Intermediate Debate Competition R3: The Crimean Referendum was was not legitimate or democratic

Con argues that since the Crimean parliament was taken a hold be armed men, it cannot be trusted. Then we are in agreement that voting at gunpoint is always illegitimate, even if the results would be similar without threat of violence, because there is no reassurance that the vote reflects the people's will or that the results were unhampered. I'll note that referring to a Russian occupying military force comprised of 30,000 soldiers of the Russian Army, up to 11,000 Marines of the Black Sea Fleet, 72 fighter jets and more than 30 warships with tens of thousands of Russian soldiers in reserve on the Crimean border as simply "armed men" understates Russia's threat to the point of delusion.[1] But the events prior to this “takeover” must be taken into account. Here is where we diverge then. A Russian invasion is not a proportional or appropriate response to recent setbacks for the Party of Regions. Two wrongs do not make a right and so the International Community should feel no increased acceptance for Russia's invasion of Crimea merely because that Ukrainian Russophones perceived some political setbacks in the wake of Euromaidan. Keep in mind that even the russophone Party of Regions makes a very clear distinction between supporting the politics of Ukrainians of Russian ethnicity and supporting the actual political agenda of Russia under Vladimir Putin. The former acknowledges the sovereignty of the Ukrainian people and expresses loyalty to that state. The later is treason, as succinctly expressed by Yanukovych's violent oppression of Ukrainians on behalf of Putin and at that foreign despot's specific command. Indeed, the Party of Regions expressly condemned the March 16th referendum:"The Crimean referendum is illegitimate, and its holding must be immediately stopped." [2] So how does Con characterize the referendum as a response by the Party of Regions when that Party refused to acknowledge the referendum? My opponent should also note that the Party of Regions expressly condemned Yanukovych's crackdown of Feb 20th and cast him and his cabinet from the party saying that the party does "strongly condemn the criminal orders that led to human victims, an empty state treasury, huge debts, shame before the eyes of the Ukrainian people and the entire world." [3] The gap between support for Russian speaking Ukrainians and supporting a Russian invasion of Ukraine is a wide as the difference between American support for Spanish speakers in the US versus support for a Mexican invasion of the American Southwest. Yet my opponent assumes that Russophones and Russians stand together in favor of the referendum, an assumption that falls far short of the truth.And even Yanukovych himself condemned the Russian invasion of Crimea: "Defensive and at times tearful, Ukraine's ousted president conceded Wednesday that he made a mistake when he invited Russian troops into Crimea and vowed to try to negotiate with Vladimir Putin to get the coveted Black Sea peninsula back. "Crimea is a tragedy, a major tragedy," Viktor Yanukovych told The Associated Press"In February 2014, a minority of Euromaidan protesters violently attacked the Party of Regions HQ, setting it ablaze My opponent will note that was on February 19th. One day before on February 18th, Euromaidan' s HQ was burned down by Yanukovych's Berkut thugs. Two wrongs don't make right, but this bit of history reflects the whole of the Ukrainian Revolution: Euromaidan' s violence has generally been in reaction to Russophone violence. In nearly every case, Russian puppets have instigated. My opponent’s second contention is that the Crimean Referendum did not offer a choice. But it clear did. Another delusion. There was no "Nyet" vote. There was no option to maintain the status quo or to modify Crimea's status within Ukraine. The first option was reunification with Russia by election, the second option was reunification with Russia by parliament. Since Russian invaders were standing at the doorway to that parliament with machine guns, there can be no doubt that either option produced the same result. But providing a choiceless election was not enough for Putin, he clearly had to skew the results. Even with this non-choice, we know from polling data over the past decade that the majority of Crimeans would have preferred a more autonomous Crimea over a simple re-federation with Russia. Yet, puppet's election results reflect 97% for an idea that lacked even majority support before the Russian invasion. Therefore, we can state with confidence the election was pure fraud and the will of Crimea was never seriously considered by Putin. My opponent spends this argument arguing why the results were not reliable since the majority of Crimeans are ethnic Russians. That simply does not make sense. Con should read more carefully. The argument is that Russophones were a rapidly declining majority in 2001 and in the absence of any more recent census, we have every reason to expect that Russophones are no longer in the majority. The vote was boycotted by a small but substantial amount of the population who knew they would not have a chance of swaying the election, thus reflecting the large majority of the “yes” votes. Even using the old figures, we would expect to see Ukrainians, Tartars, and other ethnic groups to oppose unification with Russia and so either not vote or vote for parliamentary autonomy, but the puppet government reports 80% participation and 97% love for Russia. Therefore, half of the country was ignored or the figures were made up. Either way the vote's a sham. The years after Yanukovych was elected was likely to increase Crimean preference to the more pro-Russian Ukrainian government, and after seeing how the new Ukrainian government ignored the Crimean favored candidate, more Crimeans likely wish to break away.There is no evidence to support this speculation. Yanukovych's victory in 2010 depended on a shaky coalition of right-wing forces that fell to squabbling as soon as the election passed. The whole point was anti-European, of cources European observers are not welcomed. All the more reason, had Crimean secession been genuine or popular, to demonstrate Crimean convictions to Europe. Since Russia had no intention of permitting a genuine discovery of the electorate's will, Russia was strongly motivated to exclude an objective observers, European or otherwise. And, as I pointed out in Round 3, there were plenty of European observers, its just that the observers were hand-picked neo-Nazi and extreme Right-wing organizations with no reputation for objectivity. CONCLUSION: Look, we really don't need to take sides in the Ukrainian Revolution or figure out the ethnic balance of the Crimean Peninsula in order to confidently reject the independence or representativeness of the Crimean Referendum. All we really need to know is that the peninsula was invaded by a foreign army which instigated and overshadowed the whole Referendum from beginning to end. The Russian Army does not represent Crimean interests and any vote conducted by that power can not be sovereign to Crimea. If Russia invaded, (and neither Con or even Putin himself as of today deny it) the referendum should not stand. We don't even really need to consider the obvious unfairness of the Referendum itself or the fakery of the results. All we really need to know is that Russia felt it was necessary to invade first, vote second. Even if we believed that a Francophone majority in Quebec wished to secede from Canada, we would never recognize an vote secede if it was proceeded by a French invasion. If Russia invaded Alaska and then held a referendum to secede, we might believe that a majority of Alaskans have a problem with Washington or that many Russian-speaking Alaskans might prefer Moscow to DC, but we'd never recognize a vote as free and fair conducted under a Russian gun. The same principle should apply to Crimea. The international community has rejected and should continue to condemn the patent duplicity of the Crimean Referendum and reunification with Russia. If the majority of Crimeans truly wish to align with Russia, which is a possibility, than Russia should remove its military from the peninsula and allow Crimea to conduct a conclusive and representative election before reasonably expecting international support. Thanks to Con for the opportunity to discuss this subject. Please vote PRO! [1] http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] http://www.ukrinform.ua...[3] http://web.archive.org...[4] http://seattletimes.com...[5] http://www.digitaljournal.com...