*Violation of the Helsinki act is cause of problems between Ukraine and Russia
IKENNA EMEWU
A US professor of International law, Mr. Alfred De Zayas has blamed the crisis in the Balkans that later escalated to a war between Russia and Ukraine on the US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)
De Zayas spoke to the CGTN on a live discussion Saturday afternoon monitored by ACE Magazine.
He explained that the breach of the Helsinki agreement between NATO and Russia in 1991/92 which has been violated many times by NATO by advancing towards the East causes malice in Russia.
“Russia, just like every other country has a right to national security and it is a priority for them,” he admitted.
“As a citizen of the US, I feel vicariously liable for the crisis between Ukraine and Russia,” De Zayas confessed.
“In 2004, we had a hand in the intervention of European countries and NATO in the coup d’etat that overthrew a democratically elected President Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine and my assistant secretary of state Victoria Neuland actually bragged about that, that the action caused the US $5b, my own dollars of the taxpayers, to achieve what she called a regime change. I found that statement disgraceful, an action that is a clear violation of the UN Charter on non-interference in the internal affairs of a country. It in addition violated Article 6 of the Helsinki Final Act.
“The coup d’etat was an illegal and unconstitutional change of the government of a country. This development came because the elected leader was considered to be pro-Russia and there was hate speech against Russians together with the prohibition of the use of the Russian language in Ukraine in 2014.
“The development made the Crimean Russians declare that they don’t recognise the government in Kyiv that the US and NATO helped bring to power. The declaration was in accordance with the UN Charter on self-determination.”
On the issue of the position of the peoples of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions and their pressure for an independent state from Ukraine, De Zayas said there was nothing wrong with that. He cited the UN Charter which provides for the self-determination of a people within a territorial jurisdiction.
De Zayas said that their pressure for self-determination is covered and legalised under Article 1 of the Covenant on Political Rights. The provision also commands all states under an obligation to support the move without recourse to violence.
He further cited the case of the separation of Kosovo from Serbia and the latter seeking an interpretation and advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which held that there was no violation of the territorial integrity of the complainant, Serbia against Kosovo, as the principle of the sovereign territory is only invoked externally, not internally to deny people within the jurisdiction their right to self-preservation.
Therefore, since in the past eight years Kyiv refused to abide by the agreements of Minsk I and Minsk II regarding the rights of the peoples of Lugansk and Donetsk to self-determination, they are entitled in law to seek their independence.
De Zayas said the position of Kyiv is a good justification for Russia to recognise the regions of Lugansk and Donetsk as independent states and if they invite Russia to help safeguard their freedom from Ukraine, the action is not a violation.
The law professor also condemned all acts of interference in the affairs of any state by another that intends to overthrow governments. He said such acts are illegal, violate the UN Charter and customary international law.
“This is something that has happened again and again, and my country through its national endowment for democracy finance a lot of non-governmental organisations that are essentially there to destabilise and they played very crucial roles in the destabilisation of Ukraine in 2015 which also violated the Article 6 of the Helsinki Final Act.”
De Zayas, a world-renowned international lawyer from May 1, 2012, to April 30, 2018, served as the first UN Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order. He is a Harvard-trained lawyer and historian.
He has over time also served as a visiting professor in the University of British Columbia in Canada, the Graduate Institute of the University of Geneva, the DePaul University Law School (Chicago), the Human Rights Institute at the Irish National University, Galway, and also the University of Trier in Germany.
