Review of World Affairs (RWA)
By Shashi P.B.B. Malla
Pakistan Parliament Dissolved
Pakistan’s President Arif Ali dissolved parliament on Sunday at the request of Prime Minister Imran Khan. With this tactical move, Khan side-stepped a pending no-confidence motion at the National Assembly, the law-making lower house of Parliament (AP/Associated Press, April 3).
Khan defended his action by accusing his political opponents of working hand in glove with the United States to overthrow his government.
Khan claims that the U.S. wants him removed from office over his foreign policy choices that favour China and Russia. Formerly a darling of the West, the former dashing cricket captain evolved into a strident opponent of America’s war on terror and Pakistan’s own partnership in that very war.
Pakistan’s powerful military – which has directly ruled the country for more than half of its 75-history – had remained silent through much of the present political infighting.
Now, Army Chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa has distanced the military from allegations of a US-backed conspiracy, saying Pakistan wants good relations with both China and the U.S.
Pakistan’s constitution calls for the establishment of an interim government to see through the country towards national elections, which would have to be held within 90 days. According to the constitution, the interim government should be established with input from the opposition. With Khan’s current frame of mind, this is highly unlikely. The country is, therefore, headed for political turmoil.
The deputy speaker of parliament threw out the opposition’s no-confidence motion after Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry accused the opposition of colluding with a foreign power [i.e. the U.S.] to stage “regime change”.
The opposition has labelled the deputy speaker’s decision illegal and has called on the Supreme Court to squash it.
The opposition was all set to vote Khan out of office. They needed just a simple majority of 172 votes in Pakistan’s 342-seat parliament to unseat him. Khan’s small but key coalition partners along with 17 of his own party members would have joined the opposition to oust him.
Pakistan’s main opposition parties, whose ideologies span the spectrum from left to right to radically religious, have been rallying for Khan’s ouster almost since he was elected in 2018.
Intense Protests Roil Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka faces huge foreign debt obligations and dwindling foreign exchange reserves, and its struggle to pay for imports has caused a lack of basic supplies.
People wait in long lines for cooking gas, and power is cut for several hours daily because there is not enough fuel to operate power plants and dry weather has sapped hydro-power capacity.
The island nation’s economic woes are blamed on a failure of successive governments to diversify exports, instead of relying on traditional income sources like tea, garments and tourism and on a culture of consuming imported goods [the latter also being one of Nepal’s deadly sins].
Last Sunday, Opposition lawmakers and ordinary people angered by the government’s handling of Sri Lanka’s worst economic crisis in decades marched to denounce the president’s move to impose a nationwide curfew and state of emergency, as protests over food and fuel shortages escalated.
Internet users were also unable to access Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WhatsApp, and other social media platforms for nearly 15 hours Sunday after authorities blocked access (AP/Associated Press, April 3).
The platforms have been used to organize protests calling for President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign, saying he is responsible for the country’s deepening economic malaise.
Apparently, due to the growing criticism, access to social media was later restored.
The economic crisis has hit people from all walks of life. Middle-class professionals and business people who would normally not take part in street protests have been holding night rallies with candles and placards in many parts of the country.
Sri Lanka’s largest opposition party, the United People’s Force, rejected an invitation from President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to form a unity government, as protests continued throughout the country over its worst economic crisis in memory.
Over deepening mistrust, in the president’s leadership, all 26 Cabinet ministers handed in their resignations, except for older brother, PM Mahinda Rajapaksa, but including two other brothers and a nephew.
The spokesman of the largest opposition party noted: “The people of this country want Gotabaya and the entire Rajapaksa family to go and we can’t go against the people’s will and we can’t work alongside the corrupt” (AP, April 4).
Ukraine Must Repulse Russia but Needs Offensive Weapons
Russia and Ukraine in the Turkish capital Ankara led to some guarded optimism, but it is still far too early to talk about any genuine progress toward peace (Atlantic Council/Eurasia Center: Alyona Getmanchuk).
In fact, all indications on the ground point to Russian preparations for major new offensives in Eastern and southern Ukraine.
With the outcome of Putin’s war of choice very much in doubt, it is astounding that Western powers are still dilly-dallying about delivering effective weapons to Ukraine. After all, this will facilitate Putin’s decisive defeat.
The brutal invasion – or “special military operation” according to Putin – is a challenge to the entire international order and the structure of the United Nations and cannot be allowed to succeed, even partly.
A compromise settlement would provide only illusionary relief and the democratic world must, therefore, impose crushing costs on the Kremlin, i.e. Hydra’s head must be cut off permanently and decisively!
The economic sanctions must be implemented much more rigorously and Ukraine must be supplied with upgraded weapons to allow it to complete the work of defeating Russia on the battlefield.
It is not only fighting for its very survival but in the next instance also protecting the European Union (EU) and NATO and by extension also for the norms and rules of international law.
