Friday, May 11, 2018

Justice for Odessa fire martyrs!


 by New Worker correspondent

NEW COMMUNIST Party leader Andy Brooks and Gerry Downing from the Socialist Fight movement joined other anti-fascist picketers outside the Ukrainian embassy in London last week. The protest, called by the New Communist Party, Socialist Fight and the British Posadists was part of an international commemoration of the workers who died when Ukrainian fascists torched the Odessa Trade Union House on 2nd May 2104.
Other events included tributes and demonstrations in Odessa itself, Sevastopol in the Russian Federation, Vienna, Berlin, Copenhagen, Dublin, The Hague, Stockholm, New York and Richmond, Virginia.
On 2nd May 2014, only two weeks after the US-NATO backed fascist coup in Kiev, scores of anti-fascist activists were massacred by a fascist mob who set fire to the Odessa Trade Union House and then murdered people trying to escape in cold blood.
On that day violence erupted on the streets on Odessa between anti-fascist demonstrators and the fascist gangs that had overthrown the legitimate government of Ukraine. Later in the day, a mob of fascists and football hooligans marched on Kulykove Square to break up the anti-fascist camp in the heart of the old city. The anti-fascists were beaten with baseball bats and iron chains and their camp was set ablaze, forcing many to seek refuge in the Trade Union House. That too was torched.
Dozens of people were trapped in the flames. Some jumped from the windows of the second and third floor and were shot at as they fell. After they fell to the ground, some were beaten to death. Others died from suffocation or were burned alive.
Unfortunately, it is not known how many persons really died. Some eye witnesses say the number could be over 100. But the Kiev regime claims that only 48 perished which is conveniently is below the 50 mark that would have triggered an automatic United Nations investigation. Needless to say not one of the thugs responsible for the murders has been arrested or charged.

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