The Speaker of Ghana’s Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, currently serving as the President of the Conference of Speakers and Presidents of African Legislatures (COSPAL), has been unanimously elected as a member to the newly created African Group on Peace Initiative for Russia-Ukraine crisis. The Russia-Ukraine crisis began late February 2022, after the State Duma and Federation Council voted for the ‘Special Military Operation’ and, under assigned presidential decree, aims at ‘denazifying and demilitarizing’ the former Soviet republic of Ukraine.
The President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) praised Speaker Alban Bagbin for his unique integrity and ability in build trust among seven other respected parliamentarians from around the world on the IPU Task Force on the peaceful resolution of the crisis in Ukraine. According to the media release, “As a seasoned international peace negotiator and broker, his inclusion in the group signifies a renewed resolve to broker peace in Ukraine.”
According to the Secretary-General of the IPU, Martin Chungong, Speaker Alban Bagbin’s leadership and experience are essential for strengthening the group’s efforts to promote peace between Russia and Ukraine. The IPU Task Force was set up in March 2022 to encourage dialogue between lawmakers from Russia and Ukraine.
Speaker Alban Bagbin is one of the three highest officers of the Republic of Ghana, ranking third in the official order of precedence after the President and the Vice President. With years of experience in peace negotiations, Speaker Alban Bagbin’s inclusion is expected to bring fresh energy to the mission. He will take part in meetings, discussions, and peace talks with delegations from both nations and their leaders, with the goal of helping to end the ongoing conflict.
Since its creation, the group has held several meetings, including visits to both Kyiv and Moscow, and continues to meet with representatives from both countries during IPU Assemblies every six months. The task force is one of the few remaining international platforms where Russian and Ukrainian parliamentarians can still meet and talk, as most diplomatic channels have been cut off since the war began.
Previous Unsuccessful Attempts
Down these couple of years, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, despite multitude of persistent conflicts across Africa, headed an African Peace Initiative to Kyiv and Moscow. That was followed by Brazil, China, India, and a number of other countries who have attempted finding a peaceful resolution to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Full of assertive optimism and energy, Ramaphosa engaged in that diplomatic negotiations after previous unsuccessful stark attempts in May 2023, which Russian officials in the Kremlin and at the Foreign Affairs Ministry argued the ten-point steps were not formulated on paper, and worse could not be implemented. “The peace initiative proposed by African countries is very difficult to implement, difficult to compare positions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, local Russian media reported. Ramaphosa’s African Peace Initiative group visited and host peace talks with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, Ukraine and thereafter with Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg, Russia.
In principle, Ramaphosa made the proposal hoping to convince Russia and Ukraine to opt for dialogue, find a solution to the conflict. “We would like to propose that this war must be settled through negotiations and through diplomatic means. The war cannot go on forever. All wars have to be settled and come to an end at some stage. And we are here to communicate this very clear message because the war is having a negative impact on the African continent, and indeed on many other countries around the world,” emphasized Ramaphosa, and further underlined that Russia has primarily violated Ukraine’s territorial integrity and its political sovereignty, which it attained in 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
That delegation was made up of the following: President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa; the then Chairperson of the African Union and Comoros president, Ghazali Othman; then President of Senegal, Macky Sall; President of Zambia, Hakainde Hichilema and Prime Minister of Egypt, Mostafa Madbouly arrived in St. Petersburg to discuss the African peace initiative. In addition, it included representatives of Uganda and Congo.
Interestingly, Russia is a staunch member of BRICS (Brazil, India, China and South Africa). The members have consistently declared at various summits and conferences that BRICS would continue to pursue “a lasting peace to end the Ukrainian crisis.” Further to that, BRICS members have been active with talks and negotiations, but without any practical results, and without any visible signs for establishing relative peace and/or anytime soon would be realized.
Besides these however, South Africa’s Ramaphosa, within the context of the power of G20 agenda, plans a comprehensive ‘peace trip’ to Russia and Ukraine. Despite that fact that Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov mocked South Africa’s ten-point proposal in 2023, Ramaphosa has still expressed optimism over upcoming peace talks with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to halt the escalating crisis in this former Soviet republic of Ukraine.
Putin’s Reaction and Explanation
In that mid-June 2023, talking to leaders of seven African countries in St. Petersburg, Putin interrupted the presentations to explain the concept and the reasons behind the special military action in Ukraine. Putin explained that Russia initially would not “occupy” the territory of Ukraine. On the other side, Russia wanted simply to protect its Russian-language speaking population in Eastern Ukraine. But in the end, Russia has taken “full control” over the southern region as well as the Eastern Donbas region off Ukraine.
United States: Newcomer and Peace Broker
President of the United States, Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin have expressed willingness to thoroughly work out possible solutions, held bilateral talks in Alaska which aimed at reaching a settlement that would be comprehensive, reliable, and lasting, and naturally, taken into account the essential need to eliminate the root causes of the crisis, as well as carving out Russia’s legitimate security interests.
Concretely, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov together with the MFA Spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce agreed, in official statements, to continue working towards restoring communication between the United States and Russia. As expected, for the love of American dream, Kremlin readily appointed new ambassador to the United States and also would despatch diplomatic staff to New York and Washington.
In addition, Russian Special Presidential Envoy for Economic Cooperation with United States, Kirill Dmitriev, has been shuttling between between Moscow and Washington, has held several meetings with representatives of the administration of US President Donald Trump, over the past months, to get Western enterprises within a new framework and well-designed mechanism, back to the Russian Federation.
