NOT GONE AWAY

While the eyes of the world have been distracted by events in Hong Kong, eastern Ukraine and the Middle East, Russia has continued to apply pressure to the Crimean Tartar minority in the Crimea. There have been documented attacks on Tartar leaders, on-going harassment, raids on houses and flats have taken place; records and documents have been taken and passports confiscated and libraries have been shut down.

Nadir Bekir (pictured here in 2013) says four masked men pulled him from his
car, forced him to the ground, and took his Ukrainian passport and mobile phone.

Crimean Tatar Scholar Attacked, Library Shut As Pressure Mounts

SIMFEROPOL, Crimea -- A Crimean Tatar scholar says masked assailants dragged him from his car and took his passport in an attack meant to prevent him from attending a UN conference in New York.

The attack on Nadir Bekir late on September 18 came hours after Russian authorities moved to seize the Crimean Tatar assembly, the Mejlis, piling pressure on the Turkic-speaking Muslim minority group that largely opposed Moscow's annexation of the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine.

On September 19, the main Crimean Tatar library in the regional capital, Simferopol, announced that it is being shut down in accordance with an August government resolution to replace libraries on the peninsula with Russian state entities. 

Bekir, an expert on indigenous peoples, told RFE/RL he was attacked on his way from Simferopol to the city of Dzhankoi, where he planned to board a train for Kyiv and then fly to New York.

He said a white minibus abruptly blocked his car on the highway. Four masked men emerged, pulled him from his car, forced him to the ground, and took his Ukrainian passport and mobile phone. He said one of the attackers opened his passport and told the others: "Yes, that 's him!"

Without his passport, Bekir said he cannot leave Crimea. He believes the attack was meant to prevent him from participating in the September 22-23 UN World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, part of the UN General Assembly. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin promised that the rights of Crimean Tatars would be protected after Moscow annexed the region in March, a move opposed by most Crimean Tatars and denounced as illegitimate by Ukraine, the European Union, and the United States.

But tension quickly mounted and pressure on the Crimean Tatars intensified after most members of the Turkic-speaking minority group, which makes up about 12 percent of the peninsula's population, boycotted local elections on September 14.

Police confiscated records of the Crimean Tatar's Mejlis as well as religious books, computers, and
personal belongings of long-time Crimean Tatar leader and Ukrainian lawmaker Mustafa Dzhemilev.

Houses and apartments of leading members of the Crimean Tatar community, as well as the Mejlis offices, were searched by police and unidentified masked, armed men on September 16-17.  

In the Mejlis, police confiscated records of the Crimean Tatar self-governing body's sessions as well as religious books, computers, and personal belongings of long-time Crimean Tatar leader and Ukrainian lawmaker Mustafa Dzhemilev.

Dzhemilev is a well-known Soviet-era human rights activist who served six sentences in Soviet prison camps from 1966 to 1986.

Earlier this year, Russian authorities barred Dzhemilev and the chairman of the Mejlis, Refat Chubarov, from entering Crimea, saying their activities "incite interethnic hatred."

The pressure on Crimean Tatars is a source of particular bitterness because the community was deported en masse to Central Asia in 1944 by the authorities under Josef Stalin, who accused them of collaborating with Nazi Germany.

Many of the 200,000 deportees died on their way into exile.

Many Crimean Tatars returned to Crimea in the years before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and there have been frequent disputes over land and property on the peninsula, which are aggravated by ethnic differences between the Crimean Tatars and the Slavic population.

After Russia annexed Crimea, Putin publicly said that the rights of Crimean Tatars will be fully protected by Russian laws and signed a decree on the rehabilitation of peoples deported from Crimea in the 1940s. 

But in May, the United Nations voiced concern about what it called the "serious problems" of harassment and persecution of Crimean Tatars since the annexation.

By RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service and RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service

Last updated (GMT/UTC): 19.09.2014 11:30

WHEN MINORITY MEANS YOU…

Friday 9^th May 2014 was Victory Day in Russia and the Crimea, a day which is traditionally marked by ceremonies to remember the end of the Great Patriotic War. Ceremonies took place in Moscow and elsewhere including controversially in the Crimea. While many people respectfully remembering the end of the war, and the terrible price paid for final victory over fascism, not everyone was celebrating.

Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev

For the Crimean Tartars, ominously there may be little to celebrate – the Tartars many of whom served bravely in the then Red Army, were repaid for their loyalty by finishing the war in detention in Central Asia and Siberia. Since the Russian occupation of Crimea, things have not been easy. Last week a senior member of  the Crimean Tatars' self-governing body (the Mejlis) was beaten up by a so-called Russian self-defense group.

The head of the Mejlis department for external ties, Ali Hamzin, told Radio Free Europe / /Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) that unknown individuals in military uniforms had stopped Abduraman Egiz in Simferopol on May 6th and demanded his identification.  Abduraman Egiz who refused to produce his documents, demanded that police be present at the site. The men, who called themselves members of the "Crimean self-defense force" then attacked Egiz and beat him up and searched his vehicle. 

Upon discovering that Egiz was a member of Mejlis, he was released. Ali Hamzin stated that the incident would be reported to the police. It is expected that in the run up to the 70th anniversary of the Crimean Tatars' deportation to Central Asia to be marked on May 18^th that violent attacks against Crimean Tatars will likely intensify. The Crimean Tartar Mejlis has refused to recognize the annexation of Ukraine's Crimea by Moscow in March.

On May 4th, Natalya Poklonskaya, Crimea's de facto prosecutor-general, warned Mejlis leader Refat Chubarov that his organization will be liquidated if it engages in "extremist" activities. This action came amid protests by local Tatars over the authorities’ refusal to allow their veteran leader, Mustafa Dzhemilev, into the region on May 3^rd. Mustafa Dzhemilev, a famous if not legendary Soviet-era dissident and Ukrainian lawmaker, told RFE/RL on May 5^th that Crimean Tatars will continue to fight for their Human rights by peaceful means. 

(Source: RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service)

THE CRIMEAN CRISIS

Despite all the rhetoric and bluster emanating from Moscow about dire threats to the Russian speaking minority in the Ukraine, it is worth noting that they have pretty much never been under any threat. This is largely a Russian manufactured (and organised) crisis – one that has potentially dire consequences for the Ukraine specifically and for international relations in general.

Outside Sevastopol

In part what is taking place, from the point of view of Russian elite perceives is not different to western intervention in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. The Russians may have a point, the West’s denunciations of Russia’s actions as a violation of international law, might have slightly more authority if we were not living with the consequences of the West’s pretty much selective interpretation of  international law in recent years (complete with Blair’s dodgy dossier, etc). 

The Russian elite, the Russian media and perhaps a significant number of ordinary Russians (but by no means all) have never accepted that the former Soviet republics are truly independent referring to Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and the central Asian stans as ‘near abroad’ as opposed to proper independent countries like Poland, Romania, etc. Western intervention in Kosovo jarred the Russian psyche badly, as did the earlier demise of the Soviet Union, the loss of prestige, status and real and defacto Empire has stung.

Unlike the Brits who had the best part of 50 years (to fail) to get over the loss of Empire, Russia lost most of its Empire in the best part of a fortnight in August 1991. The territorial integrity of the Ukraine is in peril, the Crimea (an autonomous if financially troubled republic within the Ukraine) has effectively been occupied by a combination of local Russian militia members (an ominous parallel with Bosnia in 1991) and Russian military units (most of whom were already based in the Crimea) operating from Russian bases in and around Sebastopol.

