South Africa confirmed on Thursday, June 29, that the upcoming BRICS summit will be held as proposed on August 22-24 in Johannesburg, putting to rest the uncertainty which arose after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
South Africa, being a signatory to the Rome Statute of the ICC, is duty bound to execute the arrest warrant against Putin if he lands in the country.
The ICC had issued an arrest warrant against Putin in March over allegations of illegal deportation of children from Ukraine, as well as other war crimes committed there. Putin has denied these allegations.
Reuters quoted South Africa’s Minister of International Relations Naledi Pandor as saying that Putin has not yet confirmed whether he will attend the summit in person, and he may join in virtual mode.
South Africa has been pressured by the United States and other Western countries to abandon its stance of neutrality with respect to the war in Ukraine and abide by the sanctions imposed by them on Russia. The United States had also accused South Africa of supplying weapons to Russia.
South Africa has denied the U.S. allegations and refused to take sides in the war, maintaining that economic and political relations with both the West and Russia are significant for the African nation.
In June, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa led an African delegation to both Ukraine and Russia to push for a negotiated settlement of the conflict.
South Africa joined BRICS in 2011 as its fifth member. The grouping also includes Brazil, Russia, India, and China. The upcoming gathering would be the 15th summit of BRICS countries, which have vowed to create a more equitable and multipolar world system and counter Western economic and political hegemony.
More than a dozen countries have applied for BRICS membership recently, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Argentina, indicating the growing popularity of the grouping as an alternative to West-dominated international forums.
Editor’s Note: This is based on a presentation the author gave during a February 6 webinar, “U.S./NATO Aggression at the Russian Border. No War with Russia.”The event was a conversation between Russian, Ukrainian and U.S. activists the United National Antiwar Coalition had organized.
We have serious concerns that the accelerated drive to militarization and war by the United States and its allies dramatically unfolding with the crisis in Ukraine might very easily escalate to the point that it could threaten global humanity.
In their mad drive to advance their geostrategic interests to the detriment of everyone else—the Democratic Party version of “America First”—the Biden administration willfully violates all of the core principles of international relations and law. The respect for national sovereignty, the prohibition against threatening other members of the United Nations with military actions, non-intervention and adherence to international law are not recognized by the United States, which sees itself as an exception to the rule of law.
The manufactured crisis in Ukraine is just the latest episode of the reckless and delusional drama that the United States is involved in to attempt to maintain hegemony in conditions that have fundamentally changed. That is why contextualizing Ukraine as another example of why a global anti-war and anti-imperialist movement is so vitally important.
As long as the commitment to “Full Spectrum Dominance” remains bipartisan policy, today, it’s Ukraine. But tomorrow, it is certain to be another nation, another issue that will require a response from the peoples of the world.
As stated in the final declaration of the Fourth Canada-United States-Mexico Trilateral Peace Conference in Moca, Dominican Republic, held in September 2018, there must be a firm and principled commitment on the part of peace and anti-imperialist organizations that “peace must be based on the principles of non-intervention and full respect for the sovereignty, territorial integrity, self-determination and independence of all states, as stipulated in the United Nations Charter and covenants of international law enacted since the end of the second imperialist war known as World War II.”
Yet, the web of global U.S. command structures—with over eight hundred military bases—NATO as the largest military alliance in the world; illegal, draconian sanctions; and political subversion through coups makes national sovereignty impossible. The illegal and unilateral actions by the United States and its allies represents a constant threat to international peace and perpetuates a lawless, international Hobbesian state of nature.
So, while it is quite clear how we got to this moment with the situation in Ukraine, the challenge for the anti-war, pro-peace movement—and more specifically for the anti-imperialist organizations and movements in the United States and Europe—is to ground our understanding of the driving force and objective interests responsible for where the international community is at this moment.
For the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) the common enemy is the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination. We argue that we must center our analysis within the context of the global class struggle—a struggle sharpened by the ongoing and irreconcilable contradictions of the global colonial-capitalist system.
That is important because if we do not identify the real, concrete material forces, we can find ourselves struggling against shadows, instead of against the corporeal reality of an alliance of states dedicated to advancing their interests to the detriment of everyone else.
It is imperialism, led by the United States, that is the culprit. Its parasitic imperialist domination would be impossible without its core instrument of enforcement and control: State violence. That is why we are discussing Ukraine today.
Imperialism: That is framework. Today, it is Ukraine. Tomorrow, it might be China. Why? Because with the seemingly sudden and spontaneous crisis that emerged with Ukraine, the steady, violent, oppressive and repressive relations of power between the United States and Western capital and the rest of humanity continues. Objective reality bears this out. While we are focused on Ukraine as the most immediate danger, the people of Afghanistan are starving, bombs are still dropping in Yemen, coups are unfolding in Africa, the United States is still pivoting to Asia, and the peoples and nations of Latin America and the Caribbean are still suffocating from the predatory weight of the U.S. hegemon.
When we remind ourselves that the doctrine of Full Spectrum Dominance animates U.S. foreign policies, we can disabuse ourselves of any illusions on what our historic task must be.
The drive for dominance has always been fueled by one objective: To position U.S. capitalist interests to be able to more effectively plunder the labor and resources of the peoples and nations of the world.
Is that not what is in play in eastern Europe? Is it not capitalist competition and its geostrategic implications that is driving events? Can we understand Ukraine, the role of NATO and the United States, without understanding the economic interests involved with Nord Stream 2 and the Eurasian Economic Union and even the Belt and Road Initiative? Was it a surprise that after being pushed out of Afghanistan, a crisis would emerge in Kazakhstan as the United States desperately tries to re-position itself in central Asia? That is why nothing short of the defeat of imperialism must be seen as our task.
There are significant points of resistance emerging from popular struggles that are moving us toward that task of building powerful international peoples’ movements:
Prohibition against nuclear weapons. January represented the one-year anniversary of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The TPNW came out of UN General Assembly resolution in July 2017. It represents the first legally binding agreement that comprehensively prohibits nuclear weapons with ultimate goal of total elimination. The treaty came into force January 22, 2021, after reaching the goal of fifty instruments of ratification or accessions. The Black Alliance for Peace was one of the first organizations to take up the work of publicizing the treaty as soon as it emerged from UN General Assembly in July of 2017.
We must work to abolish NATO. In a 1997 essay published by the New York Times, Kennan said, “Expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era… Such a decision may be expected… to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.” But our concerns on NATO extend beyond the contradictions that NATO poses in Europe. For African peoples and other colonized peoples, NATO is correctly seen as an instrument of U.S. and European military domination. BAP actively campaigns to dismantle NATO and considers it an integral part of the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination. The international campaign to close U.S. and NATO bases and shut down the U.S. global command structures represents much needed international cooperation and coordination to bring attention to and build opposition to the global U.S. and NATO network of military bases and structures
Support movements for Zones of Peace. The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) declared the Caribbean and Latin America to be a “Zone of Peace.” BAP is leading an effort to revive the civil society element of this state-centered declaration by popularizing the declaration and building popular support across the region.
Campaign against sanctions. There is a growing awareness of the devastating consequences of economic sanctions on the general population in those more than 30 nations that are under the illegal sanction regime of the United States and Europe. Coalitions like Sanctions Kill have been organizing to bring attention to this issue in the United States and globally.
The white supremacist, colonial-capitalist, patriarchal ruling classes of the United States and Europe are clear—even if we are not—that war and repression will be used with maximum efficiency to maintain their hegemony. Therefore, we can have no illusions: We must fight back, and we must win!
Every mobilization against illegal sanctions; subversion in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba; the global U.S. command structures and bases; mass incarceration in the United States; police killings; the murder of Palestinians; and the continued capitalist assault on Mother Earth have to be seen as part of our efforts to defeat the colonial-capitalist order—to fight imperialism, and the way we do that is to turn imperialist wars into wars against imperialism!
Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and was the 2016 candidate for vice president of the United States on the Green Party ticket. Baraka is an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and was awarded the U.S. Peace Memorial 2019 Peace Prize and the Serena Shirm award for uncompromised integrity in journalism.
Ousted Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan with Russian President Vladimir Putin / credit: Twitter / Kremlin
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Multipolarista.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has accused a top U.S. diplomat of threatening his government as part of a “foreign conspiracy” to overthrow him.
This March, opposition politicians in Pakistan tried to push a no-confidence motion through the National Assembly, seeking to remove Khan from office.
Khan, who was democratically elected in 2018, said the U.S. government was supporting these opposition lawmakers in their attempt to oust him.
