We are not dealing with a transitional government in which Neo-Nazi elements integrate the fringe of the coalition, formally led by the Fatherland party. This is the first Neo-Nazi government in Europe since the end of World War II.
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Regime Change: First Ukraine, then Venezuela, then Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil... China?
Regime Change: First Ukraine, then Venezuela, then Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil... China?
| EDITOR'S CHOICE | 15.03.2014 | 17:11 |
Now that US Secretary of State John Kerry has issued an ultimatum to Russia, telling Putin that he has until Monday to follow Washington’s orders or else, hopefully everyone can see the repeat of the March of Folly that produced World War 1.
In my last column, “Merkel Whores For Washington,” I mistakenly attributed to Khrushchev all transfers of Russian territory to Ukraine. The first gifts of Russian territories to Ukraine were made by Lenin, and the last was Sevastopol in the early 1990s.
I have posted today Alexandr Solzhenitsyn’s account of how Russian territory was given to Ukraine. In the meantime, Washington’s puppet regime in Kiev has sent in thugs to commit violence against protesting Russians in eastern Ukraine who want nothing to do with Washington’s stooges in Kiev, prompting Russia to issue another warning that the Russian military will protect Russians. Clearly, Washington is doing everything it can to provoke Putin into sending the Russian Army into eastern Ukraine. Now that Merkel has sold out Europe, the course of Ukrainian events seems clear, which provides an opportunity for me to address Washington’s coup-in-the-making against Venezuela.
Venezuela Also Is Being Overthrown By The Criminal Regime In Washington
The Washington orchestrated coup in Ukraine has kept Venezuela out of the headlines.
A confrontation with nuclear armed Russia is more dangerous than with Venezuela. But the violence that Washington has unleashed on Venezuela almost simultaneously with Ukraine is testimony to Washington’s stark criminality.
South America has always consisted of a tiny Spanish elite with all the money and power ruling over large majority populations of indigenous peoples who have not had political representation. In Venezuela, Chavez broke this pattern. An indigenous president was elected who represented the people and worked in their behalf instead of looting the country. Chavez became a role model, and indigenous presidents were elected in Ecuador and Bolivia.
Chavez was hated by Washington and demonized by American presstitutes. When Chavez died of cancer, Washington celebrated.
Evo Morales, President of Bolivia, was inclined in favor of granting asylum to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Consequently, Washington ordered its European puppet states to deny overflight permission to President Morales’ airplane on its return to Bolivia from Russia. Morales’ airplane, in violation of every diplomatic protocol, was forced down and searched. Morales has since suffered other indignities at the hands of the Washington criminals.
Rafael Correa, President of Ecuador, made himself a target of Washington by granting political asylum to Julian Assange. On Washington’s orders, Washington’s British puppet state has refused to grant free passage to Assange, and Assange is spending his life in the London Embassy of Ecuador, just as Cardinal Mindszenty spent his life in the US Embassy in Communist Hungary.
With Chavez’s death, indigenous Venezuelan Nicolas Maduro became president. Maduro does not have Chavez’s charisma, which makes him an easier target for the tiny Spanish elite that owns the media.
Washington began the attack on Maduro by attacking the Venezuelan currency and driving down its value in currency markets. Then university students, many of whom are the children of the rich Spanish elites, were sent out to protest. The falling Venezuelan currency raised prices and spread dissatisfaction among Maduro’s poor indigenous base. To put down the rioting, property damage, and unrest that Washington is using to launch a coup, Maduro had to turn to the police. Secretary of State John Kerry has labeled the government’s effort to reestablish public order and forestall a coup a “terror campaign against its own citizens.”
Having orchestrated the protests and plotted a coup, Kerry blamed Maduro for the violence that Kerry unleashed and called on Maduro “to respect human rights.”
For Washington, it is always the same script. Commit a crime and blame the victim.
If Washington can overthrow Maduro, the next target will be Correa. If Washington can get rid of Correa and re-empower a puppet government of rich Spanish elites, Washington can have the Ecuadoran government revoke the political asylum that Correa granted to Julian Assange. The Ecuadoran Embassy in London will be ordered to kick Assange out into the waiting arms of the British police who will send him to Sweden who will send him to Washington to be tortured until he confesses to whatever Washington demands.
The poor gullible dupes demonstrating in Venezuelan streets have no more idea of the damage they are doing to themselves and others than their counterparts in Ukraine had. Venezuelans have already forgotten what life for them was like under the rule of the Spanish elites. It appears that Venezuelans are determined to help Washington to return them to their servitude.
If Washington reconquers Venezuela and Ecuador, Bolivia will be next. Then Brazil.
Washington has its sights on Brazil, because the country is a member of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), and Washington intends to destroy this organization before the countries can establish a trading bloc that does not use the US dollar.
