Sir, – In November 2011, the NYPD, in riot gear, launched a midnight raid on the Occupy movement’s camp in a park in New York. Two hundred people were arrested, according to NYPD figures. Western media admired the authorities for not kowtowing to protesters.
Two years later, in December 2013, Ukrainian police, in riot gear, attempt to break up a camp that has paralysed the centre of the nation’s capital, Kiev. Instead of praising the Ukrainian authorities for attempting to maintain law and order, the US has threatened sanctions against the country. John Kerry expressed “disgust” at the decision by Ukraine’s authorities to “meet the peaceful protest . . . with riot police, bulldozers, and batons, rather than with respect for democratic rights and human dignity”.
This statement also ignores the fact that it is the protesters who have been using the bulldozers, to attack police cordons. How can these two scenarios be reconciled? How can the US, or Europe, claim to be in any way non-biased in this situation? How can they continue to vilify Russia, and President Putin, calling him a thug, when they are openly agitating against the legitimate Ukrainian authorities, so openly interfering in another nation’s internal affairs? Where are the moral standards? Is it any wonder that Russians see a foreign conspiracy? – Yours, etc,
DAVID GILMARTIN,
Leninsky Prospekt,
Moscow, Russia.