US Establishment Media Neglects Neo-Nazi Role in Ukraine Uprising

April 7, 2014

Despite evidence to the contrary, US policy makers and corporate media have intentionally neglected to report that neo-Nazi militias played a central role in the February 22, 2014 overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych. Robert Parry reports, “The U.S. media’s take on the Ukraine crisis is that a ‘democratic revolution’ ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, followed by a ‘legitimate’ change of government. So, to mention the key role played neo-Nazi militias in the putsch or to note that Yanukovych was democratically elected – and then illegally deposed – gets you dismissed as a ‘Russian propagandist.’”

Some media outlets have also reported unsubstantiated US claims that, following the coup, Russia dispatched unidentified “provocateurs” to destabilize the new regime in Kiev.

In late March, the New York Times reported on a telephone conversation between Russian president Vladimir Putin and President Obama to discuss strategies for addressing the crisis. Putin told Obama that neo-Nazi militants had surrounded parliament. The Times chose to spin Putin’s report as a ploy to, “capitalize on a tense internal showdown in Kiev.” This bias also extends to reporting of Crimea’s popular vote to secede from Ukraine and to join Russia, labeling it Putin’s “seizure” of Crimea. The Times and other corporate news outlets dismissed the March 16 referendum as somehow rigged, suggesting that the 96 percent tally for secession was, itself, evidence of fraud, although no other evidence of election fraud has been presented.

“If the New York Times and other leading U.S. outlets did their journalism in a professional way,” Parry writes, “the American people would have had a more nuanced understanding of what happened in Ukraine and why. Instead, the Times and the rest of the MSM resumed their roles as U.S. propagandists, much as they did in Iraq in 2002-03 with their usual preference for a simplistic ‘good-guy/bad-guy’ dichotomy.”

Source: Robert Perry, “Ukraine’s Inconvenient Neo-Nazis,” Consortium News, March 30, 2014, http://consortiumnews.com/2014/03/30/ukraines-inconvenient-neo-nazis/.

Student Researcher: Bryan Brennen (Diablo Valley College)

Faculty Evaluator: Mickey Huff (Diablo Valley College)

Share this on: on Facebook on Google+

Project Censored

US Establishment Media Neglects Neo-Nazi Role in Ukraine Uprising

Greek govt cracks down on neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, arrests leader

Published time: September 28, 2013 13:33

Supporters and members of extreme-right Golden Dawn party hold Greek national flags as they sing the national anthem outside the Greek police headquarters in Athens September 28, 2013 (Reuters / John Kolesidis)

Greek police have arrested the leader, several MPs and dozens of members of ultra-right Golden Dawn party on charges of leading a “criminal organization.” The party promised to respond with mass rallies of its supporters.

Greek police issued arrest warrants for Golden Dawn leader Nikos Michaloliakos, party spokesman and MP Ilias Kassidiairis, two other prominent members, at least five other party MPs, as well as number of ordinary party members.

“The Secretary General and one lawmaker of the Golden Dawn Party were arrested a short while ago after arrest warrants were issued,” Greek police informed journalists.

Police have detained about 30 members of the ultra-right party, which won 18 seats in the Greek parliament in the June 2012 elections, having received close to 7 percent of the popular vote.

“Democracy in Greece is strong,” Justice Minister Haralambos Athanassiou said after meeting with Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and Public Order Minister Nikos Dendias. “All those arrested will have a fair trial,” he said.

In response to the crackdown, the neo-Nazi party called on to its supporters to “resist unlawfulness.”

“We call upon everyone to support our moral and just struggle against the corrupt system,” a statement said on the party’s website.

The ultra-right party faced a public backlash after the Sept. 18 murder of 34-year-old anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas, who was stabbed to death in Keratsini by George Roupakias, 45, an avowed supporter of Golden Dawn.

In the aftermath of the killing, the government signaled it would take a tough line against the neo-Nazi party.

“This government is determined not to allow the descendants of the Nazis to poison our social life, to commit crimes, terrorize and undermine the foundations of the country that gave birth to democracy,” Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said in a televised address a day after the killing.

The man who allegedly murdered the rapper confessed to the killing when detained by police, and volunteered that he had links to Golden Dawn. The party, however, denied any links to the murderer and the killing.

After the killing, an investigation revealed that sympathetic members of Greek law enforcement agencies had helped to train the Golden Dawn party’s paramilitary wing. As a result nine police officers, including two high-ranking officials, were fired while two senior police officials resigned for “personal reasons.”

The murder of the anti-fascist activist sparked mass protests nationwide as people held street protests to express their anger with the murder, clashing with police on Wednesday night.

The anti-fascist mass rallies apparently prompted the Greek government to launch a crackdown on the members of Golden Dawn, reportedly including wiretapping party members.

But Mihaloliakos and other leaders of Golden Dawn appeared to be defiant ahead of their arrest.

“We will exhaust any means within our legal constitutional rights to defend our political honor,” Mihaloliakos told reporters on Thursday.

On Friday, Golden Dawn threatened to pull its 18 MPs out of parliament in protest against the murder accusations, a move that could potentially prompt by-elections in 15 regions of the country and – if the opposition were to win those elections – it could threaten the small majority of the ruling coalition, which currently controls 155 seats in the 300-seat parliament.

A good result for the opposition could mean that the ruling coalition would become politically untenable, The Guardian reported Mihaloliakos as saying Friday.

“Golden Dawn holds a weapon in its hands to cause a political earthquake. Those in charge should bear that well in mind,” Mihaloliakos said.

Greece’s finance minister downplayed the political risks of arrests of the Golden Dawn party members.

“There is no risk of destabilization,” Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras told reporters on Saturday.

On Saturday, the ultranationalists called on their supporters to rally outside the police headquarters in Athens where their leaders were being held.

