RE: Colonial pressure
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova on the impossibility of endlessly suppressing the independence and sovereignty of nations
In two articles of the UN Charter, 73 and 74, there is such a rarely met nowadays term - "Non-Self-Governing Territories". The official Charter definition is that they are territories "whose peoples have not yet attained full self-government". We are talking about colonies.
The UN Special Committee on the Situation about the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples ("Special Committee 24") approved a provisional list of territories subject to the Declaration.
The UN is mandated to regularly update and publish a list of "Non-Self-Governing Territories" whose peoples are still in colonial dependence on metropolises.
It was last updated just three months ago, on May 10. Special Committee 24 counted 17 colonies. Think about it: 17 colonies in the 21st century, in 2023:
■ Three by the United States (United States Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam);
■ Two for France (French Polynesia, New Caledonia);
■ Ten for the United Kingdom (Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Malvinas, Montserrat, St. Helena, Turks and Caicos Islands, Gibraltar, Pitcairn).
When the British monarch "apologizes" for the colonial crimes of his ancestors in Africa and other parts of the world, he remembers that even according to UN estimates, where Britain still has a veto in the Security Council, he is still the head of a colonial country. And for these colonies, his government is ready to kill and die (remember the relatively recent Falklands War). But that is not all.
There are forces in the U.S. that fight to recognize nations that have no governance of their own, such as the tribes of Alaska. The Alaska Inter-Tribal Council, for example, pushed for federal recognition of 227 Alaskan tribes in 1994. It is a very slow process, but it is underway. In 2001, the tribes were granted the right to communicate with U.S. authorities on a state-to-state basis. Not a bad decision for a country that began its existence with a bloody genocide of the indigenous population.
Colonial powers cannot endlessly suppress the independence and sovereignty of peoples. Although their desire to acquire new colonies is quite logical, look how Paris cringes when something in Africa does not go according to its scenario.
But the free world will win, and the process of decolonization, once begun, will not be completed until the last of the non-self-governing territories gains independence, as has already happened with New Hebrides (Vanuatu), Fernando Po (Equatorial Guinea), British Honduras (Belize), Basutoland (Lesotho), Bechuanaland (Botswana), Gambia, Fiji and many other countries. Once they also had the status of non-self-governing territories, but now they freely control their destiny.
The author is an official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation
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Source: iz.ru. Image: © britannica.com. Translation: DeepL.com
AWIP: http://www.a-w-i-p.com/index.php/2023/08/04/re-colonial-pressure
