Annexation

"The Soviet Union fell apart. Things developed so swiftly that few people realized how truly dramatic those events and their consequences would be. ...It was only when the Crimea ended up as part of a different country that Russia realized that it had not only been robbed but plundered. ...And what about the Russian state? What about Russia? It humbly accepted the situation. This country was going through such hard times then that, realistically, it was incapable of defending its interests."

"In the 21st century, nations cannot; and we cannot allow them to redraw borders by force. These are the ground rules. And if we fail to uphold them, we will rue the day. Russia has violated these ground rules and continues to violate them. Today Russia is occupying sovereign Ukrainian territory. Let me be crystal clear: The United States does not, will not, never will recognize Russia’s attempt to annex the Crimea... It’s that saying; that simple. There is no justification."

"The territory of Ukraine is indivisible and inviolable."

"The way that Russia seized Crimea by force from Ukraine this March was hostile and extremely illegal... A poll found that 41 percent of Crimeans wanted the region to become part of Russia. That's an awful lot; but it's still not a majority. Crimea's March referendum on leaving Ukraine for Russia ostensibly garnered 97 percent support, but it occurred in a rush, without international monitors, and under Russian military occupation. A draft U.N. investigative report found that critics of secession within Crimea were detained and tortured in the days before the vote; it also found 'many reports of vote-rigging'. Had the referendum been held in a transparent and legal manner, it's not clear which way the vote would have gone."

"The entire world opposes Russia's annexation of Crimea."

"The situation [of agriculturicide] has been especially bad in Siberia and the North Caucasus, but the worst case involves Russian-occupied Crimea. There overly zealous officials have not just banned the sale of livestock owned by peasants but actually destroyed it, thus leaving the rural population without money, food or hope."

"Just what the Crimean Tatars now face under Russian occupation is clear if one compares Ukrainian and Russian laws governing ethnic minorities in Ukraine like the Crimean Tatars. Ukrainian law gives the Crimean Tatars special rights as an indigenous people, but Russian law does not. …[the Putin régime's] minions have suppressed Crimean Tatar self-government and some of them have even called for the suppression of the name Crimea because in the words of one Russian official, “Crimea is a Crimean Tatar name.”"

"In 2010 the pro-Russian leader of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, opposed any move to take the country closer to NATO or the EU, but within four years he was ousted by pro-western parties in Kiev, precipitating an open civil war in Ukraine’s Russian-speaking eastern provinces, the latter supported by Moscow. Tension was further increased when in 2014 Putin annexed the formerly Russian territory of Crimea, granted to Ukraine in the 1950s. Europe replied with a barrage of economic sanctions, which had no political effect beyond entrenching Russia’s siege economy and bringing Putin closer to his oligarchic associates. The economy switched to import substitution, including the manufacture of domestic mozzarella and camembert. NATO reopened its invitation to Ukraine and conducted military exercises in the Baltic countries. Russia did likewise. Europe slid back into brinkmanship mode. Misjudging Moscow had long been the occupational disease of European diplomacy. It cursed alike Swedes, Poles, Napoleon and Hitler. It now blighted a western alliance divided on how to respond to this newly aggressive Russia."

"Mr. Putin moved on Ukraine when Barack Obama was no longer a charismatic character but a known quantity with low polls, failing support, a weak economy. He'd taken Mr. Obama's measure during the Syria crisis and surely judged him not a shrewd international chess player but a secretly anxious professor who makes himself feel safe with the sound of his voice."

"The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly: ...19. Considers that the actions by the Russian Federation in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, as well as in certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, constitute acts of military aggression against Ukraine; 20. Declares that the referendum held in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol on 16 March 2014 had no legal validity, reiterates its call on the Russian Federation to reverse its unlawful annexation of this region, and calls on participating States to refrain from any action or dealing that might be interpreted as recognizing the unlawful annexation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol; 21. Expresses its grave concern over increasing militarization in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol and statements by some Russian officials indicating an intention to deploy nuclear weapons in that region by the Russian Federation, actions which undermine global, European, and regional peace and security..."

"The annexation of Crimea became one of the most cynical acts of treachery in modern history."

