By repeating the same question over and over, the Dutch minister responsible for the “independent” investigation by the Dutch Safety Board acknowledged today: “The DSB did not have available the primary radar data from the United States to draw its conclusions in the report.”
As I already reported, the corrupt regime of Poroshenko and its disfunctional gang operating as the intelligence service SBU have refused to handover the radar data from both civilian and military installations. Their simple claim: radar was in maintenance, was turned off or simply the recordings were not kept.
The DSB and Dutch government of Mark Rutte refused to support a request to Russia for their video recording of primary data the moment Malaysian airliner flight MH-17 was shot down. The code of ICAO enforces nations to cooperate in the investigation of aircraft disasters and must supply the primary radar data.
Mark Rutte and his cabinet of ministers from the conservative Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD).
Recently, the Dutch media have been offering space for Russiaphobes and the “citizens” journalism Bellingcat from the UK.
Dutch Minister van der Steur and FM Bert Koenders written answers to questions from parliament
Question 12
Are you aware that Victoria Nuland (deputy minister of the U.S. Government) on December 17th 2014 reportedly said:«Andrei, first to your point with regard to U.S. intelligence at the time of the Malaysian airliner’s tragic shoot down, first, just to say to you that – just to remind you that Secretary Kerry on I believe it was July 21st, it was the Saturday after the shoot down, gave a very detailed discussion of what we knew from our own assets, including providing considerable detail with regard to the trajectory of the firing (…). And he made clear at that time that we believed it was shot down by a Buk missile from separatist-held territory. We stand by that. We have given all of our information, including our classified information, to the Dutch, who are the investigators [and to] ICAO, the International Civil Aviation Organization. So any efforts to say that we have not are also untrue. There will be, I believe, in the context of the Dutch case, when they roll it out – they are likely to ask us to declassify some of that, and I think we will be able to help in that regard.» ?
Answer 12
According to the website of the State Department, ms Nuland did give this reply to a question from a Russian journalist.
These were remarks made by neocon deputy secretary Nuland before the American Enterprise Institute!
ASSISTANT SECRETARY NULAND: And to ICAO, the International Civil Aviation Organization. So any efforts to say that we have not are also untrue. There will be, I believe, in the context of the Dutch case, when they roll it out – they are likely to ask us to declassify some of that, and I think we will be able to help in that regard.
But the best declassified set of information from U.S. assets is still contained in what Secretary Kerry said that day. It is — I believe it was the Saturday the 21st, but I don’t have the dates exactly in my head. We have also been very clear publicly and privately with the Russian Federation with regard to what we know.
I think the question is whether Russia has shared all of its information also with the Dutch and with ICAO. And we’ve encouraged both the Dutch and ICAO to seek information from Russia, because there’s been a lot of funky theories, let’s put it that way, coming out of Russian propaganda.
Now, on your second point. I completely reject your assertion that we seek to hurt the Russian people. On the contrary, we have sought for 20, 25 years to see that Russian people live in a more prosperous, more democratic, more open, more peaceful country. That is what I have personally committed my diplomatic career to over all these years. That’s what we have committed some 20 billion dollars in U.S. assistance to the Russian Federation over these 20 years too.
Our concern though is that it is the choices that the Russian leadership that is making that are now taking Russia back to a place of isolation, to a place where it is closed off, where its people are closed off, not just from clean, democratic, open information by the Kremlin’s propaganda campaign but also from their access to Europe, their access to markets, their access to that opportunity to live in a more open society.
- ○ Russia and Germany Reborn: Unification, the Soviet Collapse, and the New Europe
○ New Thinking: Foreign Policy under Gorbachev
○ Gorbachev’s Consent to Unified Germany’s Membership In NATO [pdf]
○ Gorbachev Interview: ‘Deeply concerned with deteriorating relations with West over Ukraine crisis’
World governments have responded with shock, sadness and anger at the incident. Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has said if the plane was indeed shot down by a surface-to-air missile as believed by US intelligence agencies, then “the equipment had to have come from Russia”. She called for the EU to step up their sanctions against Russia and not “stand idly by.”
Continued below the fold …
Interview With George Stephanopoulos of ABC’s This Week
Interview
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
July 20, 2014QUESTION: I want to move on to the situation in Ukraine. Our embassy in Kyiv has laid out a string of evidence tying the shoot-down to Russia. In your view, is Russia responsible for these deaths?
