The news coming out of the Ukraine confirms the correctness of the PCP's assessment regarding the events leading up to the February 21-22 coup d'Etat and highlights a context of permanent and ever greater repression and violation of fundamental freedoms and civil rights, as a result of that coup, which was fomented and sponsored by the USA, the EU and NATO, and which had the decisive participation of avowedly fascist and neo-Nazi Ukrainian forces.
In this regards, the extraordinarily serious campaign carried out by the illegitimate authorities against the democratic forces, and in particular against the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU) must be stressed. Marked by numerous acts of intimidation and violence – including physical aggressions and the brutal murder of Communist leaders and members – this campaign has as its stated goal to ban the CPU.
At the same time, it must be stressed that the unleashing by the Kiev government of the criminal military operation which for over three months has been targeting the Ukrainian part of the Donbass – an operation in which neo-fascist battalions are actively taking part, as an integral component of the Kiev military and operational command – has already caused many thousands of civilian victims and refugees. This military campaign is an expression of the anti-democratic and profoundly reactionary nature of the current putschist and puppet authorities in Kiev. It is equally revealing of the serious dangers and threats to peace and international security which result from the determination of the most aggressive sectors of imperialism to carry out their policies of interventionism and war. There must be growing concern that we may be heading towards a large-scale military conflict, involving the planet's main nuclear powers, with self-evident dramatic consequences for Humankind.
In these circumstances, the PCP
1. Expresses its most vivid indignation with the amendment, adopted on July 24 by the Ukrainian Parliament, of its regulations, with the purpose of dissolving the Parliamentary Group of the CPU, a party that received 13.2% of the vote in the last elections before the coup, and denounces the shameless proceeding to ban the CPU, initiated by the government in the Kiev Administrative Court, in a violation of the Constitution itself. It reaffirms its staunch condemnation of the repressive campaign of persecution against the Ukrainian Communists and the unacceptable attempts to prohibit or curtail the activity of the CPU, or Communist ideology.
2. Condemns the climate of xenophobic hysteria, intimidation and intolerance that prevails in the Ukraine (inspired by the imperialist powers and with the Portuguese government joining the chorus) and the multiplication of threats and violence against all those who oppose the illegitimate power, and reiterates its solidarity with the Ukrainian Communists and democratic forces, who resist and rise up in defense of their rights, against the neo-fascist threat and the oppression by the oligarchs and big capital.
3. Affirms that this authoritarian escalation is inseparable from the profoundly negative consequences for the Ukrainian workers and people, of the national interests and the sovereignty of the Ukraine, which result from the signing of the Association agreement and the free trade treaty with the EU, and namely from the implementation by the Kiev authorities of the harmful package of submission and austerity that was imposed by the troika of the USA, IMF and EU. We recall that it was the refusal, in November 2013, by the then government of the Ukraine to sign these agreements – which it consider harmful for the country – that was the formal pretext for the eruption of the Maidan movement and for the overthrowing of the constitutional order of the Ukrainian State. We reiterate our solidarity with the Ukrainian workers and peoples and with the struggle in defense of a free, sovereign, democratic Ukraine of social progress.
4. Demands the immediate end of Kiev's military aggression against the people of the Donbass and underlines the need for the beginning of a political process, without preconditions or requirements, between the parties. It expresses profound concern for the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Ukraine and the tragic consequences for the Ukrainian people that result from the military operation carried out by the Poroshenko authorities and the Ukrainian oligarchy.
5. Vigorously condemns the escalation of the punitive war, which is inseparable from imperialism's agenda of dangerous offensive against the Russian Federation, that represents an extremely serious threat to peace in Europe and the world. Reiterating the responsibilities of the great imperialist powers, in particular of the USA and the EU, in the unfolding of the Ukrainian crisis, it calls for the struggle of the Portuguese workers and people, and of all democrats, in defense of peace and against the extremely serious threat of war which today hangs over Humanity.