“I’m taking the name of U.S., the conspiracy has been hatched with the help of America to remove me,” the Pakistani prime minister said, in Urdu-language comments translated by the media.
In a meeting with leaders of his political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Khan singled out Donald Lu, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs.
According to the prime minister, Lu threatened Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Asad Majeed, warning that there would be serious “implications” if Khan was not ousted.
Washington allegedly told Majeed that U.S.-Pakistani relations could not improve if Khan remained in power.
Khan accused the U.S. embassy of organizing Pakistani opposition lawmakers to vote for the no-confidence motion in the National Assembly.
In previous comments, Khan had also said that Washington sent a letter threatening him for rejecting its attempts to create U.S. military bases in Pakistan.
Khan hinted that the soft-coup attempt was aimed at reversing his independent foreign policy. Under Khan, Pakistan has deepened its alliance with China, greatly improved relations with Russia, and maintained staunch support for Palestine.
Washington has rejected these allegations. However, Khan’s comments are bolstered by testimony that Lu himself gave in a March 2 hearing of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Near East, South East, Central Asia and Counterterrorism.
A video clip of Assistant Secretary of State Lu in the hearing, which went viral on Twitter, shows him admitting that the U.S. government had pressured Pakistan to condemn Russia for its military intervention in Ukraine.
Lu’s video testimony confirms that Washington is angry because of Islamabad’s growing relations with Moscow.
Imran Khan met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Beijing Olympics. The Pakistani leader subsequently took a trip to Moscow on February 24, the beginning of the military campaign in Ukraine.
After his visit, Khan announced that Pakistan would be expanding its economic ties with Russia, importing its wheat and gas, while ignoring Western sanctions.
Although the country is a close ally of China, Pakistan has for decades had a difficult relationship with Russia. Under Khan, Islamabad’s tensions with Moscow have significantly softened.
Pakistani scholar Junaid S. Ahmad published an article in Multipolarista analyzing the numerous reasons why Washington would want to remove Imran Khan from power, including his growing alliance with China and Russia, his refusal to normalize relations with Israel, and his gradual move away from Saudi Arabia.
Pakistan’s opposition is trying to overthrow Prime Minister Imran Khan with a no-confidence motion.
Khan says he has proof of foreign funding for a regime-change op to reverse his independent foreign policy – especially his alliance with China and Russiahttps://t.co/wdIqWDlqss
The deputy speaker of Pakistan’s National Assembly, Qasim Suri, suspended the opposition’s no-confidence motion, arguing that it was unconstitutional because it was part of a “conspiracy” supported by “foreign powers.”
This means that Khan has 90 days to hold snap elections.
There are worries in Pakistan, however, that the soft-coup attempt against Khan could escalate into an old-fashioned military coup.
Pakistan’s army is very powerful, and notorious for overthrowing civilian leaders. An elected Pakistani prime minister has never completed a full term.
Pakistan’s military is also closely linked to the United States, and frequently acts to promote its interests.
In concerning comments made in the middle of this controversy, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff Qamar Javed Bajwa praised the United States and Europe. Breaking with the elected prime minister, he criticized Russia over its war in Ukraine.
These remarks suggest that Khan may have lost the support of top military leaders.
General Bajwa: ‘We share a long history of excellent relationship with the United States which remains our largest export market; UK/EU vital to our national interests; Russian aggression on Ukraine is very unfortunate, this is a huge tragedy.’
The rapper, Lowkey, speaking at a rally in support of persecuted journalist Julian Assange / credit: Justin Ng / Avalon
Editor’s Note: This article was first published by Electronic Intifada. An “own goal” is a term from soccer (football) describing a goal inadvertently scored when the ball is struck into the goal by a player on the defensive team.
For more than a decade, Lowkey has been regarded as an enemy by Israel’s lobbying network.
Back in 2011, the right-wing Jewish Chronicledescribed the London-based rapper’s ability to reach a young audience as a “potential nightmare.”
Judging by more recent attacks against Lowkey, it would seem that his determination to raise awareness about how Palestinians live under an apartheid system has indeed kept Israel’s supporters awake at night.
Unable to find flaws in his arguments, the lobby has told lies about him.
An example of how he has been deliberately misquoted came after he made a live appearance on BBC radio in 2017.
He performed “Letter to the 1%,” a track pledging solidarity with “victims of the globalized cosa nostra.” Despite obviously referencing the Sicilian mafia, The Jewish Chroniclefalsely charged that he had uttered the anti-Semitic phrase “kosher nostra.”
Due to a threatened lawsuit, the newspaper published a retraction.
Smears Step Up a Gear
The smear campaign against Lowkey has stepped up a gear over the past six months.
In December 2021, the rapper was booked for a gig in London’s Jazz Cafe. The venue came under pressure to call off the show, which celebrated the 10th anniversary of his album, Soundtrack to the Struggle.
And in March this year, Lowkey was scheduled to speak at a conference organized by Britain’s National Union of Students (NUS), marking its centenary.
As soon as the lineup for the event was announced, the journalist Theo Usherwood wrote a series of tweets.
Usherwood, political editor with the radio station LBC, highlighted comments made by Lowkey about how the mainstream media was “weaponizing the Jewish heritage” of Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, in order to “stave off” questions about far-right groups in Ukraine.
Although Lowkey’s analysis was based on demonstrable facts, Usherwood described it as “theorizing.”
New: Rapper Lowkey to appear at the NUS’s annual conference at end of month.
Also appearing at the conference is Labour MP Zarah Sultana.
Earlier, Lowkey said MSM has “weaponised the Jewish heritage” of Zelenskyy to “stave off” inquiries about far right groups in Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/xMwjmooipU
Usherwood is considered an ally by the pro-Israel lobby, as the blogger David Collier has made clear.
Vilified
Following Usherwood’s tweets, The Daily Mail, one of Britain’s most widely read newspapers, published an article on the event to which Lowkey had been invited.
The article featured comments from Nina Freedman, who heads the Union of Jewish Students. She claimed that Lowkey had “spread conspiracies about Jewish students, 9/11 and the war in Ukraine.”
Although Freedman was quoted at length, the article did not elaborate on the “conspiracies” she had in mind.
It also did not mention that the Union of Jewish Students is financed by the Israeli embassy in London, as an investigation by Al Jazeera has revealed.
The NUS was vilified by the Campaign Against Antisemitism – another Israel lobby group – over how it responded to complaints about the invitation to Lowkey.
The NUS recommended that people who took umbrage at Lowkey’s views could avoid listening to him and even offered a “safe space” where they could go during his appearance. Yet the Campaign Against Antisemitism distorted that offer as a suggestion that “the Jewish students literally segregate themselves.”
Some elected politicians even got involved in efforts to bully the NUS.
Andrew Percy, a member of the British Parliament, described the offer of a “safe space” to offended students as “sinister.” He called on Larissa Kennedy, president of the NUS, to resign.
Another MP Robert Halfon contended that Britain’s Equalities and Human Rights Commission should investigate the NUS for what he alleged was “institutional anti-Semitism.”
Both Percy and Halfon have held senior positions with Conservative Friends of Israel, a pressure group inside Britain’s ruling party.
‘Own Goal’
The NUS capitulated to the pressure.
Lowkey was dropped from the conference to which he was invited. Instead, it was proposed that he could have a role in a fringe event marking the NUS centenary.
When Lowkey refused to accept that proposal, the NUS claimed– dishonestly – that he had simply pulled out of the conference.
The bullying did not go unchallenged.
The group Palestine Action – best known for smashing up Israeli weapons factories – protested against how Lowkey had been canceled by scaling the roof of the venue where the NUS celebrated its 100th birthday.
According to Palestine Action, a number of students active in the NUS took part in that protest.
Tonight, Students & NUS delegates scaled the roof & gate crashed the NUS' 100th birthday party venue. They acted in solidarity with @Lowkey0nline, who was cancelled from the event. Try to silence or set security on ANY of us & we'll come back louder, stronger and bolder… pic.twitter.com/BFThUwLKV9
Lowkey is also the target of a campaign aimed at removing his music from the major streaming website Spotify. That campaign has been launched by Luke Akehurst from the lobby group We Believe in Israel.
Speaking to The Electronic Intifada, Lowkey pointed out that Akehurst’s group is known to work with Israel’s government.
The calls for censorship—which have been opposed by the actor Mark Ruffalo, the rapper Wretch 32 and the rock star Roger Waters among many others—are “ultimately an own goal,” Lowkey added.
“Artists and musicians should never have to fear threats to their livelihood or person for the music they make,” he added. “We will not be silenced on Palestine. Not now, not ever.”
Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. Twitter: @KitKlarenberg
