东方朔

参考消息网5月12日报道 沙特阿拉伯《阿拉伯新闻》日报网站5月7日发表题为《乌克兰：一场看不到尽头的战争》的文章，作者是戴利娅·阿吉迪。    Dozens of businesses, government offices, vehicles, and at least three police stations went up in flames in Freetown, Makeni, Kamakwie, and other cities across Sierra Leone from August 10 through 12, with over 113 people arrested and police introducing an emergency nationwide curfew and deploying tear gas and live ammunition to disperse crowds.,The curfew was lifted on August 13, with banks, businesses, government offices, and most stores reopened and communal services beginning to clear the damage. However, ramped-up security measures, including federal troop deployments to assist police, have been left in place.,What Happened?,Sierra Leone is one of the poorest nations in the world, ranking 186 out of 198 in a recent GDP purchasing power parity ranking. An estimated 80 percent of the population lives in poverty, many of them in the country’s rural areas. Like other nations in Africa, the country has faced special difficulties amid the global economic calamity brought on by COVID, and exacerbated by Western restrictions on Russian exports of agricultural goods and fertilizers amid the security crisis in Ukraine, which has caused a major jump in food prices.,AfricaAnti-Russia Sanctions Left Africa Without Access to Grain and Fertilisers, African Union Chief Says3 June, 11:13 GMT,As a net importer of both energy and food, Sierra Leone is especially vulnerable to global economic conditions, and along with food and fertilizers, fuel and electricity costs have also soared. Food prices alone have jumped by over 40 percent over the past few months, with a bag of rice once costing 350 leones now going for over 500. The country’s Central Bank recently removed three zeros from the national currency in a bid to restore confidence. The country has also been overcome by weeks of strikes by government workers, including doctors and teachers, and by small traders protesting poor conditions.,Coup Plot?,However, President Julius Maada Bio has also accused protesters of having ulterior motives beyond the cost of living crisis.,“This was not a protest against the high cost of living occasioned by the ongoing global economic crisis. The chant of the insurrectionists was for a violent overthrow of the democratically-elected government,” Bio said in an address on August 12 after returning to the country from a holiday in London.,Local media pointed to the chants of “Bio must go” among protesters as they gathered in the capital, and the president accused some of the demonstrators of consisting of “APC Warriors,” a reference to the opposition All People’s Congress party, which governed the country from 2007 until 2018, when Bio’s Sierra Leone People’s Party won national elections.,No doubt mindful of the violent civil war which shook the country between 1991 and 2002, claiming as many as 70,000 lives and displacing over 2.5 million people, Bio vowed that “in the coming weeks and months, [the] government will undertake necessary security actions meant to guarantee the peace and security of all citizens.”,“The security forces will, and must, act with great restraint and within their professional codes of service. But be assured that my government will crack down hard on violent insurrectionists, their collaborators, their sponsors and their supporters. My government will relentlessly fight those who would rather use terror and gruesome violence to achieve political goals,” the president said.,As a government, we will continue our engagement with Civil Society as we strive to promote sustainable peace, national cohesion and socio-economic development in Sierra Leone. #newdirectionagenda— President Julius Maada Bio (@PresidentBio) August 18, 2022,Bio did not elaborate on who these “sponsors” and “supporters” were, or whether they included any foreign actors.,Geopolitical Context,Like other African nations, Sierra Leone recently rejected calls by Washington and Brussels to show solidarity with the West and Ukraine and impose sanctions on Russia. But even before the escalation of the Ukraine crisis, relations between Freetown and Washington were tense at times. Last year, US President Joe Biden snubbed Bio by refusing to invite the African leader to the US’ so-called “Democracy Summit.” No reasons were given. However, neighboring Liberia, which faced mass civil unrest of its own between 2019 and 2020, and whose officials have been sanctioned by the US over suspected corruption, did get an invite.,While Sierra Leone maintains economic and political ties with its former British colonial masters, and remains a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, Freetown has sought to expand its partnerships with other geopolitical power centers, including Russia and China. President Bio attended the Russia-Africa Summit in Sochi in 2019, where he discussed ways to strengthen economic cooperation between the distant nations. In February 2021, Freetown signed onto Moscow’s efforts to prevent the deployment of weapons in outer space. In May 2021, Bio spoke by phone to President Xi Jinping of China, where they discussed the friendly, “brotherly” relations between the two nations, as well Chinese assistance to Freetown in measures against COVID, and agricultural and economic development.,In this context, the reactions of major foreign powers to this month’s unrest have been telling. While the United States, Britain, and the European Union collectively expressed “grave concern” over the “disturbing reports of violence” and urged the parties to “stay calm, promote accountability and ensure respect for human rights,” China’s Embassy smoothed over the protests altogether, refraining from wagging its finger at Freetown and instead trumpeting the expanding cooperation between the two countries.,We are gravely concerned by reports of violence surrounding today’s demonstrations in Sierra Leone. We urge all parties to stay calm, promote accountability, and ensure respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.— Bureau of African Affairs (@AsstSecStateAF) August 10, 2022,Similarly, while UK High Commissioner to Sierra Leone Lisa Chesney lectured President Bio about how “violence has no place in a democracy and the necessary investigation into August 10 can sit alongside de-escalation,” the Russian Embassy in the Republic of Guinea, which concurrently serves as the Embassy in Sierra Leone, only presented a bare bones report on the situation in the country, Bio’s meetings with community and tribal leaders, and indicated that an internal “debriefing” was being created “regarding the causes, course and consequences of the riots on August 10.”。全文摘编如下：

