Canada Must Get Out of Ukraine and Support a Negotiated End to the U.S./NATO Proxy War
Picket in Windsor on first anniversary of U.S./NATO proxy war in Ukraine, February 25, 2023.
Two years of U.S./NATO proxy war in Ukraine have underscored the problem that Canada needs an anti-war government pursing an independent foreign policy. Instead, the Trudeau Liberal government has increased the ways in which Canada has become more and more financially, militarily and politically embroiled in this operation aimed at expanding NATO and encircling Russia, all according to U.S./NATO dictate.
Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly, on her latest visit to Ukraine on February 2, pledged Canada's "unwavering" support "to the end of the war and beyond." A press release from Global Affairs Canada quantified this support as follows: "This support has included more than $9.7 billion in aid to Ukraine, including over $2.4 billion in military aid, from armoured vehicles, to artillery ammunition to Leopard 2 tanks."
Joly was in Ukraine to launch the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children, a joint Canada-Ukraine initiative to help address the contentious issue of what Ukraine and its supporters claim are the "unlawful deportation and forced transfer of Ukrainian children by the Russian government." Twenty-eight countries are said to be in this coalition and Canada is co-chair with Ukraine. The Global Affairs Canada press release says: "As co-chair, Canada will work closely with Ukraine to organize the Coalition, to support dialogue and information exchange and to coordinate key messages between key stakeholders. We will focus on amplifying many of the existing efforts and sharing lessons learned, specifically those that have successfully resulted in the return of children." It goes on to claim that Canada "will offer practical expertise, with Canadian officials ready to assist their Ukrainian counterparts should they express a need for technical expertise and resources."
What the coalition actually does and Canada's role in it is unclear, especially because Ukraine refuses to enter into negotiations with Russia. This is particularly the case when it comes to talks on the central issue of ending the fighting, which is decisive to sorting out the well-being of children and resolving issues of their displacement. It raises the question about what the actual aim of this coalition is.
Even if one were to take such a coalition at face value, Canada's involvement raises the question of precisely what expertise Canada has when it comes to children forcibly taken from their families. When it comes to issues of gender and the situation of women, the Canadian government's modus operandi is to ply its purported expertise on such matters on the international stage for purposes of putting a humanitarian face on imperialist intervention, aggression and occupation around the world. Meanwhile, the most vulnerable girls and women in Canada are left to fend for themselves. Similarly, Canadians, Quebeckers and especially Indigenous Peoples know that when it comes to Canada's "expertise" on children being forcibly removed from their families and being deprived of their culture, it is all in the negative and it stands accused of genocide for its wrong-doing.
Joly also met with President Volodymyr Zelensky and Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba to discuss "long-term bilateral security commitments to Ukraine alongside our G7 partners." The meetings were held and reported on in a perfunctory way in Ukrainian media with nothing of substance presented as the outcome of the meetings.
Edmonton anti-war picket on first anniversary of U.S./NATO proxy war in Ukraine, February 25, 2023.
Ongoing Disinformation About Nazi Collaborators and Phony Claims of Opposing Genocide
As the Trudeau government commits Canada's unwavering support to Ukraine, it has still not been able to distance itself from the Yaroslav Hunka affair when this known member of the Waffen SS was given two standing ovations in the Canadian Parliament. That debacle is indicative of the broader issue of Canada's longstanding state-organized support for Nazi collaborators and its shameless backing of the reactionaries and neo-Nazis who seized power in Ukraine in 2014.
Recent
news reports inform that not only was the unabashed Nazi collaborator
Hunka applauded in Parliament in September 2023, but that he was
invited by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) to a reception for
President Zelensky. The invite is said to have been requested for Hunka
by the Ukrainian
Canadian Congress (UCC). So much for the government's claim that it did
not know about Hunka and who he was.
As for the UCC, its role since its inception has been part of the post-war arrangements to assist Nazi collaborators and war criminals to escape being brought to justice by giving them shelter and legitimacy in Canada. The state would then use them against working people in Canada. When it comes to this incident, the UCC has not apologized for the international scandal the Hunka affair has caused, while the Canadian government attributes the debacle to "Russian disinformation." To this day, Hunka's name appears on the UCC website as a member of "Friends of the UCC," as one of its financial contributors. Clearly, the UCC has no accountability to anyone except those who share its narrow reactionary politics, yet the Trudeau Liberals have given it a position of privilege to set Canadian foreign policy relating to Ukraine.
All of it is disinformation and a cover up about the unacceptable role of the Canadian state since the end of World War II to shelter unrepentant Nazi collaborators from being brought to justice for war crimes. Disinformation about the historical verdict against Nazism and Nazi collaborators is for purposes of paving the way for U.S. imperialism, its followers, clients and proxies, and NATO to commit more crimes against the peoples in the present.
A recent example of how the Canadian state uses historical disinformation to justify crimes in the present is the statement issued by the PMO on the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, the day on which those imprisoned at the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz were liberated by the Red Army in 1945. Firstly, nowhere does the statement say which forces liberated Auschwitz, nor does it mention the unparalleled sacrifices made by the Soviet peoples to stop the Nazi war machine. This history is part of what informs the Russian Federation's hostility toward the reactionaries in power in Ukraine and the neo-Nazis given free rein to run amok in its military and why Russia sees the necessity to denazify Ukraine.
Secondly, the Prime Minister claims to be "honouring the memory of the more than six million Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust," but does not mention that altogether some 17 million people were executed in the Holocaust carried out by the Nazis in death camps and elsewhere, including many who were killed for being communists, resistance fighters, Roma, prisoners of war and many other "categories" considered "inferior." He goes on to say, "Each January 27, on the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in 1945, we come together to promise 'never again.' That day, and in the weeks that followed, the world saw the true scale of the mass murder, systemic starvation, and genocide that occurred."
With this rendering of the Holocaust and its significance, in the name of opposing genocide and upholding the words "Never Again," the Canadian government serves as a handmaiden to the genocide of the Palestinians by the Israeli Zionists, using the repugnant and inhuman methods of the Hitlerite Nazis.
No matter how one looks at the matter, the Canadian state is self-serving to the utmost as concerns its claims to oppose genocide or its disinformation about the situation in Ukraine and elsewhere. This is unacceptable and must not be permitted to pass.
Working people must continue to speak out and demand that Canada get out of Ukraine, call for a negotiated end to the U.S./NATO proxy war and get out of NATO and for NATO's dismantlement.
This article was published in
Volume 54 Number 13 - February 23, 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/MS541310.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca