(WASHINGTON, DC – 2/25/2022) – The U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), the nation’s largest umbrella group for American Muslim organizations, urgently call for an end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, restoration of Ukraine’s geographic integrity and sovereign right to self-governance, and a two-pronged resolute global diplomatic push to (1) rush humanitarian aid to the embattled Ukrainian people and (2) bring about peace for all Ukrainians – including for the people of eastern Ukraine who have not known peace since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
Europe Splintering
Europe, though we may have forgotten in the 77 years since World War II ended, has a long and very bloody history of internal, violent disunity. Stemming Russia’s onslaught in Ukraine, Europe’s second largest country by area, is vital if Europe’s increasingly rupturing peace is to be refurbished.
American Muslims, in particular, well-remember the horrific Serbian genocide against Bosnian Muslims only 30 years ago, and the Serb-led war against Albanian Muslims in Kosovo just 23 years ago, ending in 1999. We all need to remember how closely Russia and the Serbian government align, and the alarming return of Serbian extremists to genocidal anti-Muslim war rhetoric these past several years.
This along with the dismaying rise of ultranationalism throughout Europe in the early decades of this century makes peace in Ukraine imperative. Muslims also suffer under Russian aggression in Syria, and have so historically in Afghanistan, (and with persistent effect) in Chechnya and throughout the Caucuses.
Nuclear Threat
Russia’s confrontation with Western Europe and, especially, the U.S. over Ukraine and NATO immeasurably ratchets up the nuclear threat of doom for the entire world. Russia owns the most nuclear warheads on earth, followed closely by the U.S., both with growing arsenals. For this reason alone, diplomacy to end Russia’s Ukraine aggression is essential.
Russia’s fighting, capture, and staff hostage taking yesterday at the infamously still radioactive Chernobyl nuclear power plant – site of a catastrophic 1986 meltdown – immediately led to higher radiation readings from military activities kicking up soil and who knows what untold impairments. The risk of damage to nuclear waste and containment structures there and elsewhere in Ukraine, which generates half of all its electricity through nuclear plants, is unthinkably high.
Humanitarian Catastrophe
Since Russia’s 2014 Crimea annexation and Russian separatist militia support in Dombas, more than 3 million Ukrainians have required daily humanitarian assistance to live for eight years now in a relief crisis few in the world know about. Families have been split. Mobility is severely curtailed. Ukraine has one of the highest rates of unexploded ordinance and landmines in the world. And Movement of humanitarian goods is extremely hampered.
The number of Ukrainians facing humanitarian crisis will grow exponentially in the coming days. The UN estimates that Russia’s assault has already displaced 100,000 Ukrainians in just two days. The number of displaced, internally and externally as refugees, may quickly rise to a staggering 5 million depending on the extent and duration of the conflict, with 1 million displaced considered the likely floor if Russia’s war persists.
Our Call
We Muslims intimately understand and are deeply concerned for the plight of Ukrainian children, women, and men in the face of an immoral war prosecuted for the now “sacred” sake of the claimed security needs.
We Muslims recognize a pretext when we see it.
We have seen the “shock and awe” that begins the utter destruction of a society firsthand.
We have paid the life-costs of occupation after invasion that lie at the business end of the Great Powers’ forked-tongue Orwellian rhetoric: “War is peace.” “Freedom is slavery.” “Ignorance is strength.” Add to this: “Mass killing preserves valued ways of life.” And also: “Apartheid is democracy.”
We Muslims know how silence kills and how reticence – just one time – emboldens other aggressors in the waiting known only to God.
The USCMO, therefore, calls for peace in Ukraine.
Let the U.S. and the United Nations exert all necessary means to bring about a cessation of Russian hostilities against its neighbor in geography and faith, Ukraine, and return to it all its peoples, lands, and sovereignty.
And let the wealthy nations of the world, especially the U.S. and those of Europe, including Great Britain, deploy their full humanitarian capacity to aid, relieve, and reestablish in their homes the beleaguered and displaced Ukrainian people, working through appropriate and feasible channels.
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