Not long ago a US official said that as soon as we (Washington) get Russia in a bind, we will deal with the upstarts in South America.
The program is on schedule.
globalresearch.ca
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/03/15/regime-change-first-ukraine-then-venezuela-then-ecuador-bolivia-brazil-china.html |
What was done to Ukraine? by Andre Vltchek (Counter Punch)
Brainwashed
The Indoctrinated West
Is it really possible that the European public has no clue what was done to Ukraine? Are the men and women of the continent that lives in hallucination, that it is well educated and well informed, really unaware how its own governments have created and supported that ‘opposition movement’ in Kiev; a movement full of fascists and bigots?
Unfortunately, it is possible, and it is to be expected!
After working in some one hundred and fifty countries, in all the continents, I have finally come to the absolutely clear conclusion: there is no part of the world as brainwashed, so programmed, so indoctrinated, as are both Europe and North America.
There are no people so out of sync with the global reality; people so naively and willing to follow the religious doctrine of market fundamentalism and the self-righteous belief that they, and only they, are the sole guardians of democracy, freedom and virtue, on this planet.
The world is once again in flames, and both Europe and North America (let us please not pretend for one second longer, that the Empire is actually somehow divided between that bad United States and that ‘moderate’ Europe) are bulldozing, demolishing, moving out of their way everything that is still standing straight and proud; everything that is defending those who used to be defenseless, everything and everyone who is dreaming about, and actually building egalitarian and decent societies.
And the great majority of Europeans are clapping. They read their propaganda sheets and they are clapping. And they are engaged in pathetic pseudo-intellectual discussions, (while sipping, Oh! – In such a sophisticated manner, their refined wine and beer), while millions are being murdered by implementing their bigoted ‘interests’.
Entire nations are, again, bleeding, in order to make sure that millions of French or Italian farmers can drive their luxury BMW’s (oh, sorry, in Europe they are not marketed as luxury, but as ‘reliable cars’), consuming enormous subsidies, for producing and often for not producing anything at all.
The subsidies are paid with the blood of African and Asian people.
How many people in poor countries have to die, so some grandma in Germany or the Czech Republic can go to a doctor, for free, again and again, simply because she is lonely or bored staying at home?
Should there be free medical treatment for all? Yes! Yes. It should be free, and for all. But not just for Europeans, while the rest of the world has to pay the going rate!
How many countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America have to be destabilized, so that the Empire can enjoy its privileges? So that the rich there can be even more obnoxiously rich, and even the poorest citizens can afford to live way above those who belong to the middle classes in the countries that are still being plundered by the West?
***
Now, please, I am not trying to be funny and I am not trying to play with words: I am honestly wondering… I am humbly asking: “Are people in the West, particularly in Europe… are they pretending that they don’t know what is happening in Syria, Venezuela, Thailand and now, particularly, in Ukraine? Or have they simply turned into a cynical assembly of brainwashed degenerates?
Where is that fabled diversity? Where is intellectual courage?
Where are huge demonstrations shaking Paris, Rome, Berlin; demonstrations trying to bring down governments that have been destabilizing a huge European nation – Ukraine, while provoking Russia, the nation that saved the world from Nazism and later helped to liberate many African and Asian nations from the claws of colonialism?
Where are those loud voices protesting against the antagonizing Russia? Don’t Europeans know their own history? Russia is not an aggressor; it has been a victim, for at least a hundred years. Russia was attacked by Europe, again and again, and in just one century, tens of millions of Russian people were slaughtered by European fascists, imperialists and ‘democrats’.
Russia was attacked at the onset of the WWI, then again, after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, by a joint invasion of US and UK troops. Russia was also attacked by Czech legions, fighting their way to the front, against the Austro-Hungarian Empire (and getting there by circling the globe). Czech legions occupied almost the entire area surrounding the Trans-Siberian railroad, raping, looting, and murdering indiscriminately as they progressed.
Then WWII came, before which, both France and the UK sacrificed just about everything that stood in the way of the Nazis towards the Soviet Union. And yes, then the war itself took at least twenty million lives. Soviet people vanished in an enormous struggle against Nazism.
Half of my family, of my ancestors, vanished there too, during the siege of Leningrad.
The Cold War was next, and finally that most cynical and Machiavellian act by the West: dragging the USSR into Afghanistan, and destroying it, using jihadi cadres from the Middle East, from South and Southeast Asia.
Finally, the Western puppet – ‘opposition democrat’, Boris Yeltsin – an alcoholic with a clearly decomposing brain, was helped by Western powers, to grab power. And when the Parliament and the Russian people rebelled, Yeltsin sent the tanks in against both Members of Russian Parliament, and the people on the streets. The Western lackey mass media cheered: “Democracy! Victory!”
