EDITORIAL COMMENT: Playground bully finally meets his match

putinIN the words of Anglo-Irish statesman, Edmund Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing’’ and this rang true for global affairs as the sabre-rattling US was left to run riot in an increasingly unipolar world in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989.

But over the past few weeks, two giants have woken up from their slumber to challenge the skewed global order, bringing relief to millions of people in the developing world.

The first major awakening occurred during the just-ended 70th session of the United Nations General Assembly where, in his address to the grand debate, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the world body that Russia would no longer tolerate the US’ disastrous and failed policies of expansionism that have left a trail of destruction in the Middle East, North Africa and now Europe.

And true to Putin’s words, two days later, Russia showed leadership by answering the request of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to help him with airpower to fight ISIS militants.

Since Russia’s legitimate intervention, Syrian government troops have already established control over a number of areas in different provinces that had been overrun by ISIS militants.

According to the General Command of the Army and Armed Forces statement released on Monday, the Syrian army has made significant progress in eliminating ISIS militants and destroying their command centres, ammunition depots and vehicles in the Free Zone in Aleppo, as well as in 13 other towns and villages and two areas spanning Hama and Latakia provinces.

The US, which has been meddling in Syria without invitation had set the Syrian army back as it has been fighting the government forces while claiming to be fighting ISIS, which effectively means the US has been fighting on the side of ISIS.

With the emperor’s nakedness exposed for all to see, the right-wing Western media has been trying to trash Russia’s intervention without success as the world can see for itself the difference Russia has made.

The second significant development took the form of the launch of an alternative international payment system, the China International Payment System, by China’s Central Bank, this week.

The CIPS is a global payment system which provides cross-border transactions in yuan, and through which China intends to internationalise the yuan and challenge the US dollar’s dominance.

This comes as good news to many developing world countries particularly those that have been victimised by the US which took advantage of the global transaction services organisation SWIFT to have its Office of Foreign Assets Control seize funds from countries it has earmarked for destabilisation.

Several Zimbabwean companies have lost millions of dollars to OFAC since the imposition of illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe at the turn of the millennium.

The Industrial Development Corporation lost over $20 million to OFAC while the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe had over $30 million seized. Olivine — a subsidiary of the IDC lost a $2 million loan it had secured from the PTA Bank to capitalise while a Zimbabwean resident in Botswana had his $1 000 frozen.

Last year, OFAC also froze the Zimbabwe Embassy account in the US, making it difficult for staff to access their salaries.

The US also threatened to seize money from diamond sales in Europe after the EU bloc eased its sanctions regime which is estimated to have cost Zimbabwe over $42 billion in revenue over the past 15 years.

As such CIPS comes as a welcome relief.

To this end we hail China and Russia for stepping up to the plate and accepting the mantle of global leadership. We urge them to go a step further to bring about the complete democratisation of the UN system and global financial architecture.

The playground bully has finally met his match.

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