By Alleh Okpeh Alleh, (PhD)
No war can be celebrated or justified because human lives and valuables are almost always involved. The on-going war in Ukraine must, however, be situated, fundamentally as a by-product of NATO, US and Western deception or strategy. Just as NATO, US and West have successfully set brothers against themselves, using religion and tribe in the case of Africa to hold it down for centuries, so they are also doing in a different manner in East Europe. Imagine the endless carnage in African countries such as Congo, Nigeria, Sudan and connect them to a strategy of unencumbered harvesting of the abundance of nature in those countries. Russia may not be an angel or justified in the horrible destructions in the neighbouring country of Ukraine, but her autocracy is much more palatable one than the freedom from the West in international politics and relations.
A Geneva mid 2021 picture from The New York Times featuring Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden trying to shake their hands at their first formal meeting in the city. Uhm!
Without an overarching framework such as above, people will continue to be more concerned with the details of destruction, leaving aside the larger prompters of the violence. We cannot get tired of re-narrating the background or beginning from the beginning. One of the scars of the Second World War has been the strict divide between the West and the East. Ideologically, the world was further divided into democrats, socialists, liberals, or the free world of the West versus the so-called Communists/autocrats of the East. While UK, US, and France stand tall in the liberal West, controlling their allies, the Eastern Communist block was firm under the grip of the former USSR and later, China. Africa in particular and Asia, like the Arabs, were quite inconsequential in the power politics which defines international relations. Rather, they were simply divided between the two blocks along mainly their colonial past. Germany whose ambition to rule the world brought the World War 11 was, after the defeat, divided along the two political ideologies, West to the West and East to the Eastern block. To ensure the safety of the Western block from the bully of the East, Western Europe and the US formed NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) whose main objective was the protection of members against aggression from nonmembers, among others. Because the eastern Communist block did not participate much in the colonial escapades done of the West, the East became friends of the third world in the wake of their independence and/or liberation assistance offered to them against the Western colonialists.
To ensure conflict freer world, the UN was formed and series of conventions and international laws were enacted to prevent or control conflicts and ensure stable relations across the world. The world war II ended with the US and the then USSR as the most powerful nations of the world and respectively kept their political allies. Add to that preventing powerful nations from bullying the smaller and weaker nations by stressing the sovereign status of states irrespective of size, power or influence behind them.
The USSR was made up of several states held under the force of communist ideology by Russia. The liberal West, however, kept eyeing these states until the reign of Gorbachev when Perestroika and Glasnost were introduced. It was a hobnobbing with the West for which the USSR paid dearly as the “vassal” states took advantage and broke away from the union thereby ending the USSR and then cold war between the West and the East which lasted from 1945 to 1989. That left the US as the sole world power.
Since then, Russia has tried to build itself up, including forms of interaction with some of the independent states in such a way that its interests and security could be enhanced against the prying eyes of the West. A number of treaties and understanding had been entered with these states except that where Russia felt uncomfortable, it acted militarily as annexing of Crimea and the war in Georgia in 2014.
After the fall of USSR, and curiously too, in spite of the fears of Russia and her efforts at wooing Ukraine, the state continued to hobnob and court the West against the political and security comforts of Russia. Ukraine never hid her feelings, citing security and economic concerns. And as it is usual with the West, it continued to prod and encourage Ukraine to join the European club but against which Russia continued to complain. This development peaked with the conclusion of Ukraine’s decision to join the NATO alliance and the possibility that US or NATO could establish a military base in Ukraine just behind Russia, a similar development that was resisted by US in Cuba many decades back. However, the NATO countries continued to deceptively encourage Ukraine to go on with the plan of joining the organization, assuring her of her security. Now in the face of the war and bombings in Ukraine, NATO has left Zelensky crying, ‘we are left alone’.
NATO leaders on March at a March 24th, 2022
All that US, NATO and Europe are doing is the propaganda that Russia has violated international law and committed crimes against international conventions while Ukraine takes the destructions, killings, bombings and every pain. Yes, Articles 1 and 2(1) imposes the duty on member states to “settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice are not endangered” and prohibits states from the threat or use of force. Article 2 directs states to hold onto and respect the principle of sovereign equality of all its members. But these articles did not say that any states were excused from complying with them. The US is on record for permanently not complying, the most recent example being Iraq in 2003. It is that which has weakened Joe Biden’s running around with aaccusations that Russia violated the UN principle of independence of sovereign states.
While Russia is not a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Ukraine is a signatory to it. Otherwise, the ruthless attacks against the civilian population, excessive and incidental deaths, injury, or damage to civilian objects finds a place to invite the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. Under a combined reading of Articles 8(2)(b)(i), 8(2)(e)(i) and Article 8(2)(b)(iv) of the Statute, any intentional attack against civilian populations and objects are all violations of regulatory legal frameworks which are elements of war crimes. However, since Russia is not a part to the statute, it might be difficult to bring a claim against it. Furthermore, since both parties are signatories to several other important international conventions such as Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant to Civil and Political Rights, European Convention on Human Rights, and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which treaties guarantee fundamental rights including that of right to life and dignity, the right to be secure from torture, ill-treatment and forceful detention, and the right to a fair trial even during a public emergency, Ukraine could resort to those treaties to demand sanctions against Russia. This is because, apart from the sovereignty and statehood of Ukraine, which is at stake, a heavy toll is being paid by humans on the ground. Whether combatants or otherwise, the inherent right to life of many is being violated by Russian armed forces. Furthermore, the attack on Kyiv and other cities and ruthless airstrikes across the nation have claimed lives and also impacted the civilian population. Yet, all constitute direct violation of the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law standards in contravention of the rules of conduct of war.
But recognising this is only one side of the story. The second side of the same story is that the US, not Russia, was the actor two decades ago in Iraq. And it was the same tale of misery. Before this, on the suspicion that Iraq was building nuclear capability which was later to be found to be a false flag, the US and the West led an international coalition to destroy Iraq and kill Saddam Hussein. In case Iraq has now faded from memory, what of Libya?
In Libya, the UN resolution was to create a no fly zone for the purpose of protecting civilians against alleged aggression by the then Ghaddafi regime. Then, NATO, France, UK and US literarily took over the operation and went into full blown invasion of the country, effected a regime change and killed the Head of State, Muammar el-Ghadaffi. The international community watched and did nothing. The same thing was to repeat itself in the resolution by the UN over Syria except for the quick intervention of Russia to counter the excesses of the same allies and save President Assad and his regime.
Assurances of protection and backings by NATO pushed Kiev to dare Russia only to be left in the lurch, a pawn in US-Russia test of strength which has been on since Syrian war. The supply of arms by the NATO members is nothing more than their usual habits of testing new ammunitions, making more money through arms sale and the fulfillment of displaying arms for its own sake. All the destruction could have been avoided if not for these reasons. This is a very important lesson for peace makers and peacemaking in Ukraine, particularly if the US could keep quiet and thereby stop infuriating people.
Dr. Alleh Okpeh Alleh Esq. writes from the University of Abuja and is reachable via allehokpeh@gmail.com
