neo-Nazi – praag.org

Hard-core Nazis in power in Kiev

“Their children will hole up in basements!” screeched Ukrainian “President” Poroshenko, the oligarch and “Chocolate King.” “This is how we will win this war!”

He was talking about the children of the people of East Ukraine, whose cities are being bombed from the air by the US-supported Ukrainian military.

Thousands have been killed, mostly civilians: Ukraine’s war on its own people has displaced nearly a million people. Many have fled to neighboring Russia, while a little under half a million are classified as internally displaced refugees.

The Ukrainian military, which claims to be fighting “terrorists,” is using cluster bombs – weapons that are banned in the civilized world, but freely used by Ukraine’s military, which includes the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion.

Formally inducted into Ukraine’s US-backed military machine, the Azov Battalion was organized by openly neo-Nazi groups, and has been such a success that their deputy commander, Vadim Troyan, has been appointed the city of Kiev’s chief of police.

Troyan is a member of the “Patriot[s] of Ukraine” uniting openly neo-Nazi Ukrainian organizations.

Before Troyan’s elevation to the top law enforcement position in the country’s capital, he and his fellow neo-Nazis were quite well-known to the police in Kharkiv, where they regularly beat up their political opponents as well as foreign students, migrants, and homosexuals.

And if you’re a reporter covering the conflict in Ukraine, and you have any interaction with the Ukrainian government – specifically the Ukrainian intelligence service known as the SBU – be advised that you will be dealing with Yuri Michalchyshyn, formerly the chief ideologist of the neo-fascist Svoboda party, who has been appointed head of the SBU’s “Department of Propaganda.”

Michalchyhyn is a real piece of work: as the former head of the “Joseph Goebbels Political Research Center,” he isn’t shy about his advocacy of National Socialism.

Among his political activities: organizing a torchlight parade replete with Nazi symbolism. Michalhyhyn considers the Holocaust “a bright episode in European civilization.”

Yet there has been almost zero coverage of this in the Western media, which is content to echo the US State Department’s line about how Democracy is marching onward in Kiev as Ukraine “chooses Europe” over the East.

The ugly reality is that the Ukrainian “revolution” was nothing of the sort: it was a coup rather than a revolution, and its leadership, rather than being aspiring democrats who want to be members in good standing of the West, are in fact a collection of thieving oligarchs, like Poroshenko, neo-Nazi thugs, and the usual opportunists who hang around every Western-backed “color revolution” looking for the main chance.

Standing behind them are the Western intelligence agencies who ginned up this phony “revolution,” and are now homing in on the Russians, hoping to provoke a full-scale invasion of Ukraine so as to justify their plans for a revival of the cold war.

As for the future of Ukraine: it is being set up for a full-scale fascist takeover with campaign posters featuring impaling a Jewish oligarch on a Ukrainian trident.

The selling of the Ukrainian “revolution” as a “democratic” uprising that established a “pro-Western” liberal government in Kiev has got to be one of the public relations triumphs of the century. The masters of spin who pulled this off have managed to turn black into white – but the truth is slowly emerging.

Source: Justin Raimondo/Antiwar

Town mobilizes to halt Aryan enclave

In a tree-fringed grassy lot with a lone picnic bench in the tiny North Dakota farming town of Leith, Craig Cobb sees the perfect venue for a white power music festival.

Across a gravel intersection between two abandoned buildings, he envisions a park, perhaps with a swimming pool, dedicated to a neo-Nazi and white supremacist activist. He pictures the town decorated with fluttering flags and banners bearing the swastika, the symbol of Nazism.

“They would have to be approved by the town council, of course,” Cobb said, gazing out over Leith’s sparse downtown from his overgrown, weed-infested front yard.

Cobb, 61, a self-described white supremacist, has purchased about a dozen lots in the community about 60 miles southwest of Bismarck. Over the past year he has invited fellow white supremacists to move there and help him to transform the town of 16 people into a white enclave. No one has come.

