Share |

Monday, December 03, 2007

Yushchenko Demands Closing of Zasyadka Mine Until Probe Complete

In a memo to PM Yanukovych, President Yushchenko has urged full closure of the Zasyadka Mine, Ukraine’s #1 killer in the mining industry.

Due to the repeat accident at the Zasyadka Mine in Donetsk, which entailed human casualties, I insist on full and immediate closure of this mine until all the circumstances and causes of the tragedies that happened on November 18, December 1, and December 2 this year are established.

What took you so long, Mr. President? Weren’t those 101 deaths from the first accident and the injuries sustained by some 44 miners in the second accident bad enough? Or maybe Zvyahilsky was scheduled to receive a medal of honor just like Kolesnikov?

Sources:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/12/3/67706.htm

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Any news regards whether miners and their families will be receiving any kind of assistance during mine closure which could become permanent? Half pay? or do they go to subsistence benefits or look for work elsewhere?

And I know criminal proceedings were opened after the 2nd blast, pls. keep updating should u come across any info. regarding the court case. Would appreciate it.

Luida

Major tragic hit to the entire community still reeling and in mourning for the recently buried and still hospitalized. Heart goes out to all.

Taras said...

Thank you, Luida. Zasyadka speaks for stabilnist unlike any other thing. It’s a serial killer. Three in a row!

No significant updates so far. I’m not even sure they have recovered all the bodies from the first accident. And I haven’t heard of any progress reports on the payout process either.

As long as we have stabilnist, the slave will get the coffin, the master will get the cash. Criminal proceedings? Who buys this shit, now that Kivalov and Kolesnikov stand in line to receive Oscars from the President?

Nika said...

yeah, and the president, according to levko, is currently awaiting "a brand-new Airbus A319 presidential airplane priced $40-$60 million"...

Anonymous said...

No - ten bodies remain un-recovered from the first explosion, according to last report that I say on it.

and a UA Pravda echoes your thoughts as do commentators on UNIAN.
http://www.pravda.com.ua
/en/news/2007/12/3/9522.htm

Dated footage (am not sure that Tymoshenko still resides there but she may) and wish that more homes were labeled with occupant/owner names but Ukraine is divided: deeply and severely between the oligarch/elite and the regular folk.
"Koncha-Zaspa Superb Luxury District, Kiev, Ukraine"
http://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=sBhpDd7wStU

Luida

Anonymous said...

Lutsenko agrees with your assessment of award for Kolenikov "ЛУЦЕНКО вважає «грубою політичною помилкою» нагородження члена Партії регіонів Бориса КОЛЕСНІКОВА" considers it a deep political error in awarding the Party of Regions member Boris Kolesnikov.

Luida

Taras said...

Touché, Veronica! It’s the same “people’s president” who sends his kids to a school that 99 percent of the Ukrainian people can’t afford. And then he launches into a rambling lecture on lofty things like morality.

Does he really believe that in the eyes of his countrymen his moral stature is shooting sky-high? Does he ever encourage honest feedback from his confidantes?

It’s about time he realized that the emperor has no clothes. I was in Rivne oblast for a couple of days, and you know what the Orange folks call him there? Plastylin, or plasticine.

It seems like our president almost always keeps his head up in the clouds. He shows little interest in getting back to earth and doing his share of cleaning up the mess.


Luida, you confirmed my suspicions. They haven’t even recovered the bodies from the first accident!

Thanks for the vid! It’s a rare footage of someone cruising the streets of Koncha-Zaspa, the elite community south of Kyiv populated by oligarchs, politicians, and government officials. It’s not every day that you peep into the hard-earned possessions of those individuals.

Yep, Lutsenko likened Bankova’s booming regalia business to Rome’s medieval practice of selling indulgences. Who am I to disagree?

Anonymous said...

Who elected these "elite" people?

In the 1920's in the US, coal mines were very dangerous. In one roof cave-in, 372 miners were killed.

Mines were owned by companies, and the miners lived in "company towns", meaning their houses were owned by the company, to whom the miners paid rent, and the stores were owned by the company, where miners were forced to do their shoppin.

Local sheriffs and law enforcement were "owned" by the companies, and also had "private detective deputies" - who were armed - in case the miners got out of hand.

Mainly, this meant trying to unionize the mines.

In the union mines, safety and higher pay was enforced.

In 1921, when some of the company "private detectives" killed a pro-union sheriff and his deputy, 10,000 miners from all over West Virginia, the unionized part, gathered to march towards southern West Virginia, the non-unionized part.

