Is the U.S. Backing Neo-Nazis in Ukraine?

Exposing troubling ties in the U.S. to overt Nazi and fascist protesters in Ukraine

By Max Blumenthal

Reposted from Alternet – Feb 24, 2014

As the Euromaidan protests in the Ukrainian capitol of Kiev culminated this week, displays of open fascism and neo-Nazi extremism became too glaring to ignore. Since demonstrators filled the downtown square to battle Ukrainian riot police and demand the ouster of the corruption-stained, pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich, it has been filled with far-right streetfighting men pledging to defend their country’s ethnic purity.

White supremacist banners and Confederate flags were draped inside Kiev’s occupied City Hall, and demonstrators have hoisted Nazi SS and white power symbols over a toppled memorial to V.I. Lenin. After Yanukovich fled his palatial estate by helicopter, EuroMaidan protesters destroyed a memorial to Ukrainians who died battling German occupation during World War II. Sieg heil salutes and the Nazi Wolfsangel symbol have become an increasingly common site in Maidan Square, and neo-Nazi forces have established “autonomous zones” in and around Kiev.

Fascism rears its ugly head among forces against Québec student strike

The original article, click to read a PDF

Students, unions and other progressive voices in Quebec are condemning the statements of a high-level Québec civil servant from last week, but the provincial Charest Liberal government doesn`t seem particularly bothered that one of their staff proposed pro-fascist movements inspire the resolution of the student strike.

Bernard Guay, head of the tax office in the Municipal Affairs Department, recently wrote a vehement online letter against the on-going student protests, which have rocked the province.

The letter was published on the website of the Quebec City-based Le Soleil -- but generated such an outcry, including a street protest outside the paper`s offices, that the newspaper withdrew it and apologized to readers. You can read the original article, in French, here in PDF.

The text was titled, in rough translation, "For an end to the student strikes." Among other things, Guay urged opponents of the student strike to:

• draw on the "fascist movements" of the 1920s 30s to deal with "leftists" what the author terms "their own medicine";
• find the  "means" to remedy this "wasteful and anti-social" situation by  cabal, by organizing a secret political clique or faction (his word was `cabal`)
• the cabal would mobilize masses of students to cross their picket lines, and also assault the wearers of the symbolic red square
• when you see someone in the street wearing a red square, confront them, respond to the `bullying` of the students with a challenge
• "people who oppose the views in the left-wing controlled media (sic) must develop their own media... (such as the) popular radio stations in the regions of Quebec (which) worry our leftists, so they are constantly trying to discredit them by calling them trash-radio."

We must do everything, he says, to "overcome the tyranny of Leftist agitators" he writes.

Nazi revelations stir Germany's post-war ghosts

From BBC

What do you do with a nasty old Nazi? Let him stew in exile in South America or use him for the value he might still have?

The latter is what the secret services of post-war West Germany chose to do, according to Spiegel magazine.

The normally reliable news magazine reports that Klaus Barbie became an agent of the West German foreign intelligence agency when he was apparently in hiding in South America.

It has seen documents of the Bundesnachrichtendienst or BND, and these papers reveal that the "Butcher of Lyon" was helping German intelligence with information about his South American country of hiding even as he was on the run.

Barbie risked life in prison or even the death penalty had he been caught because he had been in charge of the deportation of Jews and others to death camps, including the ordering of the deportation of children from an orphanage.

He was eventually captured and put on trial in France, but Spiegel reports that long before that he was sending reports to the BND about the politics of Bolivia where he had become something of a figure in society under the false name, Klaus Altmann.
SS war criminal Klaus Barbie arriving at court in Lyons (May 1987) Barbie had been living in Bolivia under the false name, Klaus Altmann

According to Spiegel, the BND recruited him in 1960 and was well aware of his true identity.

At least Barbie might have had a use, but how do you explain the similar case of Adolf Eichmann?

There is no evidence that this organiser of mass-murder became a post-war spy, but there is evidence that post-war German intelligence knew where he was - in Argentina - nearly a decade before Israeli intelligence captured him.

