BRICS: SUPPORT FOR PUTIN
Brazil, India, China and South Africa protest against Australia’s proposal to exclude Putin from the G20 meeting
By Wolfgang Pomrehn
[This article published 3/25/2014 is translated from the German on the Internet,
http://www.heise.de/tp/news/BRICS-Unterstuetzung-fuer-Putin-2153704.html.]
In the conflict with Russia, the NATO states are again acting as the world conscience. But the world looks a little different outside North America and Eurasia’s western-most corner. In the middle of March 2014 Brazil, India, China and South Africa that with Russia form the BRICS alliance [1] spoke against excluding Russia’s president Vladimir Putin from the G20 summit that will meet in November 2014 in Brisbane, Australia. [2] Australia’s foreign minister said Putin should not be allowed to enter the country. The foreign ministers of the BRICS states that met in the Haag in a conference on nuclear security protested against that and pointed out Australia could not decide this alone.
China was formally neutral in the vote on the Crimea resolution in the UN Security Council. Beijing (Peking) obviously tries to support Russia without being too estranged from the West. In his very readable speech before the two houses of the Russian parliament, Putin explicitly thanked China on the occasion of the incorporation of Crimea. [3] He did not mention any other country.
India’s government even went a step further than its Chinese neighbor in speaking of “legitimate Russian interests.” [4] The country was a de-facto ally of the Soviet Union and maintained close relations to the Russian Federation. One commentator of the Indian news portal First Post referred to the fact [5] that without the Soviet help India could hardly have won the 1971 war against Pakistan that led to its independence. In other cases Russia assisted India and protected India from international isolation.
Now it is time for India to help Russia. The long silence of its government should not be understood as support of the “ganging of western nations against Russia.” If the sanctions are intensified, India will aid Russia. Apart from that, the trade between India and the Ukraine is negligible. Still there are many agreements between the two countries. This has to do with the role played by Ukraine for Russia…
The BRICS countries represent 42 percent of the world’s population and a quarter of the global economic output. The Russian government has already announced [6] building trade relations with these partners in the case of sanctions of the NATO states. The Voice of Russia indicates [7] the BRICS states together prevented escalation in Syria. BRICS has priority for Russian foreign policy.
Links:
[1]
http://www.brics5.co.za/ [2]
http://www.dnaindia.com/world/report-bric-countries-oppose-ban-on-vladimir-putin-attending-g20-summit-1971940 [3]
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26652058 [4]
http://thediplomat.com/2014/03/india-backs-russias-legitimate-interests-in-ukraine/ [5]
http://www.firstpost.com/world/russia-in-crimea-early-end-to-ukraine-crisis-will-be-in-indias-interest-1419617.html [6]
http://rt.com/op-edge/russia-switches-to-brics-sanctions-357/ [7]
http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_02_26/BRICS-is-priority-for-Russian-foreign-policy-and-way-to-shape-multipolar-world-Russias-diplomat-5870/ ACCORDING TO HUBRIS
Recalling International Law
By Alexander S. Neu
[This article published on 3/25/14 is translated from the German on the Internet,
http://www.jungewelt.de/2014/03-25/034.php.]
Yugoslavia war, Iraq invasion, Libya intervention – breaches of international law of the “western value community” committed in the delusion of hubris are now getting their revenge. Non-western states, concretely Russia, use the precedents to enforce their own geo-strategic interests. The danger of the further erosion of international law exists. Therefore the West must urgently rethink and reflect again on international law in the context of a multipolar world order. The critical self-reflection of western legal nihilism is a first step – the open admission of having committed massive legal offenses and of having degraded other states and their people to a controllable mass for their interest policy.
However the condemnation orgies against Russia are not signs of this insight. Why is that? The hubris is not rational but the result of a pathological conceitedness. How local media uncritically fuel this is astonishing. The so-called fourth branch fails more miserably in foreign- and security-policy than in domestic policy. Journalists stylize themselves as media military strategists and field commanders instead of meeting their obligations for information processing.
The behavior patterns of the SPD and the Greens testify to where they stand, where they stood and where they will stand. It is refreshing that discharged politicians like Gerhard Schroeder, Gunter Verheugen and Antje Vollmer speak truthfully. But did they do this when they were still in office? That was rather unlikely. Whoever wants to become something in this country must play along on the keyboard of imperialism.
Whether Moscow’s decision with regard to the Crimea will further erode international law or lead to a new buoyancy will depend on the responsibility of the West, not on Russia. Will the West react to the concrete multipolar world order by recalling international law or turn back the clock to unipolarity with brutal force? In the case of the West recalling international law, Russia’s decision to take over the Crimea could ironically be something good for the international legal order in an indirect way. International law is either valid for everyone or for no one.
The left is called to champion a system of mutual collective security together with Russia. All reflections on transforming the war alliance NATO into a security collective negate the opposing character of a security collective and an intervention alliance. NATO should dissolve.
REACTIONS TO PUTIN SPEECH
By Arnold Schoelzel
[This article “Neue Europaer” published on 3/20/14 is translated from the German on the Internet,
http://www.jungewelt.de/2014/03-20/036.php.]
There was nothing new in the West on the day after the Russian president’s speech on the new East-West conflict. German export industry warned that politics should “carefully consider” the consequences of sanctions. Putin made an offer for rational conduct that seemed acceptable to cooler heads. The demand for ending the crisis and stable controllable relations with Moscow seems greater in the German chancellor’s office than the offers on the political market. Berlin wants stability at a very reasonable price and is afraid of a breach with those who want to make the conflict uncontrollable.
According to their wild anti-Russian rhetoric, German Greens and most western media, the US administration and east European states belong to Defense Secretary’s Donald Rumsfeld’s 2003 label “new Europe.” That was devised as a term for readiness to join the “coalition of the willing” in the Iraq war. The “new” is defined first of all by Russophobia and includes the official consecration of the local collaborators of the fascist German war of destruction against the Soviet Union and against the Slovakian people as freedom-fighters. Whoever loves fascists marches into every war with the supposedly only superpower… People love the breach of international law and the murder of Africans and Arabs.
Among the new Europeans, the anti-Moscovite hysteria stands in an irrational relation to actual actions. The rulers are joyfully playing with fire by which Washington can warm itself. On Wednesday US Vice-president Joseph Biden announced to the Baltic governors who nominally belong to the EU that military cooperation would be expanded. Additional US combat aircraft are already in the region.
That is not enough for the goal of permanently weakening Russia. Experience from Kosovo to the Libya- and Syria-war teaches that warriors for world domination need an indigenous ground troops to realize their “further development” of international law. In the Ukraine a gang of murderers formed since February 22, 2014, the day of the Kiev coup de etat, with open state support. On Wednesday the fascist military “Common Cause” announced it would clear the Maidan and begin training for the partisan war. It is not the only one. The bill will be presented in Berlin to the “new Europe” at some future time.