PRO-RUSSIAN Ukrainian separatists brought down the Malaysian Airlines, MH17 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital on July 17. The US believes that the Russian rebels used surface to air missile to fire at the civilian aircraft carrying 298 people, including 80 children. The victims came from 11 countries and included an acclaimed AIDS researcher from Amsterdam, a nun and teacher from Sydney, a Dutch senator, a Malaysian actress and a World Health Organization spokesperson. The flight path over eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region is a busy and regular one for people transiting between Europe and the rests of the world. Under mounting world pressure, pro-Russian rebels have handed over data-filled “black boxes” from the downed Boeing 777 to Malaysian officials. The Boeing 777 was flying over Ukraine’s war-torn Donetsk region, the site of fighting between Ukraine and pro-Russian Ukrainian separatists. While details of the attack on the Malaysian Airlines will follow the dead cannot be brought back to life. And the world has lost yet another war on terror!
That a civilian aircraft carrying nearly 300 passengers should be shot so mercilessly defies all international protocols that states are expected to observe even while fighting wars. But separatists are non-state actors and are difficult to identify and brought to justice before International Courts. This incident indeed presents a new and threatening dimension for all nations. There are several theatres of war at this very juncture. The Middle East is in a state of turmoil. How do we know that Israeli or Palestinian forces would not do the same to some other civilian airlines if only to draw world attention? What is worrying is that the world referee -The United Nations is fast losing its teeth even as the United States vetoed the United Nations Human Rights Council’s attempt to authorize a commission of inquiry into alleged war crimes in Gaza. Till date there are over 650 Palestinian casualties most of them civilians versus 35 on the Israeli side, 32 of them soldiers. In the light of these world developments India is expected to take the right approach and be the voice of sanity. This is a time when Indian diplomacy must play a critical role and speak what is right rather than what would help build better diplomatic ties with perpetrators of crime and injustice.
