The Tribune

THE current international hysteria over the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine has been dominating the news to such an extent recently that various other significant international events have been largely ignored in the media. One example was last week’s visit to Australia of the British Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss.

Reportedly, this was to follow up last year’s AUKUS deal on nuclear co-operation and the historic UK-Australia free trade agreement which removed all tariffs on goods, in both directions. But there was a wider political purpose as well. As she said publicly, with the current threats to global peace and stability, “it is vital for close allies like the UK and Australia to show robust vigilance in defence of freedom and democracy” – and, as a spokesperson commented on her behalf, “she’s getting on with the job of leading EU talks and making the vision of Global Britain a reality”.

Ms Truss took advantage of her visit to deliver a major speech about foreign policy. Tory MPs have been impressed by her negotiating skills in her former role as International Trade Secretary in securing a number of free trade deals post-Brexit. But they also now admire her strong approach to Russia and China in the belief that Britain is still a major force to be reckoned with as the world’s fifth-largest economy, a nuclear power and one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council while also exercising influence through the Commonwealth. Thus, following the failure of last week’s US-Russian talks in Geneva to make any real progress in easing escalating tensions over Ukraine, an announcement that the Russians have agreed to a visit by her to Moscow in February may be highly significant.

For some, this foreign policy speech harked back to former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s hard line rhetoric which had earlier earned her the nickname of “the Iron Lady” – the term intended by the Soviet media at the time as a criticism became a famous nickname from which she later took much pleasure as recognition of her toughness as a political leader.

The new Foreign Secretary certainly pulled no punches in warning Vladimir Putin about his aggressive actions and the serious consequences of destabilising other countries and threatening to invade Ukraine. She cautioned him to heed the lessons of history, accusing him of trying to glue back together the collapsed Soviet Union and stated that an invasion - including, most recently, suggestions of setting up a puppet government - would be a “massive strategic mistake”. Freedom, democracy and the rule of law needed to be protected everywhere, she said, so that what happened in Eastern Europe mattered for the rest of the world; and an attack on Ukraine would be met with a vigorous response and harsh sanctions by the UK and its allies in the G7 and NATO.

She likewise had strong words for China - both for its threat to Taiwan and what she called its coercive economic policies - stressing the need to “call it out” when, for example, it blocked products from Lithuania or placed punitive tariffs on Australian barley and wine. There was an alignment, she said, of authoritarian regimes around the world, with countries such as Belarus, North Korea and Myanmar looking towards Moscow and Beijing as their closest allies and trading partners.

She condemned aggressors who wanted to destabilise the rules-based international order. But it was still necessary to work with nations such as Russia and China on trade and issues like climate change and in bringing Iran to the negotiating table over developing nuclear weapons.

All in all, this was an important speech setting out the West’s views and priorities and it deserved greater publicity. In the lead-up to the Foreign Secretary’s proposed February visit to Moscow, British diplomacy will be exercised to the full and it will be interesting to see how a more sophisticated approach might work - for example, while not deviating from the West’s tough stance on aggression by the Russians, perhaps recognising more readily that they harbour genuine fears about having a democratic country and a potential member of NATO on their borders; though seeking to alter those borders through invasion remains unacceptable.

While Liz Truss is working to reassert Britain’s position in the world, she is also seen at home as a rising political star – and, as such, is increasingly regarded as a potential successor to Prime Minister Boris Johnson if he were to be forced out of office. She enjoys a high favourability rating among Tory MPs. But she has been careful so far to distance herself from any idea of being a contender to replace him, saying he should continue as PM for “as long as possible”. So she is backing him to the hilt during the current political storm at Westminster – with some saying that is the wisest thing to do if she does indeed have aspirations to succeed him!

Is Djokovic saga having repercussions?

Conspiracy theorists are having a field day after an announcement last week by the Serbian government of the withdrawal of exploration licences granted to the Anglo-Australian giant mining company Rio Tinto for development of a lithium mine. This followed weeks of local protests by green groups who have opposed the development of the project on environmental grounds. Lithium is used to make batteries for electric vehicles and the mine was expected to become the largest in Europe. With a general election due in April, the ruling party in Serbia is said to be losing popularity and therefore felt compelled to listen to the environmental activists.

