RUSSIA said yesterday that it strongly disagreed with changes to its draft UN Security Council resolution on Syria made by the western imperialist powers.
‘Unfortunately, the West’s approach radically differs from ours,’ said Deputy Foreign Minister Gannady Gatilov. He added: ‘Judging by the contents of their proposed amendments, their goal is clearly aimed at removing President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Damascus.’
Russia and China vetoed a European resolution on Syria in October.
Gatilov said Russia firmly insisted that any UN action must rule out the possibility of foreign military involvement in the conflict and highlight the violence being committed by both sides.
He added: ‘Their position attempts to completely and wholly place the blame on the Syrian government and in every way possible absolve the actions of the armed opposition.’
In Moscow, the Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolay Patrushev, said that Western countries’ pressure on Syria has to do with the unwillingness of Damascus to stop cooperation with Tehran.
He added: ‘Information is coming in that NATO members and some Arab states of the Persian Gulf, acting in line with the tried “Libyan scenario”, intend to turn the current indirect interference with the Syrian affairs into a direct military intervention.
‘Although, this time round the main strike forces will be supplied not by France, England and Italy but, possibly, a nation bordering on Syria that was friendly to it not too long ago, Turkey, which is competing with Iran and has massive ambitions. It is assumed that Washington and Ankara may already be drawing up various versions of a “no-fly zone”, where armed units of Syrian insurgents could form and build up,’ said Patrushev.
South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma on Thursday condemned the UN Security Council for allowing the NATO military strikes in Libya that played a key part in the downfall of Colonel Gadaffi.
Zuma complained to the Security Council that an African Union peace plan for Libya was ‘completely ignored’ and said Libya’s problems had now ‘spilled over’ to other countries in north Africa because of the Council’s action.
The South African president spoke to the 15-member Security Council as he chaired a special debate on relations between the United Nations and the African Union. Referring to Syria, Zuma said the Council had to avoid a repeat of the Libya episode.
Meanwhile, the US and the UK’s allies are wreaking havoc on anti-feudal democratic forces, without even a token reprimand from Obama and Cameron.
The British Prime Minister is currently visiting the Saudi monarchy. His visit has not stopped Saudi security forces clashing with, and killing and wounding Shiite protesters in the kingdom’s oil-rich east.
Protests first erupted in the Eastern Province last March when members of the kingdom’s Shiite minority took to the streets to condemn Saudi military intervention, with UK support, against pro-democracy demonstrations in neighbouring Bahrain. Cameron will be discussing new arms contracts with the Saudi monarchy. There will not be a word said about the Saudi repressions.
Meanwhile, another UK-supported feudal regime, next door in Bahrain, has just attacked 3,000 anti-government demonstrators in the capital Manama, using tear gas and stun grenades. Cameron will stay mum about that as well.
The imperialists are supporting feudal regimes in the Gulf, that still claim to rule through Divine Right, and Islamist movements in North Africa and the Middle East to secure ‘their’ oil interests, overthrow Arab nationalists and keep the working class at bay.
In a situation of the greatest ever crisis for capitalism the imperialists will stop at nothing to grab and secure the oil and gas resources of the region.
At home the same forces are seeking to destroy Welfare States so that the workers and the poor pay for the crisis.
Clearly the working class in the West and the peoples of the Middle East and the Gulf are in the same trench against capitalism and imperialism. They must unite together and fight for the victory of the world socialist revolution. There is no other way forward.