They took their hunting rifles and handguns with them.

In response, the coal companies gathered 3,000 paid "private detectives," with machine guns. They hired 3 biplanes to drop tear gas and bombs on the union coal miners as they marched south.

At the battle of Blair Mountain, in West Virginia, the miners stood up for themselves.

The US President finally sent in National Guard troops, and the miners stood down.

The union miners wore red scarfs - and one New York newspaper writer labeled them "rednecks." At that time, it was a name of honor.

Since the miners did not have uniforms, they word the red bandanas around their necks. They were together, and they stood up for themselves.

They had a right to assemble, and they had a right to be free of corrupt, armed, paid-assassin "private detectives," and noone was going to interfere with that right.

They had a right to a union that enforced mine safety and decent pay.

The leader of the miners, a coal-loader (coal was loaded by hand) was Bill Blizzard. They put him on trial for, among other things, treason. The miners brought into the court room one of the unexploded bombs that the coal companies had dropped on the miners.

He was found not guilty.

In Ukraine, you have Zvyahilsky, who claims he doesn't know who owns the mine - but he sure collects the money. And ships it to Israel.

In Ukraine, the Party of Regions' Shakhtar Donetsk buys Brazilian soccer players for its soccer team for millions of dollars, while people needlessly explode in the mines.

Thank you, Party of Regions.

Taras said...

Thank you for the accurate historical parallel, Elmer.

The pre-unionized America of the 1920s and 30s has a lot in common with the oligarchized Ukraine of the 2000s.

And if I were an American living in the 20s and 30s, I wouldn’t expect much reform from Al Capone.

Anonymous said...

One thing I forgot, Taras.

There was an old song by Tennessee Ernie Ford.

It's about coal-mining ---

It starts out:

You load 16 tons
what do you get
another day older and deeper in debt


One of the lines, in fact that "catch" line was:

St Peter don't take me
'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store.


I fervently pray and hope that even the people in Donbass will finally wake up to how horrific these thug oligarchs are.

And it looks like with the election of Yatsenyuk, things are starting off on the right track.

Pawlina said...

And if I were an American living in the 20s and 30s, I wouldn’t expect much reform from Al Capone.

Of course not. Al Capone wasn't refined enough to be part of the ruling elite. He could, however, and did, buy off many politicians, policemen and judges, etc. and terrorized the populace that way.

Eventually, tho, he got his just desserts, as a direct result of the citizenry's persistence and faith in justice ... the people's justice, and God's justice.

He was jailed, altho not for murder, rape, extortion, etc. He was nailed for tax evasion. However, the goal was to get him behind bars. So, whatever works.

And in the end he died, ignominiously, from syphilis.

As for the unions, back then the only criminals they had the balls to take on were those running industry. Now, the unions' modus operandi(especially here in Canada) has morphed into "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." As exemplified by my old union "boss" Buzz...

So the moral of this story is ... you're Ukrainian, you're an individualistic people with tremendous talent, skill and intelligence. Whatever you do, don't roll over and play dead. Have faith in yourselves... and make the most of those gifts!

Anonymous said...

"A videotape, prepared and posted on the internet by Zasyadko miners, claims that there had been dangerous concentrations of methane gas in the mine at the 8% level, and that gas detection and equipment shutoff systems had been disabled, in order to faciliate what the miners call an extreme mining production plan impossible to fulfill. The technological sophistication of the mine's equipment, which has been reported in the press, was suppressed, according to the miners. Sunday's blast was the fourth major accident at Zasyadko in the past six years. At least 225 miners have died there since 1999.

The videotape is available to be viewed at: http://korrdon.info/2007
/11/19/zvjagilskogo_obvinjajut_v_
smerti_shakhterov_video.htm

Sorry about the delay in posting info and link to video as just recently came across it.

Luida

PS If you have already posted this my apologies.

Taras said...

That’s a beautiful song, Elmer! It goes out to every Donbas miner who died trying to make a living. I found the lyrics right away.

Yatsenyuk is a good sign, but the biggest battle is still ahead. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.


Pawlina, Al Capone died the death he deserved, didn’t he? And as far as I can see, that Buzz fellow is quite a figure in Canadian politics.

Yes, we should be on guard against opportunism. It is something that has spoiled too many good causes on this planet.

Thank you for your warm wishes. We’ll do our damnest!

Taras said...

Thank you so much Luida. You always find what I don't.

The man in the video apparently lost his son. He is a miner himself, and I believe every word he says. He tells us how the smell of profits sucks the safety out of the mining industry.

I will translate this video tomorrow.