Jakarta, IO – Last Monday the 11th of December 2023, the Ukrainian Embassy in Jakarta launched a Ukraine book corner at the Indonesian National Library in Medan Merdeka Selatan, Menteng. At the event, Ambassador Vasyl Hamianin expressed appreciation for presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto Djojohadikusumo’s peace proposal for Ukraine at last year’s Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.
In his peace proposal last year, Prabowo suggested that Russia and Ukraine agree to a ceasefire, that each withdraw 15 kilometres from their forward positions to establish a demilitarized zone with a UN peacekeeping force, and that disputed territories submit to a United Nations referendum. He also said that Indonesia which has a good reputation as UN peacekeepers in places such as Cambodia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Haiti, Georgia, Liberia, Lebanon, Mozambique, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Sudan, would be prepared to send troops to Ukraine as UN peacekeepers. (In April 2023 Indonesia had 2711 military and police serving as UN peacekeepers and the government would like to increase that number to 4000 Indonesian peacekeepers as part of Indonesia’s contribution to strengthening the ecosystem or geopolitics of global peace and stability.)
The late John Mcbeth, wrote in Asia Time in June of last year that there were no takers for Prabowo’s peace initiative but at Monday’s launch Ambassador Hamianin expressed appreciation for Prabowo’s interest and initiative in trying to help bring peace to Ukraine. He said that there were parts of Prabowo’s peace proposal that Ukraine could definitely accept but that other parts were not so clear to Ukraine. He hopes that after the first election rounds ending on the 14th of February 2024, Prabowo might have time to explain his proposal in more detail and that after the Indonesian presidential and parliamentary elections this year there would be the opportunity for more Indonesian involvement in Ukraine’s peace initiative.
At the G20 summit in November of 2022, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced a ten-point peace plan for Ukraine. Since then, there have been three Ukraine peace conferences. The first was held in Copenhagen on the 24th of June 2023 with political and national security advisors of 15 nations in attendance including three BRICS members and the USA. The second peace conference was held on the 5th of May this year in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia with 42 states attending including China and the United States. The third Ukraine peace conference was held in Malta on October 28th 2023 with 67 countries participating. President Zelenskiy has said that he hoped the peace conferences would ultimately lead to a global peace summit for Ukraine of world leaders.
The peace conferences discussed the key principles of achieving peace in Ukraine as outlined in President Zelenskiy’s ten-point peace plan. These points are:
1. Radiation and nuclear safety, focusing on restoring safety around Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine which is now occupied by Russia.
2. Food security, including protecting and ensuring Ukraine’s grain exports to the world’s poorest nations.
3. Energy security, with focus on price restrictions, as well as aiding Ukraine in restoring its power infrastructure, half of which has been damaged by Russian attacks.
4. Release of all prisoners and deportees, including prisoners-of-war and children deported to Russia.
5. Restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity in accordance with the U.N. Charter. President Zelenskiy maintains that this is ‘not up for negotiation’.
6. The withdrawal of Russian troops and the cessation of hostilities.
7. Justice, including the establishment of a special tribunal to prosecute Russian war crimes.
8. The prevention of ecocide, a need for protection of the environment, with focus on demining and the restoration of water treatment facilities.
9. The prevention of any further escalation of the conflict, and building security architecture in the Euro-Atlantic space, including guarantees for Ukraine.
10. Confirmation of the war’s end, including a document signed by the involved parties.
At the peace conferences working groups have been created for each point and countries attending the peace conferences join working groups in the subjects or issues that interest them. For example, Canada is a member of the working group dealing with the release of all prisoners and it proposed creating a working group for Ukrainian children deported to Russia. According to Ukraine’s parliamentary Human Rights Commissioner 19,540 Ukrainian children were deported by Russia to Russia, which it continues to do till today. The international criminal court in The Hague has issued arrest warrants for Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights with regard to the forced deportation of Ukrainian children. Meanwhile, Qatar and South Africa joined work groups on energy and food security, two subjects that should also interest Indonesia.
Ambassador Vasyl Hamianin noted that Ukraine’s 10-point peace plan includes respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine and is based on UN resolutions and principles as well as adherence to international law and that if successful could be used as a model for other peace talks. The next Ukraine peace conference will be held in Zurich from the 14th till the 15th of January 2024. Ambassador Hamianin said that all major countries of the Global South have attended the Ukraine peace conferences. One notable exception has been Indonesia which Ukraine very much hopes will be willing to join in the efforts to achieve peace in Ukraine next year.
Another issue discussed by Ambassador Hamianin was Ukraine’s Grain Corridor to feed the world especially the hungry in Africa, Latin America and Asia. On 22nd July 2022, Russia and Ukraine signed a grain agreement known as the Grain Deal for the safe transportation of grain and foodstuffs from Ukrainian ports. Possessing amongst the most fertile lands in the world, Ukraine is one of the top three exporters of grain globally with the ability to feed half a billion people. However, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia prevented grain export from Ukraine through the Black Sea. This was made possible again with the Grain Deal agreement however, in July of this year, Russia refused to renew the agreement.
