Rohrabacher rips colleagues for taking sides in Ukraine dispute

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) ripped his colleagues on Wednesday for taking sides in the political turmoil roiling Ukraine.

The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs panel on Europe took issue with a resolution blaming the Ukrainian government for attacks against protesters that have left at least four people dead. The bipartisan effort, jointly introduced by ranking member Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) and Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.), urges Ukraine to seek closer ties with the European Union and threatens sanctions if violence against protesters continues.

“Who won the last election in Ukraine? The people who won the last election in Ukraine are the ones who should be making policy in Ukraine,” Rohrabacher said. “Now we are siding with people who want to superimpose their position.”

He accused protesters of using “brute force.”

“Who says that the government was the first one to use violence in this?” Rohrabacher said. “We don’t know that.”

Other lawmakers pushed back. 

Royce said President Viktor Yanukovych broke the law by passing a measure limiting Ukrainians’ rights to assemble. The government resigned this week and lawmakers scrapped the anti-protest laws, but protesters want Yanukovych to resign as well.

“I believe it’s essential for the United States to show our strong support for the democratic aspirations of the Ukrainian people,” said Rep. William Keating (D-Mass.), the top Democrat on Rohrabacher’s panel.

The protests began last month after Yanukovych, under pressure from Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin, broke off talks with the European Union and signed a trade deal with Russia instead. Rohrabacher, a supporter of Russia’s forceful response to Islamist militants in the Caucasus, said Yanukovych may have had good reasons for doing so.

“Are we backing up some big European banking system that’s made some demands on Ukraine? Is that what we’re doing?” Rohrabacher said. “We don’t even know why they abruptly ended that negotiation.”

Sensitive to accusations of U.S. interference in other countries’ affairs, lawmakers on the committee agreed to take out a clause stating that closer ties with the EU through the signing of an association agreement “will promote democratic values, good governance, and economic opportunity in Ukraine.” The resolution, however, still calls on the country to “support the desire of millions of Ukrainian citizens for closer relations with Europe through the signing of an Association Agreement.”

The resolution passed by voice vote.

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