By Vestnik Kavkaza
Last week the counting of votes at the referendum on the independence of Scotland finished. 55.3% of Scottish citizens voted to stay in the United Kingdom. 44.7% of voters voted for independence. The voter turnout was 84.6%.
The Scots accepted the results calmly. Only the Glasgow police arrested 11 people after disorders which followed announcement of the results of the referendum. And the leader of the Scottish government Alex Salmond stated that those who voted against independence were deceived by London’s statements on additional authorities for the Scottish parliament.
Yelena Ananyeva, the head of the British Research Center of the Institute of Europe of the RAS, says that in recent months the number of supporters of independence seriously grew, so nobody could tell whether the Scots would vote with heart or reason.
Igor Kovalyev, the deputy dean of the World Economics and World Politics Department of the HSE, agrees that the Scots voted by reason: “They realized negative trends in a loose sense – from economic to diplomatic and international consequences which could followed Scotland’s separation from the UK. Expenses would be too big. And the price of the independence would be too high. It doesn’t mean that now everything is great in Scotland and it has no problems. The fact that 46% of the population don’t want to live in the UK is an important and alarming signal. Obviously, something has to be changed; the former policies don’t meet current reality, current problems.”
Ahead of the referendum the Scottish topic was discussed in unrecognized republics. The head of the Abkhazian Foreign Ministry, Vyacheslav Chirikba, sent a note to Alex Salmond and expressed solidarity with the Scottish people in their striving for independence. “The government of the Republic of Abkhazia objectively estimates the current political reality and strives for building friendly contacts with Scotland in the spheres of culture, economy, sport, and tourism. We are sure that there are many common aspects on which our countries could cooperate, developing friendly relations between Abkhazia and Scotland,” Chirikba wrote.
In general experts contrast the reasonable way of settling separation issues which was demonstrated in Britain, and bloody conflicts in the Caucasus. Nikolai Topornin, a scientist of the European Law Department of the MGIMO, told Vestnik Kavkaza that “Abkhazia, which was an autonomous republic of the USSR, was deprived of autonomous authorities in independent Georgia. They separated within administrative borders. A military conflict started, and it was a cruel military conflict. The sides couldn’t agree on a peaceful settlement of the issue. At the same time, the international community, the OSCE, the UN, peacemaking forces participated in the process which had been lasting for almost 10 years.
Finally a military conflict over South Ossetia started, and as a result of it Abkhazia became independent.”
However, Toporin noted that “international law has a principle of recognition of a state by other members of the international community. Abkhazia is not recognized by anyone, except Russia and some other states. But it changes nothing. One could recognize or not, but there is a historic territory of Abkhazia which has existed for many centuries. The Abkhazian people have their own culture, language, traditions. They were Orthodox people for many centuries. It confirms that the Abkhazian nation has features of a country.”
