Rawlings unhappy with handling of Gaza conflict

Former President Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings has expressed disappointment about the manner the United States and other countries in the West have supported Israel’s conduct in Gaza, while criminalising Russia in the conflict in Ukraine.

Disheartening

Delivering an acceptance speech at a ceremony to honour him with a doctorate degree by the University of Education, Winneba last Thursday, the former President said more disheartening was how the United States had placed so much emphasis on the conflict in Ukraine and done little on the situation in Gaza.

The former President also lamented the Western media’s penchant for twisting the news to favour its governments’ parochial agenda.

“A few weeks ago when President Obama was speaking at his usual White House press briefing on developments in Ukraine and Gaza, he expressed so much sympathy doe those who lost their lives in the Malaysian air crash in Ukraine and yet within that same breath, he mentioned the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but not a word for all the innocent women and children who were being killed and injured in Gaza. I watched in dismay.

Mandela

“This was the same Obama that not only America but also the world welcomed with such warmth and comfort. In those days, some of us felt that if he did not utilise his national international strength and popularity to contain Israel’s grip on America, then no one else could,” President Rawlings lamented.

The former President said it was not rescued by the American or British governments despite the condemnation of apartheid by humanity the world over.

Catalyst

“The catalyst that triggered events leading up to the release of Nelson Mandela was when the citizens in the United States of America began to take to the streets in New York. Then and only then did President Reagan decide to pre-empt what could have turned out to be one of the biggest demonstrations that America and UK were going to witness in relation to a foreign personality and some aspects of their own foreign policy.

“President Mandela had by then and subsequently become the great international voice of conscience whose moral authority could galvanise people enough to override the authority of their own governments.”

Flt Lt Rawlings added that the world was now being made to believe that the American public may have changed their opinion on the “current brutal treatment of the Palestinians at the hands of the Israelis.”

He was, however, expectant that though history had demonstrated that the voice of the world had not changed America’s position on the Israel-Palestinian issue, the voice of American citizens would bring pressure to bear on their government to being true freedom and justice to the Palestinians as they did with apartheid in South Africa.

On the downing of the Malaysian airliner in Ukraine, President Rawlings said Western governments and their media could not exercise restraint in their outrageous and daily barrage of charges against Russia, Putin and the Ukrainian separatists in a design to make Putin and Russia look evil.

“This tragedy took place in a war zine. The stresses of war and security alertness creates an opening for men to indulge in excesses. I do not, however, believe that either side in the Ukrainian conflict would deliberately attempt to bring down a civilian airline.”

The former President said a few years before , the US Navy fired a missile at an Iranian civilian aircraft killing at 290 passengers on board, but he was convinced that act was also a genuine accident.