Resolution 1541, Decolonization, Self-Determination (If Kosovo can, so can Crimea)

Alan Fairhurst The right of nations to self-determination (from German: Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Völker), or in short form, the right to self-determination is the cardinal principle in modern international law (jus cogens), binding, as such, on the United Nations as authoritative interpretation of the Charter’s norms. It states that nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and fair equality of opportunity have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or interference which can be traced back to the Atlantic Charter, signed on 14 August 1941, by Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, and Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom who pledged The Eight Principal points of the Charter. The principle does not state how the decision is to be made, or what the outcome should be, whether it be independence, federation, protection, some form of autonomy or even full assimilation. Neither does it state what the delimitation between nations should be — or even what constitutes a nation. In fact, there are conflicting definitions and legal criteria for determining which groups may legitimately claim the right to self-determination. On 14 December 1960, the United Nations General Assembly adopted United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1514 under titled Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples provided for the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples in providing an inevitable legal linkage between self-determination and its goal of decolonisation, and a postulated new international law-based right of freedom also in economic self-determination. In Article 5 states: Immediate steps shall be taken in Trust and Non-Self-Governing Territories, or all other territories which have not yet attained independence, to transfer all powers to the peoples of those territories, without any conditions or reservations, in accordance with their freely expressed will and desire, without any distinction as to race, creed or colour, in order to enable them to enjoy complete independence and freedom, moreover on 15 December 1960 the United Nations General Assembly adopted United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1541 under titled Principles which should guide members in determining whether or nor an obligation exists to transmit the information called for under Article 73e of the United Nations Charter in Article 3 provided that [i]nadequacy of political, economic, social or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence. To monitor the implementation of Resolution 1514 in 1961 the General Assembly created the Special Committee referred to popularly as the Special Committee on Decolonization to ensure decolonization complete compliance with the principle of self-determination in General Assembly Resolution 1541, 12 Principle of the Annex defining free association with an independent State, integration into an independent State, or independence as the three legitimate options of full self-government compliance with the principle of self-determination. "National aspirations must be respected; people may now be dominated and governed only by their own consent. Self determination is not a mere phrase; it is an imperative principle of action. . . . " —Woodrow Wilson with his famous self-determination speech on 11 February 1918 after he announced his Fourteen Points on 8 January 1918. Crimea referendum opponents manipulate detached norms of intl law – Churkin Published time: March 13, 2014 22:58 Edited time: March 14, 2014 03:16 Get short URL Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin addresses the United Nations Security Council during a meeting of the Council on the crisis in Ukraine, at U.N. Headquarters in New York, March 13, 2014. (Reuters/Mike Segar) Download video (54.97 MB) Share on tumblrTrends Ukraine turmoil Tags Human rights, Meeting, Opposition, Politics, Security, UN, Ukraine Addressing the chorus of criticism at the UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine, Moscow’s ambassador has reconfirmed that Russia does not want any escalation of the Ukraine crisis and is not interfering with the upcoming referendum in Crimea. “Russia does not want war and neither do the Russians, and I'm convinced the Ukrainians don't want that either,” ambassador Vitaly Churkin told an emergency meeting of the Security Council on Thursday. “We don’t see any basis to consider the issue in such terms.” It is unacceptable to reject Crimea’s right for self-determination using a smokescreen of protecting Ukraine’s territorial integrity, without even trying to balance these two principles, Churkin told the council. “Some dispute the legality of such a referendum, but it is unacceptable to manipulate individual principles and norms of international law, randomly pulling them out of context not only of the international law, but the specific political circumstances and historical aspects,” Churkin said. In each case, the envoy believes, one should “balance between the principles of territorial integrity and the right for self-determination.” “It is clear that the implementation of the right of self-determination in the form of separation from the existing state is an extraordinary measure. In Crimea such a case apparently arose as a result of a legal vacuum, which emerged as a result of unconstitutional, violent coup d'état carried out in Kiev by radical nationalists, as well as direct threats by the latter to impose their order on the whole territory of Ukraine.” Video: /files/news/23/91/e0/00/churkin-full-unsc-web_1416352.mp4 Churkin assured the international community that the Black Sea Fleet – the only Russian military force stationed in Crimea according to existing international agreements – does not and will not interfere with Sunday’s referendum on Crimean succession. “In the conduct of the referendum, organized by the Crimeans, the Russian Black Sea Fleet does not interfere,” he said. At the same time Churkin reminded about the urgent need to investigate the killings of protesters and security forces at Maidan square that brought new people to power in Kiev. Moscow keeps insisting on setting up a probe into these crimes, Churkin said. “Acts of violence perpetrated in Kiev need a careful international investigation,” he said, warning that the “image presented by Kiev and western propaganda is completely reversed by the information the same provocateurs were firing at both the representatives of the security forces and protesters.” “And, according to the latest published information, shooting came from the headquarters of the so-called ‘Maidan Commandant’, who now heads by the Security Council of Ukraine,” Russia's envoy said. In general, the UN Security Council members all sides called to abstain from taking positions that could deteriorate the Ukraine crisis. Several member states including the US, Britain and France were critical of Russia’s “actions in Crimea,” while the US ambassador Samantha Power even called for a suspension of the “illegitimate referendum” due to “the background of foreign military intervention.” Ukraine's coup-appointed prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk was also given the floor at the council meeting and used that chance to once again accuse Russia of “military aggression” in Crimea.