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, the question of responsibility is going to be adjudicated, obviously, in an investigation, providing we can get that full and fair investigation. But there are an enormous array of facts that point at Russia’s support for and involvement in this effort. Russia – there are – I mean, some of the separatist leaders, George, are Russian. Russia has armed the separatists. Russia has supported the separatists. Russia has trained the separatists. Russia continues to refuse to call publicly for the separatists to engage in behavior that would lend itself to a resolution of this issue. And the fact is that only a few weeks ago, a convoy of 150 vehicles of artillery, armored personnel carriers, multiple rocket launchers, tanks crossed over from Russia into this area, and these items were all turned over to the separatists.
We track – we, ourselves, tracked the imagery of the launch of this surface-to-air missile, of the disappearance of the aircraft from the radar at that time. We know that this comports with an SA-11 system because it hit an aircraft at the altitude of 33,000 feet. We know to a fact that the separatists bragged on the social media immediately afterwards about the shoot-down, and then later, when one of the leaders of the social – of the movement who – Igor Strelkov, who’s the self-proclaimed defense minister of the People’s Republic of Donetsk, he posted a social media bragging about the takedown of a military transport, and when it turned out to be civilian, he then quickly removed it from the social media. Now, drunken separatists are stacking bodies into the back of trucks, removing materials from the site. On Friday, we had 75 minutes of access to the site; on Saturday, three hours of access. This is an insult to everybody.
QUESTION: So given all that, Mr. Secretary —
SECRETARY KERRY: This is a moment of truth for – it’s really a moment of truth for Russia to step up and be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
QUESTION: So given all that, what exactly should President Putin do right now?
SECRETARY KERRY: President Putin should publicly call on the separatists. He should engage in a public support for the ceasefire. He should engage with the separatists directly in order to release the hostages that they’ve taken, and he should encourage them immediately to take part in a political process that can bring peace to the region. He needs to stop arming them. He could help prevent people crossing the border. He could stop the supplies from coming in. He could engage in the kind of constructive effort that Russia engaged in with us in order to remove 100 percent of the declared chemical weapons from Syria. He could do those things.
QUESTION: There’s no indication, yet, Mr. Secretary —
SECRETARY KERRY: All of those things.
QUESTION: — that he’s prepared to do that. So if he doesn’t, what’s going to be the United States’ response, and do you believe Europe is now prepared to go along with greater sanctions?
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, we hope Europe will be obviously. We think this is a wakeup call for countries in Europe. President Obama, however, took the lead and put additional sanctions in place on energy, on arms manufacturing companies, and on banking. And those are the toughest sanctions that have been put in place to date. He did that the day before this incident took place, and he is absolutely prepared to consider further, but we need to consult with our allies in Europe. And equally importantly, we’d like to take a stab at seeing if we can find a way for Russia to join in taking actions that actually back up the words that we’ve been hearing.
[This ia a cached version of webpage -WayBackMachine- as original has been scrubbed? – Oui]{
Samantha Power
U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations
New York, NY
July 21, 2014AS DELIVERED
Today’s resolution calls for a full, thorough and independent investigation into the horrific downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17. When 298 civilians are killed, we agree that we must stop at nothing to determine who is responsible and bring them to justice.
As we take this step, we are joined by the Dutch and Australian ministers, whose countries suffered an immense and heart-wrenching loss on Thursday – one they are still grappling with, together with nine other countries from where the victims came. We extend our deepest condolences to those countries, the families of victims they represent, and all of the people who lost loved ones on that plane. Your presence here today, along with the dozens of other countries whose representatives will speak, gives even greater urgency to our calls for the dignified return of the victims and our pursuit of truth and justice.
As we reflect on the immeasurable loss suffered by these families around the world, we are not only outraged at the attack itself; we are horrified and enraged by what has happened since – by the clear intention of some to obstruct an investigation into how the passengers and crew died.
Even after adopting this resolution, it is worth asking: If there really is consensus that this crime merits an immediate and impartial investigation, why did we still feel the need to meet today in order to demand one?
We came together because not everyone has been supporting a real investigation into this crime. If they were, international experts would have had unimpeded access to the crime scene. And all of the wreckage would have been left where it had fallen.
That has not happened. Instead, armed thugs have walked around the site, with little regard for where they step. We have literally heard the sound of debris – all of it evidence that needs to be carefully preserved – crunching beneath their feet. We have seen separatists moving around human remains, and carting away evidence from the site.
All around the world this weekend, people of all cultures and faiths had similar reactions to seeing the footage of the separatists damaging the site: “Stop! Those are people. Those are people’s lives,” we all said. The passengers aboard Malaysian Airline Flight 17 had nothing to do with the conflict in eastern Ukraine: they were families heading on vacation, students returning home from abroad, researchers trying to eradicate a deadly disease. Those who were killed deserve to be treated with dignity, and their families are crying out – as we heard – for closure.
We condemn the actions of the separatists who control the site. Indeed, almost everyone has condemned this grotesque behavior.
But there is one party from which we have heard too little condemnation: and that is Russia.
Russia has been outspoken on other matters. Russian officials have publicly insinuated that Ukraine was behind the crash. On Friday, Russia blamed Ukrainian air traffic controllers for this attack rather than condemning the criminals who shot down the plane. Since then, Russia has begun to blame Ukraine for the attack itself, though the missile came from separatist territory that Russia knows full well Ukraine has not yet reclaimed.
But if Russia genuinely believed that Ukraine was involved in the shoot-down of Flight17, surely President Putin would have told the separatists – many of whose leaders are from Russia – to guard the evidence at all costs, to maintain a forensically-pure, hermetically-sealed crime scene.
We welcome Russia’s support for today’s resolution. But no resolution would have been necessary had Russia used its leverage with the separatists on Thursday, getting them to lay down their arms and leave the site to international experts. Or on Friday. Or on Saturday. Or even yesterday.
It turns out that only this morning – coincidentally, the very morning this Security Council was meeting to discuss the investigation – did President Putin finally issue a public call to ensure the security of international experts. However – and this is critically important – President Putin still did not direct his call to the separatists who have threatened those experts, and over whom he has enormous influence.
President Poroshenko, by contrast, has consistently done everything within his power since the crash to allow capable investigators full and unfettered access to the crime scene. He has been willing to involve ICAO, the Netherlands, and other international players – hailing their independence.
Russia’s muteness over the dark days between Thursday and today sent a message to the illegal armed groups it supports: We have your backs. This is the message Russia has sent by providing separatists with heavy weapons, by never publicly calling on them to lay down those weapons, and by massing thousands of troops at the Ukrainian border.
Today, we have taken a step toward combating impunity. The resolution passed provides clear directions to safeguard and uncover the facts–however inconvenient those facts may prove to be.
We have adopted a resolution today. But we are not naïve: if Russia is not part of the solution, it will continue to be part of the problem. For the past six months, Russia has seized Ukrainian territory and ignored the repeated requests of the international community to de-escalate – all in an effort to preserve influence in Ukraine, a country that has long made clear its desire to maintain constructive ties with Moscow.
Russia must recognize that no move on the geopolitical chessboard – no zero-sum game with the West – can offset the pain being felt by the passengers’ families worldwide, or the pain that Ukrainians are experiencing daily as a result of this needless conflict.
As we meet, we are seeing initial signs of the separatists allowing greater access to the crash site. Today, three Dutch investigators have accessed the site. The separatists are attempting to hold this up as proof of their openness and good faith. But let’s be clear, this is an extremely complex and time-sensitive crime scene. In that context, a spigot approach – letting in a few investigators here, a few more there – simply will not cut it. Access must be immediate and it must be full. Period. A spigot or stage-managed approach is a form of obstruction.
Russia can help change this. Russia can unequivocally condemn the separatists’ inhumane treatment of the bodies at the site and use its influence to ensure they stop tampering with evidence. Russia can demand the separatists immediately adopt a ceasefire in the area around the crash site, as Ukraine has done. Russia can press the illegal groups to sit down with President Poroshenko, who has proposed a serious and reasonable peace plan. And instead of continuing to provide weapons to the separatists, Russia could take back all of the surface-to-air missiles, tanks, and other heavy weaponry that it has delivered to them.
These would not only be important steps toward achieving accountability and achieving justice for the victims. It would constitute a long overdue sign that Russia is willing to take steps to end this deadly crisis. Thank you.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte admits the statements about moving bodies, theft of valuables and reckless movement of wreckage partsof downed MH-17 were FALSE!
○ Mark, Don’t Ever Complain Again! [Rutte]
Pure lies and propaganda by Secretary Kerry, see my diaries after the Malaysian MH-17 disaster and the recovery mission by locals, emergency units in a war-stricken area and the arrival of Malaysian investigators as the Dutch moved slowly through the official channels in Kiev [and Washingto DC] before their arrival and almost immediate break-up leaving the area.
○ US and Dutch Cover-up of MH-17 Ukraine Crash Evidence | Oct. 29, 2014 |
○ Dutch PM Rutte Abruptly Calls-off MH-17 Recovery Mission | Aug. 8, 2014 |
○ Shrapnel Damage of Cockpit MH-17 Devastating | July 23, 2014 |
○ NSC Building Circumstantial Case Pointing Fingers | July 20, 2014 |
