(Nations unies) Le cofondateur du groupe de rock Pink Floyd Roger Waters, invité par la Russie à s’exprimer devant le Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU, a dénoncé mercredi l’invasion russe, mais aussi ceux qui l’ont provoquée, s’attirant les foudres de l’Ukraine.
« L’invasion de l’Ukraine par la Fédération de Russie était illégale. Je la condamne dans les termes les plus forts », a déclaré l’ex-Pink Floyd par visioconférence.
Mais « il n’est pas vrai que l’invasion russe de l’Ukraine ait été non provoquée. Alors je condamne aussi les provocateurs dans les termes les plus forts », a-t-il ajouté.
Le musicien britannique qui a fait polémique ces derniers mois concernant ses prises de position sur la guerre en Ukraine a également appelé à un cessez-le-feu immédiat, pour ne plus perdre « une seule vie ukrainienne ou russe ».
Tout en ironisant sur un Conseil de sécurité « sans influence » : « cette absence de mordant est peut-être une bonne nouvelle […]if I can open my big mouth without fearing that my head will be ripped off”.
His speech was immediately denounced by the Ukrainian ambassador.
“How sad for his former fans to see him accepting to be just another brick in the wall, in the wall of disinformation and Russian propaganda”, launched Sergiy Kyslytsya in reference to the words of the famous song of Pink Floyd, Another Brick in the Wall.
“I’m surprised he didn’t inflate a pig-shaped balloon in the Council Chamber today, as he does in many of his concerts. What would it have been this time, Mr. Waters, pigs with swastikas, hammer and sickle? “, he added, calling on the musician to stick to the guitar “instead of lecturing” the Council.
“I naturally recognize the impressive references [de Roger Waters] as an artist, his qualifications to speak to us as an expert on arms control and security issues in Europe are less clear,” quipped Deputy US Ambassador Richard Mills.
“Person not free”
Russia had requested this meeting to discuss the armaments supplied to Ukraine by the West.
By delivering these weapons, “our former Western partners are forcing [l’Ukraine] to hold out for as long as possible without thinking about the losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and putting morality aside,” Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia said.
He praised the intervention of Roger Waters, “one of the most important activists in the contemporary anti-war movement”, seeing it as a sign of “the concern of the international artistic intelligentsia” about the direction the world is taking. .
In an open letter in early September, Roger Waters, 79, wrote that the West should stop supplying arms to Ukraine and accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of tolerating ‘extreme nationalism’ before enjoining him to put an end to “this murderous war”.
He was then declared “persona non grata” in Krakow, Poland, and his concerts canceled.
Conversely, Pink Floyd released its first original song since 1994 last April, in support of the Ukrainian people.
A few days ago, Polly Samson, one of the band’s lyricists, also a companion of its singer and guitarist David Gilmour, called Roger Waters on Twitter an “anti-Semite” and a “Putin apologist”. Accusations he rejected “entirely” on his Twitter account, denouncing “incendiary and totally inaccurate comments”.