The German mass-circulation newspaper, Bild, petitioned the government in Berlin for files and these, once produced, showed that the BND located Eichmann in Argentina in 1952, eight years before he was kidnapped by agents from Mossad and taken to Israel where he was tried and hanged.
Nazi sympathies

How do you explain the concealments? The harshest view is that post-war West Germany was not a complete break from its past.

Many people in post-war power had been Nazis who continued in official roles. The German foreign ministry, for example, has just published its official investigation and found that some diplomats did have a blood-stained past before 1945. And in this world, so the argument runs, sympathy for the Nazis meant precisely that.

According to this view, Germans tolerated Nazis because some post-war Germans were not repelled by their own country's past.

A more nuanced view is that as one war ended another one began and that the new battle was the one that had to be fought, and with whatever weapons - and personnel - were available.

With Germany defeated, the new threat to democracy was the Soviet Union so anybody who was useful in that fight was used, even if it was the Butcher of Lyon.
Space programme

The United States used the rocket science developed to destroy British cities as the basis for its own space programme.

Operation Paper Clip was set up by the US intelligence agencies to make sure scientists went West and not East. And so they did, including Wernher von Braun who designed the V2 (aimed at London) and the Saturn V (aimed at the moon).
Wernher von Braun (L) at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, 15th July 1959 The United States used Nazi rocket technology for its space programme

In her book, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, Frances Stonor Saunders relates how even musical figures with a Nazi past (like the conductor Herbert von Karajan) were given an easy time for fear they would end up in the Russian sphere.

Many of the people involved are now dead and gone, from musicians who held party cards but who "merely" kept Berlin entertained to the active doers of genocide.

But revelation does still matter. Germany is still examining itself about what happened seven decades ago. There has been an outpouring of documentation, particularly since the fall of the Berlin Wall. And it is thought that Stasi files may yet reveal more details of the dark past of prominent figures.

So, the post-war accommodation of Nazis reaches down to us today. Some in the generation of 1968 justified their violence as a continued war against what they claimed to see as the continuation of the Nazi state because the Federal Republic had taken a soft-line on former Nazis other than the very highest echelons who were tried and executed.

Few take that view now and perhaps few did then. But there is a debate about when Germany might be able to become a "normal" state, one which remembers the horrors Germans perpetrated but which is not permanently damaged by the memory.

Towards that end, the flow of information about what really happened after the war and the debate it has prompted may be a sign of hope: Germany is facing up to its own ghosts.

A look back: Quebec fascism, KKK, bailouts in Ontario, YCL club life

CLICK ON ANY IMAGE FOR FULL READABLE VIEW

Above: YCL clubs of the past may hold lessons and tips for today's youth

Above: ditto.







Above: history proves that IT CAN HAPPEN HERE. Although major fascists like Arcand were federalists, the article above shows nationalism as being more akin to bigotry versus a genuine act of self -determination. While Germany had ominous events like the boycott of Nathan Israel's Department Store and Kristallnacht Toronto has had events like the Riots at Christie Pits Park.













Above: racist movements are again cropping up in Canada, most notably Alberta.

Above: Racism can also be systemic and entangled in class structures and economics, poverty.
(note: Joe Abramovitch's sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment at St.-Vincent-de-Paul Penitentiary in Quebec.)

Above: Is current premier Dalton McGuinty any different?

Above: Unity of the left is still needed more than ever today

Above: Free speech has been fought for more at home than overseas

news-arrest warrants for calgary fascists

It might be a "night of the long knives" redux for the Aryan Guard as a bomb attack supposedly targeted one of their own. A 17 year old youth was arrested when his bus made a stop in Portage la Praire Manitoba, his arrest was in connection with the attack in Calgary. Kyle Robert McKee a leader of the neo-nazi movement, is also being sought by the Police.

