By Bola A. Akinterinwa
Contemporary international relations is increasingly witnessing both negative and positive developments, on the one hand, while global peace and security is also increasingly becoming more difficult to maintain. Consciously and otherwise, international security is currently being threatened by nationalism of a new kind, on the other hand. Besides, dictatorial constitutionalism is also finding a place of abode in Africa. The Middle East is breeding Islamic fundamentalism. And true enough, life Presidency à la Chinoise, as good as it is, is raising an international debate as to whether democracy is on the path of retrogression, with the legalisation of the possibility of a ‘Life Presidency’ à la Chinoise which is a good expression of both negative and positive development in international relations.
First, life presidency à la Chinoise reflects an emerging Chinese model of democracy, or democratisation in a Chinese mania. Second, it reflects the extent of capacity which a national leader, like Xi Jinping, can demonstrate to mobilise and make his followers to accept his followership. Third, it points to a future rivalry between democracy as espoused in the West and democracy à la Chinoise. In the long run, therefore, global peace may be under a potential threat.
Put differently, presidential tenure is not only regulated and limited generally to an average term of about five years, but also generally remains a resultant of political party pluralism in the western world. Whereas, in China, the tenure is no longer limited, meaning that a Chinese president can stay in power for as long as he or she is physically fit to remain so. Additionally, it also appears that the Communist Party of China has the great potential to remain in power for an indeterminable period of years to come, a situation that is not consistent with democratic governance of short period of stay in power in Western Europe.
For instance, if we remember that presidential tenure used to be a renewable seven year-period in France and that the Gaullists even once governed France for a consecutive period of 21 years before the electoral code reduced it from seven to a five-year period, the thinking of the political class in France was that election for a presidential term of seven years was unnecessarily too long. In fact, agitation for further reduction to a four-year term is still an issue in France.
Thus, is democracy a threat or not a threat to global peace and security? This question is apt at this juncture because it is still within the same democratic freedom that led to adoption of life presidency in China that similarly explains dictatorial constitutionalism in Africa on which sit-tight politics is largely predicated in the governance of Africa. And perhaps more interestingly, it is also because of the enjoyment of democratic freedom that Russia and Great Britain are at logger head on the issue of poisoning of a former Russian Spy.
Apart from the critical issues of international terrorism and violent extremism with which the global community is currently faced, the Russia Spy Poisoning is a new dimension to the maintenance of international peace and security. It is a special threat about which very little is known until the revelation of the case of the poisoning of a Russia Spy and his daughter in the United Kingdom.
On Sunday, 4th March, 2018, 66-year old Sergei Skripal, former Russian double-agent, and his 33-year old daughter, Yulia, were found unconscious in Salisbury, England. Investigations have revealed that they had been poisoned with a nerve agent but of the type Novichok. Use of nerve agents outside the national territory of the manufacturer is internationally outlawed. For instance, Article 1(1) of the Chemical Weapons Convention provides that ‘each State Party to this Convention undertakes never under any circumstance… (d) to assist, encourage or induce, in any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Convention.
Additionally and more importantly, Article VI (2) requires each State Party to adopt ‘ the necessary measures to ensure that toxic chemicals and their precursors are only developed, produced, otherwise acquired, retained, transferred, or used within its territory or in any other place under its jurisdiction or control for purposes not prohibited under this Convention.’ In this regard, each ‘State Party shall subject toxic chemicals and their precursors listed in Schedules 1, 2, 3 of the Annex on Chemicals… to the verification measures as provided in the Verification Annex.’
Thus, the manufacture or existence of any nerve agent is supposed to be to the knowledge of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
Chemical weapons replaced the old tools of war (poisoned arrows, boiling tar, noxious fumes, arsenic smoke, etc) which were in vogue for more than a thousand years, in 1915 during World War I on the battle field. As noted by the OPCW, ‘the first large-scale attack with chlorine gas occurred 22 April 1915 at Leper in Belgium. The use of several different types of chemical weapons, including mustard gas (yperite), resulted in 90,000 deaths and over one million casualties during the war. Those injured in chemical warfare suffered from the effects for the rest of their lives. Thus, the events at Leper during World War I scared a generation.’
More disturbingly, the OPCW also has it that ‘after witnessing the effects of such weapons in World War I, it appeared that few countries wanted to be the first to introduce even deadlier chemical weapons onto the World war II battlefields… During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union both maintained enormous stockpiles of chemical weapons, amounting to tens of thousands of tonnes. The amount of chemical weapons held by these two countries was enough to destroy much of the human and animal life on earth.’
