Can a Divided Opposition Control the Violence in Ukraine?

The bloody collapse of a ceasefire between the Ukrainian government and the opposition has raised questions about who's in control of the protests in Kiev's Independence Square and who can stop the situation from descending into even more deadly chaos.

As NBC News' Richard Engel reported, it was front-line demonstrators who shattered a fragile truce just hours after it was announced late Wednesday into early Thursday by the leaders of three political parties who have been leading the anti-government movement since the fall.

“The three leaders who apparently accepted the ceasefire were not in control of that situation," Eugene Rumer of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said of armed protesters' surge forward, which sparked automatic gunfire from riot police.

While the crowds that have been flocking to the square include ordinary Ukrainians who say they don't identify with any party, there are concerns that right-wing militants are trying to hijack a grassroots campaign against the ruling Party of Regions and President Viktor Yanukovych.

ANDRIY MOSIENKO / Ukrainian government via EPA

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

“The young people who have turned up in the last month, the ones with the Molotov cocktails and the firearms, they are not controlled by the political parties. They are radicalized elements,” said Dominique Arel, chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Ottawa.

“The parties are not controlling the front-line activists. No one is controlling them.”

The official opposition is divided into three camps:

• The Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform (UDAR, which translates to "Punch"), headed by former heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko. The 6-foot-7 pugilist, who has a Ph.D but little government experience, may be the most popular man in the country right now.

• The Fatherland party, led by former economic and foreign minister Arseniy Yatseniuk . It was founded by Yulia Tymoshenko, the hero of 2004's so-called Orange Revolution, who became prime minister but was jailed after Yanukovych took power.

• The Svoboda, or Freedom Party, helmed by nationalist Oleh Tyahnybok, leans to the right and draws support from the western, Euopean-allied regions of the country. Although it has sought a more mainstream profile, some say it's linked to a paramilitary group that uses a Nazi-style symbol.

ANDRII SKAKODUB / AFP - Getty Images

Vitali Klitschko addressing policemen guarding the Ukrainian parliament in Kiev on February 20, 2014.

The strange-bedfellows makeup of the opposition certainly raises questions about how it would govern if it succeeds in driving the Party of Regions and Yanukovych from power.

James Collins, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, said the fissures are also contributing to the disarray in the streets.

“The real problem is that Ukraine has not had a leadership – opposition or president – that is able to bring a consensus about stopping the violence or where Ukraine should go next,” Collins said on MSNBC on Thursday.

Mark Nieman, a political science professor at Missouri University who recently traveled to Kiev to study the protesters, called them a diverse group united by their "desperation with lawlessness, corruption and lack of opportunity."

Troubling to some, however, is the apparent ascendance of stone-throwing protesters aligned with the radical Right Sector, a group that thinks the Freedom Party is too liberal. There may be militant left-wingers and even anarchists in the mix, too.

Situation in Ukraine grows deadlier

"That's the uncontrollable element of the square right now," Arel said. "It's not like Yatseniuk and Klischko are giving them orders."

"They would rather not have violence," he added, as the death toll from the fighting soared. "Because it has a way of getting out of hand."

First published February 20th 2014, 1:51 pm  

Faith-Healing Parents Get Prison for Son's Death

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A Pennsylvania couple who believe in faith-healing rather than modern medicine will each spend the next three and half to seven years behind bars for the death of their 8-month-old son, the second time one of their ill children died without seeing a doctor.

Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Benjamin Lerner told Herbert and Catherine Schaible on Wednesday that it wasn't 8-month-old Brandon's time to die.

He said: "You've killed two of your children... not God, not your church, not religious devotion -- you."

At the time, they were under court orders to seek medical care for their children after their 2-year-old son Kent died of untreated pneumonia in 2009.

Each devout parent received up to seven years in prison to be followed by 30 months of probation. Herbert Schaible, 45, has remained behind bars while awaiting sentencing, his 44-year-old wife is set to report to prison next month.

The prosecution asked for a sentence of eight to 16 years.

In November, the devout parents pleaded no contest to third-debree murder. They are third-generation members of a small Pentacostal community, the First Century Gospel Church in northeast Philadelphia.

Both expressed remorse and apologized for violating a court order to seek medical care for their children following the 2009 death of a 2-year-old son of untreated pneumonia.

Their six surviving minor children are now in foster care.

A lawyer for Catherine Schaible explored their religious beliefs at the sentencing. Her husband's lawyer argues that no malice was involved.

“We believe in divine healing, that Jesus shed blood for our healing and that he died on the cross to break the devil's power,” Herbert Schaible said in a 2013 police statement. Medicine, he said, “is against our religious beliefs.”

A jury had convicted both parents of involuntary manslaughter in Kent's death, and they were put on 10 years of probation that included orders to seek medical care if any other child got sick.

After Brandon's death, an irate judge found they had violated parole.

Prosecutors have described the boys' symptoms as “eerily similar,” and said they included labored breathing and a refusal to eat. Catherine Schaible's lawyer, though, said her client tried to feed Brandon during his illness, and applied baby powder to keep him comfortable.

Their pastor, Nelson Clark, has said the Schaibles lost their sons because of a “spiritual lack” in their lives and insisted they would not seek medical care even if another child appeared near death.

— NBC Philadelphia

First published February 19th 2014, 2:32 pm  

School Coach Charged With Murder of Missouri Girl

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An middle-school coach was charged Wednesday with first-degree murder in the death of a Missouri girl who was taken off the street just blocks from her home a day before — as neighbors watched in horror.

A body believed to be that of 10-year-old Hailey Owens was found Wednesday at a Springfield, Mo., home owned by the suspect, Craig Michael Wood, 45.

A complete autopsy was pending, but Police Chief Paul Williams said authorities “have a high degree of confidence” in the preliminary identification, according to The Associated Press.

Wood, 45, of Springfield also faces kidnapping and armed criminal action charges, according to Greene County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Patterson, who filed the charges late Wednesday afternoon.

Owens was walking to a friend’s house in Springfield before 5 p.m. Tuesday. Witnesses told investigators that a man in a gold-colored Ford Ranger approached her, grabbed her, threw her in his truck and drove away.

The chief said that witnesses to the abduction called 911 to report the truck's license number. Resident Ricky Riggins told the Springfield News-Leader he chased the fleeing pickup in his car after a neighbor tried to pull the girl away.

"I couldn't keep up," Riggins told the newspaper. "He was probably five to six cars ahead of me. ... It was so fast."

Wood was arrested inside the truck parked outside his small, single-story home on Tuesday night.

In a statement Wednesday, Springfield School District Superintendent Norm Ridder said Wood works as a paraprofessional and athletic coach at Pleasant View K-8 School.

He has been worked for the school district since Aug. 18, 1998, Ridder said.

Officials said Owens did not attend that school and likely did not know Wood.

A records search shows Wood had little criminal history. He pleaded guilty to possession of a controlled substance in 1990 in Greene County and was fined $100. Wood also was convicted in 2001 for illegal taking of wildlife, the News-Leader reported.

Greene County Sheriff

Craig Michael Wood

First published February 19th 2014, 7:34 am