Moscow Endorses Genocide by Voting No on UN Resolution

The 193 delegations to the United Nations on May 18 participated in a discussion about Item 135 – A/75/L.82 – Responsibility to Protect and for the Prevention of Genocide, War Crimes, Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes against Humanity.

Given the state of affairs around the world today and yesteryear, this certainly is a vital topic that requires never-ending discussion, monitoring, endorsement and compliance. And in the event of noncompliance and transgressions – repentance, penance, punishment, retribution and reconciliation.

The universal significance and morality of this resolution was enunciated by Oleksiy Ilnytskyi, counsellor of the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the United Nations, who said in his presentation: “We fully agree with the report provisions that prevention of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity is ‘an ongoing process that requires sustained efforts to build the resilience of societies by promoting respect for the rule of law and human rights without discrimination; establishing legitimate and accountable national institutions; eliminating corruption; managing diversity constructively; and supporting a strong and diverse civil society and a pluralist media.’”

Who can dispute such high moral principles?

The member-states overwhelmingly voted in favor of this resolution but 15 UN member-states said, “No.” Heading the list of countries that voted against the adoption of this resolution was Russia and its vassal Belarus.

Genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity read like a laundry list of crimes and transgressions committed by Moscow for hundreds of years against its population as well as foreign nations. Just consider the Holodomor – Moscow’s murder by starvation of 7 million Ukrainian men, women and children in 1932-33. Or the murder of 200,000 innocent Ukrainians at the start of World War II and their burial in a mass grave in Bykivnia. And the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2014 and the war that has lasted since then. And this is only a partial list of possible transgressions raised in Item 135 – A/75/L.82.

An obvious explanation why Moscow did not vote in favor of this resolution is that a lawbreaker does not voluntarily admit to committing any crime. Why leave the door perpetually open to international scrutiny of questionable activity? Even if you know you committed the crime in question and everyone knows you did it, it’s best not to admit anything and deny your guilt.

By refusing to support this humanitarian-based resolution, was Moscow overcome with as much guilt and remorse for its heinous crimes as perpetrators of matricide feel about their evil actions – the Norman Bates of “Psycho” syndrome?

Ironically, with this vote, Moscow surely attracted the attention and ignominy of the international community by shamelessly saying that it opposes preventing genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

For an answer, we’ll have to wait for Russia’s admission.

On the other hand, Ukraine’s Oleksiy Ilnytskyi told his fellow delegates that Ukraine was proud to be major sponsor of this resolution and “is a party to the core instruments of international law relating to prevention of atrocity crimes, protection of populations, upholding human rights and elimination of all forms of discrimination.”

Sadly, he continued, not all countries support this message as is demonstrated by Russia’s current and past illegal actions.

Building up to detailing Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine, Ilnytskyi pointed out that “Ukraine has already expressed on many occasions its strong belief that R2P (the shorthand nomenclature for the resolution) concept fully excludes any possibility of covert usage of military force by one state against another state under pretext of population protection leading to occupation of the territory.”

Devious countries still exploit the R2P for strategic and security purposes even after being denounced by numerous United Nations resolutions, he said. Russia was singled out several times for condemnation by the UN for invading and then temporarily occupying the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea which showed Moscow’s “total intolerance to manipulations of R2P principles.” Russian occupation authorities continue to block access to Crimea for international human rights groups to assess the situation on the ground and make respective recommendations for early warning, Ilnytskyi charged. In the meanwhile, Moscow has transported troops and equipment and installed nuclear weapons on the Crimean peninsula.

“That country also neglects the life and safety of people of Ukraine in certain temporary occupied areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and conducts actions in contradiction of spirit and letter of R2P, that have to be immediately ceased,” the Ukrainian diplomat said. “At the same time, the ongoing occupation of parts of its territory limits Ukraine’s ability to implement Pillar I of R2P. In Crimea, the Russian occupation regime continues to deny access for international human rights observers, including the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.”

Ilnytskyi warned that inaction as well as impunity will result in a perpetuation of these singularly monstrous crimes that result in pain and suffering, and threaten regional and global security and peace.

“I would like to underline that the impunity for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, unwillingness to investigate and prosecute those responsible for these crimes including massive, serious or systematic violations of human rights and international humanitarian law will lead to their recurrence and undermine our multilateral efforts with regards to R2P,” he said.

For criminal states like Russia, the existence of global tolerance and blindness for their transgressions is a carte blanche for continuing crimes against humanity without regard for the blood that they’ve already spilled.