Still, the community is mobilizing to fight out of fear that Cobb could succeed, and the mayor has vowed to do whatever it takes to ensure Cobb’s dream remains just that.

Last week, while news of Cobb’s plan was being splashed across the front pages of The Bismarck Tribune and The Forum, about two dozen people, mostly residents of Leith and concerned friends from neighboring towns, showed up for an impromptu meeting in nearby Carson.

“We all share kind of the same concerns that people living in the community of Leith have, just the unknown,” said Kathy Hoff, who lives just south of the town and attended the meeting.

Cobb spends his days in his ramshackle two-story home with no running water, posting online comments advocating for white supremacists to join his settlement.

“I only need 17 people,” he said with a chuckle. “You have to have a majority to win an election. If we get 22 we’ve got a landslide.”

Cobb’s neighbors across a back alley are Sherrill Harper, who is white, and her husband Bobby, who is black. Bobby Harper, a 52-year-old welder, said he has spoken to Cobb only once, and that Cobb’s plans don’t bother him much.

“The most extreme thing you can do is hate another man because of the color of his skin, (but) I don’t think we should get too excited,” he said. “I believe right will prevail.”

Officials are considering enforcing health codes and ordinances relating to the upkeep of Cobb’s run-down property. A proposal to disband Leith’s government and turn over control to the county is even on the table.

“He would still own his property,” said Mayor Ryan Schock, a 38-year-old farmer and lifelong Leith resident. “But … he can’t control the city if there’s no city government.”

No decisions have been made, but the six-member town council that usually convenes once a month might call a special meeting to discuss the matter soon, Schock said.

Ryan Lenz, a writer with the Alabama-based civil rights nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center, said his organization has long tracked Cobb, who is wanted in Canada for willfully promoting hatred in Vancouver in 2010 via a blog.

“It’s a pipe dream for white nationalists to have an entire area in which their neighbors are Aryan,” Lenz said.

That’s hard to achieve, Lenz said, but Cobb has made strides because he has gobbled up land _ even transferring some to Tom Metzger, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and founder of the White Aryan Resistance.

That doesn’t mean he’s any closer to enacting his plan. Metzger said he likes Cobb but that declared plans for white enclaves never work and that he will not be joining Cobb in Leith.

“I think it’s better just to have people move in quietly, have a job, operate a regular daily life and get along with their neighbors,” he said. “I wouldn’t go into a town pushing my weight around.”

Cobb, a native of Missouri, fled prosecution in Canada and chased the promise of high-paying jobs in the booming western North Dakota oil fields. He said he was fired from a job because of a dispute with a co-worker and that he lost a job with a Fargo-based paving company after media coverage of his settlement plans.

Canadian authorities have not approached the U.S. to extradite Cobb. Cpl. Normandie Levas of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said the white supremacist can’t be extradited because the charge against him in Canada doesn’t exist under U.S. law.

Deputy North Dakota Attorney General Tom Trenbeath said authorities are aware of Cobb, and the Grant County Sheriff’s Office has increased patrols in the area. But Cobb hasn’t broken any laws there, and Schock acknowledges that he has a right to live in Leith, no matter his views.

Cobb’s comments and writings indicate he believes in a superior white race, distrusts both Jews and Christians, and questions the intelligence of women. He declines to talk about his upbringing and gives no indication as to why he adopted his supremacist platform.

In an interview outside his house, he was calm, cheerful and even jovial, making comments that raised questions about whether he believes his plan could succeed, or if he’s just seeking publicity.

“If I’m the only one in Leith forever, white consciousness has already been raised,” he said. – breitbart.com

German parliamentary report on neo-Nazi cell expected today

Germany’s decade-long failure to uncover a neo-Nazi cell blamed in the killings of immigrants was the fault of incompetence in the police and intelligence services, a commission of inquiry was expected to report Thursday.

