Putin's past history clearly contradicts the principles of peace

Mar 8, 2014 18:31 GMT  ·  By

According to the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), Russian President Vladimir Putin is one of the 278 nominees for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

If you are confused after reading this line, maybe I should mention that this is a serious piece of news, not an April Fools’ Day joke.

It seems that someone somewhere on this planet thinks Vladimir Putin is making the world a happier, safer place, and nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize.

That someone is the Russian advocacy group called The International Academy of Spiritual Unity and Cooperation Among the Nations of the World. Completely disregarding the escalating conflict in Ukraine, Putin's past invasions and the hostile environment that his administration's policies create for LGBT community, the group brought forth the nomination citing his key role in preventing a US missile strike on Syria and his initiative to dismantle Damascus’ chemical weapons.

Granted, the conditions to nominate someone for the Nobel Peace Prize are pretty broad, but shouldn’t the Peace Prize winner allegedly be working towards a state without war? As I understand it, the nominees should stand out for their efforts to maintain tranquility, amity, PEACE, whereas Putin is more like an anti-gay, anti-Chechnya, anti-Georgia, anti-Ukraine president.

He is a former KGB agent and a brilliant strategist who is carefully calculating and executing his every move, but he comes from the “old school” of Russian communism. From this perspective, the Russian President looks less like a modern European leader and more like a posturing Third World dictator.

Based on his past history, Putin’s nomination is clearly ironic in many ways.

First of all, the nomination is ridiculous because Putin is basically the main pillar of political arms trading. The International Academy of Spiritual Unity and Cooperation Among the Nations of the World motivated their nomination saying that Putin opposed military intervention in Syria, but neglected to mention that Russia has been the main supplier of weapons to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, who is frequently killing his own people.

Moreover, Putin firmly blocked a U.N. resolution for international intervention in Syria, an intervention that could have put an end to the Syrian civil war earlier and prevented the murders of more than 100,000 civilians.

Secondly, Putin’s nomination is ironic because it doesn’t take his violent campaign against the separatists in Chechnya or the war he waged on Georgia into consideration.

Chechnya is part of the Caucasus region, which is neighbor to and surrounds part of Russia. The region has seen conflicts between separatists and the government of Russia for decades. In 1999, Russia intervened in the area supposedly to halt the invasion of the Islamic International Brigade. This led to the Second Chechnya War that lasted for over nine years and was overseen by none other than President Vladimir Putin. Casualties of Chechen civilians have been estimated to be up to 50,000.

On the other hand, the events that occurred in Georgia in 2008 presaged what was to come in Ukraine. After Georgia elected a pro-Western government, Russia intervened militarily – allegedly to protect the Russian nationals within the Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Back then, Putin’s invasion of Georgia was quick, decisive and brief.

What’s more, in 2013, Putin passed a law that bans the distribution of “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” to minors, which effectively makes it illegal to suggest that gay relationships are equal to heterosexual relationships. How does this make him a peace enforcer?

Finally, it would be totally ironic for the man behind the military intervention in Crimea, which involves 11,000 pro-Russian troops taking over the peninsula, to be recognized for championing peace.

Ukraine is of far greater importance to Russia strategically, historically and politically than Chechnya and Georgia, so Putin’s army has gathered on the Ukrainian border and uniformed armed men have spread across Crimea.

The Russian leader has said that his intention by moving troops into Crimea is to protect ethnic Russians who live in the region. However, his affirmation drew a lot of international criticism up to the point that he was somehow compared to Hitler.

Hillary Clinton, former United States Secretary of State, said that in Putin’s actions she sees eerie echoes of Hitler invading another country to allegedly protect the interests of ethnic Germans.

“Now if this sounds familiar, it’s what Hitler did back in the 30s,” Clinton said. “Hitler kept saying: ‘They’re not being treated right. I must go and protect my people.’ And that’s what’s gotten everybody so nervous.”

In fact, this seems more like one of Putin's strategic moves that forms part of a larger plan. Under the guise of protecting his citizens, he is slowly taking control of Crimea. And Putin has done this before in Georgia. However, after the occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Georgia was even more determined to resist and seek integration with Europe.

Analogically, his invasion of Crimea is likely to alienate Ukrainians in that region.

All in all, Vladimir Putin’s actions contradict the principles of peace and tranquility. Persecuting gay people, imprisoning political critics, supplying weapons, invading countries on the pretext of protecting those who speak his mother tongue are actions that clearly don’t recommend Putin as a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize.