Re: World War Three Thread....
MH17: Australia takes a hard line on Russia
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Daniel Flitton
When the phone rings at 3.30 in the morning, it’s almost never good news.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop had spent last Thursday night celebrating her birthday, and then the early call came, barely three hours after Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crashed to the ground.
A phone rang for Prime Minister Tony Abbott about the same time.
In every hour since, Abbott, Bishop and Australian officials have tried to manage a ferocious appetite, for information and firm action.
First there was caution. “Let’s not leap to conclusions until we have harder facts than we do at the moment,” Abbott said on ABC radio on Friday morning.
Then followed the first of what has become a daily meeting of cabinet’s National Security Committee. Officials from Australia’s intelligence agencies reported on hastily compiled evidence that indicated Russian-backed rebels had indeed shot down the plane.
Abbott’s caution gave way. “If, as now seems certain, [the plane] been brought down by a Russian supplied surface-to-air missile, Russia bears a heavy share of responsibility,” he said in his next radio interview.
Within the space of a few hours, Abbott and Bishop had gone from shock to grim certitude.
But by so openly fingering Russia for culpability, they took a big risk – a risk that so far has paid off.
The aim was to put steel in the international response to the attack and not see it brushed aside as a terrible accident. Abbott called leaders from Netherlands, Ukraine, Britain, the US, Malaysia, Germany, New Zealand and France – some several times.
“The mood of the leaders that I spoke to is firmer and sterner now than it was in the 24 hours immediately subsequent to the downing of this aircraft,” Abbott said on Monday.
Abbott’s forthright criticism of Vladimir Putin had not impressed the Russian leader.
Perhaps as a rebuke, the Kremlin issued a statement after the two spoke on Monday stating they had agreed to avoid politicised statements in connection with the tragedy.
But Abbott remained tight-lipped about the conversation, only to say Putin had said all the right things.
“I want to stress what he said was fine. The challenge now is to hold the president to his word. That’s certainly my intention and it should be the intention of the family of nations.”
That is where Bishop now plays her role in New York, at the United Nations.
Australia will take advantage of its seat on the Security Council to sponsor its own Security Council resolution that demands unfettered access to the crash site.
Returning the bodies of the 298 victims to their families is the first priority, then for an investigation by the International Civil Aviation Organisation.
The Dutch, who lost more nationals on this flight than any other nation, would be well placed to lead events on the other side of the world.
“We will do our best to craft a resolution which under the circumstances no reasonable person could object to,” Abbott said.
And Russia – who wields a veto on the council – appeared willing, with one important caveat.
That Moscow not be blamed.
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BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images Ukrainian State Emergency Service employees collect bodies of victims at the site of the crash of the Malaysia Flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine on Sunday 
ALEXEI NIKOLSKY/AFP/Getty Images Russia's President Vladimir Putin has accepted no responsibility for the plane crash. 
A pro-Russian rebel looks up while ridding on a tank flying Russia's flag, on a road east of Donetsk on Monday. 
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Photo illustration by 731; Photographs by Mikhail Metzel/AP Photo (missiles); Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters (Putin)
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