generalspeaking

Bait and Legitimacy

"These elections are extremely important. Today our people will decide the future fate of our state."
Alexander Zakharchenko, 'Prime Minister', Donetsk People's Republic

"There is intensive deployment of military equipment and personnel of the enemy from the territory of the Russian Federation onto territory temporarily controlled by insurgents." 
Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko, Kyiv.

The international community will not recognize the 'election' taking place in the "people's republics" of Donetsk and Luhansk. Luring voters to the polls were stalls selling beetroots, potatoes, onions and carrots at a few pennies each sack. People in the region have been thrust into poverty with Kyiv ceasing to pay out pensions and public-sector wages while the region has been in thrall to the ethnic Russian militias imposing their will.

But even where there were no such farmer-market giveaways to bring out the vote, people arrived at the polls in droves, to do their civic duty. "I am going to vote for our Zakharchenko. We don't need Ukraine any more after what they did here", said a 60-year-old pensioner, Valentina. As for 29-year-old Artem, "I voted for Zakharchenko. I didn't know who the others were. You have to vote, don't you? It's your duty."

Well, who could they vote for, after all? The polls were full of voters struggling to do their civic duty but they were also  in the control of armed men, ensuring that they did their civic duty. There were no  voter lists. In fact there were no candidates in opposition, and as such no competitors to campaign for election. For whom to vote was clear enough, since there were no choice selections available but the inevitable.

And so the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe declined to send a monitoring mission. And so what? There were present some 30 observers from several European states, far-Right MEPs to observe the referendum just as they did the one that led to Crimea's annexation by Russia in March. A former member of the Right-wing Austrian Freedom Party claimed they represented a group called the ASCE.

And then it became obvious that the "Agency for Security and Co-operation in Europe" had just been invented for that purpose, but didn't really otherwise exist. And while most of the world will not recognize the election and its results, Moscow pre-empted any mystery by immediately stating well before the polls took place that of course, it represented a completely legal enterprise that they will be pleased to recognize.

The people's will must be recognized, after all. Aleksandr Zakharchenko was elected head of the Donetsk People's Republic, and Igor Plotnitsky won the vote in the Luhansk People's Republic. Whew! nice to have that uncertainty dealt with.

And surprise, imagine that, the very moment that the 'winners' were announced in the election Sunday, a major military movement of troops and equipment from Russia into Ukraine was witnessed by a number of Western journalists. Up to forty trucks of military equipment and troops in the convoy.


Christopher Miller        ✔ @ChristopherJM Follow

Labels: Civil War, Intervention, Russia, Ukraine, Violence

posted by Pieface @ Monday, November 03, 2014