By Alexey Albu, member of Borotba left group in Ukraine and elected member of the Odessa Regional Council, translated by Greg Butterfield and published on his Facebook page, Dec 12, 2014
“The authorities are doing everything to ensure that our comrades rot in jail”
I want to draw attention to how the situation in Odessa has changed in seven months. On May 4, 2014, Odessites stormed the city police department and freed several dozen antifascists who were arrested on May 2.
It was a victory! Odessa woke up! Odessa showed its power! But with no clear organization or plan of action, the whole protest was unconscious. It was not organized but a spontaneous impulse, the cry of the soul!
All protest in Odessa did not end on May 2. It ended on the 4th. When people went to the city police department, everyone knew that the far right did not have great influence in Odessa. Everyone understood that it was not primarily Odessites who carried out the massacre of May 2. More precisely, from Odessa there was only a pitiful, vile minority. But on May 4, after the assault, when all the inhabitants of Odessa went to the center of the city, the killers came again. We saw the neo-Nazi crowd marching, which then went to the Kulikovo Field. It was not just animals, but aggressive animals that can kill, as it was on May 2.
This was well understood by most peaceful inhabitants of Odessa, who had gone to the Kulikovo Field in the spring. Odessa citizens realized that there was no one to protect them. All the defenders were killed, exiled or imprisoned. After the May 2 massacre, all who dared to fight were thrown in prison. There are now about 100 inhabitants of Odessa imprisoned; those who dared to challenge the system of violence and terror. Some managed to get word out, but the names of many heroes we do not even know. The information we have is on the website of the Committee for the Liberation of Odessa (2May.org).
The most cynical injustice is that the defendants are ordinary people who were protecting, but did not attack. They are trying to destroy in prison those who were not killed in the House of Trade Unions. The authorities are doing everything to ensure that our friends, colleagues, and comrades simply rot in the torture chambers.
Even the judges understand these guys are not guilty. They do not want to hear the hurriedly fabricated case. The Primorsky court decided to step back and not participate in this disgrace. After all, the judges still have to live in Odessa and look into the eyes of their countrymen. The case was referred to the Appeals Court of the Odessa Region, which in turn made the decision — to return the case back to Primorsky.
What can we do? We must support the defendants and come out to the Primorsky court. After all, in Odessa there are not as many fascist militants now as there were in April and May. Many of them have already been killed in the ATO [Anti-Terrorist Operation, the Kyiv regime’s war against the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics], protecting the interests of Kolomoisky or Poroshenko. We have to be in the court because the political prisoners must feel our support. They must feel that they are not alone. They need to understand that everything they did was not in vain. I’m not talking about storming the courthouse, although I believe it would be just; I’m talking primarily about moral support of our comrades.
Everyone understands that the regime which exists in Ukraine today will not last long. The junta will fall and everyone who helped the punishers and the ATO, who attacked our loved ones, who threw our friends into prison, who made them starve, will have to answer for it. It is this awareness of imminent retribution that hardens the fascist attack dogs. It is understood that the end is inevitable, making them even more stubborn in their wrongdoing. But the pendulum of history has already started moving back and there’s no getting around it.
Original article in Russian on Borotba website here.
