The horrific downing of a Malaysia Airlines passenger plane over rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board, has created an international crisis and highlighted the seriousness of the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia-backed rebels.
Flight MH17 was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when, according to Ukrainian and US officials, it was knocked out of the sky by a surface-to-air missile. There were 12 different nationalities on board including 154 passengers from the Netherlands – a country now in mourning. One of the Dutch victims was the Aids researcher Joep Lange who was on his way to an international Aids conference in Australia.
By some cruel fate, this appalling incident is the second disaster suffered by Malaysia Airlines this year. Flight MH370 disappeared on its way from Malaysia to China in March and has still not been found.
It is not clear who exactly was responsible for shooting down the plane – Russia and Ukraine are blaming each other – but the evidence is increasingly pointing towards the Moscow-backed rebels.
The indications are quite clear: Russia has been accused of supplying the separatists with surface-to-air missiles, Ukraine’s security service released intercepted telephone calls in which the pro-Russian rebels admit to shooting down a civilian jet, a boast on the social media by a rebel leader claimed credit for downing the plane and two Ukrainian military aircraft had been shot down by rebels before this incident.
Furthermore, the rebels do not have aircraft, so why would Ukraine’s military have shot down a plane?
The aircraft’s downing has brought angry calls from many world leaders for an independent, international investigation. The UN Security Council, in an emergency meeting on the plane disaster on Friday, called for “a full, thorough and independent international investigation”.
This must be held, and the facts clearly established. International experts from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) have arrived at the crash site, but reports have already emerged of the pro-Russian rebels limiting their access to the wreckage of the plane and of trying to destroy evidence.
The shooting down of the Malaysian plane could well turn out to be a pivotal moment in the Ukrainian crisis – when international public opinion finally realises just how irresponsible Russia has been throughout this conflict.
Hopefully more pressure will be exerted on Moscow to live up to its international obligations, respect international law and play a constructive role in ending this dispute.
The US and the EU, which recently toughened their sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine crisis, must warn that further sanctions will be in the pipeline if Moscow is implicated in this atrocity. However, renewed efforts must be made, especially at the United Nations, for a diplomatic solution to this war which now threatens to spiral out of control and destabilise the whole region.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday called for a ceasefire and urged both sides of the conflict in eastern Ukraine to return to the negotiating table and pursue a peaceful solution to the conflict. Such a declaration is of course welcome but, based on Moscow’s recent behaviour in this conflict, it is sadly not credible.
The world has unfortunately been too laid-back in dealing with this conflict, regarding it as a localised dispute limited to that particular region. As last week’s tragedy has shown, this is hardly the case, and intense diplomatic efforts are urgently needed to prevent further disasters and an escalation of the conflict.