By Emmanuel Neretse
Brussels, Belgium
March 09, 2022
Autopsy of a unidimensional world and parallelism between the war of conquest of Rwanda by the Tutsi elements of the Regular Army of Uganda (1990-1994) and the military intervention of Russia in Ukraine in February 2022.
The news at the beginning
of 2022 is dominated and even saturated by the military operation that the
Russian Army is conducting in Ukraine. But for those who lived the war of
conquest of Rwanda by the Tutsi elements of the Ugandan Army from 1990 to 1994,
they can be struck by the similarity in the diplomatic management, and in their
interpretation according to the International Law and especially in the
treatment of the information concerning these two conflicts. It is this
parallelism that we will attempt to establish.
The geopolitical context
of the current conflict
This conflict is in line
with the post-World War II Cold War, which resulted in the existence of two
military alliances that looked at each other like earthenware dogs.
NATO and Warsaw Pact
military alliances
The North Atlantic Treaty
Organization is the political-military organization established by the
signatories of the North Atlantic Treaty to fulfill their collective security
and defense obligations. It is most often referred to by its acronym NATO. The
text of this treaty was signed on April 4, 1949.
The Alliance was created
in the general context of the beginning of the Cold War and more specifically
during the Soviet blockade of Berlin. Its initial vocation was to ensure the
security of Western Europe by establishing a strong coupling with the United
States, the only way in the eyes of Europeans after the Second World War to
protect themselves against any expansionist attempt by the USSR.
Between 1955 and 1991,
NATO's designated adversary was the Warsaw Pact formed by the Soviets following
the accession of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) to the Atlantic Alliance
and its rearmament.
Since the dissolution of
the USSR and the end of the Cold War in 1991, NATO has endured despite the
disappearance of its original main purpose. It has even expanded to include
former Eastern Bloc countries and former republics of the Soviet Union.
The Warsaw Pact is a
former military alliance grouping the countries of Eastern Europe with the USSR
in a vast economic, political, and military bloc. It was concluded on May 14,
1955, between most of the communist countries of the Soviet bloc by a treaty of
friendship, cooperation, and mutual assistance. Nikita Kroutchev, who was the
architect of the Warsaw Pact, had conceived it within the framework of the cold
war as a counterweight to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which
had been created in April 1949, thus 6 years before.
The Warsaw Pact alliance
was dissolved in July 1991.
The collapse of the USSR
With the fall of the
Berlin Wall in 1989, the USSR collapsed and the republics that made it up
became independent states in their own right, to the great satisfaction of the
Western camp dominated by the United States of America, which had thus won the
"cold war" without having fired a single shot. Russia weakened and
humiliated, turned inward, and accepted its status as a Third World country,
executing the political will to the letter and swallowing Washington's vision
of the world without question. But this submission was to start being
questioned by some Russians after the accession to power of a certain Vladimir
Putin in 2000.
Under Vladimir Putin,
Russia will gradually begin to emancipate itself from the world order imposed
by the West, despite the fact that it had thrown itself into it with its eyes
closed with globalization. It is this awareness of its power (Russia, even
weakened, remains the 2nd nuclear power in the world), coupled with the
arrogance and control of the West (USA) over the world through the trap of
globalization, that has led to the current crisis.
The situation of Ukraine
in relation to Russia
Ukraine was one of the
Soviet republics that made up the USSR. It became an autonomous state after the
collapse of the USSR. But Ukraine, unlike other former Soviet republics, is coupled
with Russia in its eastern part. Moreover, it is inhabited by a large community
of Russian-speaking people who feel first of all as Russians and not as
Ukrainians, a nation that does not exist because it was created from scratch.
In addition, some regions of Russia (like Crimea) had been administratively
attached to Ukraine during the USSR for administrative convenience.
But the Ukrainian regime
that took power after the collapse of the USSR, to please the new masters of
the world (the West-USA), annexed these regions and relegated the Russian
speakers to second-class citizens, and persecuted them to the point that some
analysts dare to speak of "genocide" against the Russian-speaking people
of Ukraine.
Russia's concerns
And as if this
persecution of Russian-speaking people in Ukraine was not enough, a comedian
and clown who became president of this country, hastened to ask that his
country be admitted into the European Union, but especially, into NATO.
This last request, which
was to be granted (as a member of NATO), would mean that American nuclear
missiles would be installed in Ukraine, thus on the border with Russia, towards
which they would be pointed. When one remembers that in 1961 when the USSR
wanted to install nuclear missiles in Cuba, which was located hundreds of
kilometers from the US nearest state, Florida, the same USA declared this act a
"casus belli" and that everyone understood this and the sites were
withdrawn, one can understand the emotion of Russia, which sees the same United
States coming to install nuclear warheads on its doorstep. It is for any
Russian an existential threat and the red line had been crossed.
The conflict in Ukraine
is a good illustration of the consequences of economic and media globalization
since February 2022
To illustrate the
situation in the light of the globalization that has ruled the world for three
decades, we will be brief at the risk of appearing caricatural since a long
development would require entire books.
-On the media front
The Western media say
nothing about the reasons for the war as put forward by both sides. And it
seems that the Russian version is systematically censored and that even the
media that could relay it are banned in the West: TV channel RT.