Eight Turkish shopkeepers, a Greek man and a policewoman were shot to death in attacks in multiple cities from 2000 to 2007, but police only connected the crimes to the self-styled National Socialist Underground (NSU) four years after the last slaying.

The commission, made up of members of parliament, is to publish its findings after a year and a half of hearings and is to recommend reforms.

Sebastian Edathy, an opposition Social Democrat who chaired the inquiry, said the committee determined that the most horrifying suspicion, that detectives or secret agents might have protected the gang of two men and one woman, was unfounded.

“We did not find any evidence whatsoever that the authorities knew who was behind the crimes or looked the other way or even deliberately helped the perpetrators,” Edathy said. “We followed up every clue.”

Instead, the committee was expected to attribute the failure to across-the-board incompetence by about three dozen squabbling investigative agencies.

“This was a failure by the authorities without historical parallel,” Edathy said.

“November 4, 2011, when the trio was discovered was to us what September 11, 2001, was to the Americans,” he said. “It was the day we realized that our complete security architecture in Germany was not attuned to things like far-right terrorism.”

Germany monitors the wider neo-Nazi movement, which numbers about 5,000, and pays insiders to be informers but overlooked the cell.

The 1,000-page report was expected to conclude that police and agents failed to follow up clues, such as sightings of the neo-Nazis; worked under false assumptions because of institutional racism; and refused to share data with one another because of turf wars.

A parliamentary debate on the report was scheduled September 2.

The two accused gunmen died in a killing-cum-suicide before they could be caught. A judicial finding of their responsibility in the crimes was expected at the end of the current trial of Beate Zschape, the female survivor of the trio. She is charged as an accomplice to murder. – dpa

Second defendant starts testimony in Germany’s neo-Nazi trial

The second of the five defendants began testimony Thursday at Germany’s landmark trial over racially inspired murders – the work, according to prosecutors, of a trio of neo-Nazis.

Holger G, who is alleged to have aided the killer cell by lending it his identity documents, was to read out his own statement about the crime spree, but would not answer any questions about it, his lawyer announced as the hearing began.

At the start of the day, the judge asked Holger G standard questions about his vital data and family background. His surname has been withheld under privacy guidelines for the media.

The trial in Munich began May 6, but testimony on the origins of the self-styled National Socialist Underground (NSU) only began this week. Prosecutors say Beate Zschaepe, 38, is the sole survivor of the NSU. She stands accused as an accomplice to murders and bombings.

The other two members, Uwe Boehnhardt and Uwe Mundlos, are dead after an apparent 2011 suicide pact. They are believed to have gunned down nine immigrants and a policewoman from 2000 to 2007 in attacks that chilled Germany’s ethnic Turkish minority and baffled police.

Another accused, 33-year-old Carsten S, this week admitted couriering a gun and silencer to the gang about 13 years ago.

There was an adjournment of the court before 39-year-old Holger G could begin reading out his statement.

“Follow the reading of this declaration, our client will not for the time being answer any further questions,” his lawyer Stefan Hachmeister told the court. He said Holger G might add more testimony later in the trial.

Police have said the trio, who were living with fake identities and supporting themselves by robbing banks, turned to neo-Nazi Holger G to borrow his identity documents because he resembled one of the gang members.Author: Jean-Baptiste Piggin and Jochen Neumeyer – dpa

‘National Socialist Underground’ trial starts in Germany – leader is a woman

A major neo-Nazi murder trial opened Monday in Germany over a killing spree that embarrassed authorities, shed a spotlight on the country’s murky far-right scene, and exposed institutional racism and incompetence.

The trial opened amid tight security in the southern city of Munich after a three-week delay over an outcry about media access which has further undermined Germany’s image on top of fundamental security flaws exposed by the murder spree.

Under a heavy police presence, chief defendant Beate Zschäpe, 38, entered the Munich court just before proceedings began, appearing relaxed and with her arms folded, while dozens of anti-racist protesters shouted slogans outside.

