{"id":170115,"date":"2015-08-02T00:46:11","date_gmt":"2015-08-02T00:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=170115"},"modified":"2015-08-02T02:02:29","modified_gmt":"2015-08-02T02:02:29","slug":"u-s-tries-to-stir-ethnic-division-in-crimea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/u-s-tries-to-stir-ethnic-division-in-crimea\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Tries to Stir Ethnic Division in Crimea"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse<\/span><\/p>\n

On Saturday, August 1st, Ukraine\u2019s President Petro Poroshenko (who now\u00a0acknowledges<\/span><\/a>\u00a0that his government is illegitimate and that his predecessor Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown in a\u00a0February 2014 coup<\/span><\/a>), sent\u00a0greetings<\/span><\/a>\u00a0to an international conference of supporters of Tatars in Crimea, at the Second World Congress of the Crimean Tatars. He charged the current Crimean government (the government that Crimeans elected on 16 March 2014, rejoining Russia) of discriminating against Tatars. His message attacked the “torn imperial policies of the Kremlin,\u201d and the \u201ctemporary occupation of Crimea by Russia.\u201d He said that, \u201cThe Crimean Tatar people are again experiencing terror, and tens of thousands are thus forced to flee.\u201d He thanked America\u2019s Sunni ally Turkey for hosting this conference of pro-Saudi, Sunni Muslim, Crimeans.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to polls, the 12% to 15% of Crimeans who are Tatars (most of whom are Sunni Muslims, and thus oriented toward Saudi Arabia) are\u00a0overwhelmingly in support<\/span><\/a>\u00a0of Crimea\u2019s having severed its ties with Ukraine and of having become instead a province of Russia, as Crimea had been part of Russia for centuries until the Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev transferred Crimea to Ukraine in 1954.<\/span><\/p>\n

That linked poll there was taken in January 2015, but its findings were similar to earlier ones. For example, it showed that 82% of Crimeans said that they \u201cendorse Russia\u2019s annexation of Crimea.\u201d Another 11% said they \u201cmostly endorse\u201d it. That\u2019s overall 93% approval. By comparison,\u00a0an April 2014 Gallup poll of Crimeans<\/span><\/a>\u00a0showed that 82.8% said that, \u201cThe results of the referendum on Crimea\u2019s status likely reflect the views of most people here.\u201d Only 6.7% did not agree. So, those two polls seem to have agreed: both showed overwhelming acceptance by Crimeans of the referendum\u2019s result: Crimea\u2019s becoming again a part of Russia.<\/span><\/p>\n

An earlier (pre-referendum, even pre-coup),\u00a0May 2013, Gallup poll of only Crimeans,<\/span><\/a>\u00a0found that 15% of their sample said they were \u201cTatar,\u201d and that unlike all other ethnic groups in Crimea, none of Crimea\u2019s Tatars considered themselves to be either \u201cUkrainian\u201d or \u201cRussian,\u201d though they all were, at that time, technically Ukrainains. Back at that time, 68% of all Crimeans said they were \u201cwarm\u201d toward Russia; only 5% said they were \u201ccold\u201d toward Russia; so, even if all of the respondents who were \u201ccold\u201d there were among the 15% of Crimeans who were Tatar, fully two-thirds of Crimea\u2019s Tatars were not<\/i> \u201ccold\u201d toward Russia. However, by contrast, only 6% of Crimeans said that they were \u201cwarm\u201d toward the U.S.; 24% said they were \u201ccold\u201d toward it. So: at best<\/i> (even if all Crimeans who are \u201cwarm\u201d toward the U.S. are the Tatars) Crimea\u2019s Tatars are actually as \u201ccold\u201d toward the U.S. as they are toward Russia. Besides the 15% of Crimeans who self-identified as being \u201cTatar,\u201d there were 20% of Crimeans who self-identified as “Ukrainian,\u201d and 59% who self-identified as \u201cRussian.\u201d So, that pre-coup breakdown helps to explain why the vast majority of Crimeans were \u201cwarm\u201d toward Russia: most Crimeans, even before Crimea was restored to Russia in March 2014, already considered themselves to be<\/i> \u201cRussian.”<\/span><\/p>\n

