The turnout in Crimea has
been announced to total 81.36% of the voter population. However, Mykhaylo
Malyshev, the head of the commission of the Verkhovna Rada of Crimea for the
organization and execution of the referendum, announced that 1,250,426 people voted by
20:00. To this total, they added that once Sevastopol is included in the total,
1,724,563 people will have voted.
A
blogger, teh-nomad, has looked into population statistics and found that “at
the end of last year, the population of Sevastopol stood at 385,462 persons.
This included children, who do not have the right to vote. It appears that
88,675 individuals (474,137 minus 385,462 = 88,675) suddenly appeared in
Sevastopol during the referendum. Therefore 123% of Sevastopol citizens
(474,137/385,462*100=123%) voted to join Russia. And this means all : children,
school children, and I suspect, the dead.”
Throughout the day yesterday,
members of the Crimean ‘self-defense force’ played the role of observers, as
well as their own security. Polling stations displayed bulletin samples with a
tick put for ‘the union with the Russian Federation’. Another on-going
uncertainty is the fate of the Ukrainian military in Crimea. They are being
presented with ultimatums and coerced to join the Russian militias.
Journalists, Ukrainian and international, continue to be targeted and their
equipment confiscated by Russian armed men throughout Crimea.
But perhaps most concerning
is the fate of the Crimean Tatar groups who continue to be silenced. Since the annexation of the Crimea
in 1783, and the loss of their centuries-old statehood, Crimean Tatars have
suffered centuries of loss, humiliations, deprivation and repression.
In
May 18, 1944, the Stalin forcibly deported the Crimean Tatars from their
historical homeland, mostly to the Uzbek Soviet Republic where tens of
thousands died of starvation by Nov 1944. This was done under the premise that
Crimean Tatars were Nazi sympathisers, ‘fascists’. On June
28, 1991, the II Kurultai of the Crimean Tatar People signed a Declaration on
the National Sovereignty. Yet the Ukrainian state since 1991 has done nothing
to recognise the status of the Crimean Tatars as Indigenous peoples of the
peninsula. In spite of the ‘referendum’, they are calling on the new Ukrainian
government and Ukrainian people:
STATEMENT of the Mejlis
of the Crimean Tatar people to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, to all people of
Ukraine – Ukrainian citizens of all nationalities
[...]we address the people of Ukraine, their representatives in
the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, with the following:
1) we reaffirm our recognition of Ukraine as a sovereign and
independent state within the existing borders;
2) we strongly condemn the act of aggression by the Russian Federation and their plan for the annexation of the Crimea, considering it as a blatant violation of the international law that destabilizes the existing system of international relations;
3) we do not recognize the Crimean referendum of March 16, 2014 aimed at changing the territorial jurisdiction of the Crimea as legitimate under the international laws and the Constitution of Ukraine;
4) we categorically reject any attempts to determine the future of the Crimea without the free expression of will by the Crimean Tatar people – the indigenous people of the Crimea;
5) the right to decide in which state the Crimean Tatar people should live belongs exclusively to the Crimean Tatars;
6) we are convinced that the restoration of the rights of the Crimean Tatar people and the realization of their right to self-determination in their historical homeland should be carried out within the sovereign and independent state of Ukraine;
7) we believe that any power in the Crimea should be formed and should operate only under the condition of freely expressed will and consent of the Crimean Tatar people;
8) we urge the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to accede to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples;
9) we urge to recognize the status of the Crimean Tatar people as an indigenous people of the Crimea, and to support it by the legislation of Ukraine;
10) we urge the Verkhovna Rada and the highest state authorities of Ukraine to immediately take action along with international organizations (the UN, the OSCE, the Council of Europe, the European Union) aimed at the realization of basic rights of the Crimean Tatar people laid down in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and to ensure the expression of free will by the Crimean Tatar people for execution of their inalienable right to self-determination in their historical territory of the Crimea.
2) we strongly condemn the act of aggression by the Russian Federation and their plan for the annexation of the Crimea, considering it as a blatant violation of the international law that destabilizes the existing system of international relations;
3) we do not recognize the Crimean referendum of March 16, 2014 aimed at changing the territorial jurisdiction of the Crimea as legitimate under the international laws and the Constitution of Ukraine;
4) we categorically reject any attempts to determine the future of the Crimea without the free expression of will by the Crimean Tatar people – the indigenous people of the Crimea;
5) the right to decide in which state the Crimean Tatar people should live belongs exclusively to the Crimean Tatars;
6) we are convinced that the restoration of the rights of the Crimean Tatar people and the realization of their right to self-determination in their historical homeland should be carried out within the sovereign and independent state of Ukraine;
7) we believe that any power in the Crimea should be formed and should operate only under the condition of freely expressed will and consent of the Crimean Tatar people;
8) we urge the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to accede to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples;
9) we urge to recognize the status of the Crimean Tatar people as an indigenous people of the Crimea, and to support it by the legislation of Ukraine;
10) we urge the Verkhovna Rada and the highest state authorities of Ukraine to immediately take action along with international organizations (the UN, the OSCE, the Council of Europe, the European Union) aimed at the realization of basic rights of the Crimean Tatar people laid down in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and to ensure the expression of free will by the Crimean Tatar people for execution of their inalienable right to self-determination in their historical territory of the Crimea.
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