MH-17
The Agony
For The Victims' Relatives Is Prolonged as
The Mystery
Continues
Matryoshka
Having
watched the Dutch Safety Board and the BUK Manufacturers both hold
their rival Press Conferences on the same day, you could be forgiven
for being totally confused about what was actually being said.
I won't
dwell on either conference which I encourage you to view on line by
clicking on the references below.
What I would
like to do is pick out threads from selected redacted (deleted)
internet posts over the past year and, from what the experts (Dutch
Safety Board and Buk Manufacturers) are now telling us, in a jigsaw
manner, try to fit them all together.
There is at
present no foregone conclusion - just a fragile string of leads,
explicit and implicit statements on all sides, which may point to a
scenario.
The
Jigsaw
What was
redacted:
I
The BBC were
quick to pull Olga
Ivshina's Report from You
Tube-only to (much later) reinsert it (after an international outcry)
on an alternative BBC website.
What was in
her report which caused such concerns?
It would now
appear that it was the eye witnesses reports of the presence of a
Ukrainian fighter plane which was the main issue. This was at a time,
you need to remember, when the Ukrainian Government was categorically
denying any of it's military aircraft were in the vicinity of the
MH-17 tragedy. So the BBC took a political decision not to embarrass
the Ukrainian government and to immediately accept it's version of
events as opposed to those of (suspect?) on the ground local
eye-witnesses reports.
II
The second
redacted (removed) report was a You Tube interview from a month
before the fatal downing of MH17 with an Eastern Region Separatist
fighter named 'Elena' from Sloviansk who said on that You Tube Video
Report that it was 'routine' for Ukrainian fighter planes to 'hide'
alongside/behind civilian airlines knowing that the rebels would not
fire on a civilian aircraft and thus give them 'cover' for attacks on
rebel positions.
This You
Tube interview was also quickly removed by You Tube.
No reasons
were given for its removal so you need to draw your own conclusions.
One likely
possibility would be a complaint from the Ukrainian government that
You Tube was promoting the rebels in a civil a war in Eastern Ukraine
by giving a platform to such 'untrue' 'propaganda'.
Such a
complaint, in the light of current international politics, would
certainly be enough to have the interview removed from You Tube with
little to no explanation.
III
Next are
credible independent eye-witness reports of Ukrainian fighter planes
in the immediate vicinity of the MH-17 airplane at the time of the
tragedy.
IV
I was sent a
video of raw footage which I was never able to elicit any further
information about so I put it on the site for others to investigate
as the implications of a potential War Crime are very serious.
V
Then there
is the BUK surface-to-air missile which DSB experts now confirm brought down
Malaysian flight MH-17.
The DSB
appeared to give a frank and honest assessment – especially as to
what must have been a very traumatic conclusion for the relatives
about how the victims on board died 90 seconds after the
kill-missile impact.
VI
I would like
to stay on the issue of trauma for a moment.
Many
ordinary people in the immediate vicinity of the tragedy witnessed
carnage persons outside war zones are not usually exposed to.
I recall
when I visited Sri Lanka at Easter, after the Boxing Day Tsunami of
2004.
I listened
to harrowing stories from ordinary folk who pulled the bodies of dead
adults and children out of water and entanglements after devastation
engulfed parts of this tropical island. Even at the time of
listening I could not but help feeling sorry for these ordinary folk
who will never have access to bereavement counselling nor other
support for the trauma they were clearly re-living as they told me
about their personal experiences as part of voluntary relief teams.
I listened patiently as they told me their individual stories, never
interrupting, as I was aware that this was the only therapy they will
ever have to retain their sanity.
There is no
doubt that the impact of loss on the victims families of the MH-17
tragedy will continue every day such events are relived in the media
and no amount of bereavement counselling nor recompense can prepare
anyone for such future flashbacks.
Such facts
in themselves should motivate the investigators to attempt to give
some immediate closure to this tragic event as quickly as possible.
VII
Then there
was the BUK manufacturers conference (on the same day as the DSB
Conference) where the technical experts presented their case for the
missile not being from current BUK stock but from a batch which was
decommissioned and prohibited from use several years ago.
Their Report
was so highly technical it could not have been staged-managed as
nobody in their right minds would put people on public stage who
quite clearly were unused to dealing with the general public and
explaining things in a (down-to-earth) language the masses could
understand(!)
What was
quite evident was they had done little preparation for the
(proverbial) 6-year-old trying to interpret their data:
“If you
can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it
yourself.” (Albert Einstein)
So what are
we left with?
Lets leave
aside the issue of the flight corridor, liability and the criminal
investigation, for the time being.
1.MH17 was,
more likely than not, brought down by a Russian-made BUK missile.
2.There were
Ukrainian fighter plane(s) in the vicinity of the MH17 shooting down
at the immediate time of disaster.
3.the
Ukrainian government emphatically denies it had fighter planes in the
vicinity of the tragedy.
4.No
satellite data from the U.S. has been presented to the DSB which
refutes the Russian Federation's claim that it was a version of BUK
long discontinued for approved use by Russian armed forces and that
the BUK missile which brought down MH-17 was not fired from a
rebel-controlled location. We only have a Ukrainian government
report, based on hearsay, to confirm the rebels are guilty of this
crime but we are told (asked to accept by Ukrainian authorities) that
'evidence exists' but is 'too secret' to be given – even to the
Dutch Safety Inquiry Board.
[There is of
course always the possibility that such satellite evidence may be
presented to the criminal investigation for analysis in the near
future.]
5.Ukrainian
fighter planes regularly used civilian airlines overflying rebel-held
territory as 'cover' when attacking rebel positions in Eastern
Ukraine.
6.That the
Russian Federation had Special Forces in the Eastern region at that
time to assist local rebels.
7.That
Russia had supplied the Ukrainian rebels with sophisticated surface
to air missiles for self-defense purposes – to protect town and
villages being attacked and shelled by ground and from the air by
Ukrainian government forces.
Was this
just a tragic accident or premeditated murder?
The criminal
investigation continues.
©Patrick
Emek, October 2015
Erratum October 2015: Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004
