To those who earn their living by the work of Diplomacy, whether they are Ambassadors or Foreign Ministers, the world is unfortunately never a quiet or placid place. So it is no surprise the current Ukraine problem should eventually have been projected into Guyana, a small country, most of whose inhabitants had never heard of ‘Ukraine’ or had any idea where on the Earth’s surface it was.
Ukraine was one of the most important republics in the former USSR and it is contiguous to the Russian Republic. The Ukrainians and Russians are closely linked historically, culturally and ethnically and are together the most important part of the Slavic world.
When the USSR disintegrated into various republics, the Russian Republic and the Ukrainian Republic, despite the inevitable rise of nationalisms, still maintained a remarkable degree of cooperation and closeness.
But the western regions of Ukraine, with the passing of time, tended to see greater cultural and economic progress if they linked with Western and Central Europe and became part of the European Union. The eastern regions tended to feel greater affinity with the Slavic world and Russia. When the pro-Russian President was driven out of office, he was succeeded by pro-Western ones who declared that Ukraine would seek EU membership and join the Western military alliance, NATO. And these two positions, the pro-Western and pro Slavic/Russian, kept growing in strength and the Ukrainians found themselves a divided nation.
At this point, the EU informally indicated that they would be willing to admit Ukraine to membership of the EU and would integrate them into NATO in due course. The eastern regions strongly objected to this position.
Russia may have perceived itself as being cornered and this probably led to the seizure of Crimea, a part of Ukrainian territory, where in any case, there was a large Russian naval base at Sevastopol. Crimea had always been part of Russia from Imperial times and it was only comparatively recently, it was removed from Russia and ceded to Ukraine by Nikita Khrushov. European states, aware of the complexities of the Crimean problem, are more cautious in their positions on the issue than outsiders.
Unfortunately, violence has erupted between the western and eastern regions of Ukraine with the USA and the EU tacitly supporting one side and Russia supporting the other side. But all sides, the West, Russia and opposing parties in Ukraine are distressed at this slide into civil war but they all seem powerless to stop it and seemed to have been caught in a determinist spiral.
It is quite clear that Ukraine is a European problem and not a world problem and non-Europeans being involved in it would make it more intractable and difficult to solve. The Europeans should be allowed to solve this problem and they are quite capable of doing so without outside involvement.
Unfortunately, this purely European problem seem to be spinning out into a clash between the West, led by the USA and Russia and smaller states, without any discernible interest of theirs or any involvement in the problem are being drawn into this increasingly complex conflictual situation. The present truce between western and eastern Ukraine promises to develop into permanent peace and reunification of the country. This would allow for unfair and unacceptable pressures on small states such as Guyana to be relaxed and removed.
Guyana knows that any involvement, even indirectly, in this purely European problem would in no way help to solve it and may exacerbate it. Guyanese have always been confident that the Europeans are able to successfully solve their problems and therefore feel it is incorrect and unwise to involve themselves in this regrettable civil conflict.
Guyana is a small state which has enjoyed and is still enjoying very valued close and friendly relations with both the Western countries and Russia, and Guyanese strongly desire to make those relations deeper. But Guyanese realise how obviously peripheral they are to solving the Ukrainian problem and to the core Western and Russian interests in this issue. Most Guyanese feel that Europe would be able to solve this European problem and that once peace has returned, both the West and Russia should make good their promises of billions of dollars of assistance to Ukraine.