Ambassador Kimani speaks, the world listens
Yesterday, the eyes of the world were glued to Eastern Europe. Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech which signalled his determination to dismember Ukraine by recognising the “independence” of the two southeastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. Shortly after recognising these regions, which have been occupied and governed by Russian separatists since 2014, Putin ordered Russian soldiers to deploy there in a “peacekeeping function”.
Putin’s speech was met with outrage and despair by most onlookers and the threat of immediate sanctions of dozens of states. For his supporters in Russia and elsewhere, it was lauded as a proportionate response to Ukrainian and NATO provocation.
You can hardly move for hot takes about this latest step in the crisis and dire warnings about what will happen next. I would like to instead focus on another speech, delivered by Kenya’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN), Ambassador Martin Kimani, at an emergency session of the UN Security Council.
In a speech lasting just five-and-a-half minutes, Kimani uses his nation’s own struggle for freedom to castigate Russia’s attempts to subjugate Ukraine and demolish claims made by Russia’s supporters that it is actually motivated by anti-imperialism. Below is a transcript of Kimani’s speech along with some of my own thoughts about his rhetoric and argument.
Opening
We meet tonight on the brink of a major conflict in Ukraine.
The diplomacy we urged on the 17th of February is failing. The territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine stands breached. The Charter of the United Nations continues to wilt under the relentless assault of the powerful. In one moment, it is invoked with reverence by the very same countries who then turn their backs on it in pursuit of objectives diametrically opposed to international peace and security.
There are two points here I would like to focus on.
The first is Kimani’s immediate reference to territorial integrity. Kenya’s territorial integrity was, of course, breached by the British Empire when it established the East Africa Protectorate in the late 19th century. It was not respected until Kenya won its independence in December 1963. In Kimani’s first breath, he makes common cause with Ukraine.
The second is his withering criticism of the countries who invoke the UN Charter with reverence and then “turn their backs on it in pursuit of objectives diametrically opposed to international peace and security”. The United Nations was born in compromise: to ensure the full participation of the five major global powers following World War II, it guaranteed them a permanent veto over Security Council resolutions. This has proved a tall barrier on occasions when those member states or their allies have pursued objectives that are antithetical to the global rules-based order.
Give diplomacy a chance
In the last two meetings on the situation in Ukraine, and the build up of forces by the Russian Federation, Kenya urged that diplomacy be given a chance. Our cry was not heeded and, more importantly, the Charter’s demand for states to settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered has been profoundly undermined.
Today, the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity and political independence of Ukraine has been effected. Kenya is gravely concerned by the announcement made by the Russian Federation to recognise Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine as independent states. In our considered view, this action and announcement breaches the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
We do not deny that there may be serious security concerns in these regions. But they cannot justify today’s recognition of these regions as independent states – not when there are multiple diplomatic tracks available and underway that have the ability to offer peaceful solutions.
Partly because of the compromise of the veto granted in perpetuity to the Permanent Five, many analysts and even casual observers of international affairs consider the United Nations to be an irrelevance or, worse, a utopian distraction from the hard-nosed business conducted between sovereign states.
But for nations like Kenya, the United Nations has served as a vital guarantor of security, upholder of human rights and broker of post-conflict resolution. Smaller nations, beyond the tabletop fantasies of the Great Powers, have never had the privilege of exercising unilateralism at the cost of multilateralism and diplomacy. They haven’t had enough troops, enough guns, enough money or enough clout. They have sought peace as a member of the international community.
Ukraine’s leaders feel let down by tepid support from NATO and the European Union (Ukraine is not a member of either grouping). Let us hope that this does not fatally undermine their faith in diplomacy and multilateralism.
Distant colonial metropoles
Mr. President… this situation echoes our history. Kenya and almost every African country was birthed by the ending of Empire. Our borders were not of our own drawing. They were drawn in the distant colonial metropoles of London, Paris and Lisbon, with no regard for the ancient nations that they cleaved apart.
Today, across the border of every single African country, live our countrymen with whom we share deep historical, cultural and linguistic bonds.
In the first paragraph of this section, Kimani deploys some immensely powerful imagery to drive home his point. The independent state of Kenya was “birthed” by the ending of Empire (needless to say, this ending was not straightforward). Its borders, the fundamental boundaries which circumscribe a nation, were not drawn by them. Instead, they were drawn in “distant colonial metropoles”, by bored bureaucrats probably more interested in their next long lunch or dalliance with a mistress. And they were drawn “with no regard for the ancient nations that they cleaved apart”. Apologists for Putin are quick to claim that Ukraine’s capital Kyiv is the cradle of Kyivan Rus, the ancient proto-nation that became modern Russia – and that it is their nation which has been cleaved apart. But of course, the decision to scoop up those territories, home to so many ancient ethnicities, before violently reordering them according to political need was not made by the UN or NATO. It was made by the Soviet Union.
Choices made
At independence, had we chosen to pursue states on the basis of ethnic, racial or religious homogeneity, we would still be waging bloody wars these many decades later.
Instead, we agreed that we would settle for the borders that we inherited, but we would still pursue continental political, economic and legal integration. Rather than form nations that looked ever backward into history with a dangerous nostalgia, we chose to look forward to a greatness none of our many nations and peoples had ever known.
