MH17: Learning The Ukraine Conflict

By Ali Imran Mohd Noordin KUALA LUMPUR, July 25 (Bernama) -- As for most Malaysians the conflict in Ukraine was not their concern, at least until July 17 when Malaysia Airlines' flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down over Ukraine. While the separatist group and the Kiev Government blamed each other over the tragedy, the whole world watched helplessly as looters had a field day at the crash site and the bodies of the victims left to rot in the open. Latest, the Ukraine Prime Minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk resigned from his post as two major parties, the Ukranian Democratic Alliance for Reform (UDAR) and Svoboda withdrew from the current government coalition. Ukraine's internal strive has robbed the lives and dignity of all 298 passengers and crew of the Malaysian flag carrier. The victims were made up of various nationalities, and more than half, or 193 to be precise, being Dutch. As the plane had come down in an area controlled by the rebels, in the first three days teams sent to retrieve the bodies and start investigations could not access the crash site until Malaysia brokered a deal with Alexander Yurevich Borodai, the rebel leader and prime minister of the self proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic. The whole episode goes to show how complicated is the problem in Ukraine. Most Malaysians, presumably others as well, are only aware that the eastern side of Ukraine bordering with Russia is a war zone. This is the area where people from the Russian ethnic origin and backed by Russia had carved out the Donestk state. Earlier in the year Ukraine had lost control over Crimea, that was annexed by Russia. However, there is more to this war than pro-Russian rebels carving up Ukraine based on ethnicity and language. POWER PLAY According to Dr Chandra Muzaffar, President of International Movement for a Just World (JUST), based on what has appeared in the media and what has been said by some politicians, there appeared to be a lot of ignorance on what is happening in Ukraine. It is important for Malaysians to understand the nature of conflict in Ukraine, because it is a conflict that is connected with power play involving both internal and external parties. "It is connected with the situation in Europe and Donestk, goes back to the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991 and the power play by different players, that is what is happening in Ukraine", he said. As a result of the ouster of the previous democratically elected president Viktor Yanukovych, the current government led by Petro Poroshenko is pro United States and pro West while the rebels opposing them were backed by Russia. "The tussle over Ukraine is actually very critical, because Ukraine is at the Russia's doorstep and historically Ukraine was part of Russia, you know, and Kiev, the capital of Ukraine was once the capital of Russia. So the relation runs very deep, between Ukraine and Russia", explained Chandra. On the other hand, the United States, that backs the current Ukraine government would like Ukraine to be part of European Union. Chandra's point of view is that Russia is afraid this will create a situation where the United States posts a direct challenge to Russia itself. "So it is a very serious conflict. It is also linked to ethnic issues, the Russian speaking part of Ukraine which is at the eastern side. In the new government in Kiev people speak Ukraine, only some speaks Russian". "So there is also the east-west divide within Ukraine itself", Chandra commented pointing at the deep divisive lines running across the country. CALL FOR MILLITARY RADAR DATA For Chandra, if there was no conflict the MH17 tragedy would not have taken place. "Now as you can see, each side is accusing the other. One side saying the other side has done it, and the other side say the other one who did it, going back and fourth, and no one is able to come out with hard evidence. "The government in Kiev has not come out with any hard evidence, they’ve just made allegations and videos, so-called the video recording of conversations and all that as we know", he said. Therefore, via JUST, Chandra voiced that Ukraine, Russia and the United States should de-classify and release the raw military radar data manifest at the incident area on the day of tragedy. He added, this information would offer very important clues or maybe the real truth of what happened that day to MH17. Ultimately, all this goes on the basis of who has the reason for doing certain thing, and who benefits on what happened? This is the important consideration and thus we need to analyse on this data", he said. --BERNAMA