"The General Assembly, reaffirming the paramount importance of the Charter of the United Nations in the promotion of the rule of law among nations... Calls upon all states, international organizations, and specialized agencies not to recognize any alteration of the status of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol..."

"The presence of Russian occupiers in Crimea is a threat to the entire Europe and to global stability. The Black Sea region cannot be safe as long as Crimea is occupied. There will be no stable and lasting peace in many countries on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea as long as Russia is able to use our peninsula as its military base. This Russian war against Ukraine and against the entire free Europe began with Crimea and must end with Crimea — with its liberation. Today it is impossible to say when this will happen. But we are constantly adding the necessary components to the formula of liberation of Crimea."

"The Dalai Lama has often been asked how many Tibetans were killed during the 20th century? To which he responds without hesitation: “Directly 200,000 at the very least. Indirectly [silence], we don't know, maybe a million, that is to say one Tibetan in six. »"

"During the Tibetan uprising against the Chinese army on March 10, 1959 in Lhasa, many Tibetan women took up arms. Some were killed and others arrested and thrown in prison, notably in the sinister Drapchi jail. There, they were tortured and the Chinese burst their eardrums, firing revolver bullets close to their ears. When they were executed, witnesses found that they were missing an ear and that most of their hair had been torn out. One of them was not finished off by the salvo – and before receiving the final blow, she had time to shout: “Freedom for Tibet! » Anne Riquier, author of Paroles de Tibétaines (Éditions Plon), who met Tibetan women who survived torture, quotes one of them: “They had tied our knees to our chest, tied our hands behind the back and they put rubbers in our mouths to keep them open. They first urinated in our mouths, then they stuck their penises in there. If we closed our eyes, they hit us with belts so that we kept them wide open,” says Dolma, who was arrested for distributing leaflets supporting her country’s independence."

"Nehru's absolute refusal to support the Tibetans even at the diplomatic level when they were overrun by the Chinese army, cannot just be attributed to circumstances or the influence of collaborators: his hand-over of Tibet to communist China was quite consistent with his own political convictions."

"A retired Indian Army commander has explained to me how an intervention force well within India's capacity, could have stopped the Chinese in Eastern Tibet. It would have been a war, but it would have been a genuine war of independence, and the number of casualties would have been far less than the lakhs of Tibetans that have by now been killed by the Chinese occupation force. Short, for such a noble cause, a prime minister with a kshatriya spirit would have gone in. And failing that, he could have opened a diplomatic offensive. But he chose to totally betray Tibet...."

"When Tibet was invaded by the Chinese Red Army in October 1950... the only reaction from Pandit Nehru was to start apologising for Peking immediately... Nothing could be done immediately to mobilise public opinion and put pressure on the Government of India to change its China policy... The meeting set up a Tibet Committee and announced a Tibet Day to be observed in September. But as soon as the news of this idea being mooted appeared in the press, the Prime Minister came out against it in a public statement issued the very next day. According to Hindustan Times dated August 26, "He referred to a report that some persons proposed to hold a Tibet Day. He thought that it was ill-advised and asked members not to take any interest in it." The Prime Minister felt annoyed with this effort. He put pressure on the press in New Delhi not to publish news of the Tibet Day demonstration and meeting... A few days later, the Prime Minister did something infinitely worse. Speaking on Foreign Affairs in the Rajya Sabha on September 23, he denounced and threatened the organisers of the Tibet Day in a language which was wild. ... This statement was full of insinuations. Here was the Prime Minister of a democratic country showing extreme intolerance for, and interfering publicly with other people's freedom to think and express opinion about matters which concerned the security of the nation."

"A Tibet Committee was organised in August 1953 and a Tibet Day was observed in September that year when a demonstration and a meeting were organised in New Delhi...But the programme could not be carried further than that because Prime Minister Nehru sprang a surprise with his Panchshila surrender over Tibet in April 1954, and the Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai movement misled the whole country soon after... It was perhaps the most painful experience of our lives to see the Prime Minister of a democratic country openly patronising the Chinese lobby led by the Communist Party of India, and angrily denouncing tried and tested patriots of a long standing in India's freedom movement. The communist press in India and abroad came out against the SDFA since its very inception... In August 1953, the SDFA organised a Tibet Committee which announced a Tibet Day to be observed in September. As many as 12 M.Ps including Professor N.G. Ranga were associated with the Committee. The Prime Minister came out against the Committee the day after it was formed. He called upon Congressmen not to associate with the Committee in any way...But since the SDFA could not be stopped from its own course of action, the Prime Minister used the floor of the Parliament to denounce the organisers of Tibet Day, and threatened them with Government action."

