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Independent Thinking

As the good people of Crimea go to the polls, the leaders of the democratic west (as they like to think of themselves) reject the vote in advance and even threaten punishment for voting.

The relationship between elections and democracy, a fraught question in Thailand since Prime Minister Yingluck dissolved parliament, is becoming enigmatic elsewhere in the world.  If the Crimea vote is free and fair (and there are good reasons for questioning this), why should it be ‘illegal and illegitimate’ as the UK Foreign Minister harrumphs?  (And you have to hand it to him, William Hague is a cracking good harrumpher, which is handy because he doesn’t seem capable of much else.)

But first some background.  Crimea has historically been Russian for far longer than it has been Ukrainian, and in even more distant days when it could claim some independence, it was Tatar for even longer (when one of its major exports was Russian and Ukrainian slaves).  And given its geography, bits have now and then been seized by all and sundry, including the very small and very temporary bit captured by the lunatic Charge of the Light Brigade.

Crimea was the last stronghold of the White Army in that little-discussed but extremely nasty civil war extension of World War One that led to Communist control of Russia and other constituent republics of the USSR.  In the Second World War the Crimean Tatars were accused by Stalin of taking the Germans’ side and were ruthlessly cleansed.  Half died and descendants of the survivors have been straggling back from Central Asia since the Soviet Union collapsed.

Most recently, since 1954, it has been an autonomous region of Ukraine, having arrived at this status when Ukrainian-born Khrushchev ‘donated’ it from the Russian bit of the USSR to the Ukrainian bit.  Historians struggle to explain exactly why he did this, and the theory that he was acting while tired and emotional is far from being debunked. 

But this was akin to reassigning a chunk of one Thai province to another.  There were administrative consequences for the residents of Crimea, but they still had the same passports.  That changed drastically when the Soviet Union was chucked into the rubbish bin of history and Ukraine became a new, if conflicted, nation state.  And part of that conflicted status arises from the fact that the old Soviet and now Russian naval base in Sevastopol remains a Russian port in Ukraine (like Hong Kong for years was a British port in China, though rather less well armed).

This means that 60% of the voters in the referendum identify themselves as Russian, and likely to be pro-Russian, while a quarter call themselves Ukrainian and something over a tenth Tatar, both of whom can be expected to be anti-Russian (and sometimes virulently so).  It also means that Prayuth-like calls for the Russians to ‘go back to Russia’ if they don’t like it are rather nonsensical.  It was the border that moved, not them. 

The government in Kiev claims that Crimea is an indissoluble part of Ukraine (something guaranteed in a post-USSR big-powers agreement that was largely concerned with the huge Soviet nuclear stockpile that was left on Ukrainian soil).  But the legitimacy of the current Ukrainian government, warm handshakes in the White House notwithstanding, is a mite iffy.  It came as the result of putsch that included groups with unsavoury neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic reputations, with its leaders handpicked by the US Embassy.  Given the dire straits the country faces, it has been cutting a few constitutional corners.  This might be understandable, but puts it in a weak position to claim that the Crimea referendum is unconstitutional.

So why should Hague claim this referendum ‘would carry no legitimacy as well as no legal force in Ukraine’?  Agreed, the much-abused Ukrainian constitution, like all others, claims territorial integrity.  But isn’t the colder and more malnourished part of the UK itself about to vote on independence?  If Scotland can have a legitimate referendum, why can’t Crimea?

Ah, but the UK government has, kicking and screaming, agreed to a vote on Scottish independence (while throwing as much sand as it can muster under the wheels).  The Ukrainian government hasn’t.

OK.  So back-pedal to the 2008 Declaration of Independence of Kosovo.  This was in violation of the Serbian constitution and against the wishes of the (admittedly despicable) Serbian government (and not even approved in a popular vote though the dominant parties in Kosovo had been elected on a pro-independence mandate).  This has been recognized by the same democracies (cough, cough) that now denounce the Crimean case (and rejected as ‘illegal’ by the Russians whose opinions seem equally flexible).

So if history gives us no clear precedent, is there some law we can look at?  Secretary of State Kerry thinks so and also says the Crimea vote breaches it.  But I can’t find which statute he is referring to.  The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, for instance, kicks off in Article 1 with ‘All peoples have the right of self-determination’.

And the Kosovo case was referred by the UN Security Council to the International Court of Justice for an ‘advisory opinion’, which declared that ‘the adoption of the declaration of independence of the 17 February 2008 did not violate general international law because international law contains no “prohibition on declarations of independence”.’

Oh.

So back to the Lanna People’s Democratic Republic.


 

About author:  Bangkokians with long memories may remember his irreverent column in The Nation in the 1980's. During his period of enforced silence since then, he was variously reported as participating in a 999-day meditation retreat in a hill-top monastery in Mae Hong Son (he gave up after 998 days), as the Special Rapporteur for Satire of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, and as understudy for the male lead in the long-running ‘Pussies -not the Musical' at the Neasden International Palladium (formerly Park Lane Empire).

 

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