DONETSK, Ukraine -- Snap referendums conducted by secessionists
in eastern Ukraine in hopes of legitimizing their cause drew
large crowds Sunday and unfolded in a carnival atmosphere that
was celebratory in some places and lethally violent in others.
In Donetsk, the capital of one of the two provinces where pro-
Russian separatists have declared "people's republics," there
were balloons and loudspeakers playing Soviet-era songs, and
families came to vote with children in tow. But outside the
provincial capitals, the voting took place in such a state of
raw chaos that in one town a man was shot to death by pro-
Ukrainian paramilitaries on a sidewalk outside a polling
station.  Separatist organizers of the voting said they would
announce their counts late Sunday evening, but the results were
a foregone conclusion. At polling stations in Donetsk and
Slovyansk, another separatist-controlled city, nearly all the
ballots that could be seen in the transparent ballot boxes were
marked yes, in favor of losing the provi