On Friday, Macky Sall, Head of the African Union, led a delegation on a mission to Russia. They went to beg President Vladimir Putin to lift the Russian blockade on Ukrainian grain exports to spare millions of Africans now on the brink of starvation.
Unfortunately, Putin demonstrated once again that he has nothing but contempt for African leaders and even less regard for their people. Because he looked Sall dead in the eye and told him the cold-hearted and mocking ‘Big Lie’ that Russia is not blockading those exports.
Except this is the same Putin who recently had his Baghdad Bob, foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, propose Western countries lifting their sanctions on Russia in exchange for Russia lifting its blockade on grain exports from Ukraine. Which of course not only admits of what Putin is now denying, but betrays clear intent to “blackmail the world over the looming world food crisis and using food as a weapon of war”.
But then Putin compounded his contempt with mockery. Because only that explains him telling Sall he would ensure safe passage of any ship carrying Ukrainian grain from Black Sea ports if he could get those Ukrainian Nazis to remove the mines planted throughout the harbor.
This, even though Putin knows not only that his Russian Pootzis are the ones who planted them, but that they would be lying in wait to pick off Ukrainians like sitting ducks if they were foolish enough to try to remove those mines as Putin suggested.
And so, with no hint of humanity or humanitarian concern, Putin sent Sall back to Africa with nothing more than an empty promise to see what he can do about Russia sending his African comrades some cereal and fertilizer. Mind you, Putin knows the whole world knows that Russia stole the cereal and fertilizer he was offering from Ukraine. But such are the petty yet messianic mind games Putin delights in playing with people’s lives.
Apropos of which, what African leaders also know is that Putin is hording Ukrainian grain exports as part of his genocidal war strategy. Because his diabolical intent is to force starving people in Africa (and the Middle East) to flood Western Europe to save their lives.
In other words, he’s stealing and blockading food intended for them in order to use starving people as weapons of war… Putin’s chess master-cum-checkers-amateur thinking is that such a looming flood would force European leaders to come to their senses, lift all sanctions, and let him have his way with Ukraine…
Alas, this is the all-too-predictable thanks Africans get for showing far greater support for Putin’s genocidal invasion of Ukraine than people on any other continent.
But you’d think the manifest contempt Putin showed for starving Africans so incensed Sall, he couldn’t wait to call on the African Union to publicly condemn Putin and Russia. After all, Putin’s contempt had already so incensed me, I wrote the following to a report in the May 18 edition of The Economist under the headline, “The blockade of Ukraine’s ports is worsening world hunger”:
Biden should hold a press conference and damn Putin not just for stealing Ukrainian grain intended for export to poor countries, but also for blocking any ship from accessing ports in the Black Sea to export what little grain he did not steal. But Biden should also call out leaders of developing countries (especially in Africa) for their deafening silence, which amounts to complicity, as Putin hordes and blocks food that could prevent millions of their own people from starvation.
Therefore, imagine my dismay when, instead of the condemnation called for, Sall posted a tweet, which betrayed abiding inclination among African leaders to curry favor with Putin – no matter how much he exploits and patronizes them:
“Putin expressed to us his readiness…”? “I call on all partners…”?
How willfully clueless and blithely pathetic is that! Is there any wonder Putin holds them in such contempt? As it happens, I had just cause to ridicule South African President Cyril Ramaphosa for showing this same kind of antic inclination in “Few Africans Blame Putin for His War. Now We Know Why,” April 9, 2022.
And so we have the fateful spectacle of starving African people fleeing to their former colonial masters in Europe, while African leaders are begging a wannabe Russian czar for food to stave off their flight … to no avail.
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few Africans blame Putin…
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