Rawlings unhappy with Western Countries' handling of Gaza conflict

Ghana’s former President, Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings has expressed disappointment in the manner the United States and other countries in the West have supported Israel’s conduct in Gaza while criminalising Russia in the conflict in Ukraine.

Delivering an acceptance speech at a ceremony to honour him with a doctorate degree by the University of Education, Winneba last Thursday, the former President said more disheartening is how the United States has placed so much emphasis on the conflict in Ukraine and done little on the situation in Gaza.

The former President also lamented the Western media’s penchant for twisting the news to favour its governments’ parochial agenda.

“A few weeks ago when President Obama was speaking at his usual White House press briefing on developments in Ukraine and Gaza he expressed so much sympathy for those who lost their lives in the Malaysian air crash in Ukraine and yet within that same breath he made mention of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and not a word for all the innocent women and children who were being killed and injured in the Gaza. I watched in dismay.

“This was the same Obama that not only America but also the world welcomed with such warmth and comfort. In those days some of us felt that if he did not utilize his national and international strength and popularity to contain Israel’s grip on America then no one else could,” President Rawlings lamented. The former President said it was important to remember that Mandela was not rescued by the American or British governments despite the condemnation of Apartheid by humanity the world over.

“The catalyst that triggered events leading up to the release of Nelson Mandela was when the citizens in the United States of America began to take to the streets in New York. Then and only then did President Reagan decide to pre-empt what could have turned out to be one of the biggest demonstrations that America and the UK were going to witness in relation to a foreign personality and some aspects of their own foreign policy.

“President Mandela had by then and subsequently become the great international voice of conscience whose moral authority could galvanise people enough to override the authority of their own governments.”

Flt Lt Rawlings added that the world is now being made to believe that the American public may have changed their opinion on the “current brutal treatment of the Palestinians at the hands of the Israelis.”

He was however expectant that though history had demonstrated that the voice of the world had not changed America’s position on the Israel-Palestinian issue, the voice of American citizens will bring pressure to bear on their government to bring true freedom and justice to the Palestinians as they did with Apartheid in South Africa.

On the downing of the Malaysian airline in Ukraine, President Rawlings said Western governments and their media could not exercise restraint in their outrageous and daily barrage of charges against Russia, Putin and the Ukrainian separatists in a design to make Putin and Russia look evil. “This tragedy took place in a war zone. The stresses of war and security alertness, creates an opening for men to indulge in excesses. I do not however believe that either side in the Ukrainian conflict would deliberately attempt to bring down a civilian airliner.”

The former President said a few years before, the US Navy fired a missile at an Iranian civilian aircraft killing all 290 passengers on board, but he was convinced that act was also a genuine accident. President Rawlings had strong words for CNN’s Christiane Amanpour who recently recounted the shooting down of a South Korean passenger airliner by the Soviet Union.

“Recently, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour true to her political nature and modus operandi recounts the downing of a South Korean passenger airliner by the Soviet Air Force. What she however isn’t saying is that on that September 11, 2001 on the day when the two airliners were flown into the Twin Towers by hijackers, the US Air Force was also given instructions to down any airliner that breached the rapidly created no-fly zones in Washington and New York.

What she is also not saying is that the South Korean airliner had flown into Soviet airspace and had defied the instructions of the Soviet Air Force. “She is also reticent about the fact that prior to that tragedy, the US raised tensions in Eastern Europe by attempting to deploy intercontinental ballistic missiles in the then West Germany, targeting strategic targets within the Soviet Union.

However, they ran into massive demonstrations by the German public and were therefore forced to abandon that exercise. Interestingly soon after the Korean Airliner incident the United States deployed the Intercontinental missiles and there was hardly any public protest from Germany because the Soviet Union was made to look evil by that unfortunate incident,” the former President stated.

The former President said: The world is not unaware of the support offered by the West in ousting the previous President of Ukraine, Victor Yanukovych in their aggressive bid to ensure that Ukraine joined the EU. We are also not oblivious to the fact that the West was keen to get rid of Yanukovych because of his association with the Kremlin.”

The former President called on the United States to seize the moral high ground and Africa to also rise to the occasion. Africa he indicated has an opportunity to affect global developments “if we can simply clean up our act and restore the core values of our societies.”