The people of the world are reacting in horror and anger at the military conflict that has broken out in Ukraine.
This conflict has been years in the making, mainly as a result of the aggressive and expansionary intentions of U.S. Imperialism and its NATO military organisation.
In 1991 an agreement was signed to form a Commonwealth of Independent states which were former states of the dissolved Soviet Union.
The agreement was known as the Minsk agreement. The agreement was supposedly about the U.S. and NATO guaranteeing the human and democratic rights of people in the former Soviet Republics, and at the same time NATO would refrain from expanding to the borders of Russia, and that NATO would not recruit to its membership, former Warsaw pact members.
The U.S. and NATO clearly lied through their teeth as usual and immediately set out to disregard those undertakings.The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovakia had all joined NATO by 2004.NATO and the U.S military expansion towards Russia has continued. There are military bases in Poland and Romania, for example, with the capacity to deploy nuclear armed missiles.
Poland is only 100 miles from the Russian border. If Ukraine moves even more into the U.S./NATO web, then it will make it easier for the Romanian and Black Sea U.S. missiles to be taken right up to the Russian border through Ukraine.
Russia would then be even more surrounded by NATO/U.S. missiles on her borders.
The Chairperson Emeritus of the ILPS, Professor Jose Maria Sison, makes the following points regarding the U.S. Imperialist/NATO role in creating the conditions for war in and surrounding Ukraine:
Is the special military operation of Russia simply a unilateral and unprovoked act of aggression? Or is it after 8 years of Kyiv puppetry to US and NATO, and brutal fascism against Russian Ukrainians, a delayed response of counter-aggression by Russia to the prior NATO expansion in violation of the Minsk Agreement of 1991?
Is it not a fact that Russia followed international law by first recognizing the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk and co-signing with them treaties of mutual security and defence before Russia acted accordingly?
Are not the people of Russian nationality who make up the majority in Donbas region entitled to the right of national self-determination against anti-Russian chauvinism and fascism, which has resulted in the death of 14,000 people of Russian nationality, the devastation of Donbas and Lugansk and the exile of 3 million Russians from Ukraine since 2014.
International law recognizes the right of national self-determination at any level against national oppression by any state and the laws of belligerency in civil war, allowing the co-belligerents to have international political, economic and security relations.
The US and NATO and Western propaganda completely ignore the rights of the Russian nationality within the pre-fascist as well as pre-2022 context of Ukraine.
We must not forget or ignore this history which is one of the driving forces in this conflict.
The Ukrainian Government is not to be trusted with the peoples’ democratic and human rights. More than 22% of the Ukrainian population are Russian speaking and the reactionary government of Ukraine has attempted to prohibit the use of the Russian language and have used attacks and military offensives against the Donbass region and some major cities. The government cooperates with pro-fascist and fascist groups to oppress the Russian-speaking population.
The disgraceful hypocrisy of U.S Imperialism is breath-taking. Can you imagine the outrage from the US authorities if such a series of events, involving hostile forces, were to occur say on the U.S/ Mexico border after several years of build-up.The U.S. and NATO want to use their current encirclement of the Russian Federation to further encroach on Russian territory by locking Ukraine more into the NATO network.
The U.S. is determined to stop Russia and Germany from completing the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline, which will deliver cheap gas to the German people and other Europeans, as opposed to the U.S. more expensive gas.
The U.S. is hopeful that Putin’s military action against the Ukraine will lead to a European reaction which stops the pipeline.In addition, we cannot forget the U.S. aggressions in recent years against countries like Kosovo, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Since the second world war, the U.S. has carried out at least 69 cases of aggression against other independent countries, facts that are constantly covered up by the corporate media of the world.Imperialism causes war continually, in their own economic and political interests, in the interest of the pursuit of the maximum profit, whether it is sanctions or direct military activities, whether it’s a hot war or a cold war it is aimed at furthering their own profit- making objectives.
The major capitalist countries that make up the various imperialist blocks are reacting to the general crisis of the international capitalist system, which results in mass unemployment, lower wages and conditions for the working class, peasantry and other toilers, loss of democratic and union rights, and the constant drive to war.
The working people and other toilers around the world are sick of being the cannon fodder for capitalist wars and the target of the capitalist crisis. They long for on-going peace.
Peace in Ukraine, and in Russia, can only be achieved on the following basis:
The Ukraine government out of the U.S./NATO camp!
The U.S /NATO to pull back completely from Russia’s borders.
The guaranteed national independence for the Russian regions in Ukraine.
The disbanding and destruction of the pro-fascist military organisations operating in Ukraine.
Russia out of Ukraine.No to imperialist wars and illegal expansion.
Signed by:
Len Cooper
ILPS Chairperson
April 1, 2022
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