Oh, Crimea River!

[Cha]

70. These people didn't think so, either..

Svitlana Zalischuk states..

“The referendum itself doesn’t mean anything,” she added, noting that the choice was between “yes and yes,” and didn’t give people a choice of maintaining the status quo. “You can’t conduct a democratic referendum when a whole country is invaded and controlled by the troops of a foreign country.”

The Fight for Democracy in Ukraine: A Conversation with Center UA’s Svitlana Zalischuk

BY Micah L. Sifry

“In the third and last part of our conversation, I asked Zalischuk about the referendum about to take place in Russian-occupied Crimea and the massive Russian troop presence across the border from eastern Ukraine. “Russian invaded Ukraine,” she said, mincing no words about Vladimir Putin’s actions in the wake of Yanukovych’s departure from office. “The referendum itself doesn’t mean anything,” she added, noting that the choice was between “yes and yes,” and didn’t give people a choice of maintaining the status quo. “You can’t conduct a democratic referendum when a whole country is invaded and controlled by the troops of a foreign country.”

This is not a conflict between Ukraine and Russia, she said, it’s a conflict between the civilized world and totalitarianism, one that undermines the whole architecture of the European and world community. I asked her about the idea that the democracy movement in Ukraine was mostly strongest in the western part of the country and not so much from the eastern half, where Yanukovych got the majority of votes. She said the picture was more complicated, because Yanukovych himself had campaigned in favor of stronger ties with Europe when he was running for president.”

http://techpresident.com/news/wegov/24827/fight-democracy-ukraine-conversation-center-uas-svitlana-zalischuk

Timothy Snyder: Freedom in Russian exists only in Ukraine

In Ukraine, millions of Russian-speakers read a free press and learn from an uncensored internet

snip//

"Putin claims that he is defending the rights of speakers of Russian in Ukraine. He has used this argument to justify his invasion of Crimea and the electoral theatre of yesterday, a “referendum” in which there was no way to vote against union with Russia.

Among the speakers of Russian in Crimea are the Crimean Tatars, whose historical memory is dominated by their murderous deportation by Stalin in the Forties, and who boycotted the “referendum”. It makes no reference to their minority rights, nor to their assembly, the Mejlis, which was permitted by Ukrainian law. Crimean Tatars are now fleeing the peninsula for mainland Ukraine. Russian-speaking Ukrainian Jews have also made it clear to Putin that they do not want Russian intervention."

snip//

"If speakers of Russian were suffering discrimination, that would give rise to concern, though not justify invasion. In fact, Russian is a completely normal language of interchange in Ukraine. There, tens of millions of Russian-speakers read a free press, watch uncontrolled television and learn from an uncensored internet, in either Ukrainian or in Russian, as they prefer.

In Russia, the major social media have been brought under state control, television has been almost completely subdued and several of the remaining free-thinking blogs and internet news sites have been shut down or pressured. This leaves Ukraine as an island of free speech for people who use the Russian language."

MOre..
http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/timothy-snyder-freedom-in-russian-exists-only-in-ukraine-9196833.html

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4689054