“This aggression has no reasons and no grounds,” Yatsenyuk said. “This is absolutely and entirely unacceptable in the 21st century, to resolve any kind of conflict with tanks, artillery and boots on the ground.”

With Western media and the self-proclaimed government in Kiev ranting about the Russian invasion in Crimea, international journalists on the scene are struggling to find any evidence of these claims. The United States in the meantime has ratcheted up its rhetoric with threats of sanctions against Russia if a referendum in Crimea goes ahead on Sunday. US Secretary of State John Kerry told a congressional hearing on Thursday that he hoped to avoid such steps, which include sanctions, through discussions with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, in London on Friday. "If there is no sign of any capacity to be able to move forward and resolve this issue there will be a very serious series of steps in Europe and here with respect to the options that are available to us," Kerry said. ==================== West prepares sanctions as Russia presses on with Crimea takeover Fri, Mar 14 19:20 PM EDT 1 of 22 By Andrew Osborn and Lina Kushch SEVASTOPOL/DONETSK, Ukraine (Reuters) - Dozens of Russians linked to Russia's gradual takeover of Crimea could face U.S. and EU travel bans and asset freezes on Monday, after six hours of crisis talks between Washington and Moscow ended with both sides still far apart. Moscow shipped more troops and armor into Crimea on Friday and repeated its threat to invade other parts of Ukraine in response to violence in Donetsk on Thursday night despite Western demands to pull back. EU diplomats will choose from a long list of 120-130 possible Russian targets for sanctions on Sunday, as pro-Moscow authorities who have taken power in Crimea hold a vote to join Russia in the worst East-West confrontation since the Cold War. Several diplomats dismissed a German newspaper report that said the list would include the heads of Russia's two biggest companies, energy giants Gazprom and Rosneft. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Russia would be guilty of a backdoor annexation of Crimea if its parliament ratified the Crimea referendum, which is taking place after an armed takeover of Crimea and gives voters no chance to say "no". He has warned Moscow that U.S. and EU sanctions could be imposed as soon as Monday, although U.S. officials said after Kerry's marathon meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in London on Friday the door was still open for more talks. Lavrov played down his own ministry's threats, saying Moscow had no plans to invade Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, where pro-Moscow groups have occupied some government buildings. But he said Russia would respect the referendum result. Preliminary partial results are expected late on Sunday, with final results on Tuesday. STOCK MARKET FALLS Russia's stock markets tumbled and the cost of insuring its debt soared on the last day of trading before the Crimea vote. Brent crude oil rose by more than $1 as traders worried the crisis was set to escalate. Foreign holdings of U.S. Treasuries have also plunged this week, leading some traders to speculate Russia has cut its dollar reserves to support the ruble and avoid any sanctions. An EU diplomat said he expected the final list of those who could be sanctioned on Monday to be between "tens and scores" of people from the list, which runs to five pages. Germany's Bild newspaper reported that Alexei Miller, boss of natural gas monopoly Gazprom, and Igor Sechin, head of Russia's biggest oil firm, Rosneft, would be among those targeted, along with senior ministers and Kremlin aides. Reuters was not immediately able to confirm the Bild report and European diplomats said the choice had not yet been made and was unlikely to include business leaders. "(Business interests) is not the target initially, the focus is on the political decision that has been taken to act in Crimea and destabilize Ukraine," said one diplomat involved in the negotiations. Rosneft spokesman Mikhail Leontyev said sanctions on his firm's boss would be "stupid, petty and obvious sabotage of themselves most of all. I think it will primarily affect Rosneft's business partners in the West in an extraordinary way." Gazprom and the Kremlin declined to comment. FELLOW CITIZENS A U.N. Security Council resolution drafted by the United States declaring that the referendum "can have no validity" will be put to a vote on Saturday. Russia is expected to veto it but Western diplomats hope China will isolate Moscow by abstaining. Kerry told Lavrov Russia should explain its intentions for the large number of Russian forces massing on the eastern border with