SMG STATEMENT ON UKRAINE’S SUPPORT FOR INSURGENT GROUPS IN MALI

The Socialist Movement of Ghana (SMG) condemns the Ukrainian government and intelligence sevices
for arming and training insurgent groups in West Africa, specifically Mali.
We reject Ukraine’s rationalisation that this aggression is, in any sense, a legitimate extension of
its conflict with Russia. This assertion is as illegal as it is insultingly colonial and racist. The days
when European states carved Africa into colonies and forced our involvement in its wars are long
gone. African states are sovereign and free to enter economic, social, cultural and defence relations
with whomever they choose. Africans do not require Ukrainian or Western approval to interact
with Russia. (We note further that even at the height of those evil colonial days, Russia never
asserted any claims to African territory). Ukraine’s assertion of an entitlement to intervene in internal
African affairs makes it an enemy of the African people – pure and simple.

SMG holds the NATO governments and officials that are oiling Ukraine’s war machine directly responsible
for this aggression on African soil – just as we hold them accountable for the Israeli settler
genocide in Palestine. We note that only in the last twelve months have American and European
forces been compelled to vacate their military basins in the Sahel. It is difficult to avoid the
conclusion that Ukraine is acting as their proxy in continuing the destabilisation of our Region. No
matter how long it takes, there will one day be a reckoning for these crimes against our people.
SMG fully endorses the responses of the governments of Senegal, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso to
this insult and their expulsion of Ukrainian diplomats from their countries.

SMG deplores the Ghana government, ECOWAS, and the AU’s silence in the face of this provocation.
We call on them to act immediately to defend national and continental sovereignty and, at the
very least, raise this matter for urgent debate at the UN Security Council.
The SMG also calls on Africans and the Global Peace Movement to condemn the aggression of
Ukraine in the strongest possible terms and to mobilise against their involvement in our affairs.

Signed.
Kwesi Pratt, Jnr
General Secretary.