There has been a deliberate misleading attempt by India’s mainstream media, none more than Indian Express, to show that India is finally losing its cool with Russia on the Ukraine Crisis.
The latest remark by India’s foreign minister Dr S. Jaishankar in the UN General Assembly on the Ukraine issue — “We-are-on-the-side-that-respects-the-UN-Charter-and-it’s-founding-principles”—is another kite these foot soldiers would run wild with in our mental lawns.
So Russia or the United States: Who is disrespectful to the UN Charter?
Before we-the-brainwashed press the button on Russia, let’s step back and look at the sequence of events:
In 2014, the legitimate regime in Kiev was changed not by people’s revolution but through a coup by elites which is now known as “Euromaidan.” It was engineered by the United States which was a direct violation of the UN Charter (Article 39).
Alarmed at the hostilities unleashed on mostly Russian-inhabited eastern region of Ukraine by the propped up illegitimate Kiev regime—all those shelling, terror attacks, atrocities etc—Russia got Germany and France on the board to broker a peace deal known as the 2015 Minsk Agreement.
But the guarantors just sat on their bums as the killings intensified in Donetsk and Lugansk which the UN itself numbers today as 14,000 killed since 2014. Talk of respecting the UN Charter — 2(3): Neither OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) nor the Normandy Format did anything for peace.
With no end in sight, increasing belligerence on the part of Ukraine, and the prodding of the West which now wanted it to join the NATO—a clear red-line as Russia had been assured against by the US leaders pre or post Cold War—Vladimir Putin proposed two treaties in December 2021: Modest demands seeking Russia’s national security fully compatible with the UN Charter.
But both proposals were thrown out of window by US president Joe Biden and the NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg: Again a violation of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter for refusing to grant such assurances.
It was intended to push Russia to the wall which it did in defense of its security. That Russia would resort to a military intervention in such an eventuality was foreseen by America’s own top geopolitical guns such as Henry Kissinger and George F Kennan.
Russia didn’t leave the talk-table even as it launched its Special Military Operation (SMO). There was hope for a breakthrough within weeks in Russo-Ukrainian talks in Istanbul and as a goodwill gesture, Russian forces withdrew from the Kiev region.
But soon Kiev went cold on peace proposals and alongside, the West stepped up support by way of funds, intelligence and weapons supply. It vowed for war and bleed Russia white as a solution to the crisis.
Now let’s look at how much adherence to UN Charter—practically the world’s constitution—the United States has followed since the end of Cold War in 1990s.
How much do you think the wars on Iraq (on the fake trumped up charge of Weapons of Mass Destruction); Libya (the fake Benghazi narrative) or Syria (where the United States still has boots on the ground) or supply of weapons to Saudi Arabia (against Yemen, arguably the biggest humanitarian crisis this century) flouts the sanctity of UN Charter?
(Michael Ratner, president Center for Constitutional Rights, termed the Syrian intervention as a war crime. “The kind of crime that the Germans were tried for at Nuremberg”)
Or if the bombings on civilians for months on hapless Serbians during the Yugoslavia War was in accordance to UN Charter?
Or when a “country” like Kosovo was carved out of Serbia against all internationally accepted rules?
How would you view it an adherence to UN Charter when unilateral sanctions are slapped on countries like Cuba, Iran, Venezuela and Russia and they remain in vogue even when an unprecedented crisis like Covid-19 leaves millions of hapless citizens hungry, raped or killed; homeless and destitute? (Even the UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres’ request to suspend such unilateral sanctions went unattended).
How much do you think Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib is respect to UN Charter for its kidnappings, horrific torture and illegal detention camps? Or the illegal drone attacks which violate the sanctity of nations? Or the AUKUS Agreement violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)?
How legal do you think are the arms sale to Taiwan even as the United States vows for “One China” policy?
The US has refused to sign or ratify many a foundational international laws and treaties which most of the world adheres to: Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC); CEDAW (for non-discrimination against women); ICESCR (on economic, social and cultural rights); CRC (rights of the child); ICRMW (for protection of migrant workers); PAROS (prevention of arms race in outer space); ILO (majority of labour conventions) etc, etc.
Funnily, the United States tries to hold other countries accountable on UN mandated treaties even while not being a part of it: Such as UNCLOS in the South China Sea against the Beijing. Or not following its mandates in its own territorial waters!
Says Alfred de Zayas, an expert on UN laws: “The US only gives lip service to the (UN) charter and at the same time tries to invoke a different `rules-based order’ which is nothing other than a set of rules unilaterally imposed on the rest of the world by the US and its allies.”
We would examine if the Russian Federation flouted the UN Charter in Crimea or Georgia or for that matter how much the ongoing referendums in Donetsk, Lughansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson are in adherence to international law in the concluding piece: to be published just after the Referendums are over on Tuesday.
To be Continued….
