The Swiss Bürgenstock Conference can be successful …

The bush on the Bürgenstock hides the devastated forest of Swiss diplomacy. Forgive me for this hackneyed metaphor, but it is unfortunately the sad reality. Since Swiss Federal Councillor Ignazio Cassis, took office in 2017, a situation that was exacerbated by the arrival of Viola Amherd, President of the Swiss Confederation, at the head of the Defence Department in 2018 – both fierce advocates of a realignment towards NATO and the USA – Swiss foreign policy has tilted. And in the wrong direction.

Destruction of Swiss diplomacy

Several Foreign Ministry executives make no secret of this: “The doctrine and alliances have suddenly changed. As a result, networks that sometimes took us twenty years to build – with Russia, with certain countries in the South, in the Middle East – were destroyed within a few months”. By adapting to Western countries and slavishly passing on their hatred and enthusiasm, “the voice of Switzerland, the little music that we could make heard on the international stage, has completely disappeared. We have been absorbed into the mass of Westerners”.
  This is particularly evident in the Security Council and in the area of collective security. For example, the Federal Council, which is trampling on its previous commitments to peace and dialogue, stubbornly refuses to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons for fear of displeasing NATO (of which we are not a member!). In mid-May, during the vote on a Security Council resolution to prevent the arms race in space, which was rejected by the USA, the UK, France and four other countries loyal to them, Switzerland was the only country to abstain from voting.

Denial of humanitarian tradition –
unprecedented loss of credibility

Worse still, Switzerland is in the process of denying the humanitarian law and international law that it has championed in recent decades. Gridlocked by its pro-Israeli, anti-UNWRA and anti-Hamas positions – an absurdity given its commitment to the Geneva peace process in 2003 and its earlier insistence on talking to all parties to the conflict – it has never condemned the Israeli army’s abuses in Gaza and has still not responded to the International Criminal Court’s call to indict the Israeli and Hamas leadership for war crimes and crimes against humanity. It is the only country in Europe that has remained silent, while Spain, Ireland and Norway, which are very active in Palestine, have in contrast just recognised the Palestinian state.
  Bern, which had loudly welcomed the request to bring charges against Putin, therefore has nothing to say when the public prosecutor of the same court is investigating a complaint of the same kind against leading politicians who have obviously been overstepping all the boundaries of what is permissible for months. What an outrageous loss of credibility! How can Switzerland be believed if it wants to defend the Geneva Conventions and denounce future human rights violations?
  Against this backdrop, the attempt to polish up the reputation of our diplomacy with the supposed peace summit on the Bürgenstock in mid-June this year has every chance of ending in a fiasco or at least not leading to any results.

Bürgenstock – an embarrassing
farce in its planned form

Leaving aside the traditional 50 countries aligned behind the West, it is clear that the success of the conference will depend on the participation of the countries of the Global South. After Russia was disinvited and China, Brazil and South Africa abstained from attending, only India has confirmed its presence, without specifying the diplomatic rank of its participation. Nothing is known about others. The game remains open insofar as they have not yet declined any participation. They will probably send mid-level participants with no decision-making power to avoid being accused of being ‘against peace” or ‘boycotting the West’.
  This means that the Bürgenstock Conference will not be a summit and definitely not a peace summit. Russia’s deliberate rejection is backfiring on its organisers. Aware of this problem, the official Swiss narrative is now trying to argue that Russia does not wish to participate and that its absence its absence is of its own making. This is untrue and will not mislead anyone outside the collective West.
  Why should the countries of the South take part in a summit that is no longer a summit, that is not focused on peace because of Russia’s absence, and that will certainly be a failure? The weakest or most skilful will be content to make their presence felt, without any enthusiasm, while the others will avoid wasting their time and money for nothing.

Selenski will not
be able to facilitate peace

Second problem: It can be assumed that President Zelensky has become the main obstacle to peace negotiations. Firstly, he has no longer been the legitimate president of the country since 21 May, as his electoral mandate ended on 20 May. Since then, he has only been the unelected and therefore illegitimate president of the country. As far as democracy is concerned, we will come back to that!
  It should also not be forgotten that he signed an ukase forbidding any peace negotiations in Ukraine and tabled a so-called peace plan which is not a peace plan at all, since it merely demands Russia’s capitulation. After the assassination of supporters of peace in Ukraine, including at least one of the negotiators in March 2022, he can no longer act as a peacemaker, as he would otherwise lose his power. He therefore has no interest in negotiating anything. If he comes to Switzerland, it is only to gain support from his Western supporters and to demand more aid for the war. Not for peace.
  The first prerequisite for the start of genuine peace talks is therefore to reject Zelensky and replace him with a more realistic and open-minded leader, perhaps Salushni.

The dead end of the West

Ultimately, the West is now at an impasse. It still has no strategy for overcoming the crisis in Ukraine and has nothing to offer apart from blind and unconditional support for the Zelensky regime. It does not know what, how or with whom to negotiate, as it is boycotting Putin. It is therefore content to follow the bellicose elites in Eastern Europe, the Baltic states, Poland and Washington, while disagreeing on what peace should and could be. There is virtually no chance that this will change before the US elections in November.
  After that date, regardless of who the newly elected president is, the game could become more open as the failure due to this lack of strategy and the ensuing attrition in all areas – military, economic, financial and political – will become more apparent.
  It would then be time to think about changing the incumbent of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.  •

(Translation Current Concerns)