Saturday, July 12, 2008

who run it?!




both us and uk ambassadors expressed their disgust at russia's vote against the draft of a security resolution council to impose sanctions on zimbabwe's president robert mugabe at the g8 meeting in japan.  there were 15 countries represented in the vote for sanctions, 9 countries voted for the sanctions (belguim, burkina faso, costa rica, croatia, france, italy, panama, uk, united states; 5 countries voted against the sanctions (china, libya, russia, south america, vietnam); 1 country abstained from the vote (indonesia).  because of its position as a permanent council member, russia's vote against sanctions meant a veto of the proposal so their decision to not to vote in favor of the sanctions along with the other members of  g-8 present at the council,  russia received the most criticism and their position in the g8 has been questions to the point where they may be replaced...so who is this infamous g-8?

(from left to right: canadian prime minister stephen harper, uk prime minister tony blair, 
european commission president jose barraso, french president nicholas sarkozy,
 russian president vladimir putin, japanese prime minister shinzo abe, 
german chancellor angela merkel, italian prime minister romano prodi and
 us president george bush

the g-8 is a group of 8 countries and their leaders:  france, germany, italy, britain, japan, canada, russia and the us.  basically, this is the billionaire boys club of world leaders and they get together and meet on how the rest of the world should operate. 

when asked why he decided to vote against the sanctions russian ambassador vitaly churkin said that in this case, sanctions went beyond the un mandate arguing that the conditions in zimbabwe were of no threat to international security.  upon hearing this, it seemed like he was implying that what happened in zimbabwe was of no consequence to the rest of the world, but then south african representative for the african union dumisani kumalo bolstered churkin's reason by saying that sanctions would interfere with existing dialog going on to bring improvements to african countries in both the humanitarian and economic situations.  in addition, the nations who voted against the sanctions never said that they supported mugabe, and some even went on record to call his actions deplorable (at the least), but they don't think that un sanctions are the proper way to being about change.

i agree with that, looking how sanctions have (not) worked in the past, right now they're just a way for the world's "superpowers" to show solidarity and flex their muscle on the rest of the world.  they're lip service used to assuage the reality that there will be nothing done to improve the real problems in zimbabwe.  as we've seen with many other countries; sanctions only make world leaders use more creative ways to further their agendas; oh you want to put us under an arms embargo; well...we'll just begin to develop our own arms industry and in no time we'll be exporting our own semiautomatic weapons.

in addition, i am opposed to the concept of the g8 because they are only going to look seriously at things that help them sustain or even increase their amount of power.  protestors at the meeting in japan from all over the world have offered serious critiques of the g8 to even attempt to address the global food crisis.  the g8 claims to be promoting globalization, but it will surely be for their benefit and at the cost of the rest of the world.

but what does that mean for me, a citizen of one of the most powerful of even the g8 nations?  as stated before, it most likely means i will soon be moving to another country!  people have told me to wait for obama, he'll change things.  i doubt that very highly (c) q-tip. 



1 comment:

leandra said...

i'm so with you! looking at the way this country is ran...the empire is crumbling. i'm not really down to go along with the ride. i only wish i'd had more direction before. i could've finished grad school and been off somewhere already...shoulda, woulda, coulda.

obama=change? on the surface, sure. but whatever. my faith in politics...and especially in us politics, is shaky to say the least. dare i say nonexistent??