Thousands of unarmed people died. The 5th Column smashed the Soviet Union to pieces, using lies, using vicious propaganda that came from Washington, London and elsewhere.
And then the West stood suddenly unopposed. It appeared that there was nothing blocking its way, towards absolute control of the world, anymore.
Colonialist nightmares from the past returned. The world became mono-polar. With only one dogma, one ideology, and only one Empire.
And in just a few years after the Soviet Union ‘collapsed’, it became total… Total shit!
***
Is Europe so indoctrinated, is it propagandized to the point that it is really not actually able to recognize, anymore, what their regime has been doing, all over the world?
For years, the West in general, and the European Union in particular, have been destabilizing Ukraine, paying for its ‘opposition’… Wait; damn… what are we talking about? Everybody knows it, right? No? Really? Not everyone?
It is not about ‘proof’ or ‘the avalanche of information’. For years, for decades I have been amassing proof and arguments about the horrendous and unthinkable crimes that the West had been committing on all the continents of the world. I have been painstakingly researching what was going on, sometimes risking my life or ruining my health, sometimes doing it without being supported by anything or anyone… actually, that was the scenario, most of the time.
I was doing it because I believed; I believed like an idiot, I believed day and night, that my findings would shock the world, particularly the West… That it will shame the European and North American dictators… That what I show will enrage the public… That the horrors that I had witnessed all over the world, will finally end… you know: That bloody idiotic fairytale world of mine: “People will see the truth and force the monsters who are ruling them, to stop killing human beings everywhere on this beautiful planet.”
Today, I have to declare, publicly: I was a fool!
I failed to move people, of course! I tried. I even dropped the journalistic style in my writing, and I began writing as a poet, as the novelist that I am.
I did it because I realized that nobody cares only about facts! There are facts everywhere. Everything is documented. Coups all over the world, financed and planned by the US – it is all available, easily accessible. Yet nobody bothers to read about it!
I tried other tactics – novels, films, journalism mixed with poetry. Nothing! Nothing pushed Westerners to the barricades.
Yes, people like me, we are failing to move, to touch, those who are committing crimes against humanity… and also those who are benefiting from enormous global plunder.
Those, mostly well-fed masses, don’t give a shit: in Europe, or in the United States. Their governments and companies rule the world, and at least most of the citizens of those countries – Those that get some crumbs. Their level of understanding, their political awareness is way below those in Africa, Latin America and Asia, those very people who are being constantly robbed and sacrificed.
To know and to understand… that would make many Europeans and North Americans uncomfortable… That would mean having to take responsibility; to be co-responsible for the crimes committed by Western governments and multi-nationals. It would mean, god forbid, to take action.
***
In one recent Reuters article, an author argued that China is watching what Russia is doing. Of course, from the tone of the article, right from the beginning, it was clear that, that what Russia, China, Iran and other countries that disagree with ‘Western-style democracy and capitalism’ are thinking and doing is absolutely wrong.
Without inviting Russian, Chinese or Venezuelan polemicists, the author selected the ‘grievances’ of the world, saying that the West should face criticism, by some, for Kosovo and maybe for Libya… Although such criticism would be wrong…
Such a degree of self-discipline and propaganda would be fitting for German newspapers in the 1930’s and 40’s. And it is becoming the norm in both Europe and North America, as well as in many countries in the ‘developing world’, where information is fully controlled by Western funding, training programs and other means of arm twisting.
The propaganda coming out of Europe is so mighty, so potent, that it has blurred the eyes of even those that live in the former colonies of the West, including China, India and Indonesia.
It is not about Kosovo and it is not only about Libya, damn it!
In Yugoslavia, which I covered intensively from all sides, the West destroyed an entire country, a great country, one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement (Indonesia had already paid the price in 1965, with between one and three million people brutally slaughtered, in an US-orchestrated coup performed by the military and religious cadres).
In Africa, an entire continent screams in pain. Pretty close to ten million people, have been slaughtered in the Democratic Republic of Congo alone since 1995, by Uganda, and Rwanda, on behalf of Western geopolitical interests. DRC has uranium, Coltan, and diamonds… Its people do not matter. The Belgian King Leopold II succeeded in killing ten million people there one hundred years ago, by chopping off their hands and burning people alive in huts.
France is involved in all of its former colonies. It is once again as sickeningly brutal as it was in the past.
Mali, the Central African Republic, and almost all the countries in the area are destabilized and close to total ruin.
The US-UK-Israeli coalition is undermining Somalia, using Ethiopian, Ugandan, Kenyan and Burundian forces. South Sudan, an artificially created entity, with oil but no ability to govern itself independently, is now on the verge of famine and civil war. And it is at the total mercy of the West.