"Instead of fleeing, he (the Dalai Lama) asked England and the United States—two countries he had only ever heard tell of—for help. And when they refused, he turned to the U.N.—an organization no one had told him anything about. The U.N. refused to intervene, and in spring of 1951 the first Chinese detachments marched into Lhasa, bringing with them enor­mous portraits of Mao Tse-tsung and Chu En Lai.... His freedom grew more and more limited, he was confined to five rooms in the palace, and he began to hear news of monasteries destroyed, convents looted, Lamas tortured and killed, useless rebellions by peasants armed only with pitchforks. When he looked out of the windows through which he had once admired the luxurious processions, he saw Chinese camps and billboards that accused Buddha of being a reactionary. He was no longer in charge of anything. One day he fell ill and a doctor came to see him; he thanked the doctor with a gift, a piece of jade. But as soon as the doctor left the room, the jade was taken by a Maoist official who claimed that the jade belonged to the Chinese people. Gold statues and vases were melted into slabs and sent to Peking. The sacred furnishings were ripped apart and turned into theater costumes. The thousand-year-old parchments were burned, along with the sacred images, the religious images; there was noth­ing left of Potala but the walls. This state of catastrophe ushered in March 1959, the Tiger-Water year."

"Inside Hyderabad the Razakars were on a rampage, with Kasim Razvi, their chief, carrying on a virulent campaign against Bharat in general and Hindus in particular. ... On 31 March he called upon the Muslims of Hyderabad not to sheathe their swords until Islamic supremacy had been established. He exhorted them to march forward with Koran in one hand and sword in the other to crush the enemies, and assured them that the 45 million Muslims in the Indian Union would act as their fifth columnists in any such showdown. The Hyderabad State was then boasting of 2 lakh Razakars with small arms, 40,000 regulars and irregulars of the State’s forces besides a number of Pathans. Massacre of Hindus, destruction of temples, rape and abduction of Hindu women went on unchecked, with the Hydera- bad Police acting had in glove with the Razakars. Razakars é then began indulging in border raids on the neighbouring States of Madras, Bombay and Central Provinces. Attacks on through- trains became frequent. Exodus of Hindus from Hyderabad started. J.V. Joshi, in his letter of resignation to the Nizam’s Executive Council, charged that the law and order situation had completely broken down ; that incidents were not lacking where i the police had joined the Razakars in looting, arson, murder and d molestation of the womenfolk; and that, in their despair, many Hindus had sought shelter outside the State. To quote his words: ‘‘A complete reign of terror prevailed in Parbhani and Nanded districts. I have seen in Loha a scene of devastation which brought tears to my eyes Brahmins were killed and their eyes were taken out. Women had been raped, houses had been burnt down in large numbers. My heart wrung in anguish...”"

"In the book ‘Marathwada Under the Nizams’, historian P.V Kate records, “Some women became victims of rape and kidnapping by Razakars. Thousands went to jail and braved the cruelties perpetrated by the oppressive administration. Due to the activities of the Razakars, thousands of Hindus had to flee from the state and take shelter in various camps”."

"From a long term point of view, the collapse of Hyderabad was a significant event in the history of India, for the Nizam’s rule was the last and the most outworn relic of the Mughal Empire. ... The Nizams would have been thrown on the scrap-heap of history by the Marathas long before the end of the 18th century… After 1857, the British Crown kept them… in power as a potential reservoir of strength in the event of a country-wide anti-British outburst. Later, the Nizams were the most glittering pendants to the Imperial Crown, as also counter-weights against mili­tant nationalism. The Nizam’s Hyderabad had, therefore, lived because the British rulers were interested in main­taining them, though the people of the State had to pay a heavy price for it."