UKRAINE (4)

So the Russian majority in the Crimea voted to join Russia. That was not very surprising, the more interesting question is how the West is going to deal with the outcome.

What they shouldn't do in my view is bang on about how the vote was somehow not a real vote. A week was not long enough to debate the issues, there was a massive Russian military presence, and so on. The first is ridiculous; we in the West may have only had a week to debate the issues, but I suspect that the people of the Crimea have been talking about little else, either for or against, since 1954. And on the second, there has always been a massive Russian military presence in the Crimea, both before and after 1954, not least because Sevastopol is the main base for the Russian Black Sea fleet. I am not saying that the election was perfect - what election ever is? But it seems very clear that a large majority of the people living in the Crimea both feel Russian, want to be part of Russia, and don't want to be part of Ukraine. If that was good enough for the West in the case of Kosovo, shouldn't it be enough now?

What the West should concentrate on instead is the status and condition of the minority who didn't and don't want to be part of Russia, and who probably didn't vote yesterday at all. Democracy - everywhere - is the tyranny of the majority, and the key to making it work is not that the majority gets what it wants, but that the minority accepts the result and can live with it. In the case of Crimea, some will never accept the result and will want to move to Ukraine; if so, they should be helped. For those that remain, their rights should be protected.

In imposing sanctions today, the E.U. and the U.S. say that they are putting pressure on Russia to come back to the table and negotiate a solution to the problem. What they mean by "solution" is a return of the Crimea to Ukraine. But that is the one thing that is not going to happen; Russia is not going to give up a province which in its view should never have been transfered in 1954. It would be better for all involved if the West accepted the return to the status quo ante, and took things forward from there. Sadly, I don't think that is going to happen.

Walter Blotscher