Zimbabwe and South Africa are standing tall against Western imperialism, but in both places, the West directly finances the ‘opposition’, and propaganda viciously smears both nations.
Eritrea is facing a direct embargo. For being what is called – The African Cuba (of course nobody knows anything about Eritrea in Europe, except for some educated Italians).
Even the tiny and prosperous Seychelles, known for royal weddings and honeymoons, is facing an ‘opposition’ groomed from abroad (particularly from the UK), mainly for its free, excellent medical care, and its Cuban-influenced education system.
In both Uganda and Rwanda, brutal and insane fascist regimes are clinging to power, coached openly by people like Tony Blair (advisor to President Kagame).
The Arab Spring has been fully derailed, and in Egypt, a country with powerful labor movements, that have been openly murdered. In the process, thousands of people have died, as pro-Western military and elites have overthrown a democratically elected moderate Muslim government.
The most horrendous religious regimes like those of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar, are being pampered and defended by both North America and Europe.
In Latin America, the governments of Honduras and Paraguay have been overthrown; Venezuela has had to face coup attempts and its own brutal ‘opposition’, fully and openly financed by the West. Cuba has survived countless terrorist attacks from the North, and the ‘opposition’ there is also directly financed and supported from abroad.
Bolivia and even Brazil were targeted by the malicious attempts to destroy their left-leaning governments, as is the case with Bolivia, even the geographical integrity of the country has been threatened.
In Asia, things go from bad to worse. Both China and North Korea are being literally provoked, often militarily, from US air force bases located in Okinawa and elsewhere. Countries like the Philippines are being openly pitched against China (PRC) by the US, while Vietnam is also being ‘encouraged’ to antagonize its enormous neighbor.
It goes without saying that the Chinese ‘opposition’ has been financed mainly from abroad, for decades. On the contrary, in pro-Western brutal regimes like Indonesia, the Philippines but also Thailand, the West is paying and helping the military and elites to actually control and if necessary, destroy the genuine opposition.
The ‘opposition’ has been clearly employed to ruin Syria (the West created refugee camps in Turkey and elsewhere, to train and arm the so called ‘opposition’ there), Venezuela, Ukraine and even Thailand. It has also caused some great damage to Russia and China, as well as countless Latin American and Caribbean countries.
The West is directly attacking foreign countries, by arming and indoctrinating thousands of people who are then paid to overthrow governments and political systems.
Not only is it illegal – it actually amounts to an act of war… undeclared, and covert, but war.
Do the citizens of Europe and North America ignorant of the fact that their governments and companies are fighting undeclared wars and committing acts of terrorism all over the world?
And it has been done for decades, with total impunity, it is perfectly well documented and it takes tremendous discipline to overlook it!
I have worked in almost all those places, making films, writing books and reports. I am intimately familiar with what the West has been doing in Venezuela, Syria, Turkey, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Congo, Rwanda, the Philippines…
I have proof. But have you noticed that proof is, these days, worth nothing? You can come with the most powerful, most damning and shocking proof, but it will move nobody, propel nobody to action… In the West, I mean. In that ‘democratic’ and ‘free’ West!
You can proof that 10 million people were slaughtered, and you will be told: “Thank you… Wonderful! Another cup of coffee?”
***
And even this incomplete but powerful list of horrors that the West is administering all over the world, is not something that could be defined as new.
It is simply a continuation of colonial culture, of plunders and of mass exterminations, of genocides and holocausts, those that have been taking place for many centuries.
Look at the map of the world at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and everything will be clear. The West was basically occupying almost the entire planet.
It was plundering thoroughly all that it controlled. It destroyed cultures, raped women, robbed all that it could get its hands on.
Ever wondered from where all that wealth that allowed Europe to build lavish palaces, theatres, museums, public buildings came from?
Of course it came, and is still coming, from the blood of oppressed people, from their hard labor for a pittance, from their sweat, from their humiliation.
And now, people from India, China, Indonesia, Peru, Nigeria, Senegal – they come to Europe and they sigh in front of those tremendous facades of enormous buildings, in the middle of well-manicured parks, on board fast moving trains.
And some say: “What a civilization! What a wonderful part of the world! Here they respect other human beings. Here they are kind to others.”
Well, it is built from your wealth that evaporated, from the terrible labor of your grandparents, from the rape of your female ancestors, from the cracking of whips on the naked backs of your male ancestors…. It is built on the ruins of your culture, of your civilization. It is all built, because you were left with nearly nothing, and for decades and centuries forced to live in shit…
The majority of people of what is now Latin America vanished! Their religions were destroyed and so were their languages. The Inca people had to obliterate their temples, and from those stones, enormous Christian cathedrals were erected. And they were decorated with gold and silver, dug by once free but now enslaved Incas. In Cusco and Potosi, Quito and Cuenca, everywhere.
