2023-04-27 08:50:30
Title of the meeting, inspired by Russia: For effective multilateralism through the defense of the principles of the UN Charter.
According to an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, there have been a complete hypocritical circus. Lavrov chaired a UN Security Council, while justifying war, massacres, total destruction
.
The spectacle of a Security Council headed by one country having invaded another and whose President is being prosecuted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes inevitably produces such scathing commentary and fuels cynicism.
It seriously damages the credibility of the UN, of international organizations and of what is called the multilateralism
this cooperation organized between States officially in the service of peace, cooperation and development.
A famous but different precedent
Such a scandal is not without precedent. Russia is not the first power, historically, to have ignored the major principles and prerogatives of the UN, doing its own thing to go and invade a sovereign country, while claiming to advance the international order.
We can recall that in 2003 – just 20 years ago – the United States invaded Iraq using pretexts, flouting the UN and multiplying the lies regarding the famous weapons of mass destruction
the Saddam Hussein.
That said, even though the United States has sown horror and destruction in Iraq, with lasting humanitarian and geopolitical consequences, there are important differences with the cirque
current.
First of all, in Iraq, it was not a war of territorial conquest and annexation, like the invasion of Ukraine. Russia formally annexed four Ukrainian provinces last September. Even though it’s a legal fiction
and that it does not correspond to the military situation on the ground, the Russians said so and they did so. The intention and the gesture were clear.
And then, 20 years ago, the Bush administration had not pushed hypocrisy – as Sergei Lavrov has just done in New York in his speech on multilateralism and the UN Charter which must be defended – to the point of claiming these principles to justify themselves.
Iraqi civilians and American soldiers pull down a statue of Saddam Hussein in downtown Baghdad. The photo is from April 9, 2003.
Photo : Associated Press / Jerome Delay
On the contrary, Bush and his acolytes had spat on the UN and defied the contrary opinions put forward in a multilateral framework: one thinks of the famous speech by the Frenchman Dominique de Villepin at the Security Council to warn the Americans once morest thehistorical error
they were regarding to commit in Iraq.
Bush had then decreed that classic multilateralism, the UN and all these things, were outdated and that to go and do good in the world, export democracy
as his advisers said, the time was rather for ad hoc coalitions, depending on the circumstances, like that of the Americans with Tony Blair, the Briton, with the Spaniards, the Portuguese and a few others.
How is it possible?
How can Russia end up at the head of the Security Council and lead a debate on peace and multilateralism, while its army is looting and demolishing Ukraine?
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres
Photo : Getty Images / Michael M. Santiago
It’s the coincidence of the calendar. The machinery of the UN continues to function, with deadlines fixed in concrete, even if it runs on empty and sometimes gives a deplorable, even revolting spectacle, in the face of the real perils of the world.
Hence this crisis of multilateralism, which Secretary General Antonio Guterres explicitly recognized when he spoke at this meeting, seated near Lavrov in the Security Council.
While scouring Russia for sowing misfortune and destruction in Ukraine
Guterres also said that the multilateral system has never been under such pressure since the creation of the United Nations
.
But this system continues to function mechanically, the meetings follow one another and, as it happens, the presidency of the Council rotates every month between its 15 Member States.
It does not matter whether it is a democracy like Japan or Brazil, currently in the Council, or a totalitarian state like China. It does not matter whether this country is currently at peace or in a state of war. It doesn’t matter if he’s a bad
or one kind
everyone has a turn at the chair.
An opportunity for propaganda
Russia wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to put forward its point of view, to attempt a propaganda stunt, since one of the privileges of the leadership of the Council is to be able to impose themes and topics for discussion.
The West has provided more than 221.4 billion Canadian dollars in aid to Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion, including 96 billion in the military field, according to NATO.
Photo: The Canadian Press/Roman Chop
Lavrov therefore denounced what he calls the hypocrisy of Westerners, with their past crimes and their claims to export their values to the whole world. And the fact is that there is a certain public receptive to this point of view in international opinion, and in the bodies of the UN.
And even if Lavrov was pilloried, following his speech, by the American, French and British representatives who denounced a shameless propaganda
.
The Russians are not alone in believing that Western hegemonism and US imperialism, embodied in organizations like NATO, are the real culprits for what is wrong with the world.
This meeting will therefore have enabled Russia to denounce its adversaries and have its version of the story put forward. A version that makes the West the real aggressor, claiming – because Lavrov went so far as to say that – thattoday, the real subject is not Ukraine
but the question of hegemonism, imperialism, and the diversity of points of view!
Defense of diversity
It is all the same quite extraordinary to hear Russia defending the diversity of points of view internationally when dissent is repressed internally as Vladimir Putin does, as much if not more than at the time of the USSR! When we think of the 25 years in prison inflicted on dissident Vladimir Kara-Mourza on April 17 for simply criticizing the war in Ukraine.
Vladimir Kara-Murza in a Moscow court cell in October 2022.
Photo : Getty Images / Natalia Kolesnikova / AFP
Even if this Russian, anti-American and anti-imperialist discourse has echoes in the world, we must still remember that the UN General Assembly voted three times, and clearly, resolutions condemning the invasion of Ukraine, and calling on Russian troops to withdraw immediately.
The last vote, in February, was 141 votes for, 7 votes once morest and 32 abstentions. Even if these rare allies and these three dozen abstaining countries are few in number, there are two heavyweights like China and India.
China and Russia: increasingly converging lines
China, whose representative, at this famous meeting of the Security Council on April 24, agreed with Russia: We are once morest the distortion by some countries of the meaning of international law and the imposition of their own will on the international community.
In March, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated in Moscow the closeness of their views on the world order.
Photo : Getty Images / AFP / SERGEI KARPUKHIN
Because beyond the theoretical support for the sovereignty of States, including those of Ukraine, there are other considerations that take precedence for China: the deep friendship with Russia, reiterated by President Xi Jinping in Moscow last month, the common confrontation of these two countries with the West, be it political, ideological, and even economic. And an increasingly convergent reading of international relations.
This episode shows, once once more, that in the international arena, the Chinese line is slowly approaching the Russian line.
And within the confines of the Security Council, once once more: a dialogue of the deaf, a constant mutual blockade. And the realization of a authoritarian bloc
Russian-Chinese in the fight once morest a democratic bloc
. A confrontation of which the UN in permanent crisis is the theater and the reflection.
With dictatorships which today, with hypocrisy and opportunism, come to give lessons in pluralism to the free world
!
1682589946
#hypocritical #circus #Security #Council #Russian #presidency #War #Ukraine