That May 2013 poll was taken for the International Republican [Party] Institute, and for the (Obama) U.S. State Department-run agency, USAID, in preparation for the coup (by Obama, backed strongly by congressional Republicans). Back in May 2013, the U.S. State Department was already a few months into organizing the overthrow of Ukraine\u2019s democratically elected President, which\u00a0coup<\/span><\/a>\u00a0occurred, or took place, actually, less than a year later, in February 2014<\/span><\/a>. This poll was asking questions that were designed to tap into the prospects for winning the support of Crimeans, and especially of its Tatars, for the overthrow that was being planned<\/span><\/a>, and for America\u2019s intended yanking away from Russia of Russia\u2019s centuries-long control over Russia\u2019s Crimean naval base, which has been one of Russia\u2019s top military assets ever since 1783.<\/span><\/p>\n

Basically, what all three polls showed was that Crimeans were going to be appalled<\/span><\/a> at the overthrow, but that Crimea\u2019s Tatars would be more supportive of it than other Crimeans would.<\/span><\/p>\n

And this is why America\u2019s agent, Petro Poroshenko, is now courting Crimea\u2019s Tatars. They may not like Ukraine, but they dislike it less than other Crimeans do.<\/span><\/p>\n

Poroshenko is just doing his job for his American sponsors.<\/span><\/p>\n

U.S. President Barack Obama says that Russia\u2019s \u201cconquest of land\u201d to seek \u201cgreat nation status\u201d is what caused Crimea to switch from Ukraine to Russia, and that this \u201cconquest of land\u201d caused Russia\u2019s consequent punishment for \u201cRussia\u2019s aggression.\u201d<\/span><\/a> He says that this \u201caggression\u201d<\/span><\/a> is the reason for the economic sanctions against Russia.<\/span><\/p>\n

But actually, \u201cThe Anti-Crimean Pogrom that Sparked Crimea\u2019s Breakaway\u201d<\/span><\/a> expressed the passionate hatred against Russians on the part of Ukraine\u2019s Right Sector \u2013 the organization that the Obama Administration had, in fact, hired as the gunmen who carried out the anti-Russian coup d\u2019etat in Ukraine next door to Russia during February 2014. The leader of Right Sector is Dmitriy Yarosh<\/span><\/a>, who aspires to destroy Russia. He\u2019s just the type of man Obama needed to mastermind this coup<\/span><\/a> and so to carry out not only Obama\u2019s will, but his own. Yarosh also masterminded \u201cThe Anti-Crimean Pogrom that Sparked Crimea\u2019s Breakaway,\u201d<\/span><\/a> and also was one of the key leaders and masterminds of the massacre of the coup\u2019s opponents inside the Odessa Trade Unions Building on 2 May 2014<\/span><\/a>, the event that sparked Ukraine\u2019s civil war. Obama hires the right people for a job, and these were far-right jobs.<\/span><\/p>\n

———-<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse On Saturday, August 1st, Ukraine\u2019s President Petro Poroshenko (who now\u00a0acknowledges\u00a0that his government is illegitimate and that his predecessor Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown in a\u00a0February 2014 coup), sent\u00a0greetings\u00a0to an international conference of supporters of Tatars in Crimea, at the Second World Congress of the Crimean Tatars. He charged the current Crimean government (the government […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":170113,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,1622],"tags":[115,30,32,96,887,535,59,753,804,543,524,523,49,36,76,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-170115","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"category-featured","9":"tag-barack-obama","10":"tag-big-brother","11":"tag-cia","12":"tag-cover-up","13":"tag-crimea","14":"tag-global-news","15":"tag-military","16":"tag-police-state","17":"tag-politics-2","18":"tag-putin","19":"tag-russia","20":"tag-ukraine","21":"tag-usa-news","22":"tag-video","23":"tag-warfare","24":"tag-white-house"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}