However, people have been quick to point out that Serbia’s relations with the Australian government have soured following the high-profile detention and then deportation earlier this month of tennis star Novak Djokovic after a dispute over his vaccination status. He is, of course, a Serbian national and the world’s leading men’s tennis player as a 20-time Grand Slam winner. He was thus prevented from competing in the Australian Open which he has won no fewer than nine times. Some people wonder whether his alleged bad treatment and humiliation at the hands of the Australian authorities might have influenced the Serbian government’s decision in relation to the lithium contract that had been awarded to Rio Tinto.

The saga of Djokovic’s vaccination status and his deportation hit the headlines earlier this month and this is not the place to go over the familiar ground of the dispute again. But many Serbians were reported to have been outraged by what they regarded as unpleasant and unfair treatment of Djokovic, given that he had arrived in Melbourne believing he had been given a medical exemption from a COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

As always, there are two sides to the story and it is difficult to disagree with the reported comments attributed to certain of his fellow tennis stars that, irrespective of the merits of this particular case, if one is a professional tennis player intent on competing in tournaments around the world, in the current circumstances of the pandemic there is really little option to getting vaccinated.

All that said, this controversy revives schoolboy memories in England of the story of the “War of Jenkins’ Ear”. Sniggering youngsters found it almost humorous to learn that a war had been started over a comparatively minor incident involving someone’s ear, though in this case it was obviously a matter of some importance to Jenkins himself. War between Britain and Spain broke out in 1739 and its name was coined by British historian Thomas Carlyle. It started after sailors of the Spanish Coastguard cut off the ear of a captain of a British merchant ship called Robert Jenkins. Parliament in London took severe umbrage at this maiming of a British sea captain by the Spanish and was evidently prepared to go to war over the incident, though it also appears the situation may have been a bit more complicated than that.

Fast forward to the present day and, from the available evidence, an outsider might find it hard to believe the decision-makers concerned in Serbia would have made a different judgment about the lithium mine if the incident affecting their countryman in Australia had not happened. But might they have been influenced - at least in part - by the way Australia handled the Djokovic case and did this tip the balance? Who knows? What is certain, however, from history and experience is that all too often larger or more important events are set off by smaller ones - and the law of unintended consequences is all too real.

A Sunday of shame

The end of this month marks the 50th anniversary of what came to be regarded as one of the most significant and terrible single events of the “Troubles” - the name given to the sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland from the late 1960s to 1998 between the mostly Protestant unionists, known as loyalists who wanted the Province to remain part of the UK, and the mainly Roman Catholic nationalists, known as republicans who wanted it to become part of the Republic of Ireland.

The horrific incident known as “Bloody Sunday” began as a peaceful demonstration in Londonderry on January 30, 1972 by Roman Catholic civil rights supporters protesting against the British government’s policy of internment for suspected members of the Irish Republican Army. But the demonstration later turned violent. British soldiers of the Parachute Regiment opened fire killing 13 marchers and wounding 15 others, one of whom later died from his injuries. The Army claimed its men had been fired on during the march though there were conflicting accounts of what happened. But, inevitably, Bloody Sunday fuelled Catholic and nationalist hostility and precipitated an upsurge in support for the IRA which advocated violence against Britain to force it to withdraw from the Province.

A formal inquiry later the same year criticised the firing by the Army as “bordering on the reckless” but put the main blame for the deaths on the organisers of the march for creating a dangerous situation. This was criticised as a whitewash. Following another inquiry years later, the Saville Report of 2010 concluded that none of the victims had posed any threat to the soldiers and that their shooting was without justification - and the then British Prime Minister, David Cameron, formally apologised in Parliament.

This was a dark chapter in the history of Northern Ireland. But many maintain it should never be forgotten, not least because acknowledgement of the past has always been a key element in bringing the two communities together. This was ultimately achieved by the historic Good Friday Agreement of 1998 which helped to bring the Troubles to an end. It provided for a power-sharing executive and created the Northern Ireland Assembly, commonly known as Stormont. Although this collapsed in 2017 due to policy disagreements between its power-sharing leadership, a deal to restore the Province’s government was published in January, 2020 and the Assembly was reopened.