Thursday 22 May 2014

Kiev’s Jumping Jackboots… It’s a Gas, Gas, Gas! By Finian CUNNINGHAM




Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping shake hands after signing an agreement during a bilateral meeting in Shanghai on ...


18.05.2014 

Well ain’t it a gas! The Western-installed neo-Nazi regime in Kiev wants to join the European Union and the US-led NATO military alliance in order to allegedly adopt Western standards of market principles and law. So they say, anyway.
Yet, in the capitalist West one abiding principle is that if you don’t pay your bills on time, then the bank or utility company can sue the customer for non-payment, leading to foreclosure or the utility supply being shut off.

In Kiev, the Western-sponsored coup, posing now as a sovereign government of Ukraine led by the self-styled Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, wants to assume the responsibilities of state power. Their main responsibility so far is to wield a monopoly of state violence against so-called terrorists and separatists in the east and south of the country, who happen to dissent from the regime’s illegal self-imposed rule.

But in every other way the junta refuses to conform to supposed Western standards by point-blank denial of honouring colossal financial arrears to Russia for years of natural gas fuel supply.

Over half of all Ukrainian natural gas consumption is supplied from Russia. The gas bill is well overdue, with billions of dollars-worth outstanding.

Alexei Miller, the head of Russia giant gas company Gazprom, has warned that if Kiev does not pay up $1.6 billion – a fraction of the outstanding debt – then the gas deliveries for next month are to be stopped forthwith.

The Kiev regime has reacted with jackboot arrogance to what is a normal market principle – a principle that it is allegedly keen to uphold as part of its craving to join the EU and the capitalist Western camp.

The onus on the Fatherland Party of Yatsenyuk and its Svoboda neo-Nazi partners is to pay up on the country’s gas utility bill. If these imposters want to be a government then there are responsibilities other than wielding state military power – such as paying your country’s fuel bill.

Yatsenyuk and his fascist cohorts have not only refused to pay up on their Russian gas debts. They are threatening to take Russia to court, accusing Moscow of abusing political power, intimidation and using gas as a geopolitical weapon. Can you imagine using that argument in London or New York against your gas supply company?
The Kiev coup gang, masquerading as a government with the fulsome diplomatic collusion of Washington and Brussels, are alleging that Russia is acting aggressively because state-owned Gazprom has decided to remove generous subsidies on the gas supply, increasing the price by 100 per cent.

Gazprom says that the subsidized gas prices were 100 per cent below normal market rates and that the previous arrangement with Ukraine was an act of neighbourly assistance to an allied country. Well, in case the Western coup did not notice, it violently seized power from the Russian allied elected government of Ukraine. The new regime has embarked on a campaign of Western-backed aggression towards Russia and Russian-speaking people in eastern Ukraine. That kind of disqualifies the Kiev gas customer of the erstwhile privileged service it had enjoyed at Moscow’s benign discretion.

So, if Russia wants to revert to the normal market-rate for gas that is Moscow’s prerogative. And it is Ukraine’s obligation to pay up, not only at the market rate, but, in addition, for all the years of arrears that Ukraine has clocked up. In effect, thanks to Russia’s generous indulgence, Ukraine has been living off free gas. Now it is time to settle the bill. If Russia is adopting a sterner attitude that is not abnormal, it is merely reverting to the normal.

You would think that self-proclaimed authoritarian capitalists like Yatsenyuk would understand that. After all, the former banker has vowed to slash pensions, wages and public subsidies in order to avail of loans from the International Monetary Fund. But when it comes to getting his country’s finances in order from years of Russian cheap gas, the fiscal disciplinarian acts with the head-staggers of a drunk on a bar stool who is refused any more drinks on the tab.

The showdown over Russia’s long overdue gas bill demonstrates the fraudulence of the Kiev imposters. They engage the IMF, and American and European taxpayer loans not for any genuine market restructuring of Ukraine, but rather to facilitate the economic looting of the 45 million population and their natural resources for the benefit of Western vulture capitalists.

The debacle of refusing to pay up debts to Russia for years of unpaid gas consumption deciphers the real nature of the regime in Kiev. It is all about making up rules, principles and laws that are self-serving for its own petty aggrandisement and that of its foreign sponsors. And yet these country-selling traitors have the gall to call themselves «nationalists» and «Fatherland Party».

Russian President Vladimir Putin flies to Shanghai next week. He is expected to sign historic energy deals with Chinese counterpart Xi Xiping on the development of massive gas and oil projects that will make the recalcitrant Ukraine seem like a gadfly.

The jackboot arrogance of the Western junta in Kiev wants everything their way. They threaten Russia, attack ethnic Russians with deadly state-sponsored terrorism, and then turn around and refuse to pay up their gas bills. Russia does not need this gadfly irritation. And the puny strutting imposters in Kiev will learn the hard way from the reality of the principles they presume to promulgate. As the Rolling Stones nearly sang: Jumping jackboots, it’s a gas, gas, gas!

Ironically, the ideological Nazi forebears of the Kiev junta were also keen on gas consumption for nefarious purposes. In the end, there’s always a bill of sorts to pay for your misdeeds.


Finian CUNNINGHAM

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