Ukraine, where many ethnic Russians live, and in Crimea. The Russian Foreign Ministry, responding to the death of at least one protester in Ukraine's eastern city of Donetsk, repeated President Vladimir Putin's declaration of the right to invade to protect Russian citizens and "compatriots". "Russia is aware of its responsibility for the lives of compatriots and fellow citizens in Ukraine and reserves the right to take people under its protection," it said, alluding to what it says are threats from Ukraine's new pro-Western leaders. Ukrainian health authorities say one 22-year-old man was stabbed to death and at least 15 others were being treated in hospital after clashes in Donetsk, the mainly Russian-speaking home city of Ukraine's ousted President Viktor Yanukovich. Organizers of the anti-Moscow demonstration said the dead man was from their group and the new pro-Western governor of Donetsk said Russians were behind the clashes. Moscow denies that its forces are intervening in Crimea, an assertion Washington ridicules as "Putin's fiction". Journalists have seen Russian forces operating openly in their thousands over the past two weeks, driving in armored columns of vehicles with Russian license plates and identifying themselves to besieged Ukrainian troops as members of Russia's armed forces. A Reuters reporter watched a Russian warship unload trucks, troops and at least one armored personnel carrier at Kazachaya bay near Sevastopol on Friday morning. Trucks drove off a ramp from the Yamal 156, a large landing ship that can carry more than 300 troops and up to a dozen APCs. In nearby Simferopol, around 300 Tatars protested against the referendum. Tatars, a majority in Crimea until Soviet leader Josef Stalin deported them en masse for alleged collaboration with the Nazis in World War Two, are strongly anti-Russian. FACTS ON THE GROUND Russian troops seized the Black Sea peninsula two weeks ago as a pro-Moscow regional government took power there. The new regional authorities intend to secede from Ukraine and join Russia in a vote described in the West as illegal. Putin declared on March 1 that Russia had the right to invade its neighbor, a week after its ally Yanukovich fled the Ukrainian capital following three months of demonstrations that ended with about 100 people killed in the final days. The Defense Ministry said on Friday it would hold exercises with fighter jets and helicopters over the Mediterranean sea. On Thursday it announced artillery drills near Ukraine's border. U.S. and EU sanctions on Russian officials and other figures are now seen as inevitable. A formal EU decision to impose sanctions will be taken on Monday unless Moscow rapidly changes course. U.S. and European officials say the targets will not include Putin or Lavrov, and an east European diplomat said the EU might impose sanctions on one set of people on Monday, and add others on Wednesday and during an EU summit on Thursday and Friday. "It could start by sanctioning those directly involved with the situation in Crimea. Then if Russia doesn't respond, expand to include senior figures in the Russian Senate, and then ultimately expand to include very senior people," the diplomat said. Bild's list included Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, presidential administration chief Sergei Ivanov and the secretary of the National Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev. SHARES FALL, DEBT INSURANCE COSTS RISE Russia's MICEX stock index has lost more than 16 percent of its value in the two weeks since Putin declared his right to invade. The cost of insuring Russia's debt against default is now up by half since the crisis began. Although Russian public opinion, fed by overwhelmingly state-controlled media, is still solidly behind the plan to annex Crimea, Western countries believe sanctions could undermine support for Putin among the wealthy elite. Former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin told Russian media that the threat of Western sanctions was already imposing higher borrowing costs on Russian businesses and that further sanctions would push capital flight to $50 billion a quarter. Renaissance Capital estimated capital outflow in the first quarter would exceed $55 billion, compared with $63 billion for the whole of 2013. The ruble has declined only slightly despite the fall in share prices, held aloft by a central bank that raised its lending rates on March 3 and has been spending reserves to keep the currency from falling. (Writing by Peter Graff and Philippa Fletcher; Editing by Will Waterman, Giles Elgood and Sonya Hepinstall) ========================== Recent history teaches us that whenever western leaders and their elite media cheerleaders talk of an international “crisis” and warn that “something must be done” the best way of avoiding a real crisis is to do absolutely nothing. Op-Edge by Neil Clark Crimea – another artificially created crisis Neil Clark is a journalist, writer and broadcaster. His award winning blog can be found at www.neilclark66.blogspot.com. Follow him on Twitter Get short URL Published time: March 14, 2014 14:38 Pro-Russian supporters attend a rally in Simferopol, March 9, 2014.