Many people, including reporters had lined up outside overnight to claim one of the 50 free courtroom seats for the first day of the high-profile trial whose significance extends far beyond the murders.

Zschäpe faces charges linked to 10 mostly racially motivated murders over a seven-year period as the last surviving member of a killer trio, most of whose victims were of Turkish origin.

She is the last surviving member of a neo-Nazi trio whose random discovery in November 2011 forced the country to re-assess its image of having learnt the lessons of its Nazi past.

Germany has not seen a terror trial of this scale since members of the prominent left-wing militant group, the Red Army Faction, were sentenced 36 years ago.

Ten were killed

Zschäpe is charged with complicity in the murders of eight ethnic Turks, a Greek immigrant and a German policewoman between 2000 and 2007. She is said to be one of three central members of the far-right gang dubbed the National Socialist Underground (NSU).

She is also accused of involvement in 15 armed robberies, arson and attempted murder in two bomb attacks.

Her lawyers deny she was directly involved in murder. Zschäpe has remained silent during her 18-month custody and supposedly has no plans to break her silence during the hearing which could last more than two years.

Dressed in a black jacket, white shirt and wearing large hoop earrings, Zschäpe entered the courtroom before the hearing got under way and stood with her back to the TV camera.

She faces life in prison if convicted. Four men alleged to be accomplices will also go on trial on lesser charges.

Families want many answers

For the victims’ families, the opening day of the highly-anticipated trial will be their first chance to see the accused in person, as they seek answers to why their loved ones were gunned down.

Lawyers for Semiya and Kerim Simsek, whose father was the first victim, said in a written statement their clients who are co-plaintiffs would be seeking many answers from the trial.

“They want to know why their father was murdered. How they came upon the flower seller Enver Simsek? Did local neo-Nazi networks help in the victim selection?” they said.

Germans were stunned to learn in November 2011 that home-grown racist killers were behind the unsolved murders – and not the foreign criminal gangs that police and the media had always assumed were to blame.

Anger was stoked by revelations that the security forces failed to home in on the killers for more than a decade, and an admission that files had been shredded that could have helped the investigation.

Lawyers for some of the victims’ relatives, who are co-plaintiffs, said, apart from a conviction, they wanted a clear naming of those who also bore responsibility.

Relatives want names of those responsible

They called in a joint statement for a discussion which seriously addresses the problem of “far-right violence and structural racism” in Germany and initiates necessary changes.

The case only came to light after Zschäpe’s alleged NSU accomplices, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt, were found shot dead in an apparent murder-suicide.

Zschäpe then allegedly blew up their shared home in eastern Germany not long before handing herself in to police.

A DVD with a film in the style of a “Pink Panther” cartoon, which the group had produced earlier, claiming responsibility for the attacks, then emerged.

“I assure you that Germany will do everything necessary to shed light on the murders at all points and sentence the criminals to the punishments they deserve,” Merkel said in an interview with Turkish newspaper Hurriyet last week.

At a memorial to the victims she called the killings a “disgrace” for the country and apologised for the fact that suspicion had fallen on some victims’ relatives, which she called “particularly tormenting”.

UN Human Rights Council criticism

Berlin last month apologised before the UN Human Rights Council for mistakes in probing the NSU murders which the government’s top official on human rights described as “one of the worst human rights abuses in recent decades” in Germany.

As most of the victims originated from Turkey, the trial will be intensely scrutinised beyond Germany’s borders.

A controversy over the accreditation of journalists overshadowed the run-up to the trial after the court initially failed to guarantee Turkish media seats when it handed out reserved spots on a first-come, first-served basis.

This strained German-Turkish ties and forced a last-minute postponement when Germany’s top court ordered it to allocate seats to foreign reporters, leading to the final 50 media organisations being chosen in a lottery.

Turkish media now have four seats but several leading German newspapers missed out. – AFP