medialens | Prior to the March 16 referendum, the BBC website reported:
'Crimeans will vote on whether they want their autonomous republic to break away from Ukraine and join Russia.'
The title of the news report indicated the focus:
'Is Crimea's referendum legal?'
The answer:
'Ukraine and the West have dismissed the referendum as illegal and one that will be held at gunpoint, but Russia supports it.'
Legality was not an issue in BBC coverage of the January 2005
election held in Iraq under US-UK occupation. This was accepted on the
main BBC evening news as 'the first democratic election in fifty years'.
(David Willis, BBC1, News at Ten, January 10, 2005)
And the Iraq election was not merely 'held at gunpoint'; it was held
in the middle of a ferocious war to crush resistance to occupation. Just
weeks before the vote, American and British forces had subjected Iraq's
third city, Fallujah, to all-out assault leaving 70 per cent of houses
and shops destroyed,
and at least 800 civilians dead. ('Fallujah still needs more supplies
despite aid arrival,' www.irinnews.org, November 30, 2004)
The US 1st Marine Division alone fired
5,685 high-explosive 155mm shells during the battle. The US 3rd Marine
Air Wing contributed 709 bombs, rockets and missiles, and 93,000 machine
gun and cannon rounds. There was much else besides, of course, and not
just in Fallujah.
In the same month as the election, an Iraqi doctor, Ali Fadhil, reported of the city:
'It was completely devastated, destruction
everywhere. It looked like a city of ghosts. Falluja used to be a
modern city; now there was nothing. We spent the day going through the
rubble that had been the centre of the city; I didn't see a single
building that was functioning.' (Fadhil, 'City of ghosts,' The Guardian,
January 11, 2005)
The BBC made no mention of the argument that the deaths of 100,000 Iraqis as a result of the invasion over the previous two years made a nonsense of the claim that the election was free and fair.
The US had in fact rigged the rules to ensure US-friendly Kurds had
27% of the seats in the national assembly, although they made up just
15% of the population. In a rare departure from mainstream propaganda,
Naomi Klein commented in the Guardian:
'Skewing matters further, the US-authored
interim constitution requires that all major decisions have the support
of two-thirds or, in some cases, three-quarters of the assembly - an
absurdly high figure that gives the Kurds the power to block any call
for foreign troop withdrawal, any attempt to roll back Bremer's economic
orders, and any part of a new constitution.' (Klein, 'Brand USA is in
trouble, so take a lesson from Big Mac,' The Guardian, March 14, 2005)
Washington-funded organisations with long records of machinating for US interests abroad were deeply involved
in the election. The National Democratic Institute for International
Affairs (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI) were part
of a consortium to which the US government had provided over $80
million for political and electoral activities in Iraq. NDI was headed
by former Secretary of State Madeleine 'We think the price is worth it' Albright,
while IRI was chaired by Republican Senator John McCain. (Lisa Ashkenaz
Croke and Brian Dominick, 'Controversial U.S. Groups Operate Behind
Scenes on Iraq Vote,' www.newstandardnews.net, December 13, 2004)
