21 March 2014 (14:32 UTC-07 Tango)/19 Jumada l-Ula 1435/01 Farvardin 1393/21 Ding-Mao 4712

“I did not once see any voter being put under any pressure. The law enforcement personnel that I saw were not armed. The police force that were standing in front of the election stations were similar to that which I’ve seen in every other country where I’ve been present as an election observer. That is, it was completely normal. It was a completely normal, relaxed atmosphere.

The law enforcement officers stationed at the entrance to the polling stations had no difficulty keeping order because the people were behaving properly. They wanted to take part in this referendum so much, they stood in long queues, with law enforcers there to ensure that it went smoothly. No one was pressured, no one was forced to vote either way, the people came voluntarily in their droves and I did not once see anyone being obstructed from voting with his ballot paper.

……The people were even happy about the result and about the referendum and I got the impression that a lot of people had been waiting for this moment for a long, long time, to be able to vote for Russia, for the chance to join Russia.

……If you consider the vote on the [Obama instigated] Maidan, so to speak, as a legitimate referendum, where there was no set procedure at all, just violence. If that is legitimate, then I ask how a voting procedure can be considered illegitimate where there were voting lists, where there were international observers, where the people were free to vote as they pleased, where people could exercise their right to self-determination as guaranteed by the UN Charter. I even dug the UN Charter out for some Austrian journalists. Article 1 paragraph 3 of the UN Charter talks expressly about the right to self-determination of peoples, not the right to self-determination of states.

……if you can accept that the secession of the countries from the former Yugoslavia and their independence is not connected to the Yugoslavian constitution, then you have to accept the decision of the people in the Crimea.

……the current [Obama backed] putsch government in Kiev, which has absolutely nothing to do with the constitution, it has come to power in complete disregard of every provision of the Ukrainian constitution.

…..Ukraine needs so much money that we [European Union] will never be able to provide enough to cover their needs. I would like to say it to the Ukrainians openly: We are not able to provide that much cash. Currently we are barely able to cover expenses related to the crisis in Greece, how could we manage to deal with Ukraine, with this financial black hole? Nobody in Europe will provide that much funds to Ukraine.

I think that is a political attitude linked to America. American pressure on the European Union is very strong. In particular it’s clear that since the Munich Security Conference, the German government has done exactly what Washington says and asks, to the extent that the European Union has allowed itself to be forced by the Americans into an anti-Russian stance against its own interests.

……It is doubtful that someone will be able to forbid Scotland from leaving the U.K. It will be difficult to forbid the Catalans to leave. I am sure that it will be difficult to forbid the Venetians to leave. Certain states within the EU are obviously afraid of their citizens, they are afraid of the citizens which want to use their right to self-determination, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. However, I would like to point out the main points of the attitude of European ruling circles towards the citizens of their countries. Nothing can make the nomenclature elite feel uneasy better than the word ‘referendum’.

The European Union has not passed a single referendum successfully on the first try, which means that the European Union avoids referendums like plague. The European Union plays democracy but does not follow its principles. It is also related to the situation which is unfolding at the present moment. If one conducts a population survey, the opinion of the people will not coincide with the opinion of the government. Sometimes the opinion of the people is drastically different from the opinion of the European governments. It means that the word ‘referendum’ is a dangerous word for the ruling elite of the European Union.

…..at a European level they react hysterically towards referendums and the results of referendums if they don’t correspond to what the bureaucracy wants.”–Ewald Stadler, Austrian Member of European Parliament

International law says any region can declare independence