As for the balance of
losses, while claiming that the Russian Army is superior in numbers and
equipment, the Western media only announce Russian losses, minimizing those of
the Ukrainian Army.
The government of Ukraine
is distributing weapons to the civilian population and its army is training
ordinary citizens to handle devices normally used by terrorists such as Molotov
cocktails. The Western press is ecstatic, shouting about the "heroism and
patriotism" of the Ukrainians.
This campaign is called
"self-defense measures of the population" and is highly publicized as
a campaign to support.
Even more, when these
fighters die in combat with weapons in hand, for the same Western media, they
become again "civilians, women and children..." executed by the
Russian Army!
Non-Ukrainian foreigners
(French, Swedes, and other Europeans...) enlist in Ukraine supposedly as
fighters of the "International Brigades" who went there to defend
Ukraine. The Western press presents them as "heroes and freedom
fighters" while legally they are only mercenaries to be denounced as they
do for the Russian group Wagner.
-On the economic level
The economic world under
the domination of the USA through globalization has imposed heavy sanctions on
Russia, but their justification is not obvious for those who follow the
situation. But with regards to the banking system, since all the means of
payment have been centralized in the hands of the Super-Power through
globalization, into which the countries have thrown themselves with closed eyes
after 1989, this Super-Power brandishes and uses this weapon at will.
-On the diplomatic front
All
diplomatic levers were activated to condemn Russia. Given the fact that at the
UN Security Council no resolution condemning Russia can pass because Russia has
the right of veto, the Western powers resorted to the UN General Assembly (over
180 states) to vote to condemn Russia. Even if the resolutions of the General
Assembly are not binding, the Western powers wanted to show the world opinion
that Russia was isolated and had become a pariah in the world, while some
states (banana republics in Africa, Asia, or Latin America) voted for the
resolution unwillingly, not even daring to abstain.
The specter of the 1990-1994 war of conquest in Rwanda
For anyone who has lived
through the situation in Rwanda since 1990, the similarity with what is
happening between Ukraine and Russia is striking and even disturbing.
-On the media front
On October 1, 1990, when
the Tutsi elements of the regular army of Uganda under the command of the
Deputy Minister of Defense of that country, General Fred Rwigyema, invaded
Rwanda, the world press, relaying the theses of the powers that incited this
aggression, vied with one another to justify this aggression. The word of the
Gospel to be proclaimed was that they were refugees returning to their country
of origin. Even the UNHCR was instructed to admit that a member of a country's
government or an officer in its army still enjoyed the status of "refugee"
in relation to the country of origin of his parents. Moreover, the same UNHCR
admitted that in the case of Rwanda a Tutsi element of the Ugandan Army
remained a "refugee" and that he could return to the country of
origin of his parents or great-grandparents, by force, while remaining under
the protection of the same UNHCR according to the 1951 Convention!
When in 1992-93 the
command of the FAR, seeing the infiltrations of the RPF through the zones not
held by the military units, suggested distributing weapons to some inhabitants to
launch alerts in case of enemy infiltration, the world press, and later the
accusers before the ICTR presented this fact as a proof of "planning and
execution of the genocide plan"! The same measures applied today in
Ukraine are qualified by the same press and the same justice as "just and
heroic" while in Rwanda the same measures of civil self-defense were and
still are qualified as "genocidal".
-On the diplomatic front
Since the first day of
the war in Ukraine, these same powers have been taking action almost daily in
international bodies to have Russia condemned. Some initiatives succeeded (UN
General Assembly) while others failed (Security Council). On the other hand, in
Rwanda, which was attacked in October 1990, enormous pressure was exerted by
these same powers on the legitimate government of Rwanda to dissuade it from
lodging a complaint against the invader, namely Uganda, whose Tutsi elements of
its Army were invading the sovereign and neighboring country of Rwanda. This
pressure was to intensify until the Arusha Agreements, which granted the
invaders almost all the political and military power in the country.
Currently, all the
Western powers are competing to provide Ukraine with weapons and other military
materials. When we remember that from the first day of the invasion of Rwanda
by the Tutsi elements of the regular army of Uganda on October 01, 1990, these
same powers have not only hastened to impose an embargo on the arms to the
attacked Rwanda but also refused to deliver the equipment that was already
ordered and paid. We can only be
surprised by the duplicity of these powers.
Conclusion
-This conflict in Ukraine
marks, without a doubt, the end of an era and the beginning of a new era that
puts an end to the order established in 1989.
-This new era holds for
Africa in general, and Rwanda in particular, an uncertain future for those who
were and still are the fruit of this old order that is coming to an end,
including the RPF of Kagame in Rwanda.
-The era that is
beginning will be marked mainly by the questioning of the globalization that
was established after the end of the Cold War. The powers that threw themselves
into it with their eyes closed are beginning to see its effects, particularly
that they are at the mercy of the Super-Power that can asphyxiate them
economically and financially without any further effort but simply by signing a
decree imposing its sanctions, sitting in the Oval Office.
From the same series:
Ukraine, everything was
written in the Rand Corporation's plan
Donbass by Anne-Laure Bonnel (2015): "What the media won't show you."
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