Crimea announced that it wants to hold a referendum by March 16 to decide on leaving Ukraine and joining Russia. Fine! Why not? Isn’t that their right? Alas it’s not that simple! Here is a summary of the situation in five short points.
1- Referendums are legal as long as they are held in respect of the country’s legislative rules. This poses the problem of whether the concerned country is Ukraine or Crimea. The context is that Crimea is an autonomous republic within Ukraine. It does have a constitution but that is in turn under Ukrainian law. If the legal standpoint favors Crimea, it is allowed to hold the referendum but otherwise, the vote should be held in view of the legislative power of Kiev.
2- That legislative power in the Ukrainian capital is not yet affirmed. Legal? Probably since Viktor Yanukovich did not sign the agreement brokered by the Fr/UK/Polish Foreign Ministers to solve the EuroMaidan crisis. Confirmed is another matter and only the results of the upcoming Presidential election to be held on May 25th.
3- The dates of March 16th for the referendum and May 25th for the Presidential elections thus conflict harshly. Normal procedure would be for the two to be inverted : i.e. for the referendum to take place in second but the Crimean parliament disregarded that to take advantage of the presence of pro-Russian military forces securing its territory.
4- These are unmarked men which deepens the plot. IF they are loyalists and other random freedom fighters / thugs, security should be restored before a vote can take place. If however as most astute observers believe they are Russian soldiers despite their absence of markings and insignias, then they need to leave before a referendum can be held and recognized. In the contrary case, this constitute duress, a condition that would invalidate the results of the said vote in and of itself.
5- In any case, if a war ensues, it will have to end before the result of the referendum becomes valid and then only IF Crimea remains autonomous after the conflict. If that happened, the Russian parliament would then only have to accept the new region in its midst for the transfer to be legal.
Conclusion :
Apart from the above legal condition and their use by the actors of this crisis, there is no moral standpoint to condemn Crimea or Russia Crimea is a special case within Ukraine. Many referendums were held elsewhere and approved by the International Community. The International Criminal Court validates all such results as long as they endure on the terrain which if Moscow provides forces will be the case, let’s be realistic.
The only 2 conditions that have to be respected however are not clearly at present : NO presence or ingerence from Moscow whatsoever and a respect of the Ukrainian law.
If the date was put back after May 25th and no Russian troops found outside of the Sevastopol base, things would be different.
There is one more consideration that has to explained though, both for the benefit or the readers and that of the powers that be ( read Putin ). While Crimea can sneak out by this mechanism, the same will not be the case afterwards for other pro-Russian separatists within Ukraine. IF Crimea leaves Ukraine, it will likely constitute de facto the only gain for Russia save winning World War III! Why? Because once Crimea is taken out of Ukraine, the numbers ( probably heightened by resentment if that happened ) would hence make pro-Russians a minority overall in Ukraine. Which in short means that if Russia gleans Crimea, it will lose the rest of the fight. Long term vs short term A.K.A. small gain vs big loss?
Unless of course, Putin is really delude enough to bring about a major deflagration in which case, he may gain a little more ground although certainly not all but at the cost of remaining in history as the cause of a major or World conflict for dubious reasons.
To be continued, Tay.
http://rt.com/news/crimea-referendum-status-ukraine-154/
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26473970
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/06/ukraine-crisis-russia-crimea-eu-un-live
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