“Shame on them, the people will lift Golden Dawn higher,” Golden Dawn MP Ilias Panagiotaros told reporters shortly before his own arrest.

The Golden Dawn party has expressed open hostility toward left-wing opponents and immigrants in Greece, championing slogans such as “clean up the stench,” and “Greece for the Greeks.” They have pledged to eject all immigrants from Greece and secure Greece’s borders with landmines and armed patrols. The party has also opposed austerity measures introduced in exchange for bailout credits from the EU, IMF and European Central Bank – the so-called “Troika”. 

The arrests of Golden Dawn leaders are the largest crackdown against a political party in Greece since the fall of the neo-fascist military junta in 1974.

RT – News

Greek govt cracks down on neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, arrests leader

Greek army, police probed over links to neo-Nazi party

Published time: September 24, 2013 14:47

Supporters of the extreme-right Golden Dawn party hold flares as they chant the national anthem, during a rally over the crisis in Cyprus, outside the German embassy in Athens March 22, 2013. (Reuters / John Kolesidis)

Greece’s army is being accused of helping to train the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party’s paramilitary wing. The revelation comes as top policemen have been fired after the murder of a left-wing activist by a Golden Dawn fan provoked mass protests.

Greek media first started publishing stories detailing the involvement of the country’s elite forces in training its most controversial neo-fascist organization, which is allegedly linked to large-scale racial violence against immigrants in the wake of the country’s economic meltdown.

Greek Defense Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos decided to take action against the rise of fascist activity after last week’s murder of Pavlos Fyssas, a popular anti-fascist rapper, by a Golden Dawn supporter who confessed to the killing immediately after his arrest.

“In Golden Dawn, we have an entire military structure with at least 3,000 people ready for everything,” a party member told the local Sunday Vima newspaper, while another of Greece’s prominent dailies on Monday published photos of military exercises and men in balaclavas at secluded training grounds. The Ethnos newspaper also reported that a few of the men holding knives and wooden clubs were actually trained by members of Greece’s elite special forces – themselves sympathizers with Golden Dawn’s cause.

As part of the ensuing public outrage at these recent developments, the leader of the left-wing Syriza party, Alexis Tsipras, was quoted as saying that the government “thought [Golden Dawn] was a little snake and they patted it… now it’s about to choke us.”

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’s government insists it is doing what it can to curtail Golden Dawn’s extremism, while President Karalos Papoulis told local media that his top priority would be to eradicate neo-fascism in Greece. “From the time I was a young man I fought fascism and Nazism,” Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported Papoulis as saying. “It is my supreme duty as president of the republic to defend democracy and the Greek people from the storm that is approaching.”

Meanwhile, a separate investigation into possible police collusion with Golden Dawn’s activities got under way following the Sept. 18 murder of Fyssas. Five top police officials, along with the chiefs of the two Athens neighborhoods where Fissas was murdered, were fired on Monday, a police statement said.

Four other police officials in the central city of Evia were suspended for failing to take action over armed men showing up frequently at Golden Dawn’s offices, the Interior Ministry said. The suspensions came after the resignation of two senior members of the police force, allegedly for personal reasons.

The stabbing of Fyssas by a supporter of the neo-Nazi party shone a light on suspicions that the country’s law enforcement was turning a blind eye to extremism, with allegations that the Greek police have been infiltrated by members of Golden Dawn.

Golden Dawn has denied any involvement in Fyass’s murder, however.

Greece’s economic crisis has created much social, economic and political unrest, radicalizing large sections of the population. As well as growing left-wing protests, the crisis has also resulted in far-right groups fomenting racial hatred and seeking to blame foreigners and the left for the country’s economic collapse. Golden Dawn’s recent surge in popularity has coincided with its fierce anti-immigrant campaign and its alleged organization of beatings of immigrant street vendors and other non-Greeks. Golden Dawn officials insist they are not involved in racist attacks.

In the aftermath of Fyssas’s murder, and following a clampdown on Golden Dawn’s activities, party spokesman Ilias Kasidaris accused the government and media of waging an unfair war against the organization because it suddenly started to gather so much positive attention. The party’s ratings have sunk by 2.5 percentage points following Fyssas’s murder, however.

“Golden Dawn has been radically strengthened, it has passed 20 percent [in the polls] and in a few months it will lay claim to the biggest municipalities in the land. We will not stop. We have justice on our side and more than a million Greeks,” Kasidaris said.

Despite Kasidaris’s remarks, support for Golden Dawn has begun to wane, followed by increasing calls to ban it. This comes as politicians are accusing Greece’s police of failing to investigate the possibility that the neo-Nazi party had infiltrated its ranks.

Golden Dawn’s leader, Nikos Mihaloliakos, says attempts to ban it would not be successful.

“Golden Dawn is everywhere. It has spread to every city, to every village,” Mihaliliakos said in a live video address on the party’s website. “It’s in every neighborhood and you will not be able to contain it. Deal with it!”

Mihaliliakos also accused Greece’s political establishment of staging a campaign against the party.

Golden Dawn is increasingly called a fascist organization, but the party insists it is not, even though it has a logo resembling a swastika. Giving extra support to the idea of Nazi links, Mihaloliakos has publicly denied the Holocaust. 

At first an obscure, small far-right group, Golden Dawn gained in strength following Greece’s economic collapse in the last five years. Starting out as an organization hardly anyone took seriously, they gained 18 seats in parliament in the June 2012 election, although a Monday poll showed that many Greeks believe it is a threat to democracy. Nearly half the people surveyed describe the party as a “fascist organization,” while just over 30 percent similarly call it a “criminal organization” disguising itself as a political party. In the poll, 17 percent referred to it as a “populist nationalist movement.”

RT – News

Greek army, police probed over links to neo-Nazi party