Vavi condemns war in Ukraine!

SOUTH African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) general-secretary Zwelinzima Vavi has called for the withdrawal of all foreign troops in Ukraine.

He said the ongoing war has condemned working-class people of Ukraine, Russia, and the world into perpetual suffering as a result of imperialist power games between East and West.

"This war is not ours, but its effects are global. We call on all unions, social movements, the youth, and peace activists to speak out against imperialist wars and demand a world based on social justice, demilitarisation, and global solidarity," said Vavi.

He pointed out that the war is not waged in the interests of democracy or peace.

Vavi said it is a war driven by capitalist rivalries, military expansionism, and a quest for regional and global domination, whether by Western imperialism led by the US and The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato), or by Russian imperialism under Vladimir Putin.

"The role of Nato, the European Union, and the US foreign policy cannot be overlooked. Nato's steady eastward expansion, its militarisation of Eastern Europe, and history of invasions and regime change, from Iraq to Libya, have only intensified global insecurity."

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He said contradictions have become extreme, such as Donald Trump imposing punitive trade tariffs on Ukraine but not Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is in Mzansi for official talks with President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Said Vavi: "Trump's ongoing attempt to withdraw US military support to Zelenskyy and force him to accept Russia's theft of Crimea and the Donbas are reflections of his ‘paleo-conservative' turn away from the ‘neo-conservative' ideology, but at the same time he aims to override Ukrainian interests by grabbing the non-invaded part of the country's rare earth minerals, and also by gaining a precedent for Trump's own threatened invasions of Greenland and Canada."

He also blamed Zelenskyy's embrace of Nato, dependence on Western weapons (with a coming turn from the US to Europe), neoliberal economic alignment with the IMF and EU, and privatisation, as well as a forthcoming turnover of rare earth minerals to Trump regime cronies, have turned Ukraine into a battleground for Western strategic interests.

Vavi said under the cover of war, his administration has dismantled labour rights, banned opposition parties, and suppressed independent trade unions, particularly those with left and socialist traditions.

"Saftu stands opposed to this model of neo-colonial dependency, where Western military and financial institutions dictate the economic and political future of sovereign nations."