80 - Russian Thievery Without Shame
Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister and chief dissembler, blames world grain shortages on Ukraine and the U. S.. Starving Africans, of which there are likely millions, are the fault of the U. S., he says in print and is about to affirm again and again as this week he carries Russian propaganda to Egypt, Ethiopia, Uganda, and the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville).
His mission of disinformation is intended to retain Russian influence in a part of the world (Egypt especially, and Ethiopia), that long relied on Ukrainian and Russian wheat to bake the bread on which millions depend. Eighty percent of Egypt’s critical wheat supply comes from Russia and Ukraine. Lavrov routinely points the finger of causality away from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and its blockade of Ukrainian shipping ports, even after Russian missiles streaked on Saturday into Odesa’s critical shipping and storage center, wreaking immense damage.
Russia and Ukraine had just before agreed in Istanbul to the free passage of ships carrying Ukrainian stored wheat and barley from Odesa and two nearby ports, the better to supply Egypt and other African and Asian countries with those desperately required grain supplies. But the bombing of Odesa calls Russian promises into question, as does a close examination of all of the lies that Putin and his compatriots have uttered regarding the war in Ukraine. Launching missiles from the Black Sea toward Odesa hardly reassures Ukrainian leaders already skeptical of Putin’s intentions and concerned that talk of grain exports will actually mean successful shipments. At least $22 billion worth of Ukrainian wheat and barley are stored in that country’s southern ports, ready to be transferred to African countries in need -- if the Istanbul agreement holds.
Russia at first said that it had nothing to do with the strikes on Odesa. The Ukrainians must have attacked themselves, its spokesperson told Turkey’s incredulous defense minister. Later, according to the BBC, Russia admitted its attacks on Odesa.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, briefing a delegation from the U.S. House of Representatives, said that the strike proved “only one thing: no matter what Russia says and promises, it will find ways not to implement it.’’ (New York Times, July 24)
Now Lavrov is attempting to persuade African leaders and their citizens that they have been right to remain neutral in the Ukrainian conflict, and that they should abstain from criticizing Putin and Russia in the UN and other international settings because the US and Europe are responsible for the war in Ukraine, and for any collateral hunger that is endangering their citizens.
Urban Africans know the truth. But their leaders are loath to criticize Russia because it supplies the wheat and barley that could feed the African masses. Many nations, especially Africa’s dictatorships and the autocracies, also secretly admire a despot like Putin, making their various usurpations of power somehow less despicable and less egregious. They distrust the U. S., especially after Trump behaved so atrociously toward Africa and said unforgivable things about Africans and African leaders.
Lavrov will meet with an odious strongman such as President Abdel Fattah al Sisi of Egypt, with his thousands of ill-treated political prisoners and his disregard for indigenous rights. Then Lavrov will visit Ethiopia, where wars as pointless as Ukraine’s rage between Prime Minister Ahmed Abiy’s federal troops and the semi-autonomous and beleaguered Amhara provinces of Gondar and Axum, and Tigray. In the last place, Abiy has waged a comparable Putin-like attempt to strangle a Tigray region that refuses to accept the central government’s rule.
When Lavrov meets Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, in office since 1985, he will be able to convey strong messages from one autocrat to another, and note how fully Museveni systematically subjugates his people.
Why Lavrov ends his African journey in Brazzaville, distant from the others and across the river from Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, is unclear. Denis Sassou-Nguesso is a long time autocrat (in office twice, starting in 1979) and runs a tight Francophone administration.
Possibly Lavrov wants to cut a deal to sell more arms; Russia, the largest purveyor in Africa, supplies 50 percent or more of sub-Saharan African war materiel, and seeks to sell even more equipment of all kinds. According to the compilations of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Russia’s sales of armaments to Africa dwarf those of France, the U. S., and China – in that order. The autocrats of Africa rely on Russia for their weapons, as do less venal places. Algeria, Egypt, Angola, and Nigeria are the big buyers. Even amid the war in Ukraine, Russia wants to find markets for jet training aircraft, an air to ground missile system, a ground to air missile battery, and the new AK200 Kalashnikov assault rifle.
Whatever are Lavrov’s motives, he will be meeting only with authoritarians. In speeches and press conferences he will spout lies about the war in Ukraine and about Putin’s motives. He will denounce the Western powers backing Ukraine. Perhaps his listeners will take it all in, but still note how the war began with an un-forced invasion of an innocent country like their own. Presumably, none of the leaders with whom Lavrov will meet will have the good sense, even in private, to paraphrase attorney Joseph N. Welch’s critique of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s falsehoods and calumnies during Congressional hearings in 1954.
“You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”
A reprise of #37 - “Have You No Shame? the Big Lie, and More Lies,” April 26.