• 19 April, 2024
Geopolitics & National Security
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Bucha Massacre and Two Sides Of Every Carnage in History

Levina Sat, 09 Apr 2022   |  Reading Time: 6 minutes

History is Written by Victors!”—Winston Churchill

United Nations has finally suspended Russia from United Nation’s Human Rights Council for allegedly carrying out human right violations in Bucha, Ukraine. Albeit like every carnage carried out in past, there are two versions of the Bucha massacre too, one theory says a foreign intelligence agency was involved in the Bucha plot. Russia-Ukraine war must be the first war in history when the populace around the world is getting to hear both sides of the story. Both equally sinister!

Had Hitler won against his opponents, then today we would have been reading a different version of history. Ruminate!

India And China’s Stand Has A Reason

300 to 400 people were found killed in a city of 30,000 people, that was once Bucha’s total population. Most of the people had moved out of Bucha, but 2000 or so had stayed back for many reasons.

Some of civilians with white arm bands (the only symbol to protect civilians against random gunshots) were found dead on the streets, while some faced a more brutal death at point blank range with their hands tied to their backs.

India and China condemned the killings vociferously and demanded an “independent investigation”, but both sides refrained from naming the party which carried out the massacre.

It happens sporadically that both India and China’s decisions are congruous. United Nations witnessed one such rare event this time.

But why would both the Asian giants do so?

Bucha, satellite image, via BBC

Along with the myriads of photographs and videos from Bucha of the dead, a video of Illia Kiva, former MP of Ukrainian Parliament was also creating ripples.

The revelation made in the video was explosive! The Ukrainian MP Ilya Kiva said Bucha was “prepared” by SBU (the main intelligence and security agency of Ukraine) and planned by MI6, United Kingdom’s external spy agency.

Screenshot of the video from a Russian Telegram channel.

This Ukrainian MP had been stripped off his powers for supporting Russia in the month of February 2022. In fact, eleven Ukrainian political parties (and not just individuals) have been suspended because of their links with Russia, according to the Ukrainian President Zelensky. To imagine so many parties and their party members sided with Russia only because they were funded by Putin, is stretching one’s imagination too much. The incident was definitely reminiscent of Indira Gandhi’s emergency days, when opposition parties and their members were incarcerated or had to go into forced hiding.

On 7th of April 2022, when 193-member UN General Assembly voted to adopt a resolution moved by the United States of America, alleging that Russian troops killed civilians while pulling back from Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, India abstained from voting. But India wasn’t alone, 58 other member states abstained too, 24 voted against the resolution and 93 voted in favour.

Gist is, (58 + 24) 82 countries directly or indirectly were not in favour of the resolution.

The gamut of countries who don’t believe in Bucha massacre as it was portrayed on our TV screens, is definitely big.

One thing to be noted here is — UK blocked Russia from having an emergency meeting over Bucha massacre. But why?

Journo of Mint Press News, Credit Twitter

Russia expresses frustration at UK blocking independent investigation, Credit Tass

In last one year, MI6’s name has repeatedly popped up after Afghanistan fell to Taliban in 2021, and during violent protests in Kazakhstan earlier this year.

CIA & MI6 were also involved in Ukraine during the Euromaidan protests in 2014– is a well-known “secret”. US diplomat, Ms Nuland’s audio tapes which were leaked during Euromaidan protests leave not an iota of doubt about the spy agencies’ involvement.

History Of Massacres

Massacres are as old as the wars themselves. The more powerful a country is, higher the chances of carnages carried out by it being pushed under the rug.

One of the less spoken massacres involves Pakistan’s Army, which was involved in the killing of thousands of Palestinians during Operation Black September. Pakistan’s former President, Zia Ul Haq’s “contribution” in massacre of Palestinians was mentioned in the CIA files.  But then of course, Pakistan wants the world to forget about it, and ergo runs a propaganda hyphenating Palestine and Kashmir. As recently as two weeks ago during the OIC meeting, Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Imran Khan, related Kashmir to Palestine in his statement.

Brig Zia Ul Haq during Op Black September

They say—if you repeat a lie 100 times, it ultimately becomes the truth.

Atleast in Pakistan’s case, the Army believes in lying and denying.

Another example of less spoken massacre would be No Gun Ri massacre. This is when undetermined number of Korean refugees were attacked using small and heavy weapons fire by American soldiers, in the year 1950. Approximately 200-300 people were killed, but unfortunately most of them were women and children. The massacre was covered up till 1999, when Associated press decided to publish about it.

Operation Speedy Express is another massacre in which US Army was involved. 5000-7000 civilians were killed in Vietnam, in the year 1968. Apparently, the soldiers were allowed to carry out indiscriminate firing at villages which were tagged as “free-fire zones”, in the Mekong Delta.