A posting on the neo-nazi stormfront Canada forum reported that the Aryan Guard officially disbanded.
The discussion thread blamed a rowdy lot of drunks for ruining the group and says that the "...bombing attack was launched against the former girlfriend of ... John Marleau - an associate of the Aryan Guard"

According to the Calgary Sun: "The 29-year-old woman living in the townhouse says she has nothing to do with the neo-Nazis, and was targeted because she spurned the advances of a senior Aryan Guard member, who is "best friends" with the accused. "He's stalking me," said the woman, who asked to remain anonymous.

Welcome news after the statement of the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Canada on November 4th. read it here.

• Latest from the Calgary Herald

• Full report here

• Anti-Racist Canada site
  

trivia: do you know that the makers of doc martens boots have tried to sue white supremacists over the years? The claim is that fascists have hurt the reputation of the famous brand.

from People's Voice: WHO ARE THE HATEMONGERS IN CALGARY?

(The following article is from the November 16-30, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

A recent report for the Southern Poverty Law Centre sheds important light on the hate group which is spreading its violent message in southern Alberta. The Intelligence Report by Sonia Scherr begins with a brief account of a clash last March 21, the International Day for the Elimination of Racism:

"Wielding `White Pride Worldwide' flags and wearing black combat boots, about 40 members of the Aryan Guard and their supporters strode through the heart of Calgary... to broadcast their message of hate at City Hall. But they never got there. Instead, they encountered several hundred anti-racist protesters, some of whom threw rocks, water bottles and even cans of vegetables at the group as traffic came to a halt and police called for backup. Police eventually herded the neo-Nazis onto a bus that returned them to their vehicles on Calgary's outskirts. Though no serious injuries were reported, the melee snared headlines across Canada and prompted Aryan Guard spokesman Kyle McKee - who has `Kill Jews' tattooed on his shins - to declare victory."

The Aryan Guard have spread fear and anger among Calgary's 250,000 immigrant and minority populations.

"Essentially a racist gang," writes Scherr, "the Aryan Guard is the most public hate group to appear in Calgary - which, like much of western Canada, has a history of such activity going back to the Klan of the 1920s - in the past two decades. These Nazi look-alikes have clashed with counter-protesters at rallies in the city's downtown, handed out white-power music CDs to teenagers in an attempt to bolster their membership, and perpetrated attacks on minorities despite espousing non-violence."

The Aryan Guard was founded in late 2006 with help from two former teachers: Paul Fromm of the Canadian Association for Free Expression, who lost his teaching certificate because of his white supremacist activities, and National Socialist Party of Canada leader Terry Tremaine, a former part-time university lecturer who in 2007 was fined $4,000 by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal because of his racist and anti-Semitic Internet postings.

"They were the main catalysts behind bringing these young fellows here," said Constable Lynn MacDonald, hate crimes coordinator for the Calgary Police Service.

MacDonald says the Aryan Guard now has roughly 20 full-fledged members, and another 20 to 30 supporters, including those belonging to the Valkyrian Legion, or woman's wing of the Aryan Guard, which consists mostly of the girlfriends of male members. The majority are in their early 20s.

The group began to draw attention in 2007, when members began distributing hate literature in Calgary and Lethbridge.

In August 2007, the Aryan Guard began disrupting anti-racism rallies. Two months later, they rallied outside City Hall to denounce Muslim women who wear burkas while voting. Since then, they have conducted sporadic demonstrations, including "White Pride Day" rallies held on the International Day for the Elimination of Racism.

As Scherr notes, "the Aryan Guard has found itself vastly outnumbered by anti-racist protesters, including members of Anti-Racist Action Calgary." While police say both Aryan Guard members and counter-protesters have been arrested for assaults, ARA spokesperson Jason Devine says no member has been charged in connection with any incident at an Aryan Guard rally.

Meanwhile, the Calgary Police Service admits that Aryan Guard members have been linked to several assaults, including one against a cab driver from North Africa.

Writing about this attack on the neo-Nazi Stormfront website, McKee boasted about getting the case dismissed: "The reason being was that they couldn't make a positive ID because apparently everyone there was all dressed in combat boots with white laces [and] black flight jackets and all had shaved heads. So let this be a lesson to anyone who wonders why on earth all us skinheads dress so similarly. [T]his is another great reason. lol [laughing out loud]".

