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Let Russia withdraw from Ukraine
Between 9 million and 22 million Ukrainains died in the 20th century from famines and the violent persecutions of the regime in Moscow.
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The Russian-flagged cargo ship 'Zhibek Zholy' is anchored at the Black Sea coast in Karasu district, Sakarya, Turkey, on July 5. The ship, at the center of a diplomatic battle between Kyiv and Moscow, remained anchored off Turkey's Black Sea coast four days after its arrival. Ukraine asked Turkey on July 1 to detain a Russian-flagged cargo ship that Kyiv alleged had set off from a Kremlin-occupied port.
(AFP/Ozan Kose)
I
magine a very impossible situation: The Netherlands, as a former colonial power, would in 2023 declare a "special military operation" against Indonesia, capture large parts, kill tens of thousands of courageous Indonesian soldiers, torture its citizens, steal its rice harvest, block and mine its ports, destroy large cities and cause 7 million refugees to flee?
And imagine that the ambassador of the Netherlands would then publish an article in The Jakarta Post which tries to tell the readers that the instability of the food market has nothing to do with these actions? The readers of the Post would feel that such an article insulted their intelligence.
This is the case with the article by the Russian ambassador to ASEAN, who wrote in the Post as of July 2 that there are many causes of instability in the world-food markets and that Russian actions against Ukraine have little to do with this.
The emphasis on various other factors that in general influence food markets is a smokescreen, hiding that the blockade of the Ukrainian ports, the theft of large quantities of grain from Ukraine, the destruction of many ports and cities as well as villages and farmland have a devastating effect on the supply of grains and vegetable oilseeds to Africa, the Middle-East and Asia.
The population of Ukraine chose overwhelmingly for independence from Russia, some 30 years ago. They had good reasons: The policies of Moscow had sown death and destruction in their country in the past.
Between 9 million and 22 million Ukrainians died in the 20th century from famines and the violent persecutions of the regime in Moscow (the estimates depend on how one counts and attributes these deaths to the culprits). Ukrainians have not forgotten the Holodomor, the effort of the Soviet dictator Stalin to starve Ukrainians by robbing their food.
One day after the Russian ambassador published his article, Turkey arrested a Russian ship in the Black Sea that transported stolen Ukrainian grain. One out of many. The Russian war against Ukraine and the indescribable atrocities by the Russian military are terrible crimes against humanity and international law. They cannot be hidden behind a smokescreen article on the many causes of instability of food markets.
Not only the millions of Ukrainians who suffer the consequences of these crimes, and the over 30,000 Russian mothers who are falsely told their sons had to die in a so-called struggle against "Nazis", but the entire populations in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, who depend on food grown in Ukraine, will be confronted by the crimes of the Russian state.
The ambassador called for "mutual understanding and respect" to solve the current problems. A fox that preaches peace and respect to the chickens he gnawed to death is not believable. Let Russia withdraw immediately from Ukraine and repay the horrific damages to Ukraine and to the countless people elsewhere who will suffer famine in the near future.
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The writer is a former Dutch defense minister and the author of, most recently, Fighting Poverty and Violence (Boom, The Hague, 2021).
