Anti-imperialists Worldwide Oppose U.S./NATO Proxy War in Ukraine

April 10, 2022

Greek workers block railroad tracks carrying NATO tanks going to Ukraine.. | Photo: 902.gr

By David Sole

Everyone who watches TV knows that if a crime has been committed the crime scene investigators are called to sift through the evidence. And the coroner is employed to carefully examine a body to determine identity and cause of death.

So one must ask why none of this has been done in the case of the alleged massacre in Bucha, Ukraine. The entire capitalist mass media and politicians around the U.S., Europe and their allies picked up and spread a story about so-called “Russian atrocities” without any investigation or evidence.

On March 30 Russian troops withdrew from Bucha, a town of about 37,000 people about 16 miles west of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. On March 31 the mayor of Bucha announced the town’s “liberation” making no mention of any massacre. On April 1 and 2 elements of the Ukrainian pro-Nazi Azov Battalion entered Bucha.  Only then were reports of murdered civilians heard. Without forensic evidence it would be premature to conclude that civilians were executed and who might be responsible. “Russia said images of atrocities had been staged” according to BBC News.

This lack of investigation by forensic experts didn’t stop U.S. president Joseph Biden from spreading the “Russian war crimes” story. Biden also called for Russian president Vladimir Putin to be put on trial. The BBC reported that satellite photos showed 11 bodies in the streets of Bucha from Russia’s occupation after February 27 to the March 30 withdrawal. According to the BBC the Ukraine government claims that 410 bodies had been found “in areas around Kyiv.”

Anyone familiar with previous U.S. wars (or proxy wars) knows that propaganda offensives are as important as military offensives. Claims of massacres and mass graves were often used to sway public opinion to support a war, reports that were later found false. This was true in the war against Yugoslavia in the late 1990s.

In earlier wars, like Korea and Vietnam, only years later was it shown that the United States military, itself, was responsible for slaughtering civilians. For example, it took 19 months, from March 1968 to October 1969 for the public to learn of the U.S. military’s massacre of 509 villagers in My Lai, Vietnam.

Not everyone in the world is jumping on the pro-NATO bandwagon. It has been reported that Greek railroad workers have refused to transport NATO tanks from ships unloading in Greece headed to bases in Eastern Europe bordering Ukraine.

According to the April 3 New Zealand Daily Telegraph “a dozen trade unions, including workers of the chemical industry of Northern Greece, construction, telecoms, food industry, hotels, catering establishments, local authorities and municipal enterprises” backed a resolution supporting the railroad workers.

“We, the railway workers, work to provide affordable and quality transportation to the people and for the transport of goods which can be used to meet their needs, not to become part of the country’s involvement in plans which are dangerous for the people, by transporting NATO material to areas near Ukraine. We will not be accomplices in the passage of the war machine through the territory of our country.”

The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) held numerous demonstrations to support the workers and oppose NATO actions in Greece. It was also reported that “the US recently gained access to 4 additional Greek bases, and the two countries penned a major $9.4 billion naval equipment deal in December.”

It should be noted that while the KKE position on the Ukraine war does sharply target NATO and the United States, it also characterizes the war as an ‘inter-imperialist” conflict, putting some of the blame on Russia.

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa strongly condemned NATO’s role for causing the Ukraine war. On March 17 Ramaphosa answered a question in parliament saying “The war could have been avoided if NATO had heeded the warnings from amongst its own leaders and officials over the years that its eastward expansion would lead to greater, not less, instability in the region.”.

On March 19 the Bulgarian Revival Party held a large demonstration in Sofia, the nation’s capital. Thousands of protesters demanded that NATO get out of their country and that NATO weapons not be sent to Ukraine, dragging them into a fratricidal war.