Putin As A War Criminal!

Putin Africa

The Russian omnipotent President, Vladimir Putin, often projects the image of a strong leader with an intimidating academic and spying pedigree. He strikes one as a supremely confident macho man of power whose political career represents nothing but success from all indications. He is courageous, haughty, fearless and intelligent!

For many of his critics, however, he is a bloody power-hungry dictator out to intimidate or overawe the international community and leaders forcing them to respect the Russian federation.

For sure, Putin leads a super-power country armed to the teeth with multiple nuclear war-heads! Putin knows that with the stockpile of nuclear arsenal in his possession the leaders of the free Western nations are bound to take him seriously.

For more than two decades he has been calling the shots in the Kremlin almpost unchallenged except the years he wangled Dimitri Medvedev into power as President while he stayed in the shadows as the almighty Prime Minister.

Since that political masterstroke that saw him temporarily step aside presidentially in deference to the constitutional exigency he had maneuvered, once he bounced back to power, for the time limit to be expunged from the constitution paving the way for Putin forever!

As a former KGB spy intelligence agent based in Europe Putin prides himself as a superhuman at home with global politics of ‘might-is-right’. Unlike no leader of any nation in the West or elsewhere Putin’s ability to dominate his environment (and even beyond his national boundaries) could be located in his powerful military arsenal and nuclear dissuasion capability.

Besides, he understands the complexities of the world post-USSR and the crucial role Russia ought to play in it. Sometimes he rails angrily at the Americans for their global dominance advocating pompously for a multi-polar world — with China tacitly backing him.

Having conquered Russia decimating the opposition and stifling dissent he is the only man still standing in the Kremlin. He pretends to love Russia more than any other Russian!

Putin is not only a narcissist but a cynical sadistic dictator terrorizing nations and peoples. Perhaps, Ukraine would be a place where his obituary and graveyard would be marked. With the fierce resistance being put up by the Ukrainian military and nationals (with President Zelensky providing quality leadership) Ukraine would be Putin’s last military misadventure outside his shores!

Last weekend, Putin was in the conquered territory of Ukraine — Crimea and Mariupol. From the latter city videos online captured him inside a car on a driver’s seat cruising around a devastated city and appreciating the horror, the destruction his invading troops had wrought on a once beautiful thriving city but now reduced to a ghost town.

Now, the protracted war in the neighbouring Ukraine has demystified the tyrant like never before. When he ordered troops in the wee hours of the night to invade Ukraine (to demilitarize and de-Nazify her in his words!) he sounded like a mad man with a sinister mission to kill and destroy.

Today, millions of Ukraininans have been displaced. Thousands have been killed and thousands more injured. The casualty figure on the Russian side is equally on the high side as body bags pile up continuously.

Recently, the International Criminal Court (ICC) based in the Hague, Holland, had issued an arrest warrant against President Putin and Russia’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova.

According to the Karim Khan, the Chief Prosecutor for the ICC Putin and Ms Lvova-Belova were responsible for the systematic deportation of Ukrainian children across the border from Ukraine into Russia where they were forcefully integrated as Russians!

Indeed, incontrovertible evidence exists of the commission of atrocities and war crimes in Ukraine. And somebody someday somehow must be held responsible for these heinous crimes. Remember Bucha? And other scenes of abominable war crimes across the invaded country?

Putin has demonstrated remorselessly that he is a war criminal even before the ICC indictment. And his military commanders are daily committing horrific crimes against humanity with impunity!

President Putin is not the first or the last dictator to be booked by the ICC. The late Slobodan Milosevic, the late Muammar Gaddafi, Omar al-Bashir, Laurent Gbagbo, Charles Taylor, Jean-Pierre Bemba had all been docked before.

While it is true that Russia, China and even the United States  are not signatories to the Rome Statute the Putinic ‘indictment’ for war crimes is more than symbolic! On 17 July 1998, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court was adopted by a vote of 120 to seven countries with 21 nations abstaining.

That more than a hundred nations of the world recognise the jurisdiction of the ICC and a negligible numbers declining recognition does not remove the significance of the ICC move against the master of Moscow.

Arresting Putin inside Russia or outside Russia following the ICC arrest warrant may be seen as a remote if not an impossible mission. But he can be apprehended once he steps his foot on a foreign country where the ICC is recognised.

Of course, the prospect of arresting Putin outside Russia and deporting him to the ICC while still in power as the Russian President is next-to-zero in terms of becoming a reality. Given the Russian influence and Putinic powers no nation dares put handcuffs on Putin once he steps out of his presidential flight — destination the Hague!

If Putin were an African President then he could have been apprehended easily in a third country and handed over to Prosecutor Khan and his team in the Netherlands. Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria did it to the former Liberian President, Charles Taylor.

For all intents and purposes Vladimir Putin is a war criminal! And later than sooner, one way or the other, we may well see him in the dock answering relevant questions about how and why he did what he did (and is still doing) in Ukraine and elsewhere.

 

SOC Okenwa

soco_abj_2006_rci@hotmail.fr

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