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In November 2010, when now President Vladimir Putin was Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, he proposed “the creation of a harmonious economic community stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok.” The European Union never accepted that vision. Three years later, the United States staged a coup d’état in Ukraine with the complicity of the European Union and its member countries. In this context, President Vladimir Putin’s speech on September 30th, receiving four other regions as part of the Russian Federation, was especially historic.
In fact, he effectively acknowledged Russia’s abandonment of the policy of wanting to maintain relations with Europe and with the West in general. This is a revolutionary change in international relations that affects the whole world. The speech of September 30th arises from the experiences of a leader and his government team during ten years of constant efforts for Peace, for a more just and equitable world, and for respectful relations based on international law. President Putin’s words express the exasperation of a lost decade of one attempt after another to maintain relations of respect and understanding with the United States and the European Union.
It was a decade of patience constantly frustrated, of goodwill constantly scorned and insulted, of agreements signed in good faith, the Minsk Agreements among many others, constantly undermined and betrayed. President Putin comments, “We will defend our land with all the forces and resources we have, and we will do everything to ensure the safe life of our people. This is the great mission of liberation of our people.” That mission is about liberating the peoples of the Russian Federation from the sinister hybrid war against them and the explicit threats by Western leaders who want to destroy it, including with nuclear weapons.
Invoking the right of self-defense, President Putin clearly explains why the West is attacking Russia:
“…it is greed, the determination to maintain its power not limited in any sense, which are the real reasons for the hybrid war that the West is fighting collectively against Russia. They don’t want our freedom, they want to see us become a colony. They don’t want equal cooperation, but they do want to loot. They do not want us to be a free society, but a multitude of slaves without souls.”
President Putin discusses in his speech the issue of impunity in relation to the various crimes against humanity committed by the European powers and the United States. He recognizes that those countries accumulated their wealth through centuries of conquest, genocide and slavery and then maintained the tremendous advantages thus accumulated, by means of a system of intimidation and neo-colonial plunder. But President Putin takes his argument beyond mere condemnation of Western criminality, when he invokes the cause of Russia’s self-defense as also and necessarily the defense of humanity, not only in the material sense but in a deeply spiritual sense as well.
For many, this is the central part of his message:
“I would like to insist that the dictatorship of Western elites is directed against all societies, including their own. It is a challenge to all, this absolute denial of humanity, the trampling of religion and traditional values, the suppression of freedom is acquiring features “of a religion in reverse”, of a self-evident Satanism. Jesus Christ already said it in the Sermon on the Mount: “By their fruits you will know them.” He was referring to the pseudo-prophets.”
For Nicaragua, a target of Western imperialism for centuries, this speech by President Vladimir Putin has special relevance and importance because it categorically vindicates the same experiences at the Latin American and Caribbean level of Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Perhaps it is worth sketching the characteristics of the ”obvious Satanism” of the West pointed out by President Putin. The two predominant anti-values among the American and European governments are hypocrisy and sadism from which flow:
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systematic disrespect for the interests and sensibilities of others
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the constant practice of intimidation and harassment
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the systematic use of lies and deception
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psychological warfare with the abandonment of all norms of good faith reporting in all areas of information (media, institutional, academic and non-governmental among others)
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the use of aggression and terrorism in all its forms
Precisely these anti-values have characterized Western policies towards the ALBA-TCP countries, reaching their height in the case of Nicaragua with the diabolical failed coup d’état of 2018. But it is also about endless other crimes in many countries of the world. It is only necessary to remember the innumerable terrorist acts against the brotherly Cuban people and the permanent sabotage of their economy or the constant harassment against the government of Evo Morales that ended in the coup of 2019.
In the case of the sister Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, it is about the endless terrorist sabotage of the country’s energy and oil infrastructure in the context of the sadistic economic and financial offensive of more than a decade. The sister Islamic Republic of Iran has suffered, in addition to illegal unilateral coercive measures, repeated terrorist attacks, including the murder of its most prominent nuclear scientists, crimes openly admitted by Israel with the most complete impunity, and the notorious assassination of General Qassem Soleimani in January 2020 by the United States.
It is impossible to summarize so much criminality briefly stretching from Haiti to Somalia and the Congo, to Palestine and Yemen, to Afghanistan and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, to mention just a few of the most notorious examples
Through their control of the international financial system, the Western authorities have stolen billions of dollars from the resources of Libya, Iran, Afghanistan, Venezuela and now more than US$300 billion from the Russian Federation. The United States occupies part of the Syrian Arab Republic and has stolen millions of barrels of oil and thousands of tons of wheat from the occupied area with total impunity. In what many writers consider the most significant terrorist attack since September 11th 2001, the United States and its allies destroyed the Nord Stream 1 and a branch of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea.
These gas pipelines had been built at a cost of many tens of billions of US dollars. They carried the huge quantities of cheap Russian gas needed to sustain the European economy, and especially the manufacturing economy of Germany. Now Europe is going to depend mainly on extremely expensive liquefied natural gas from the United States that will not even meet the enormous energy demand in European countries. In recent days, a terrorist attack was also carried out on the bridge connecting the rest of Russia with Crimea. All this criminality reflects the malevolent anti-values so tenaciously rooted in Western culture.
Against the sinister anti-values of the West and its regional and local accomplices, genuine values focused on the human person, on their aspirations and needs are promoted in the majority world, which imply:
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always acting in good faith
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sincerely acknowledging the interests and sensitivities of others
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insistence on dialogue for the resolution of disagreements and conflicts
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always telling the truth and demonstrating honesty
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reporting the truth authentically and reliably in every area of human activity and international relations
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always promoting Peace and a culture of Peace
These are precisely the moral and cultural values that Nicaragua, under the leadership of President Daniel and Vice President Rosario, has developed with their revolutionary strategic vision based on the principles of Christianity, Socialism and Solidarity. Now, President Putin’s speech has ratified in the most categorical way the convictions and values permanently expressed by President Daniel, but also by President Nicolás Maduro, by our Bolivian brother Evo Morales and President Luis Arce, by the president of Cuba, compañero Miguel Díaz Canel, and also by prominent Caribbean leaders such as Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves.
In Nicaragua, we perfectly recognize the satanic nature of the West because we experienced it for ourselves at firsthand in 2018. Now we continue to witness the infinite hypocrisy and sadism of the US and European governments frustrated that did not achieve their goal of destroying Nicaragua. We believe the truths enunciated by President Putin in his speech of September 30th are undeniable because our own experience shows that he is absolutely right.
Now that Nicaragua’s relations with the Russian Federation, with the People’s Republic of China, with the Islamic Republic of Iran are developing to new levels, in addition to maintaining very good relations with many other countries in Asia and Africa, Nicaragua is part of an unstoppable historical trend. The majority world no longer has to keep silent about the monstrous, terrorist, parasitic nature of the West. Certainly, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela are not keeping quiet.
As our Vice President Rosario has repeatedly commented,
“Hatred, Never Again! Let them learn this, let them know this, let them internalize this. Nothing is built with hatred, because hatred destroys. With Love, you make your way, you create a Future, you create Well-being, you create Joy… Love can do anything, Love conquers everything!”
The vast majority of the population in Nicaragua believes this truth. Next November 5th will provide another massive democratic confirmation of the faith of our people in their revolution for the Common Good of a Christian, Socialist, Solidarity based society.
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This article was originally published on Tortilla con Sal, translated from Spanish.
Stephen Sefton, renowned author and political analyst based in northern Nicaragua, is actively involved in community development work focussing on education and health care. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
Featured image is from telesurenglish.net