(Reuters / Vasily Fedosenko) Share on tumblrTags Crisis, Iran, Libya, Politics, Russia, Syria, UK, Ukraine Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that the Ukraine/Crimea crisis has been “created artificially for purely geopolitical reasons." And he’s right. It's important to understand that this is not a “one-off” but only the latest in a long line of international “crises” either deliberately hyped up or artificially created by the western powers to further their geopolitical interests. British Foreign Secretary William Hague has said that Crimea is the “the biggest crisis in Europe in the 21st century.” But it‘s not the first time leading western politicians have talked in such alarmist terms in recent years. Exactly 15 years ago, in March 1999, we had the Kosovo “crisis” – with western leaders claiming that unless NATO took urgent military action thousands of Kosovan Albanians would be killed by Serb forces, who we were told were engaged in a brutal genocidal war. British Prime Minister Tony Blair told the House of Commons on March 23, 1999: “We must act to save thousands of innocent men, women and children from humanitarian catastrophe, from death, barbarism and ethnic cleansing from a brutal dictatorship.” But it was an artificially-created “crisis” as what was going on in Kosovo was a low-level conflict between Yugoslav forces and Kosovan Liberation Army fighters backed by the West. The KLA’s job was to carry out attacks on Yugoslav forces, provoke a violent response from Belgrade, which could then be used as a pretext for NATO intervention to destroy an independent, socialist country which had resisted globalization. A “crisis” had to be created in order to justify the NATO military action. Four years later, we had the Iraq WMD “crisis.” Something had to be done about Saddam's deadly weapons which threatened us all, western leaders told us. We couldn't wait for the team of UN weapons inspectors to finish their job.

“If we don't act now, then we will go back to what has happened before and then of course the whole thing begins again and he carries on developing these weapons and these are dangerous weapons, particularly if they fall into the hands of terrorists who we know want to use these weapons if they can get them,” Blair said.

Protestors block a street with burning tyres in Libya's second city of Benghazi on February 26, 2014 after the killings of two policemen.(AFP Photo / Abdullah Doma) On April 28, 2003, when Saddam’s WMD hadn’t shown up, Blair said: “Before people crow about the absence of Weapons of Mass Destruction, I suggest they wait a bit.” Eleven years on, and we’re still waiting. Throughout the last decade we've also had the Iranian nuclear “crisis.” We were told repeatedly by the West’s elite that the Islamic Republic was developing nuclear weapons which posed a clear threat not just to the Middle East region but to the whole world. Dealing with the Iranian nuclear “threat’ was deemed to be our most urgent priority. In January 2011, British Defense Secretary Liam Fox warned that Iran could have nuclear weapons by the end of 2012. But 2013 dawned and Iran still didn’t have any nukes. Then there was the “crisis” in Libya in 2011. We were told Colonel Gaddafi's forces were massacring innocent people and were about to launch a genocidal attack on the civilians in Benghazi. Again, we had to deal with this urgent “crisis.” “We simply cannot stand back and let a dictator whose people have rejected him, kill his people indiscriminately,” declared British Prime Minister David Cameron, doing his best Tony Blair impression. “Confronted by this brutal repression and a looming humanitarian crisis, I ordered warships into the Mediterranean. European allies declared their willingness to commit resources to stop the killing,” said President Barack Obama on March 28, 2011. As in the case of the “crisis” in Kosovo and the “crisis” with Iraqi WMDs, the western response to the “crisis” in Libya was a military attack. In August 2013, another “crisis” – with Western claims that the Syrian government had launched a deadly chemical weapons attack against its own people. Again, we were told we had to act quickly and firmly to deal with the “crisis”. It was only the diplomacy of Russia and public opinion in western countries that