In July 2008, a 17-year-old Aryan Guard member who had been making anti-Asian remarks followed a young Japanese woman as she left a bar and kicked her in the back of the head with steel-toed boots. He was wearing red laces - a skinhead symbol indicating he'd spilled blood for the movement.

ARA members believe that the Aryan Guard is responsible for the violent attacks against Jason and Bonnie Devine's home. Aryan Guard members have taunted the couple about the firebomb attack. "Is it hot in there?" they have asked during protests, according to Devine. "How are the kids? How's the house?"

And in yet another ugly case, four Aryan Guard members were charged with disturbing the peace after vandalizing a shopping mall and using racial slurs on a First Nations reserve near Calgary.

Scherr reports that two of the group's most prominent members, McKee and Dallas Price, faced assault and weapons charges in connection with a September 2006 confrontation in which one victim was hit with a wooden club and another was stabbed with a knife. Guard member Robert Reitmeier was charged with attempted murder in connection with a November 2006 assault on a man who suffered skull and facial fractures. Member Bill Noble was convicted in 2008 of posting hate material on the Internet that primarily targeted non-whites, Jews and gays. A judge sentenced him to four months in jail and imposed limits on his computer use for three years, though Noble continues to post frequently on Stormfront.

COMMUNIST PARTY CONDEMNS CALGARY POLICE INACTION

The failure by the Calgary Police Service to seriously investigate neo-Nazi violence against anti-racist activists is a reckless and shocking dereliction of duty which endangers lives. On October 3, the family home of Jason and Bonnie Devine and their four young children was the target of yet another such attack, in which windows were smashed and Neo-nazi graffiti was spray-painted on the front door: a swastika and "C-18", an obvious reference to the violent British fascist organization known as "Combat 18." In February 2009, the house was firebombed with molotov cocktails.

Fortunately, nobody was hurt in either incident, but the long history of email and telephone threats against the Devine family is ample warning that they remain in serious danger. The most likely suspects are in plain view - the Aryan Guard group which has been actively promoting racism and neo-Nazi ideology in Calgary for several years. Jason and Bonnie Devine have been in the forefront of community activists calling attention to the Aryan Guard. Both have campaigned as candidates for the Communist Party, and their courage has clearly angered the local fascists.

Despite its motto, "To maximize public safety in Calgary with vigilance, courage, and pride," the Calgary Police Service has ignored repeated public appeals to take action. Aryan Guard members are suspects in various other crimes, including the beatings of a homeless man, a gay community member, and a cab driver from North Africa, but no arrests have resulted. In the view of the Communist Party of Canada, this pattern has gone beyond neglect, into the territory of tacit encouragement of criminal activity. If serious injury or death results from further attacks, innocent blood will not only be on the hands of the perpetrators, but also on the hands of the Calgary Police Service which hides behind the feeble claim that "both sides are equally responsible" and that the Aryan Guard is simply "exercising its right to free speech."

The time has come for the City of Calgary and the Alberta provincial government to intervene in this crisis situation. Strong political leadership is required to replace Chief Rick Hanson with a police chief who is willing and capable of ensuring that swift action is taken to bring an end to these racist attacks. In the meantime, we extend our ongoing full solidarity to anti-racist activists and all democratic-minded citizens of Calgary who are standing up to the violent neo-Nazis in their community.

It should be noted that a redwatch* style website targeting communists, anarchists and jews in Canada has a link to the recent violent attacks.

* [from wikipedia]...Redwatch is a British neo-Nazi website that publishes photographs and personal information of alleged left-wing and anti-fascist activists. There also used to be a British magazine of the same name, and with similar subject matter. The website's slogan is "Remember places, traitors' faces, they'll all pay for their crimes", a quote from neo-Nazi musician Ian Stuart Donaldson.

The information gathered by Redwatch is indexed by cities or regions. Many of the people listed are members of the Anti-Nazi League or other anti-racist or left-wing groups...