Blacklisting Russia cuts off dialogue
DEAR EDITOR:
The Ukrainian community in Canada, a Liberal MP, and Kyiv itself, are pressing Ottawa to add Russia to its list of 13 other terrorist states and organizations. This is an unwise reaction, symbolically throwing Russia on to the trash heap ends any hope for future reconciliation. It isolates the West, cuts off any dialogue in a world where talking is so important.
I was born and raised in a CanadianMacedonian family. My grandfather was a military officer in the Bulgarian Army, who associated closely with the Macedonian People’s Organization, a century-old political and revolutionary organization for the independence of Macedonia, from under the Ottoman empire, and then under Greek tyranny.
We too have a red and black Macedonian revolutionary flag. I am very familiar with a constant diet of dinner-table conversation of the politics during the first Balkan war of 1910 and 1912.
I am steeped in the history and milieu of this era. So I fully understand the passion of nationalistic aspirations.
The truth is, Russia did not invade, but rather intervened into Ukraine’s on-going eight year civil war. It was clear, the people of Donbass did not want to be part of the 2014 American sponsored Maidan coup in Kyiv. The people of Donetsk and Luhansk declared independence under the UN Charter of Rights that gives them the right to object to the Maidan uprisings, which they see as an illegal coup. This universal right of self-determination is a recognized in the UN Charter of Rights to all peoples around the world.
It is hypocritical for Canada to recognize the Uyghurs' right to claim independence from China, but we don’t recognize the peoples of Donetsk and Luhansk right to chose independence from Kyiv.
Canada spent 13 years and 18 billion dollars fighting the Afghan war, which took 158 lives and over 2000 wounded Canadian soldiers. Four men who were deployed with the Canadian military to Afghanistan, filed complaints with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, after their families were left out of the special immigration program created in 2021. A shameful display of hypocrisy when their complaint alleges that Afghani refugees are not treated like Ukrainian refugees, because they are not white and Christian. Sadly, Canada points its moral finger at Russia, and ignores our own moral failings.
Jon Peter Christoff West Kelowna