Eric Zuesse
RINF Alternative News
The article below is translated from Russian without the original’s accompanying photos, which can be seen by clicking on the original:
and it’s based on the Spanish-language “Two Spaniards at the Battle of Donetsk, No Return Ticket,” 10 August 2014 (which has yet more photos):
http://www.elmundo.es/cronica/
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To Defend the Donbass, Volunteers Came from Spain
11-08-2014, 21:56
Angel Arribas Mateo from Cartagena, and Rafael Munoz Perez of Asturias, are fighting side-by-side with the [anti-Kiev-Government] militia, as they say, “against fascism.”
More on why these men have come to New Russia: as they told their story to the Spanish magazine El Mundo.
Both men are assigned to the battalion “Vostok”, which, as stressed by the publication, also specializes in shooting down aircraft. “They are fighting for a federal state Novorossia confederation DNR and LC” [New Russia, consisting of Donetsk and Luhansk Republics] – the article says. Though the young men do not have military experience under their belt, they are now studying it. They have made theirs the flag of the Second Spanish Republic, bearing the inscription «No pasaran!» (“They shall not pass!”).
The Spanish Republic existed in the years 1931-1939, and in its defense in those years many Russian volunteers came from the Soviet Union.
And what a turn-around now: the Spaniards are coming to help protect Russians against the fascists, this time.
According to 22-year-old Angel, a turning point for him was the Odessa tragedy, which killed more than 40 people. “I could not bear to see this barbarity and feel that I can not do anything – he told reporters. – If this had happened in Spain, I could become one of the victims.” Then, Angel took the money set aside for a vacation to the UK, and went instead to help the militia. “Before the start of the youth wing of the Communist Party of Peoples of Spain (PCPE), he was a member of the youth wing of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE), part of the “United Left “- the article says.
Another Spanish volunteer activist is the social worker and professional rescuer Rafael.
As a result, these two like-minded people communicated via social networks, and flew to Ukraine on 23 July.
They remembered as they appeared in Kiev: at the station they encountered the officials. “Then there were the security services, armed with machine guns,” says Angel. “We were separated and bundled into different cars. We were very scared, we were shouted at, over and over again, the same questions in English: ‘What’s your name?’, ‘Why are you going to the east?’, ‘What are your plans?’” They were released, but not before being forced to sign a document, “which will make them criminals if they return to Ukraine.” But the men still went to the east, where they joined the militia. As long as they do not understand the language, they’ll try to learn it, the article says. “They only know the nickname of his commander, who is called Dusman. He listens to former plumbers, electricians and teachers, who now have taken up arms. Their age – from 20 to 60 years.” Angel says that he is ready to go into battle, “to defend this nation against Nazi bastards.” “We realized how much risk we face,” said Rafael. “Probably, if the defense fails, … if we see that all is lost, or if the civilian population will support [the Nazis], we’ll leave [go back to Spain].” But in the event of an outright victory over the junta, Angel expressed a desire to live here.
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Historical note from Eric Zuesse: The great Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the exact opposite of Barack Obama. Whereas Obama installed nazism into control of Ukraine in February 2014, FDR on 10 March 1945 wrote to the U.S. Ambassador in Spain telling him to reject from Spain’s fascist dictator Francisco Franco, “actions more favorable to us now that we are about to achieve our goal of complete victory over these enemies of ours with whom the present Spanish regime identified itself,” and that, to the contrary of our accepting Franco’s advances, “Our victory over Germany will carry with it the extermination of Nazi and similar ideologies,” such as Franco’s, and especially such as Obama has recently installed into Ukraine, nazi. Whereas FDR was passionately anti-fascist, Obama is secretly not just fascist butracist-fascist, or nazi (against Russians, this being the racism that he’s installed into power in Kiev), and is anti-fascist only in his lying rhetoric, but the exact opposite of anti-fascist in his real actions as U.S. President. For Democrats not to impeach Obama would be for the Democratic Party to nullify itself, to simply end: to have no principles left that meaningfully and clearly distinguish the Democratic Party from the conservative Republican Party. This will be the ultimate test of whether there’s anything remaining of the Democratic Party that FDR led.
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.