Editorial | Reject Russia’s recognition of breakaway states

Having already made clear to Russia its respect for the territorial integrity of sovereign states, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) must now explicitly reject Moscow’s recognition of Ukraine’s breakaway territories of Luhansk and Donetsk, and tell Vladimir Putin that diplomacy is the only way to resolve Russia’s security concern in Eastern Europe.

CARICOM leaders, too, must also remind President Putin of their insistence that the Caribbean remains a zone of peace, and that he avoids having Russia’s conflict with NATO and the United States spilling into this region. In other words, he must know that the Caribbean has no appetite for anything akin to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the world to the brink of conflagration, being played out here again.

That crisis was resolved only when the Soviet Union removed its nuclear weapons from Cuba and the Americans did the same in Turkey.

For several weeks, Russia has amassed, according to Western analysis, up to 190,000 troops as well as tanks and heavy artillery along its land borders with Ukraine, including in Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014. There are concerns that the build-up is the precursor to a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a former Soviet state, to kill Kyiv’s ambition of joining NATO, the West’s military alliance.

While Moscow denied that it planned to invade, Russia continued to press for security assurances from NATO, including guarantees that Ukraine would not be allowed to become a NATO member, and that the alliance will remove its forces and weapons from former Soviet states and allies in Eastern and Central Europe.

President Putin upped the ante on Monday with the formal recognition of the People’s Republic of Luhansk and the People’s Republic Donetsk as independent states, large swathes of territory in Ukraine’s Russian-speaking eastern Donbass region. They broke away in 2014 and have since been supported by Russia, even though talks continued on their reintegration into Ukraine, but with significant autonomy.

WARY OF TAKING SIDES

Comprising small, vulnerable, developing countries, mostly islands, CARICOM has good reasons to be wary of taking sides in geopolitical squabbles, except to stand on principle. Which is what the Community did in a February 14 statement, expressing concern about the developments along Ukraine’s borders and urging all parties to “act responsibly and with self-restraint and responsibility to avoid destabilisation in that region”.

That admonition, we suspect, was aimed not only at Russia, but also Western nations, especially the United States, which, while claiming the imminence of an invasion, often used language that many analysts branded as inflammatory.

But CARICOM also made clear where it stood on the questions of sovereignty and territorial integrity. Said the Community: “CARICOM reaffirms its commitment to respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity, non-interference in the internal affairs of another state, the prohibition on the threat or use of force, and peaceful resolution of disputes. Universal respect and adherence to these norms and principles of international law are fundamental to the maintenance of the international system and global peace and security.”

If Luhansk and Donetsk want to leave Ukraine to be independent states, that must be on the basis of negotiations and in accordance with constitutional norms.

Whatever else may have motivated Mr Putin’s action, many people, while disapproving of his strategy and tactics, concede that Moscow may have legitimate concerns that are deserving of a hearing, rather than being merely dismissed as delusions of the authoritarian leader of a second-rate power. Since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO has expanded eastwards into former Soviet states. Moscow fears being surrounded by less-than-friendly states. Indeed, Mr Putin has raised the prospect of having NATO missiles across the border in Ukraine, trained on Moscow.

Seen through Mr Putin’s security prism, keeping Ukraine out of the NATO alliance makes sense. But threats of war, or war itself, ought not, in the 21st century, to be the way of influencing a restructuring of Europe’s security architecture.

DANGERS TO THE CARIBBEAN

And the instability in Europe poses dangers to the Caribbean. A war in Ukraine would slow global post-COVID-19 economic recovery, exacerbating this region’s economic crisis. There are also potential security issues to consider.

In the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs invasion and America’s imposition of an economic embargo on Cuba, Fidel Castro allowed the Soviet Union to deploy nuclear missiles in his country, a mere 90 miles away from Florida. The world was on the edge of war. The quid pro quo of the removal of the missiles from Cuba and Turkey pulled the world from the brink of a war. There were indications recently that in the absence of vigilance, attempts might be made to have history repeat itself.

Last month, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, hinted at the possibility that Russia, faced with the prospect of NATO weapons close to its territory, might seek to do the same with its missiles in this region – possibly having missiles in Venezuela and Cuba pointed at the United States. That is not a happy prospect to contemplate.

In 2019, at their sixth triennial meeting of foreign ministers, CARICOM and Cuba reiterated their commitment to the Caribbean being a zone of peace. CARICOM should remind Havana of that Declaration of Georgetown, in the event it is asked by Russia to host missiles.

CARICOM should also bring that accord to the attention of the Venezuelans. In the meantime, the community must remind Moscow of the virtue of negotiations and diplomacy.