We chose to follow the rules of the Organisation of African Unity and the United Nations Charter, not because our borders satisfied us, but because we wanted something greater, forged in peace.
Kenya was not granted the right to draw its own borders. When it attained independence, it could have sought to redraw them in ways that better reflected the realities of ethnicity, race or religion. But, Kimani says, it made a choice.
A hypothetical map of Europe, had it been colonised by imperial European powers
It made the choice to “settle for the borders we inherited” while still pursuing peace development and integration. It made the choice to not pursue old vendettas in the futile pursuit of the justice it had been denied. It made the choice to turn the other cheek.
Because Kenya, and so many other states also treading the tightrope of independence and self-government, knew that to do so would mean looking “ever backward into history with a dangerous nostalgia”. Let dangerous nostalgia be the folly of the colonisers, not the nations striving to chart their own course, under their own power.
The embers of dead empires
We believe that all states formed from empires that have collapsed or retreated have many peoples in them yearning for integration with peoples in neighbouring states. This is normal and understandable. After all, who does not want to be joined to their brethren and to make common purpose with them?
However, Kenya rejects such a yearning from being pursued by force. We must complete our recovery from the embers of dead empires in a way that does not plunge us back into new forms of domination and oppression.
We rejected irredentism and expansionism on any basis, including racial, ethnic, religious or cultural factors. We reject it again today.
In elegant, economic language, Kimani acknowledges the desires of people to be united with their brethren and then decries Russia’s pursuit of this reunification by force.
It is widely acknowledged that Luhansk and Donetsk share close linguistic, political and cultural ties with Russia. But the claims of proponents of independence (or assimilation into the Russian Federation) for these regions conveniently overlook the fact that Russia is attempting to pry these regions away from Ukraine by force. A larger neighbour with imperial designs dismantling a smaller neighbour with force (or the threat of force) is not how democratic independence occurs. It is not just a violation of international law and state sovereignty. It is also a prelude for future violence.
Kenyans understand what it is to live under Empire’s yoke. They also know that formal independence is rarely the end of the story. Resolving the messes inherited from colonial masters has led to untold tragedy. And, for some imperial states, reigniting the dying embers of Empire is a useful way to distract from domestic political concerns and dysfunctional economic models. That temptation must be resisted and guarded against.
Multilateralism on its deathbed
Kenya registers its strong concern and opposition to the recognition of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states. We further strongly condemn the trend in the last few decades of powerful states, including members of this Security Council, breaching international law with little regard.
Multilateralism lies on its deathbed tonight. It has been assaulted today as it has been by other powerful states in the recent past.
We call on all members to rally behind the Secretary-General in asking him to rally us all to the standard that defends multilateralism. We also call on him to bring his good offices to bear to help the concerned parties resolve this situation by peaceful means.
Let me conclude, Mr. President, by reaffirming Kenya's respect for the territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders.
Kimani’s warning that multilateralism is lying on its deathbed is probably the line of his speech which has been quoted most often in subsequent reporting. But it’s perhaps the one passage I want to be wrong. As potent as the metaphor is, multilateralism should not be lying on its deathbed. It should be defended, upheld, and fought for.
Repetition, as used here in Kimani’s closing reaffirmation of Kenya’s respect for Ukraine’s territorial integrity, is a commonly used rhetorical technique. It is used to emphasise the importance of the message being delivered. With one line, Kimani implores his audience to hear what he is really saying: that Kenya stands with Ukraine, that Kenya believes in the rules-based international order, and that Kenya believes that international recognition of Ukraine’s sovereignty and borders should matter.
Conclusion
Kimani’s speech was principled and courageous. It also served as a stirring reminder of the unique ability of a powerful speech to command our attention. Nor was it even the first such example that day. I am Polish-Australian. I watched Vladimir Putin’s twisted, rambling, historically incoherent speech in almost its entirety. Partly, I was motivated by the knowledge that it marked an important inflection point in this conflict. Partly, it was the anxiety that comes from seeing the likelihood of widespread military conflict returning to Eastern Europe significantly increase.
The speech also demolished the grotesque claims, made most often by Putin’s toadies but with depressing regularity by notional “anti-imperialists” in Western countries, that Russia’s actions are motivated by genuine fears of NATO encirclement. For these people, geopolitics is a game with only a small handful of actors and always the same villain – the United States. The fact that democratic majorities of most post-Soviet states are either already NATO members or aspire to membership is downplayed, dismissed, or simply ignored. They’re all fake countries, of course, with no stable traditions of independent statehood – so it is therefore best to not give them the chance.
People like Kimani, fortified by courageous resistance to Empire and galvanised by the long struggle for democracy and prosperity, know what it’s like to have to listen to colonial masters telling them they were not fit for self-rule. It wasn’t true then and it is not true now. Every nation has the right to self-determination and development along a path of its own choosing. No nation has the right to assert imperial dominance over another, no matter its claims about so-called spheres of influence.
Ambassador Kimani’s speech deserves to be watched. But, even more than that, it deserves to be heeded.