A helicopter gunship pulls out of an attack in the Mekong Delta during Speedy Express, January 1969.

Similar numbers stare at USA from Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, where US or its NATO allies have carried out their operations.

But then Russia too has been involved in something similar. In December 1999, when Russian forces were fighting the Chechen-soldiers in Chechnya, a safe corridor was provided for the soldiers who wanted to surrender. But alas! The safe corridor was mined by Russians. The civilians who accessed that corridor also came under heavy fire.

Then there are the Turks, who carried out a genocide against Ottoman Armenians, killing 600,000–1.5 million civilians during world War I.

Every country has a similar incident to narrate.

Operation Search Light in 1971, when Pakistani soldiers killed, raped, and plundered unabated in Bangladesh. The Government of Bangladesh states that 3 million people were killed by Pakistani Army, making it the biggest genocide since holocaust. But the world hardly acknowledges it.

On 13 June 1971, an article in the UK’s Sunday Times exposed the brutality of Pakistan’s suppression of the Bangladeshi uprising. Via BBC

One of the biggest artificial famines in history was created by UK’s well known premier Winston Churchill himself. It was Churchill’s policies to divert food supply to save the British soldiers involved in World War II, that led to the death of 3 million Indians, mildly exacerbated by the drought. But ofcourse, only drought was blamed in history books.

It took Indians and the world, more than five decades to speak about it, courageously. Yes, there were no guns fired, no mass executions, but death was more painful and slow, which spared not even a five-year-old child.

Will Russia Be Expelled From UNSC?

Zelensky during one of his addresses to UN had requested UNSC to ban Russia. The argument produced to back up the expulsion was—

  1. Russia’ numerous annexation attempts in recent past, including the Ukrainian war.
  2. Russia is ostensibly not legally a UNSC member.

Zelensky argued that after the fall of USSR in 1991, Russia’s membership to UNSC is not legitimate.

But reality is– after USSR ceased to exist, Boris Yeltsin, the then President of Russian Federation, which was also USSR’s largest constituent country, had informed United Nations on 24 December 1991 that “the membership of the USSR in the UN, including the one in UN Security Council, will be continued by the Russian Federation (RSFSR)”. And most former Soviet republics including Ukraine decided to back Russia.

So now at Zelensky’s will, Russia cannot be expelled from UNSC.

Apparently, this is the right procedure too. Many similar examples exist

  • United Arab Republic (1961) was succeeded by Egypt
  • Secession of Singapore from Malaysia in1969
  • Break-up of Serbia and Montenegro in 2006 (succeeded by Serbia) etc

So, Russia’s membership is legitimate.

Finally, we are back to square one!

Is supporting Russia a morally wrong decision as claimed by west?

Going by history and players involved—lesser the morality is spoken about, the better. India definitely is on a morally high ground to take independent decisions vis-à-vis Russia.

An old aphorism—when you point a finger at others, four fingers point back at you.

West has forgotten this!

*************


Author
Author is a well known analyst of strategic affairs and defence.  She has expertise in content creation on many subjects. She can be followed at @LevinaNeythiri on Twitter.

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POST COMMENTS (2)

Madd Dogg

Apr 11, 2022
A few points come to mind: 1. In a war every side tells lies, in my considered opinion. 2. How on earth is UK still a permanent member. उसकी औकात क्या है? A few islands which were once an imperial power. 3. If they want to kick out Russia, then do so by all means. But that will make the UN more irrelevant than it already is. Become a 6 monthly dinner club attended by bureaucratic hacks as representatives of govts relieved to have them out of their hair for a few days at least.

MADHAV MENON

Apr 09, 2022
Brilliant Article as always, the Ukrainian side of the story has a lot more questions than answers and is also very unconvincing. - The Russians apparently left on 31st of March, The video which was recorded by National Police of Ukraine on 2nd April 2022 shows no proof of a massacre. - Ukrainian officials had announced purging operations of "Russian collaborators disguised as civilians" in the city on 1st April. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FPi3auJXoAEiO_D?format=jpg&name=large - There are also several videos were Ukrainian fighters ask if they can shoot guys without the blue ribbons. https://twitter.com/antiwar_soldier/status/1511163378110287874 - You can see more proof of execution of civilians by Ukrainian territorial defense units and others in the twitter thread below. https://twitter.com/antiwar_soldier/status/1511717809771929602 - There is also the case of a lack of decomposition considering how long the civilians have been dead as per Ukrainian claims. - There is also another news of the shelling which happened in Bucha did not came from the Russian side.

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