General Assembly Holds Emergency Special Session on Ukraine / UN Photo/Evan Schneider
The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution today demanding Russia immediately end its military operations in Ukraine.
The resolution won overwhelming support from 141 of the 193-member body. It demands Russia “immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders.”
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US ambassador to the UN had this to say: “Proud to witness today’s historic, overwhelming vote in defense of Ukraine and the UN Charter. 141 UN Member States have voted to #StandWithUkraine and hold Russia accountable.”
That’s great, I thought, the voice of the people is the voice of God, and if the majority of the world is saying this, who am I to judge?
So I checked out the list of countries who voted and began to scratch my head because something nagged me. I began to consult the data.
My starting point is the population of the world: 7 953 952 567. I then listed all of the countries that had either voted against the resolution, abstained from the resolution, or didn’t bother to vote for the resolution. I then tabled those country names with population numbers.
Here’s the chart of how the world voted by population.
In other words, if this was a simple “show of hands” vote, just 43% voted against Russia.
I will leave it to others to speculate about the significance of this, but I will point out the obvious: the rich nations voted against Russia while the poor nations did not.
For those of you who care about the detail, here’s the data I used:
|
Against |
Abstain |
No show |
|
|
China |
1 447 065 836 |
||
|
India |
1 402 291 113 |
||
|
Pakistan |
228 083 195 |
||
|
Bangladesh |
167 368 997 |
||
|
Russia |
145 835 620 |
||
|
Ethiopia |
119 848 513 |
||
|
Viet Nam |
98 693 815 |
||
|
Iran |
85 698 841 |
||
|
Tanzania |
62 705 819 |
||
|
South Africa |
60 520 677 |
||
|
Uganda |
47 989 103 |
||
|
Iraq |
41 842 538 |
||
|
Sudan |
45 637 280 |
||
|
Algeria |
45 109 652 |
||
|
Morocco |
37 632 688 |
||
|
Angola |
34 666 485 |
||
|
Uzbekistan |
34 235 531 |
||
|
Mozambique |
32 785 188 |
||
|
Venezuela |
29 128 489 |
||
|
Madagascar |
28 931 586 |
||
|
Cameroon |
27 685 359 |
||
|
North Korea |
25 956 685 |
||
|
Burkina Faso |
21 903 318 |
||
|
Sri Lanka |
21 549 896 |
||
|
Mali |
21 270 282 |
||
|
Syria |
19 078 591 |
||
|
Kazakhstan |
19 135 981 |
||
|
Senegal |
17 503 178 |
||
|
Zimbabwe |
15 251 918 |
||
|
Guinea |
13 744 868 |
||
|
Burundi |
12 503 538 |
||
|
Bolivia |
11 940 292 |
||
|
South Sudan |
11 545 611 |
||
|
Cuba |
11 309 255 |
||
|
Azerbaijan |
10 274 624 |
||
|
Tajikistan |
9 889 249 |
||
|
Belarus |
9 436 043 |
||
|
Togo |
8 614 064 |
||
|
Laos |
7 447 757 |
||
|
Nicargua |
6 753 760 |
||
|
Kyrgyzstan |
6 695 366 |
||
|
El Salvador |
6 540 061 |
||
|
Turkmenistan |
6 174 442 |
||
|
Congo |
5 751 450 |
||
|
Central African Republic |
4 985 455 |