This terrible war is already in its second month and there is still lingering doubt in many Western countries that Ukraine needs far greater quantities, not only of defensive weapons but also lethal ones, if Ukraine is to win the conventional war. This means tanks, artillery and multiple launch systems.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently offered some insight into the scale of the weapons shortfall when he stated that Ukraine typically uses one week of international weapons deliveries within less than 24 hours. This is absolutely not sustainable in a strenuous campaign against a military superpower.
All the arguments are in favour of increasing arms shipments to Ukraine, but the Western powers are still hesitating unnecessarily. There are longstanding Western fears of provoking Putin. Now he is even using “nuclear blackmail”. “In reality, nothing is more likely to provoke Putin into further escalations than leaving Ukraine isolated and unarmed” (Getmanchuk).
Some observers argue that the international emphasis should currently be on humanitarian rather than military support. This is extremely short-sighted and fails to recognize that the two issues cannot be meaningfully separated given the context of the current conflict with Putin’s brutal scorched earth tactics. Thus, the quickest way to end the humanitarian crisis is to end Putin’s “special military operation”.
For those in the know, Putin and his Russia are no longer “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” [Churchill on Russia, 1939]. Putin has revealed himself as a cold-blooded war criminal, capable even of genocide.
The only measure that will realistically stop Putin in Ukraine is swift political decisions in the West to provide Ukraine quickly with a wide range of sufficient offensive weapons.
It is futile to expect Ukrainian concessions at the negotiating table to satisfy Putin, who is the sole decision-maker. Such defeatist thinking would more likely encourage the megalomaniac to further acts of aggression in Ukraine and beyond.
The West can only trust Putin at its own peril. He remains ‘dedicated’ to the destruction of Ukrainian sovereignty and Ukrainian national identity and refuses to accept Ukraine’s right to exist independently of Russia. He must be stopped in his tracks!
Russia in Retreat?
Kremlin officials announced plans to withdraw troops from the Kyiv region in what is widely seen as tacit recognition of Russia’s failure to seize the Ukrainian capital.
The Russian retreat from Kyiv is the strongest signal to date that Vladimir Putin’s war is not going according to plan.
Russia’s Deputy Defence Minister Alexander Fomin confirmed that Moscow intends to “drastically reduce military activity in the direction of Kyiv and Chernihiv.” In an apparent attempt to save face [above all: Putin’s], Fomin said the move was aimed at “increasing trust, creating the right conditions for future negotiations, and reaching the final goal of signing a peace deal with Ukraine.” [!]
Colonel-General Sergei Rudskoy, the first deputy chief of Russia’s General Staff made a similarly face-saving statement when he declared that Russia would henceforth focus its military efforts on the “liberation” of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region while claiming somewhat implausibly that it was never actually Russia’s intention to capture Kyiv and other major Ukrainian cities.
The Kremlin’s attempts to move the goalposts are unlikely to fool defence experts who question the motives behind Moscow’s recent declarations. Lt.Gen. Ben Hodges, the former commander of US Forces in Europe commented: “obviously they have completely failed in everything they’ve set out to do and so now they are redefining what the purpose is so they can declare victory.”
Unfortunately, the retreating Russian army is leaving a massive trail of wanton death and destruction in its wake. The Western powers have a great responsibility to take immediate and decisive action to stop Putin.
He has been thwarted every step of the way in Ukraine with his imperial ambitions. Mikhail Fishman, the former host of a political talk show on TV Rain, the now-shuttered Russian independent television network said Putin would suffer the same fate as Russian leaders who started what they wrongly anticipated would be short, victorious wars – like Czar Nicholas II against Japan and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He anticipated: “He will lose Russia because of Ukraine” (NYT, April 4).
According to Fiona Hill, an adviser to three U.S. presidents, in his wanton destruction of Ukraine, he is punishing its 44 million citizens, because he considers them traitors for not falling into his misguided vision of Russki Mir (Russian World).
Russians Accused of Committing Atrocities
Ukrainian and European officials expressed outrage on Sunday at what they said were terrible atrocities committed by retreating [and frustrated] Russian forces near the capital Kyiv before they withdrew from the region to focus their attacks elsewhere (Reuters, April 3).
The mayor of Bucha, a town 37 km northwest of the capital said on Saturday that 300 residents had been brutally executed during a month-long occupation by the Russian army. Victims were either dumped in a mass grave or were still lying on the streets [some with their hands tied behind their backs].
Ukrainian troops had also found the bodies of women who had been raped and set alight as well as the bodies of local officials and children.
This is a wake-up call not only for the Western powers but for the entire world.
Ukraine’s president is set to address an emergency session of the UN Security Council, but this will not deter Russia in the least, and will also not move the needle in peace negotiations.
Instead, concerned leaders from all over the world should instead move the UN General Assembly to take resolute action and empower the UN Secretary-General to take all necessary action to bring the war to a close. This will also entail planning for UN Peace Keeping Operations in relevant areas of Ukraine.
For all intents and purposes, the war in Ukraine is still far from over. But to paraphrase [with apologies] the great Churchill:
Now this is not the end.
It is not even the end of the beginning.
But it is, perhaps, the beginning of the end.
The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com
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