Maurice Bishop, Jacqueline Creft and other revolutionary leaders from execution at Fort George. Sitting down at a local hangout in the capital of Saint George’s, he explained to this writer Grenada’s role in the global class struggle known as “The Cold War”:

“As a Black, English-speaking country very close to America, imagine America has a population of over 42 million Afro Black Americans. Obviously they understand our swag because we are all Black people, African people. So Ronald Reagan feared the situation and we had just finished our international airport, which was sponsored by Cuba and the Soviet Union.”

Internationalist educator Chris Searle’s book, Grenada Morning: A Memoir of the “Revo”, details the accomplishments of the revolution in overcoming a history of colonial and neocolonial servitude and degradation. Gerhard Dilger of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation studied the revolutionary contributions of poets and calypso singers from 1979 to 1983. Dr. Horace Campbell’s Rasta and Resistance highlights the participation of the Rastafari community, long oppressed under the Gairy dictatorship, in the Revolutionary People’s Government and Army.

All of Grenada was ablaze with the flames of revolutionary optimism, unity and growth.

The Invasion: An Attempt to Kill Hope

Alarmed at the existence of another workers’ state in Washington’s “backyard,” Ronald Reagan and the U.S. foreign policy establishment were hellbent on overthrowing the 4-and-a-half-year revolution.

Internationalist scholar Carlos Martinez artfully captures the U.S. campaign of psychological warfare and saber rattling. In 1981, Reagan mobilized over 120,000 troops, 250 warships and 1,000 aircraft to Vieques, an island that is part of Puerto Rico, for a mock invasion. They code-named the operation “Amber and the Amberines” because Grenada’s official name is Grenada and the Grenadines, as it includes the two smaller islands of Carriacou and Petit Martinique. U.S. intelligence worked overtime to monitor cracks in the revolutionary leadership and create divisions to exploit them, ultimately leading to the assasination the revolution’s top leadership. 18 civilians were killed when the U.S. Navy bombed a hospital for patients with mental challenges. Meanwhile, 24 Cuban construction workers were murdered.

It was a David-versus-Goliath scenario, but David stood up to the invasion. Maurice Bishop sounded the battle cry:

“This land is ours, every square inch of its soil is ours, every grain of sand is ours, every nutmeg pod is ours, every beautiful young Pioneer who walks on this land is ours. It is our responsibility and ours alone, to fight to defend our homeland.” (p. 283, Maurice Bishop Speaks, Pathfinder Press)

A break in the top leadership of the New Jewel Movement helped distract cadres while Reagan’s accusation that 600 U.S. medical students were in danger provided cover for a “humanitarian intervention” that illegally assaulted a democratic state.

The U.S. military project then helped prop up a pro-U.S. power structure that sought to dismantle the very memory of the revolution. Artist Suelin Low Chew Tung writes, “…images of the revolution years were deliberately erased from the landscape… Three decades later, as far as local visual art records are concerned, it is as if the Grenada Revolution never happened.”

This writer’s experience visiting Grenada in August made clear today’s young people are disconnected from Grenada’s definitive break with neo-colonialism. To many youths, this appears to be ancient history. How many Grenadians born after 1983 fully comprehend their small homeland has inspired the world?

The Washington Examiner, owned by right-wing billionaire Philip Anschutz, captures how U.S. ruling circles viewed military action against Grenada as a strategic, easy victory after defeat in Vietnam and Iran. In a September 12 editorial, Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute advocated for a Grenada-like invasion into a yet-to-be-determined location to shore up respect for the United States after the humiliating defeat of empire in Afghanistan, writing, “Where and under what circumstances might a future commander in chief send troops to draw a new red line for America’s enemies?” He ominously ended the article, warning, “There will be a new Grenada; the question to ponder is where and when.”