在美国民众的注意力仍集中在前总统唐纳德·特朗普引人注目的审判、加沙战争以及全国大学校园爆发的激烈抗议活动时，另一个重大事件正在悄然展开：俄乌战争已经到了800天的里程碑，并且没有明显减弱迹象。

随着冲突愈演愈烈，其影响远远超出了两个交战国家的边界，给国际社会带来了冲击，并凸显了在一个相互联系日益紧密的世界中和平的脆弱性。

在华盛顿的权力走廊里，围绕美国外交政策的讨论充满了争论与玄妙。上个月美国众议院决定批准向乌克兰提供超过610亿美元的军事援助，这是美国应对东欧危机的一个分水岭。

这次投票的两党性质凸显对于加强乌克兰防御俄罗斯的紧迫性的共识。

二 | 然而，在团结的外表下，共和党内部的分歧有可能破坏美国外交政策方针的一致性。

三 |

在共和党内部，一些人直言不讳地反对向乌克兰分配额外资金，理由是对财政责任、军事援助的有效性以及面对俄罗斯的更广泛战略考量的担忧。共和党人之间的分歧表明了不同的想法是如何在当今美国政治中造成问题的。它还显示了各种因素会如何影响美国的外交政策，例如优先考虑自己国家的愿望、考虑什么对他们最有利以及道德义务感。

共和党议长迈克·约翰逊在处理党内分歧方面表现出了高超的技巧。尽管面临一些共和党同僚的反对，他还是成功领导了这项立法的通过。这表明了妥协和实际决策在政治领导中的关键作用，尤其是在分歧很深且难以取得进展的情况下。

在所有人的密切关注下，乌克兰的未来充满不确定性，需要在严重的国际紧张局势和棘手的外交行动之间寻求平衡。美国决定提供新的军事援助对于与俄罗斯的持续战斗至关重要。但即使有了这种帮助，未来仍然充满不确定性和危险。

乌克兰总统泽连斯基对这一消息感到非常激动。他感谢两党，特别是约翰逊作出了他认为具有历史意义的决定。泽连斯基表示，“民主和自由”在全球范围内至关重要，只要美国能帮助保护它们，它们就会永远强大。

然而，在莫斯科，克里姆林宫发言人德米特里·佩斯科夫却有不同的看法。他表示，批准对乌克兰安全援助的决定将使冲突局势变得更糟。佩斯科夫说，这一决定有利于美国，但却对乌克兰不利，会导致更多乌克兰人死亡，基辅政府也会因此受到更多指责。

四 |

过去冲突的记忆还萦绕在重要的政府大楼和基辅的街道上，提醒着世界战争带来了多少痛苦。

结束冲突的努力正在进行中，瑞士牵头组织6月份在比尔根山度假胜地举行一次和平峰会，并邀请教皇方济各参加。这次峰会旨在培育在乌克兰实现公平和持久和平的共同愿景。160多个代表团将回顾之前的讨论，并强调遵循乌克兰和平计划以及基于联合国和国际法规则的其他想法的重要性。

但如果问题的核心国家没有受到邀请，举行这样的峰会还有什么意义呢？瑞士政府上周表示，俄罗斯没有被邀请参加峰会。它阐述了自己的立场，并强调愿意让莫斯科参与讨论。不过，瑞士政府又说，俄罗斯政府一再表示对参加首次峰会缺乏兴趣。

乌克兰冲突的解决方案目前仍难以实现。暂时来看维持现状似乎是过渡期间唯一可行的选择。

五 | （编译 王迪青）