Slaves poured out from Africa to Latin America and to North America, as well as to the Caribbean! Entire states in Africa, entire families were ruined, destroyed, uprooted. Human beings were treated like animals, while literary salons in London and Paris were enjoying refined music and perfumes.
Countries like Germany and Belgium performed clear genocides – The Belgians in Congo, Germans in what is now Namibia.
There was no mercy then, as there is no mercy now.
The Christian religion, that outrageous machinery of terror has been part of this for centuries, walking hand in hand with the Conquistadors and Crusaders. Periodically it took the lead in the massacres. The Church had been greedier than monarchies, and it was power hungry, oppressive and brutal.
Christianity, that symbol of Western civilization, brought torture and slavery; it blessed the men and the deeds that murdered millions.
So far, there has been no attempt to declare Christianity illegal because of the genocides it performed, strictly based on crimes against humanity.
***
And this culture is now scalding Russia, China, Venezuela, and Iran – this culture that has murdered billions. And nobody is laughing. No one is rolling on the floor, dying from amusement.
In the Middle East, the Brits bombed and gassed ‘those niggers’ (both Lloyd George and Winston Churchill saw ‘lesser races’ as something worth exterminating, if ‘necessary’), divided nations, manipulated and enslaved them.
‘Divide and rule’ led to horrific consequences later, like the ‘Partition’ of India and Pakistan, or genocide in what is now Bangladesh.
In Asia, just about everything was occupied, plundered and raped, including such enormous areas as the sub-Continent, or China and the archipelago that is now known as Indonesia.
All was neatly divided. French Indochina, British India, and Dutch Indonesia.
Western Empires fought over vast foreign lands and no Europeans protested (as they are not protesting now, against neo-colonialism) against the genocides that were committed by their rulers. Some countries like France ‘successfully’ exterminated a hundred percent of the people on some islands in the Caribbean, and came very close to exterminating the entire population of Rapa Nui in Polynesia.
Rape, looting, murder, have been all over the world. The West still feels that it has the full right to determine who lives and who dies, and who should live which way.
The great Swiss psychoanalyst Gustav Jung described European and Western culture as a ‘pathology’, as an illness. To him, as a doctor, Europe was a patient, a seriously ill one, in constant need to terrorize others, to control, to steal, and to murder.
And Jung was not the only one. J. P. Sartre’s writing on colonialism is as damning and also much more detailed.
But now, after decades of huge propaganda injections, everything is ‘forgotten and forgiven’. But is it? Europeans ‘do not know’ what horrors they have been spreading all over the globe. Westerners in general do not know. They are conditioned not to know. They have eliminated almost all ‘comparative thinking’ in their own continent, and simultaneously in their colonies.
People do not know how to compare, anymore. The media and scholars are discouraged from comparing crimes and brutality. It is obvious why. No continent, no culture, committed such monstrous crimes, performed such horrible and unforgiveable deeds, as Western ‘cultures’ and ‘civilizations’. They committed them and they are still busy committing them. Until this very moment!
***
This essay is just a brief reminder of ‘who is speaking’! Who is pointing fingers at Russia right now, and who is demonizing China, and calling true Latin American democracies – ‘dictatorships’.
One feels like paraphrasing an old Communist slogan, and shouting:
“People of the world who still have some brain left – wake up and unite!”
It is clear that the West is on an offensive: it tries to annihilate all dissent that has grown since the destruction of the old multi-polar world.
But a new, perhaps better, multi-polar world has emerged.
Some parts of it are much more informed and educated about the horrific terror that comes with allowing the West to rule over this world, unopposed.
It is not Russia that is ‘on the wrong side of the history’, as Obama recently declared.
It is the West, clearly and patently. And just to say; that it is not good enough… Not good enough, anymore!
Andre Vltchek is a novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His discussion with Noam Chomsky On Western Terrorism is now going to print. His critically acclaimed political novel Point of No Return is now re-edited and available. Oceania is his book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about post-Suharto Indonesia and the market-fundamentalist model is called “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear”. He has just completed the feature documentary, “Rwanda Gambit” about Rwandan history and the plunder of DR Congo. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and Africa. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter.
Friday, March 14, 2014
Ex-CIA Michael Scheuer on Crimea: "Two War Promoting Interventionist Causes — Human Rights and Women’s Rights."
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Referendum in Crimea and International Law
| Alexander MEZYAEV | 14.03.2014 | 09:53 |
On March 16 Crimea is to hold a referendum to define its fate. The decision has evoked an extremely nervous reaction in the West. US President Barack Obama said it violated international law but never adduced any legal arguments to support the statement. (1) The same applies to other statements on this account, they all lack legal substantiations.
