General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Time for Realism and Common Sense on Ukraine [View all]No more so than in the Southern US, Scotland, Chechnya, and Venice.
Odd mix, but in the first there was no mechanism for secession. In Scotland and Venice there are, and Venice starts its vote today or later this week. Free and fair elections, after a season of campaigning, according to rules and in which the voter lists are properly drawn up and nobody's under undue pressure. Scotland may have its election in a year or so.
Chechnya was as much an autonomous republic as Crimea was. Yet we see the reactions and attitudes. The West has been consistent: free and fair elections in a way that maintains territorial integrity as far as outside actors are concerned. Russia, though, sees it differently: You want to leave Russia, it's over your dead bodies.
You want to join Russia, they'll set it up so that there's an election that's "free and fair" in that it achieves the desired result--with pro-Russian militias at the polling stations, pro-opposition people beaten in the streets in the week before, the government only allowing agitation for one side, voting lists that are drawn up and not open for inspection, truncated campaigning with only one side presented, and that the same view of the government and the occupying troops and the self-appointed armed militias.
It's the "free and fair" that's important for self-determination and democracy. In Crimea, certain groups felt sufficiently intimidated that they refused to turn out. Moreover, since everything was good to go for Russian unification the day after the elections--converting to rubles, media transmissions, replacement of staff, new laws aligning Crimean and Russian legislation, etc., etc., it seems rather pointless to say that there was anything like a real referendum at all. If it had failed, the banking and communication systems would have been a mess. And all the perks promised if they acceded to Russia--free trips to St. Petersburg for medical care, increased money for the local budget, increased pensions, massive investment in public infrastructure, etc., etc.--would have been lost. (Yes, counteroffers were made by Kiev. No, they weren't reported in Crimea because in the interests of self-determination and democracy unapproved sources were cut off, whether media or Internet.)