“We keep talking about the war in Ukraine, but we dare not point the finger at the main culprits – the USA and NATO!” is what we heard at the recent congress of the Social Democrats party (Socialni demokrati – SD). This scandalous statement calls into question the truthfulness of the commitment of the Social Democrats President and current Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tanja Fajon, to the attacked Ukraine.
On Saturday, at the congress of the Social Democrats party, where the party’s president Tanja Fajon also spoke, we heard the most incomprehensible words coming from a party that is supposedly in favour of democracy and truthfulness. One speaker arrogantly shouted that the United States of America and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) were the main culprits for the war in Ukraine and that we should be pointing the finger at them. It is supposedly because of the USA and NATO that people are suffering, because some people are supposedly unable to just “sit down” and talk with Vladimir Putin so that people would stop being killed.
But what is being forgotten again and again is the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, when Russia committed to respecting territorial integrity in exchange for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons. Years later, Putin annexed parts of the Donbas and Crimea. The second fact that is also often ignored is that Russia is the aggressor or
occupier, and Ukraine is the victim. The war in Ukraine happened with the consent of one particular man – Putin. The West did not listen to the ideas of the Slovenian left when this happened – that no weapons should be sent to Ukraine. The sending of arms to Ukraine was initially also criticised by the spiritual father of the SD party and the last head of the Communist Party of Slovenia – Milan Kučan.
If the Americans, the British, the Poles and others had listened to and followed Kučan’s criticism and proposals, the Russians would soon have occupied most of Ukraine. And a bloody partisan war would have begun. How many rapes, tortures and murders of civilians have been spared thanks to the brave Ukrainian soldiers… The calls for disarmament are quite reminiscent of the period of Slovenia gaining its independence from Yugoslavia. But it is morally right to help those who are prepared to fight for their existence, against the denationalisation hidden behind the perfidious paroles of denazification. And the fact is that Putin would not have stopped in Ukraine. He is not interested in peace, but in the restoration of the Soviet empire. He is someone who has been dreaming for years, decades, even of being the great hero of a new patriotic war.
NATO is a collective defence, which provides security for Slovenia, but also imposes obligations! Putin is prepared to sacrifice tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of innocent lives to achieve his sick, outdated geopolitical goals. And with its misguided rhetoric and views, the SD party has once again exposed itself as the pro-Russian subalpine stronghold, joining the Left party (Levica) in agreeing to disarm Slovenia and leave NATO, forgetting that it is the collective defence within the Alliance that provides Slovenia with security. This, in turn, imposes certain obligations on Slovenia, including providing the proper equipment for the Slovenian army.
Domen Mezeg