Part of the current problem is that Russia has some recent  history of this sort of bad behaviour, as the Soviet Union unravelled the region of Trans-Dniester was shorn off Moldova (in 1991/1992), more recently in 2005 Russia effectively annexed the province of South Ossetia from Georgia (to add to Abkhazia which was effectively occupied by pro Russian insurgents in 1992/1993). In an ominous echo of Kosovo, the former Georgian provinces are now ‘independent’ and under Russia’s protection.

Ironically encouraging the independence of a even Russian dominated Crimea, may not be the political result that Russia actually wants to achieve. As irrational as it may seem to many in the West, Russia’s preferred choice would be to literally re-integrate the Ukraine (as a whole) into the Kremlin’s new autocratic Eurasian political creation (perhaps alongside Kazakhstan and Belarus).

The Con Dems: Happy to protect the financial interests of the City

In all these previous cases the West’s response has been ineffective or somewhat mooted to say the least. At the time David Cameron (in opposition) denounced Russia’s actions, now in power his government has may not curb trade with Russia or close London's financial centre to Russians as part of any possible package of sanctions against Moscow – clearly the spirit of appeasement is alive and well in the Conservative party as it was during the Bosnian crisis.

It is worth noting that the Stop the war campaign group (with some of its members perhaps primarily but not entirely motivated by anti-Americanism) are busy condemning ‘fascism’ in the Ukraine rather than criticising this case of blatant Russian aggression. This ironically is a line that President Putin’s Russian media machine has been pumping out ever since the revolution began in Kyiv. Perhaps some of those old pro Soviet apologists have found a new home, having never really gone away.

It would be foolish to make the assumption that all the Russian speakers in the Ukraine have much time or sympathy for Putin’s autocratic vision of Russia. Those demonstrations that have taken place in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine have the appearance of being well organised rather than spontaneous. The old Soviet flags being waved to protect the largest surviving statue of Lenin (in the city of Kharkiv) and the news that some of the organisers drove down from Moscow to raise the Russian flag on Ukrainian government buildings should also be noted.

Russians make up about 58% of the population of the Crimea, historically getting the best jobs and best housing as they live high on the hog during the days of the Soviet Union. Ukrainians make up around 24.4% and the Crimean Tartars around 12.1% of the Crimea’s population. Despite all the hogwash and hot air about building Soviet man in the 50’s and 60’s from Moscow, Soviet man was pretty much a Russian speaking individual.

The Crimea, until 1954, was administered as part of Russia, before it was transferred by Khrushchev to the Ukraine.  The Russian’s in Crimea, benefitted from the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Crimean Tartar inhabitants (in 1944) by Stalin who falsely accuse them of collaborating with the Nazi’s when the peninsula was occupied during the war. The Crimean Tartars were released from detention in Central Asia and Siberia following Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin’s brutal excesses in his famous ‘secret speech’ in 1956.

The Tartars received no aid or encouragement to return to their homeland, having to make their own way back, some illegally in the Soviet eras, and most only after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Many of those who came back discovered that their homes and lands had been taken over by Russian (and some Ukrainian) settlers. So somewhat understandably the Crimean Tartars (there are around 243,000 in the Crimea) have little or no love for Russia, and probably given a free choice would probably prefer to remain part of the Ukraine.

There may be no simple solution to the current crisis – the sensible most practical solution would be restoration of the status quo. Sadly it may come down to combination of brute force and pipeline politics, as much of central and eastern Europe is now deeply dependent on imported Russian gas. We may do well to hope for a mild spring, as once the lights begin to flicker, minds in various chancelleries may be concentrated, something that probably won’t help the Ukraine.

That said, if Russia’s defacto annexation of the Crimea is simply accepted and the West’s response is weak and ineffective, then were next for the Bear? And what message does that send to other potential aggressors? If the West ends up writing off the Ukraine as a larger version of a far away small country of which we know little and care even less - then so much for standing up for democratic and international values. If that happens then heaven help those Ukrainians and those Russians who would prefer to live in a sovereign free and democratic Ukraine rather than an a corrupt and autocratic one.