Independence Referenda Only Count when Washington and its Allies Say They Count

TEHRAN (FNA)- 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 US 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 US 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.

Rather than champion the cause of independence and self-determination for colonized peoples around the world, the United States has become a center for defending inequitable status quos. The United States that once helped Latin Americans in their struggle to break the bonds of colonialism now supports corporatist Latin American governments beholden to the dictates of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Former Harper’s editor Lewis Lapham has summed up this change in America’s fervor for freedom in an article written for TomDispatch.com, "How America's Spirit for Revolution Was Crushed". Lapham laments the "silence" of those Americans "who like to imagine themselves on the same page with Patrick Henry – "Give me liberty, or give me death". Lapham correctly asks, "Where have all the flowers gone, and what, if anything, is anybody willing to risk in the struggle for ‘Freedom Now’, ‘Power to the People’ 'Change We Can Believe In'"?

The Kiev regime’s apologists, many of whom take their orders and their paychecks from the Council on Foreign Relations, George Soros’s many think tank "cash cows", or CIA disinformation and propaganda mills, immediately began making statements that the Russian ethnic majority had nothing to fear from the Ukrainian authorities in Kiev, including the many neo-Nazis and revanchist nationalists who make up the present government.

The similarity to what Crimea did in relation to the independence of Kosovo, carved out of Serbia by the European Union and NATO, was discounted. Several "Eurocrats" claimed that unlike the Albanians of Kosovo, who were "threatened" by Serbia, the Russians of Crimea faced no threats from anti-Russian Ukrainians. In fact, some Eurocrats said that referenda on secession and independence can only be carried out when the "motherland" agrees. However, Serbia, the "motherland" of Kosovo never agreed on the two independence referenda carried out in that region, one in 1991 not recognized by NATO and the other in 2005, carried out by NATO troops after they "changed the facts on the ground" through a military invasion. In 1991, The "Assembly of Kosovo" declared Kosovo independent after an 87.1 percent voter turnout was reported. Of those voters, 99.98 percent opted for independence. However, only Albania recognized Kosovo’s independence. When, in 2008, the Assembly of Kosovo declared the region independent of Serbia, it was immediately recognized by the major corporatist powers because NATO troops were present to ensure that Serbia did not try to reassert its control over the region. NATO and the European Union also warned the majority Serbs in Northern Kosovo not to declare independence and unify with Serbia.

Apparently, independence for ethnic groups is only permitted by NATO and the European Union as long as it is not Russians or Serbs asking for the independence or the right of self-determination.

In the Crimean referendum, registered voter turnout was 83.10 percent. Only 2.09 percent of those voting opted to restore the 1992 constitution and remain a part of Ukraine. A clear majority of 96.7 percent favored joining the Russian Federation.

If the same rules that are presently applied by the corporatist powers to Crimea were extended to independence referenda held in other countries, there today would be no independent Norway, Iceland, Cambodia, Guinea, Samoa, Algeria, Malta, Djibouti, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Moldova, Eritrea, East Timor, Montenegro, South Sudan, or, in fact, Ukraine. All declared independence after referenda, many of which were more lopsided in favor than that held by Crimea (Norway, 99.9 percent; Iceland, 99.5 percent; Cambodia, 100 percent; Guinea, 95.2 percent; Samoa, 85.4 percent; Algeria, 99.7 percent; Malta, 54.5 percent; French Territory of Afars and Issas (Djibouti), 99.8 percent; Slovenia, 88.5 percent; Estonia, 78.4 percent; Latvia, 74.9 percent; Lithuania, 93.2 percent; Bosnia-Herzegovina, 99.7 percent; Moldova, 97.9 percent; East Timor, 78.5 percent; Montenegro, 55.5 percent; South Sudan, 98.3 percent; and Ukraine, 92.3 percent.

The corporatist powers have, like Ukraine, denied their regions independence after clear majorities voted in favor of secession. In 1933, the British Parliament rejected a 70.7 percent vote in favor of secession by Western Australia. In 1946, the Danish King rejected a 50.4 percent vote in favor of independence held in the Faroe Islands. The declaration of independence by the islands was rejected by Denmark. In 1977, after the people of Aruba voted 95.1 percent for independence, the Netherlands instead offered the island a bogus self-determination status.

Gross interference by corporatist powers and their business interests stymied "yes" votes in favor of independence in West Papua in 1969, Quebec and Bermuda in 1995, Nevis in 1998, and the Basque Region of Spain in 2008. Similar pressure campaigns against independence "yes" votes are being waged by global supranational organizations, multinational corporations and banks, and the Western military-intelligence complex against planned and proposed referenda in Scotland, Catalonia, Bougainville, Greenland, Anguilla, Veneto, Western Sahara, Southern Cameroons, and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

The corporatist powers are displaying their usual hypocrisy when it comes to the results of the Crimean referendum on retrocession back to the Russian Federation. The voters of Crimea have democratically corrected what Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev undemocratically accomplished in 1954 with the stroke of a pen ordering Crimea be handed over by the Russian Federated Soviet Socialist Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Some corporatists in major western capitals and their neo-Nazi and nationalist allies in Kiev seem to prefer the status quo ante of the Soviet era.

By Wayne Madsen

This commentary was originally released by Strategic Culture Foundation' on March 18, 2014.