China’s Peace Proposals On Rocks
A 12-point peace proposal Beijing offered on the Russia-Ukraine’s one-year anniversary did little to change anything. More significantly, Russia often referred to China as trusted and reliable partner in BRICS+. For the discussions here, it is necessary to consider carefully here, in the context the China’s Global Security Initiative (GSI) that could play important role in resolving he Russia-Ukraine crisis and many others around the world. In the first place, China prominently places “cooperation” as the key component in its foreign policy, as oppose to Russia that is confrontational and yet talk about multipolar – in fact ‘multipolar’ in its basic sense means inclusive and integrated approach to global developments including conflict resolutions.
According to the concept, the Global Security Initiative aims at eliminating the root causes of international conflicts, improve global security governance, encourage joint international efforts to bring more stability and certainty to a volatile and changing era, and promote durable peace and development in the world.
The concept is guided by six commitments or pillars, which are
- (i) pursuing common, comprehensive, cooperative, and sustainable security;
- (ii) respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries;
- (iii) adhering to the purposes and principles of the UN Charter;
- (iv) taking the legitimate security concerns of all countries seriously;
- (v) peacefully resolving differences and disputes between countries through dialogue and consultation; and
- (vi) maintaining security in both traditional and non-traditional domains.
Gleaning from these core principles, it’s safe to say that the GSI could and probably would become a catalyst for the world to chart a new path to building sustainable peace, stability and development. The Global Security Initiative (GSI) was first proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference on April 21, 2022.
How Ukraine Lost Four Regions
On 23rd-27th September 2022, the republics of Donetsk and Lugansk (DPR and LPR) as well as the Kherson region and the liberated territories of the Zaporozhye Region, held referendum to join Russia. In all of these four autonomous regions, the overwhelming majority of voters favoured becoming part of the Russian Federation. These regions have been a thorny question these past several years, and with the accusation against Kiev for committing the highest level of human rights including intimidation, discrimination and maltreatment of Russian-speaking population in the Eastern Ukraine.
“In accordance with the generally recognized principles and norms of international law, recognizing and confirming the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples enshrined in the United Nations Charter, and taking into consideration the will expressed by the people of the Kherson region at the referendum held on September 27, I hereby order that the state sovereignty and independence of the Kherson region be recognized,” the president’s decree on recognition of the Kherson region said, and made available on its the official Kremlin’s website.
In his sparkling speech in the Kremlin, Putin said Moscow would protect the newly incorporated regions by “all available means” and vehemently insisted that the question of handing them back would never be discussed and renegotiated. “History has called us to a battlefield to fight for our people, for the grand historic Russia, for future generations,” Putin reiterated in his speech.
United Nations’ Reactions to Annexation
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres pointed out that the UN position on the referendum as unequivocal and slammed, in unreserved terms, the accession unto the Russian Federation. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said: “Any decision to proceed with the annexation of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions of Ukraine would have no legal value and deserves to be condemned.”
“The UN Charter is clear,” Guterres stressed, “Any annexation of a State’s territory by another State resulting from the threat or use of force is a violation of the Principles of the UN Charter and international law. The United Nations General Assembly is equally clear.”
He further stressed that “Russian Federation, as one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, shares a particular responsibility to respect the Charter. It cannot be reconciled with the international legal framework. It stands against everything the international community is meant to stand for. It flouts the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations. It is a dangerous escalation. It has no place in the modern world. It must not be accepted.”
Guterres pointed out that the UN position on the referendum is unequivocal. “We are fully committed to the sovereignty, unity, independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine, within its internationally recognized borders, in accordance with the relevant UN resolution. I want to underscore that the so-called referenda in the occupied regions were conducted during active armed conflict, in areas under Russian occupation, and outside Ukraine’s legal and constitutional framework. They cannot be called a genuine expression of the popular will.”
“Any decision by Russia to go forward will further jeopardize the prospects for peace. It will prolong the dramatic impacts on the global economy, especially developing countries and hinder our ability to deliver life-saving aid across Ukraine and beyond. It is high time to step back from the brink. Now more than ever, we must work together to end this devastating and senseless war and uphold the UN Charter and international law,” Guterres concluded.
Undelivered Expectations and Forward-Looking Peace
As a new world awakens to the worsening situation, global leaders still believe that all countries must respect and abide by international law. That all countries must be guided profoundly by the principles of non-interference in internal matters, respect for national sovereignty and territorial integrity. South Africa, China and Brazil, India, and South Africa (BRICS+) have proposed their “peace formula” of in attempts to resolve the Russia-Ukraine crisis during the last couple of years. BRICS+ has not been successful, in principle, in securing and sustaining global peace as outlined in their final summit declarations.
As frequently resonated ’emerging multipolar world’ – the prefix ‘multi’ and the 3-worded phrase requires majority decision over existing challenges of global peace, development and economic growth. Time is still on the side of key global powers for negotiating a ceasefire, as a primary step towards full-fledged peace between Russia and Ukraine.
Therefore, Speaker Alban Bagbin’s appointment to head an African group from the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) is a welcome step in an excellent direction. The African group must be reminded that, over these years, Putin, concerned about security risks and lack of security guarantees, warned the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for overlooking its promise not to expand its tentacles further eastward, close to the borders of the Russian Federation.
The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) is the global organization of parliaments which promotes democratic governance, and works with parliaments and parliamentarians to articulate the aspirations of the people. It works also for peace, human rights, gender equality, youth empowerment, and sustainable development through political dialogue, cooperation and parliamentary action. Today, the IPU comprises 181 national Member Parliaments and 14 Associate Members.