Wayne Madsen
The parliament of the former Ukrainian autonomous republic of Crimea voted in a referendum to declare independence from Ukraine
and petition the Russian Federation to join it as an autonomous
republic. The vote was 96.7 per cent in favor of leaving Ukraine.
Although some Crimean Tatar leaders called for a boycott of the Crimea
vote, high voter turnout was reported across Crimea, including in
primarily Tatar voting districts. Observers from the European
Parliament, Poland, the European Union, France, Germany, Latvia,
Bulgaria, and Austria stated that the election was fair and turnout
across the board was high…
As with the aftermaths of other independence referenda, the state
property of the former governing power, in this case Ukraine, came under
the control of the successor government, Crimea. In addition, the laws
of the former governing country, Ukraine, no longer applied to Crimea.
As with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the Crimean government appealed for
international recognition. The United States and European Union
threatened a cut-off in assistance to countries that considered
recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia, a policy that will undoubtedly
be extended to countries considering recognizing Crimea.
The head of the referendum commission, Mikhail Malyshev, said not one
complaint had been registered concerning the vote. Nevertheless,
corporatist leaders from U.S. President Barack Obama and European
Council president Herman Van Rompuy to European Union foreign policy
chief Catherine Ashton and European Commission President Jose Manuel
Barroso (who has voiced his opposition to forthcoming independence
referenda in Scotland and Catalonia) rejected the referenda results and
announced that they do not recognize the results but would push for
punishing sanctions against Russia and Crimea. Ukraine acting Prime
Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who is a favorite of the neo-conservative
cabal that continues to dominate U.S. foreign policy and who has
reported strong links to the cultish Church of Scientology, was even
more incendiary in his comments when he said «the ground will burn
beneath the feet» of Crimea’s independence leaders.
The history of referenda on independence and secession demonstrates
that they are only recognized internationally when the United States and
the international bodies over which Washington maintains de facto
control, for example, the United Nations and European Union, give them
sanction.
The Crimean parliament issued the following request to the world: «The
republic of Crimea appeals to the United Nations and to all countries of
the world to recognize it as an independent state, established by the
Crimean people». That request was met with hostility from the usurper
government in Kiev and from its supporters in Washington, Brussels,
London, and other corporatist capitals.
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