The Blackout: Liquidating Memory 

On August 26, this writer sat down with Dr. Terence Marryshow, captain of the People’s Revolutionary Army, which was responsible for the personal security of Maurice Bishop and the New Jewel Movement leadership. Marryshow also was a former political leader of the Maurice Bishop Patriotic Movement (MBPM) and grandson of T.A. Marryshow, father of the West Indian Federation. He elaborated on Pan-Caribbeanism in Grenada today:

“Caribbean leaders today are not pursuing this goal as vigorously as they ought to in the interests of the people of the Caribbean. The problem is many of them are not willing to give up that lofty position that they hold. During the period of the revolution there was certainly a great effort with the People’s Revolutionary Government led by Maurice Bishop to forge that kind of Caribbean integration. But with his demise there is no real voice out there [in Grenada] championing that cause. Today leaders are hardly concerned with that. Yes, we do have CARICOM which in the final analysis is really a talk shop because nothing concrete decisions and progress for the people comes out of it.”

In the extensive interview, the Cuban-trained physician stated, “Concerning teaching on the revolution in the schools, there is a complete blackout. There is a concerted effort not to speak about it, except for groups like The Maurice Bishop and October 19th Martyrs Foundation, the Grenadian Cuba Friendship Society and the Maurice Bishop Patriotic Movement. But there is no space on the [mainstream school] curriculum today for teaching anything about that revolutionary period.”

A soldier of the People’s Revolutionary Army, nicknamed Salt, who chose to remain anonymous and only wanted his nickname published, remembered what it meant to stand up to the hegemon of the north. He remembered the Center for Popular Education, his own exposure to critical Marxist texts and the day the call came from his superior officers to prepare to defend the country. On censorship today, Salt said, “The educators are not documenting anything and are not teaching our young people about the progress the revolution made.”

To add insult to injury, the invaders and new rulers of Grenada disappeared the bodies of key New Jewel Movement leaders. Local community leaders showed this writer where the invaders and their underlings had disappeared the body.

 

Carlin “Lely” Matthew asks: what did the U.S. forces of occupation do with #MauriceBishop’s body? This remains a mystery almost 40 years after the execution of the #Grenadian revolutionary leader. #Grenada 🇬🇩 pic.twitter.com/ukF1AS4yyl

— Danny Shaw (@dannyshawcuny) August 22, 2021

Bishop’s mother, Alimenta, captured the horror of not knowing the location of her son’s body in an interview with Grenadian news outlet, NOW Grenada. Having already lived through her husband’s murder at the hands of Prime Minister Eric Gairy and the same U.S.-backed state machinery, she said “I could go to the grave and say this is the spot where my husband is buried, but I can’t say that for my son.” This was what Marryshow and Grenadians remember as the triple assassination of their revolution.

Which Way Forward?

In 2019, the Venezuelan government published a bilingual tribute to Maurice Bishop and the October martyrs in Correo del Alba (Message of ALBA).

 

El #29Mayo de 1944, nace en Grenada el político revolucionario Maurice Bishop, encabezó junto al New Jewel, la rebelión para derrocar al régimen de Eric Gairy. Erigió un gobierno revolucionario popular. Bishop es traicionado y ejecutado y Grenada fue invadida por tropas de EEUU pic.twitter.com/EdPuFIOMgm

— Correo del Alba #CorreoDelAlba (@correodelalba) May 29, 2020

Previously unpublished testimonies of dozens of cadres and combatants of the revolutionary process express how it brought Grenada closer to Africa and all oppressed nations, how Venezuela is a Grenada of today, and Grenada’s defiant participation in multi-state organizations such as the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), television network TeleSUR and Caribbean oil alliance PetroCaribe. Today, Grenada is charting a path of friendly relations both with the United States and with the blockaded Bolivarian nations of Venezuela and Cuba, attempting to emerge from centuries of colonialism and decades of U.S. hybrid war. What is clear is the Grenadian Revolution is an example that the colonized and silenced can stand up, organize and win. Like the Soviet, Chinese, Cuban, Nicaraguan and other revolutions, it is our responsibility to study, remember, learn the lessons and emulate the spirit of these earth-shaking processes that our class enemies can never take away from us.

Danny Shaw is a professor of Caribbean and Latin American Studies at the City University of New York. He frequently travels within the Americas region. A Senior Research Fellow at the Center on Hemispheric Affairs, Danny is fluent in Haitian Kreyol, Spanish, Portuguese and Cape Verdean Kriolu.