The foregoing clearly shows the nature and problems of any nerve agent. But Novichok is believed to be even deadlier than the known existing chemical weapons. As explained in 1995 by Vil Mirzayanou, a former Soviet Scientist and defector, the Novichok agents were created under a clandestine program which were secretly allowed to continue in spite of international efforts being made to ban them. Reportedly in the words of Mirzayanou, ‘that secrecy is why we still don’t know their exact chemical make-up. What we do know is that Novichok, Russian name for “new comer,” is actually a collection of chemical weapons that only become lethal after two, somewhat less deadly ingredients, are made.’
More important, Mirzayanou says ‘we also don’t know how exactly Novichok kills. Other nerve agents – like the Sarin gas, used against civilians in Syria or the VX that killed Kim-Jong Nam, the half-brother of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un – get into the blood through breathing, eating, or through the skin. Once inside, they block an enzyme that’s key for healthy signalling between nerves and muscles. That leads to symptoms, like drooling, seizures, and paralysis.’
And perhaps most disturbingly, Peter Chai, a medical toxicologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, not only submits that nerve agents not engender tearing, runny nose , fluid in the lungs, lots of diarrhoea, sweating and slowing down of the heart rate, Mark Bishop, a chemical weapon expert with the Middle Institute of International Studies at Monterrey posits that ‘at the right doses, nerve agents can kill within five to fifteen minutes.’ Novichok agents are more dangerous and deadly and are also ‘practically impossible’ to treat.
With the known dangers of nerve agents in general, why is it that Member States of the international community are still playing politics with it? Britain has accused Russia of poisoning Sergei Skripal with Novichok and an attempt to assassinate people on British soil contrary to diplomatic practice. The unwritten diplomatic practice is that when a spy is caught and exchanged, within the context of a spy-swap, there is no need any more pursuing such a spy after an exchange. Put differently, since the Russian spy has been exchanged for other British spies in Russia and the Russian spy is already residing in the United Kingdom, there is no legal basis to pursue him in the United Kingdom.
Another unwritten rule of the diplomatic practice is the need to avoid putting the native population, that is, the people in the state hosting the exchanged person, in danger. It is on the basis of these rules that Prime Minister Theresa May is taking the bad end of the stick and that her government has decided to declare 23 Russian diplomats personae non grata and that she is also being given active support by various NATO allies.
Without doubt, Russia has rejected the allegations in all its ramifications, but the international politics of it clearly suggests a new era of Cold War politicsis now here with us again.
Politics of Novichok
The politics of Novichok appears to be dirty. Most developed countries, especially the three Permanent Members of the UN Security (Britain, France, and the United States) from the Western world, and Germany strongly believed that the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, must have directed the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter.
Additionally, the OPCW has expressed surprise that the issue of Novichok could still be raised in 2018 when Russia was required to have destroyed its 39,967 metric tons of chemical weapons as at September 2017. If Russia is not supposed to be in possession of certain chemical weapons or, if going by the chemical weapons convention, Russia is not supposed to make use of chemical weapons outside of its territorial jurisdiction, which of the developed countries cannot claim ignorance of the existence of the Novichok agents? Sergei is a double agent who had worked for Russia before defecting to the United Kingdom. How would he have not briefed the British government as a spy working for it? In other words, how do we explain the interest of any government to want to kill or to want to protect and save the life of the poisoned spy? Which of the great powers can claim not to have chemical weapons? This is where the politics of Novichok is interesting.
Prime Minister Theresa May has claimed that Moscow has treated ‘use of military-grade nerve agent … with sarcasm, contempt and defiance.’ The Russian government has responded thus: ‘we will not be spoken to in that language.’ With this type of response, Russia is simply implying the rule of sovereign equality, and by so doing, contesting the manner of complaint of Britain.
In this regard, could it be argued rightly that Theresa May did not know that the language she used was offensive and not diplomatic? We believe that She knew. The language, as used, is to simply communicate the unacceptability of the poisoning of individuals under diplomatic protection on a British soil, as well as indicate Britain’s determination not to let the matter go without drawing lessons for Russia and for the future.
In the same vein, Britain’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Mr. Jonathan Allen, has said that Russia was ‘in serious breach of the Chemical Weapons Convention through its failure to declare the Novichok programme… This fact alone means you should discount any arguments you hear about the possibility of other countries having inherited this technology.’