The United Nations International Court of Justice handed down an advisory opinion in 2010 saying unambiguously that the unilateral declaration of independence is in accordance with the international law. (2)
A referendum based decision is not a «unilateral declaration of independence». The Court’s ruling was related to the unilateral declaration of independence by illegitimate government of Kosovo and Metohija. In the case of Crimea the government is democratically elected and legitimate. There are no international norms to be violated; such norms simply do not exist.
Some lawyers have started to come up with «legal» substantiations for the Western governments’ statements. But they look to be too hastily prepared to prove anything.
They often say the referendum violates the principle of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Sounds solid enough at first glance, but it has no legal basis. To define what the «principle of territorial integrity» means one should refer toThe Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations adopted by the resolution 2625 (XXV) of the United Nations General Assembly on October 24 1970. Actually the principle of territorial integrity is «deluded» by the principle of the use of force or the threat to use force. So the principle we’re talking about has the following definition, «The principle that States shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations». Its content is as follows, «Every State has the duty to refrain in its international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations. Such a threat or use of force constitutes a violation of international law and the Charter of the United Nations and shall never be employed as a means of settling international issues». (3)
The territorial integrity is recalled in the context of outside intervention. The principle has no relation to the internal politics. The Western politicians are trying to make it look like if there was some principle of territorial integrity which would say that the territory of a state cannot be changed. As one can see for himself, it’s not the case.
If the Western lawyers refer to the 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law, they adopt selective approach. The document contains the principle of non-interference into the internal affairs of states. It is formally called «The principle concerning the duty not to intervene in matters within the domestic jurisdiction of any State, in accordance with the Charter». It goes like this, «No State or group of States has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State. Consequently, armed intervention and all other forms of interference or attempted threats against the personality of the State or against its political, economic and cultural elements, are in violation of international law».
The declaration states clearly that interference cannot be justified no matter what the reasons are or how important it may seem to be for outside forces. «Any» interference and «any» threats are forbidden. Interference and threats - that is exactly what the Western states are doing, for instance, the interference into the affairs of Crimea by obstinately repeating the statements about the referendum being «illegitimate», or threats addressed to Russia. !!!!!
Finally, the very same Declaration contains the principle of self-determination of peoples. It reads, «By virtue of the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, all peoples have the right freely to determine, without external interference, their political status and to pursue their economic, social and cultural development, and every State has the duty to respect this right in accordance with the provisions of the Charter». No interference is mentioned again as the West is constantly meddling into the affairs of Crimea.
Why do they adopt such a selective approach while citing international documents?
It should be noted that no way could Russia’s actions be compared with what the West does - Russia acts upon the invitation of the Ukraine’s legal authority. Here is the mismatch between the international law and what Western politicians say and do, they realize well that the authority which has invited Russia is legal, that’s why the discussion is adroitly made slide to the issue of «legitimacy» which is not a legal, but rather a scientific notion. Talking about the interference into the process of self-determination, then again Russia is invited by the legal authorities. In contrast nobody in Crimea has invited the West. Thus the reference to the 1970 Declaration on International Law does not provide the West with any legal arguments. The West itself is in violation of the document.
Perhaps the Western colleagues, who affirm that the Crimea referendum is «in violation of international law» mean something else? Then why not make it precise? Let’s try to help them.
May be they don’t mean the referendum itself but rather the questions offered for consideration which could breach the international law in case the majority say yes? Perhaps they are afraid that the population of Crimea will support the peninsula’s accession to Russia? But in this case again there will be no violation of international law. The Declaration on the Principles of International Law states, «The establishment of a sovereign and independent State, the free association or integration with an independent State or the emergence into any other political status freely determined by a people constitute modes of implementing the right of self-determination by that people».
Then may be the Western colleagues want to say that the international law is breached because the referendum is held only in Crimea, not the whole Ukraine? Then the question arises, what international legal norm is violated by a referendum held in Crimea only?
May be they are too shy to adduce this argument because they have failed to find an explanation why they were the first to recognize the independence of South Sudan separated from the Republic of Sudan as a result of referendum held only in the south of the country? The referendum was held there under the United Nations aegis. The same applies to the referendum conducted by the United Nations in Eritrea separated from Ethiopia to be universally recognized. Then it should be explained why the West has not declared the referendum to be held in Scotland in September 2014 to be in violation of international law as it will not take place in other regions of Great Britain?
The last hope for Western lawyers is the ruling of Canada’s Supreme Court in 1998 saying the separation of Quebec is impossible on the basis of a referendum held in Quebec only instead of all-Canada vote. This is a great argument but with a string attached: Canada does not rule the world and its court decisions are not part of international law.
