Notice how the gods of property rights in SA and the West suddenly became tongue-tied when the filthy rich Russian oligarchs suffered the indignity of their luxury properties being seized by police. Italian police seized villas and yachts of five oligarchs worth some €150m after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
These seizures were part of a coordinated drive by Western powers to penalise wealthy Russians and try to force the Russian leader to pull back his troops from Ukraine. The West claimed Russia's invasion was illegal as if their sanctions and seizures of private property of others was legal.
What wrong have these oligarchs done other than being filthy rich and close to the Russian president? Is it a crime to be so? More importantly, under what law are they seizing these properties? What legal procedures were initiated before the seizures?
Did these oligarchs participate in the purported jural proceedings against their own interest? Is this act not the banditry so typical of the West, especially the US? Have they not confiscated billions of US dollars from Iran since 1979?
The US and UK are frenetically scouring their vaults looking for assets to be seized that belong to all and sundry connected to the Kremlin. Donald Trump did warn that "Sleepy Joe", referring to Joe Biden, would be a menace to the world if given a chance to become president.
This is one issue that Trump is correct on. Listen to the silence of the lambs when property rights are violated by the protagonists of the doctrine of property rights and the law. When Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe confiscated the property of white farmers there was an outcry in the West and SA not only by governments but also by the media and their regular columnists.
Hypocrisy is the name of these global liberal elites. The hypocritical lords of property rights are also the same lords of freedom of the press. Have they not silenced the Russian media outlets, such as RT and Sputnik?
They say these media outlets peddle lies to the world. If peddling lies is illegal, why are the likes of CNN, Fox News, BBC, Voice of America, New York Times etc still operational? Did these outlets not spread lies all over the world about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and use these White House fabrications to invade Iraq?
None of these media houses ever carried reports about the devastation caused by Ukraine's shelling of the Donbas (Russian speaking) region where thousands of civilians have been killed since the 2014 coup supported by the US, EU and Nato. Vladimir Putin could also be correct when he denounces the West by calling it the Empire of Lies.
Prof Themba Sono, email