The allegations by US ambassador Reuben Brigety that SA supplied arms to Russia between December 6 and December 8 2022 from Simonstown naval base on the vessel Lady R has all the hallmarks of a James Bond thriller.
Simonstown was thrust into the global limelight during January 1983, when Soviet spy Dieter Gerhardt was unmasked by Western intelligence.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has promised to appoint a retired judge to investigate these allegations. It is indeed ironic that virtually every industrial nation is engaged in arms trade. SA is a junior player in the global arms game.
The US supplied the largest worth of weapons to Ukraine between January and November 2022, at over $18.1bn. Germany and the UK were second and third. A raging conflict that has killed over 200,000 soldiers on both sides of the conflict, a war fuelled by global interests and sanctified by those in the corridors of power, who have no interest in peace and are determined to redraw the map of Europe regardless of the human costs.
Thirteen nations supplied war material to Ukraine totalling $25bn. The merchants of death are responsible for prolonging this gruesome conflict. It is indeed ironic that SA is being investigated by the US, while being fully aware that 10 EU members exported €346m worth of arms to Russia between 2015 and 2020.
This is despite an embargo of the EU, which prohibits arms sales to Russia, which has been in place since 2014. All wars are immoral. It demonstrates that there is indeed a pattern of harm to civilians and that in fact devastating harm to civilians happens daily in all the world’s conflict zones.
Sixty-seven countries export arms to fuel all the deadly conflicts raging around the globe. These weapons of war are produced by over 1,000 companies in over 100 countries. Over 1-million civilians die each year in the world’s war zones, creating over 75-million global refugees.
All the world’s major leaders should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity that were undertaken over the past 75 years in which innocent civilians were used as cannon fodder. Even when justice can be achieved, it cannot revive the dead or erase the pain or wipe away the trauma of survivors. The Geneva Convention and protocols are brazenly violated in the conflict zones by powerful nations in order to deprive people of all assistance and obtain their surrender.
It was then US president John Kennedy who, on September 25 1961, said the following profound words before the United Nations General Assembly: “Mankind must put an end to war, or else war will put an end to mankind.”
Farouk Araie, Actonville, Benoni
READER LETTER | Silence the guns and stop arms trade
Image: 123RF/snak
The allegations by US ambassador Reuben Brigety that SA supplied arms to Russia between December 6 and December 8 2022 from Simonstown naval base on the vessel Lady R has all the hallmarks of a James Bond thriller.
Simonstown was thrust into the global limelight during January 1983, when Soviet spy Dieter Gerhardt was unmasked by Western intelligence.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has promised to appoint a retired judge to investigate these allegations. It is indeed ironic that virtually every industrial nation is engaged in arms trade. SA is a junior player in the global arms game.
The US supplied the largest worth of weapons to Ukraine between January and November 2022, at over $18.1bn. Germany and the UK were second and third. A raging conflict that has killed over 200,000 soldiers on both sides of the conflict, a war fuelled by global interests and sanctified by those in the corridors of power, who have no interest in peace and are determined to redraw the map of Europe regardless of the human costs.
Thirteen nations supplied war material to Ukraine totalling $25bn. The merchants of death are responsible for prolonging this gruesome conflict. It is indeed ironic that SA is being investigated by the US, while being fully aware that 10 EU members exported €346m worth of arms to Russia between 2015 and 2020.
This is despite an embargo of the EU, which prohibits arms sales to Russia, which has been in place since 2014. All wars are immoral. It demonstrates that there is indeed a pattern of harm to civilians and that in fact devastating harm to civilians happens daily in all the world’s conflict zones.
Sixty-seven countries export arms to fuel all the deadly conflicts raging around the globe. These weapons of war are produced by over 1,000 companies in over 100 countries. Over 1-million civilians die each year in the world’s war zones, creating over 75-million global refugees.
All the world’s major leaders should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity that were undertaken over the past 75 years in which innocent civilians were used as cannon fodder. Even when justice can be achieved, it cannot revive the dead or erase the pain or wipe away the trauma of survivors. The Geneva Convention and protocols are brazenly violated in the conflict zones by powerful nations in order to deprive people of all assistance and obtain their surrender.
It was then US president John Kennedy who, on September 25 1961, said the following profound words before the United Nations General Assembly: “Mankind must put an end to war, or else war will put an end to mankind.”
Farouk Araie, Actonville, Benoni
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