So what do Western governments and their lawyers mean when they say the Crimea referendum is «in violation of international law»? The lack of clear-cut definitions and weighty legal arguments is egregious. It proves that they understand well the referendum in Crimea does not violate any whatsoever international legal norms. To the contrary, it’s an example of compliance with international law by the people of Crimea.
(2) www.icj-cij.org
(3) The full definition of the principle is defined by the Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations
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| Tags: UN Crimea |
"Der Westen sollte Wladimir Putin nicht verteufeln" Erhard Eppler in der Süddeutschen
Erhard Eppler in der Süddeutsche Zeitung vom 11. März 2014
Kein russischer Präsident würde geduldig dabei zusehen, wie eine eindeutig
antirussische Regierung in Kiew versucht, die Ukraine in Richtung Nato zu
führen.
Der Westen sollte Wladimir Putin nicht verteufeln, sondern sein Verhalten in der Ukraine-Krise zu verstehen versuchen. Kein russischer Präsident würde geduldig dabei zusehen,wie eine eindeutig antirussische Regierung in Kiew versucht, die Ukraine in Richtung Nato zu führen. In der ukrainischen Regierung sitzen nun Rechtsradikale. Bei uns redet aber niemand darüber. Das schreibt der Minister a.D. Erhard Eppler (SPD) in der Süddeutschen und er fährt fort:
Als die Deutschen in der DDR die Einheit erzwangen und Helmut Kohl darüber mit
Michael Gorbatschow verhandelte, stellte der sowjetische Staatschef, den wir
Deutschen bis heute lieben, eine Bedingung: Die Nato darf nicht weiter vorrücken
als bisher.
Auf dem Gebiet der verschwindenden DDR sollten keine Stützpunkte und
Einrichtungen des westlichen Verteidigungspakts entstehen. Der deutsche
Bundeskanzler Kohl versprach dies. Als dann später Polen und die Tschechische
Republik der Nato beitraten, hatten diese Zugeständnisse keinen Sinn mehr.
Die Ostgrenze Polens wurde die Ostgrenze der Nato. Wer das noch im Kopf hat,
wundert sich nicht über das, was wir jetzt erleben. Ich kann mir nicht
vorstellen, dass jemals ein russischer Präsident, ganz gleich, wie er heißt,
geduldig zusehen würde, wie eine eindeutig antirussische Regierung die Ukraine
in Richtung Nato zu führen versucht, zumal wenn diese Regierung nicht gewählt
ist.
Immerhin war der Kern der Ukraine seit mehr als 300 Jahren Teil des
russischen Zarenreiches. Und die Nato würde diesmal nicht, wie 1990, um 200,
sondern um weitere knapp tausend Kilometer nach Osten vorstoßen, ins Herz
Russlands. Die Nato ist ein Militärbündnis. Solange es Militärbündnisse gibt,
zumal wenn sie unter Führung einer Weltmacht stehen, sind sie auch
Einflusszonen.
Man wende nicht ein, die Nato sei keine antirussische Veranstaltung mehr. Für
die Leute, die jetzt in Kiew regieren, ist sie der Schutzschild gegen das Land,
zu dem die Ukraine seit Menschengedenken gehört hat, ein Schutzschild der
amerikanischen Einflusszone, in der die US-Geheimdienste die Regierung ausspähen
können, mögen die Gazetten noch so schäumen. Die Einkreisungsängste in Moskau
mögen übertrieben sein - besser begründet als einst die deutschen um 1900 sind
sie allemal.
Es war Otto von Bismarck, der von Außenpolitikern vor allem die Fähigkeit verlangte, sich in die Schuhe des anderen, des Kontrahenten zu versetzen, zu verstehen, warum er so
denkt und handelt, vielleicht so handeln muss. Man muss schon sehr mächtig sein,
wenn man ohne diese Tugend auskommen will. Die USA sind es, vielleicht. Wir in
Europa sind es sicher nicht.
Wir müssen auf einem Kontinent mit Russland leben und können uns die russischen
Präsidenten auch künftig nicht backen. Wer versucht, Bismarcks Forderung gerecht
zu werden, kommt nicht auf die Idee, die jetzige Krise allein aus dem Charakter
des Wladimir Putin zu erklären. Wahrscheinlich werden Historiker einmal
urteilen, es sei eben unmöglich gewesen, eine Ukraine von Lemberg bis Charkow
mit Millionen russischen Bürgern unversehrt in eine westliche Allianz zu führen.
Auch ich möchte nicht so regiert werden, wie Putin Russland regiert. Aber dieser
Putin will und muss Russland, nicht Deutschland regieren. Und dieses Russland
besteht nicht nur aus St. Petersburg und Moskau, sondern aus einer fast
unendlichen Fläche mit Tausenden Dörfern und Kleinstädten. Die Bauern und
Kleinbürger dort - sie bilden die Mehrheit im Land - wollen nach allem, was wir
Deutschen in Russland angerichtet und was die Kommunisten an Chaos hinterlassen
haben, vor allem Ordnung. Dann wollen sie Arbeit und Brot - und schließlich ein starkes Russland, damit nicht noch einmal 20 Millionen Landsleute dran glauben müssen, weil ein
Verrückter Mütterchen Russland überfällt. Von dieser Mehrheit ist Putin gewählt.
Und im Interesse dieser Mehrheit handelt er. Diese Mehrheit kann sehr wohl
unterscheiden zwischen einem Josef Stalin, der mit kleinen Haken hinter
unzähligen Namen Zehntausende erschießen ließ, und einem Putin, der inzwischen
auch seinen schärfsten Gegner, Michail Chodorkowskij, aus dem Gefängnis
entlassen hat - in das er allerdings nach unseren Vorstellungen von Rechtsstaat
wohl nie gekommen wäre.
Krim-Krise Umstrittene Halbinsel
Dass die provisorische Regierung der Ukraine keine ausreichende Legitimation hat, die Zukunft des Landes zu bestimmen, ist rechtlich so einleuchtend wie das Pochen des Westens auf die Unversehrtheit des Territoriums der Ukraine. Aber die Weltgeschichte ist
kein Amtsgericht. Wir Deutschen haben immer auf unser Selbstbestimmungsrecht
Wert gelegt. Haben die Russen auf der Krim dieses Recht nicht? Muss das, was der
Diktator Nikita Chruschtschow 1954 aus Laune dekretiert hat, auch gelten, wenn
die Ukraine sich gegen jenes Russland stellt, dem die Mehrheit der Krimbewohner
sich verbunden fühlt?
Was die russische Propaganda über die "Faschisten" in der ukrainischen Regierung
zu sagen hat, ist offenkundig übertrieben. Ist dies aber ein Grund dafür, dass
wir im Westen fast nichts darüber hören? Ich weiß bis heute nicht, wie viele
Mitglieder der provisorischen Regierung Rechtsradikale sind, obwohl ich seit
Tagen die Zeitungen danach absuche. Ich habe nur ein Radio-Interview gehört, als
Janukowitsch bereits verschwunden war. Da erklärte einer der ganz Rechten, sie
seien der harte Kern der Aufstandsbewegung gewesen, und nun gingen sie nicht
nach Hause, ehe ihre Leute in der Regierung seien.
So ist es auch gekommen, dass in dieser Regierung auch Leute sind, die einen
Mann als Helden verehren, der mit Wehrmacht und SS gegen die Sowjetarmee
gekämpft hat, das kommt natürlich in Moskau anders an als in Kiew. Sicher ist, dass
es ausgeprägte Antisemiten in dieser Regierung gibt. Da sind wir Deutschen doch
aus guten Gründen sensibel.
Kurzfristig sind Wahlen notwendig
In diesem Fall kommt noch etwas dazu: Könnte es sich da um die Enkel jener
Ukrainer handeln, die seinerzeit freiwillig der SS bei der Judenhatz geholfen
haben? Nicht alles, was die Russen übertreiben, muss in Deutschland im Nebel
bleiben. Seit der Antike prallen auf der Krim die Kulturen aufeinander - manchmal friedlich, meist mit Gewalt.
Wer auch immer womit recht hat, jetzt kommt es darauf an, dass wir uns nicht immer tiefer in diese Krise hineinbohren, in der wir ohnehin schlechte Karten haben. Kurzfristig - auch wenn es ein paar Wochen dauern kann, sind Wahlen in der Ukraine nötig.
In Kiew brauchen wir eine Regierung, deren Legitimität unantastbar ist, eine,
die aus freien Wahlen in der ganzen Ukraine hervorgegangen ist. Dann kann auch
Putin sich nicht mehr weigern, mit der Ukraine zu sprechen. Sobald ein
Wahltermin feststeht, kann man wohl mit Putin über ein Stillhalten reden, wenn
nicht für die Krim, dann doch für die Ostukraine.
Langfristig sehe ich nur eine weniger konfliktträchtige Perspektive: dass die
Europäische Union ein so enges Verhältnis zu Russland findet, ökonomisch und
politisch, dass Russland keinen Anlass mehr hat, der Ukraine Vergleichbares übel
zu nehmen. Dabei müsste allerdings immer klar sein: Die Ukraine tritt nicht der
Nato bei. Jedenfalls nicht, ehe Russland dies tut.
11. März 2014 10:41 Süddeutsche Zeitung
Erhard Eppler, 87, war von 1968 bis 1974 Entwicklungshilfeminister und bis 1992
Mitglied der Grundwertekommission der SPD.
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