Ukraine responded with its very successful Black Sea Grain Initiative or BSGI. Ambassador Hamianin explained how beginning on August 8th of this year, Ukraine together with the help of NATO states managed to form a new humanitarian grain corridor hugging the western Black Sea coast, thereby keeping the shipping corridor within NATO members’ territorial waters mainly Romania and Bulgaria. Since then, 241 vessels of various flags have used the maritime corridor established by the Ukrainian navy. More than 8,6 million tons of Ukrainian cargo (including 5 million tons of agricultural products) were transported from the Ukrainian ports of Pivdennyi, Odesa and Chornomorsk.
The most successful of Ukraine’s BSGI alternative routes has been its Danube River corridor whereby Ukraine managed to ship 30 million tons of grain from Croatian ports. In October, Lithuania agreed to a corridor for Ukrainian grain to reach Baltic ports for transhipment. This was followed by corridors through Moldova and Romania and there is now a regular container train with Ukrainian agricultural products that travels to Riga (in Latvia) which is the largest Baltic port.
Ukrainian grain has been safely sent to countries very much in need of Ukrainian grain such as Somalia, Kenya and Nigeria. Due to the efforts of the Ukrainian government to ensure the safety of its BSGI corridors insurance costs for ships transporting the grain using the grain corridor, has gone down and is not much more than that of normal shipping insurance rates.
For poorer countries in desperate need of Ukrainian grain, Ukraine has created ‘Grain Ukraine’, a program whereby Ukraine delivered 300,000 tons of grain to them under the auspices of the UN Food and Agricultural Organization. Middle Eastern and Western countries together donated US$111 million and the FAO contributed US $ 250 million for Grain Ukraine so that countries in desperate need are able to obtain Ukrainian grain free of cost.
In 2021, before the Russian invasion, trade between Ukraine and Indonesia was worth US$1.3 billion with Indonesia exporting about US $ 300 million worth of palm oil to Ukraine and importing US $ 900 million worth of grain from Ukraine. Presently, Indonesia-Ukraine trade has nearly disappeared with Indonesia purchasing Ukrainian grain through third parties. With the success of the successful grain corridor there is no longer a need to buy Ukrainian grain from third parties. Indonesia can now save costs by buying grain directly from Ukraine again and thereby bring down the cost of food. Ambassador Haminanin stated, “The Ukrainian Embassy is keen to speak to Indonesian grain importers and ready to assist any Indonesian companies interested in importing grain directly from Ukraine.”
Another point touched upon by Hamianin, are two conferences that Ukraine has held on how to rebuild Ukraine after the war. It is calculated that at least US$ 1 trillion will be required to rebuild Ukraine. There are at present 10 million Ukrainians displaced by the war who will be requiring housing, schools and hospitals. Ukraine will also need to rebuild such things as totally destroyed communications systems, infrastructure and drainage systems. At the conferences for rebuilding Ukraine, Ukraine’s needs, contractors and insurers are identified. Even now as the war continues, banks and companies have already invested US$ 15 billion in rebuilding Ukraine and every year the figures increase. Indonesia has big players who have experience in building roads and bridges to earthquake proof buildings and Ambassador Hamianin invites any interested parties to contact the Embassy.
The Ukraine book corner at the National Library is not a large one but Ambassador Hamianin stressed how important books are for they spread information and the books on Ukraine displayed there are so that Indonesians can know the truth about what is happening in Ukraine. He compared Ukraine with Indonesia which also fought hard to be free and how Indonesia’s motto at the time, Merdeka atau Mati which more or less echoes that of one of America’s Founding Fathers, Patrick Henry ‘Give me liberty of give me death’ – is also Ukraine’s cri de coeur.
In the collection of books on Ukraine at the National Library are two books in Indonesian. One is a book of poetry about Ukraine after the start of the war by Uncle John called Ukraina Getir or ‘The Bitterness of Ukraine’ and the other is Perang Rusia vs Ukraina, Perspektif Intelijen Februari-Septemebr 2022 or ‘The War between Russia and Ukraine, an Intelligence Perspective February-September 2022’. It is a comparison of the two sides by Indonesian military experts. Although, Ukraine did not participate in the creation of the book the Ambassador believes it to be a balanced account.
On a sombre note, the Ambassador said that as we approach the festive seasons of Christmas and New Year, we should note that not everyone in the world will be celebrating this year because of the need to survive. The Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson are currently under Russian shelling. Perhaps, thinking also of Palestine, Ambassador Hamianin said that people are dying all over the world, not just in Ukraine and that we should give some thought to that during this festive season.
The exhibition of Ukrainian books at the Indonesian National Library will be open to the public till the end of the year. (Tamalia Alisjahbana)