It is on the presumption of Russia’s culpability that Britain has been handling its relationship with the Russians. Theresa May, on Monday, 12th March, 2018 asked for information from Russia on the Novichok agents to enable for more education about them. She also gave the following day, end of Tuesday, 13th March, as deadline before which an explanation should be given. However, Russia has turned deaf ears to the request, claiming that it does not have such programs and therefore cannot be held accountable.
In fact, Russia has put the blame and responsibility for the poisoning of the Russian spy squarely on the British. According to the Russian envoy to the United Nations, Vissaly Nebenzia, ‘no scientific research or development under the title Novichok were carried out. Most probable source of this agent are the countries who have carried out research on these weapons, including Britain.’
Put differently, Russia is simply saying that the countries that have carried out research on Novichok are precisely the countries who should be held accountable. In this regard, Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov has accused Britain of behaving in a high-handed and misleading manner. In his words on Wednesday, the 14th, ‘Britain is flagrantly trying to mislead the international community … and is staging a political performance.’ More important, Lavrov sees Britain’s accusations as ‘not robust and not serious.’ British position is nothing more than ‘we (the British) know everything, you have to believe us.’ In essence, for Russia, Britain’s allegations are russophobic.
The United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, made one thing clear from the beginning and that is that ‘the United States stands in absolute solidarity with Great Britain. The United States believes that Russia is responsible for the attack on two people in the United Kingdom using a military grade nerve agent.’
Lessons for Nigeria and Africa
Many lessons can be drawn for the people of Africa, and particularly of Nigeria. First, it should be remembered that Sergei Skripal worked for the Russian secret service. For some reasons, he was tried and jailed. He actually became a double agent for Britain, which might explain the reason for his imprisonment in Russia. However, in 2010, he was released as part of a spy swap and thereafter, he left Russia for the UK to live there.
What is noteworthy about this is that Skripal’s daughter, Yulia, left Russia on March 3rd, 2018 for the UK, and the following day, she and her father were found on a bench, already slumped. The trending lead argument is that Yulia might have had nerve agent planted in her suitcase. As earlier shown above, mere breathing or having body contact with nerve agent is sufficient to be poisoned and die within 5 to minutes 15 minutes.
The lesson to draw from this is that, in an attempt to fight terrorism, what prevents a hostile government from planting any criminal material in the travelling boxes of any citizen set aside to be punished? The Russian government already made it clear in 2010 that traitors would not go scot free. If this is so, how can Russia be cleansed of the allegations of poisoning Sergei Skripal and his daughter? Lessons of loyalty and extra caution when travelling out of Nigeria or Africa should be learnt.
Secondly, the politics of Novichok can be considered as the other side of the politics of nuclear non-proliferation in which the law allows some countries to have and maintain the status of a nuclear power on the only premise that some countries have carried out nuclear tests and therefore, they are credible and capable of controlling and preventing nuclear disaster. Other countries are seen as rogue states and not capable. What really prevents Nigeria from developing a nuclear and Novichok capacity and capability in defense of Africa? Why is Nigerian government not talking in terms of the grandeur of the Nigerian people and making Nigeria Great Again, to borrow from Donald Trump’s expression?
Thirdly, the British government is mobilising support, including that of Nigeria against Russia. Without scintilla of doubt, poisoning anyone, even though many States do the same, is very barbaric, inhuman and criminally, and therefore, uncalled for. However, there is the need to differentiate between developing the capacity and the capability, on the one hand, and its usage for the advancement of the national interest, on the other. In this regard, Nigeria should learn a lesson that nuclearisation and non-nuclearisation is all politics and the same is true of weapons of mass destruction and others. International campaigns are against them, yet the campaigners are secretly producing the same weapons. They keep theirs, but preach unto others the contrary.
Fourthly, and most importantly, with the new era of Cold War politics, is maintenance of international peace and security not a myth? We submit here it is. Should Nigeria support Britain against Russia? We believe Nigeria should not support any country but itself. What is the place of Nigeria’s policy of non-alignment in the context of Novichok? It is still valid. Nigeria’s foreign policy of non-alignment is not that Nigeria cannot support any country or any issue but that Nigeria reserves the right and the freedom to decide when to support and who to support. Consequently, non-alignment is synonymous with freedom of decision. This time is not ripe for any decision-taking.