prevented a US-led military attack against Syria. Now, in March 2014, the new “crisis” is Putin's “invasion” of Ukraine and the threat Russia poses to independent, “democratic” Ukraine. This, don’t forget is “the biggest crisis in Europe in the 21st century.” In fact, none of the above were real crises – including Crimea. There was no genocide in Kosovo. Iraq had no WMDs. Iran had no nuclear weapons program: it was a “Manufactured Crisis”, to use the title of investigate journalist Gareth Porter’s new book. Gaddafi's forces weren't massacring civilians in Libya – nor had Gaddafi threatened a massacre of civilians in Benghazi. What Libyan forces were doing was what Yugoslav forces were doing in 1999: i.e. fighting a war against western-backed insurgents. In Syria, the evidence – as well as logic – suggests it was the rebels, and not the government which launched the chemical weapons attack at Ghouta – in order to get a full-scale military intervention from the western powers. And there is no Russian “invasion” of Ukraine. A Russian flag blows inside the entrance of Crimea's regional parliament building in Simferopol on March 13, 2014.(AFP Photo / Filippo Monteforte ) But – and here's the most important point – the western responses to these artificially created “crises” did lead to real crises. The “crisis” of Kosovo was dealt with by a brutal 78-day bombardment of Yugoslavia, which wrecked the country's infrastructure, and which left thousands killed or injured, with NATO’s use of depleted uranium leading to a spike in cancer rates. As for human rights, they’ve suffered too. “Nowhere [in Europe] is there such a level of fear for so many minorities that they will be harassed or attacked, simply for who they are,” said a report on Kosovo by Minority Rights Group International in 2006. The WMD “crisis” of Iraq led to an illegal invasion which Iraq has not yet recovered from, or is likely to recover from for a very long time – with up to 1m killed and a country plagued by violent sectarian conflict. Last year was Iraq’s deadliest since 2008, with over 7,000 people killed, In 2002/3 neocons couldn’t stop talking about the Iraq WMD ‘crisis’ and how urgent action was needed; now, when there is a real crisis in the country, they are silent. The Iranian nuclear “crisis” led to draconian sanctions being posed on the country – which has led to real hardship for the ordinary people of Iran – (as reported on RT) and higher oil prices for Europe too, just what we didn’t need at a time of major recession. Millions have suffered needlessly due to steps taken to deal with a “crisis” which never existed in the first place. The Libyan “crisis” of 2011 led to a brutal NATO assault on the country which led to thousands of deaths, and now Libya, like Iraq, is a wrecked country, again plagued with conflict. Again, those who couldn’t stop talking about the “humanitarian crisis” in Libya in 2011, are strangely silent these days. The Syrian chemical weapons attack “crisis” almost led to the outbreak of a major regional war, and possibly World War Three, but in their obsession with toppling the Baathist government, still the West and its regional allies supports the violent rebels thereby prolonging the misery of war for millions of Syrians. Now the serial “crisis” creators are at it again, this time trying to convince us that a referendum in Crimea and the possibility of the Crimea where almost 60 percent of the population are ethnic Russians returning to Russia is a major “crisis”. And once again the steps that they are proposing – sanctions on Russia – would lead to more of a crisis than the “crisis” itself: they would be disastrous for western economies, especially those in Europe. At the same time that we’re expected to lose sleep over artificially created crises like Crimea crisis which affect the lives of millions of ordinary people in the West and elsewhere are ignored by western elites. Global warming. The record numbers of young people without jobs. The ever-widening gap between rich and poor. The rapid fall in living standards of ordinary people in the west. These are crises which proper democratic governments would be dealing with. Instead the western elite prefer to invent new ones. Recent history teaches us that whenever western leaders and their elite media cheerleaders talk of an international “crisis” and warn that “something must be done” the best way of avoiding a real crisis is to do absolutely nothing. Let’s concentrate on tackling the real crises like environmental destruction, poverty, inequality and unemployment and not be fooled by the artificial “crises” that the western elites want us to focus on. The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT. ====================================