Africa takes the lead where others, including New Zealand, have joined the Russia/Ukraine war

By
John Minto
-
53
1255

While New Zealand has been pouring petrol on Russia’s war with Ukraine, Africa is doing its best to bring peace to the conflict with a delegation of African leaders visiting Kyiv and Moscow to try and find a way forward.

New Zealand was right to strongly criticise Russia for its invasion and occupation of parts of Eastern Ukraine but we were wrong to pay for more weapons to fuel the conflict. In doing so we have taken the US side in the conflict rather than calling out US meddling as well as Russian aggression. Anyone who has been paying attention knows it is US interference in Ukraine, including the overthrow of the pro-Russian, democratically-elected Ukrainian government in 2014 which provided reasons for the Russian invasion.

Then when Russian President Vladimir Putin sought security guarantees from the US in an on-line call with US President Joe Biden, the US, believing they had Russia cornered and on the back foot, refused.

US objectives are not New Zealand’s objectives and providing arms to the conflict is cowardly and morally unprincipled.

The African delegation will have limited success in the short term because for peace talks to succeed both sides have to want it and that’s not the case yet. However, the African delegation deserves respect and the praise of humanity for their efforts.

- Sponsor Promotion -

53 COMMENTS

  1. Ray McGovern, the former director of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch at the C.I.A., recently pointed out a fatal flaw in the war propaganda. Something invariably occurs when one asks supporters of the war: “What else could Putin have done?”

    “Nobody can give me an answer,” Ray says. Instead we get all manner of bizarre accusations: “Unprovoked! Unprovoked! He’s a madman! Putin is the new Hitler!” (Pretty much the same nonsense used to justify destroying Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc.)

  2. The reason USA and Britain are militarily supporting Ukraine is due to the 1994 the Budapest Memorandum that negotiated the return of the nuclear weapons in Ukraine’s procession (Ukraine was the third largest nuclear power at the time) back to Russia for decommissioning.

    Worth a read; https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-what-is-the-budapest-memorandum-and-why-has-russias-invasion-torn-it-up-178184

    “In exchange for giving up its nuclear arsenal, Ukraine initially sought legally binding guarantees from the US that it would intervene should Ukraine’s sovereignty be breached. But when it became clear that the US was not willing to go that far, Ukraine agreed to somewhat weaker – but nevertheless significant – politically binding security assurances to respect its independence and sovereignty which guaranteed its existing borders. China and France subsequently extended similar assurances to Ukraine, but did not sign the Budapest Memorandum.”

    Note the China and France position in support.

    and in regards the NPT (non prolific treaty of nuclear weapons)

    “It is unsurprising, perhaps, that some Ukrainian leaders and the public feel betrayed and consider that the security assurances they received in the Budapest Memorandum are not worth the paper they were written on.

    This may have far-reaching consequences for the future of nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. Other states in Russia’s neighbourhood – and in the wider world – may begin to question whether such assurances are sufficiently reliable to ensure their long-term security. This may, in turn, undermine the credibility of major power security assurances, previously used as bargaining chips to dissuade countries such as Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine from possessing nuclear weapons.”

    As we know Belarus is going to be used as a nuclear launching pad so to that extent Russia is actually instigating nuclear war.

    There are no victories in nuclear war for Russia, Europe or the world.

    Perhaps the biggest concern right now is if the Russian create another ecological and environmental disaster by blowing up the six nuclear reactors at Zaporizhzhia. Reactors at risk after the ecological and environmental disaster after Russia blew up the Khakhovka dam and made the cooling of the reactors problematic.

  3. Unfortunately the monsters behind this war, from the wicked Zelensky to the beyond evil Victoria Nuland are not interested in peace. They love to see Ukrainians and Russians die alike, they love to see prices for oil and food going up especially hurting the developing world.

  5. Yes we do have this never ending Eurocentric view that West is best. Very tedious, we need to get more of our news from Al Jazeera instead of the BBC who are constantly biased on this issue and on Palestine where they date not say anything negative about Israel for fear of being called anti-semitic.

    • Anglo/US centric prejudices are embedded in NZ and the “West”. I flew into Beijing a few years ago, expecting a veneer of civilisation and had my world turned inside out. Turns out we are third world. I went to high tech facilities that seemed far ahead of any seen in Silicon Valley. New York was fun to visit, but old and decrepit, Beijing next century.

      When the fiasco in Ukraine began it was all Western training, Western wonder weapons, “we will be in Moscow tomorrow, gas station masquerading as a country”. Yeah right, turns out Russia has the wonder weapons, not the Western junk littering battlefields.

      So to Africa. They see how China, Russia and Asia have advanced. They see it as their tomorrow. Not the exploitative West. Who can blame them?

      • lol – will they be disappointed. Ask Zambians about China’s soft power and stand-over tactics, they’ll tell you. At least the West has PlayStation and Xbox. lol

        • Yeah, I hear China is a bad, bad, bad actor, hear it all the time. Never any verifiable evidence provided mind you, but hearsay, always goes a long, long way in today’s world anyway. Well done, government and their elitist class bosses salutes your actions.

  6. Well done Africa, makes you wonder what is stopping us, ditto the rest of the world from taking similar actions.

  8. Putin actually provided evidence in this conference that peace accords were already signed in Kiev, before Boris Johnson swooped in at the 11th hour and told Zelensky to say no to peace. At the time (March 2022), Russia had already pulled out of Kiev (and other regions) which was part of the peace accord. The MSM (erroneously it now seems) said that Russia was withdrawing because of Ukraine military forces pushing the Russians back (something that seemed highly dubious to anyone that knows anything).

  10. I refrained from commenting earlier to see if some of the usual suspects would take a dump on Africa…and sure enough…

    When faced with possible deployment of nukes in Ukraine/Russia any peace making attempts should be appreciated.

    • Seems to me Africans
      remember too well German extermination campaigns in Namibia, Belgian rule in Congo, Maumau repression in Kenya, apartheid, Sharpeville, Soweto, French atrocities across north Africa, Italians in Ethiopia, US in Libya etc etc. Prior the slave trade. Put bluntly, we Europeans have got “form”. It is very generous that the Africans have sent a delegation to request we stop killing one another.

  11. luxon is right – what a bunch of wet and whiny moaners. Fuck off to live under an authoritarian regime then. At least the West is debased enough to allow freedom of movement, freedom of expression and free enterprise.

    • They won’t – they will just moan about liberal democracies while living in and enjoying the freedoms that liberal democracies afford.

Comments are closed.