According to a recent post, on Jan. 6 a group of 50 camouflaged, masked men armed with wooden clubs and shields broke the windows and damaged the facades of two Kyiv restaurants. The venues are supposedly on a boycott list that is circulating of businesses owned by pro-government politicians. In a final touch of vandalism, the words “boycott” and “revolution” were spraypainted on the restaurants’ walls.
Of course, EuroMaidan’s leaders condemned the act. They countered that any use of force is counterproductive. Or take the Feb. 3 arrest that police made of two people caught with illegal firearms. The suspects got them at EuroMaidan, police said.
In other news releases, the police claimed several of their officers have been kidnapped and beaten by protesters before being released.
Based on these and other news statements, one would conclude that EuroMaidan consists of a bunch of gun-toting revolutionaries bent on spreading violence and damage to property. Tragically, the acts show a police force that not only fosters lawlessness by lying and, perhaps, coordinating some of the heinous acts.
Worse, it shows an agency protecting a government suspected of sponsoring terror against its own people.
In Georgia in 2005, every member of the traffic police was fired as a campaign to fight corruption. The country built a new professional police force. Ukraine should do the same, starting by disbanding the violent Berkut riot-control police unit.
