NEWS ANALYSIS: Crimea: Ukraine's Sicily (11/03/96)

NEWS ANALYSIS

Crimea: Ukraine's Sicily

by Taras Kuzio

On October 9 the Crimean Verkhovna Rada voted 74-2 to dismiss its chairman, Yevhen Supruniuk, and then voted 59-26 to replace him with Vasyl Kyseliov.

Mr. Supruniuk was in the hospital during the vote following a mysterious, and still unresolved, kidnapping. While in the hospital his post was temporarily held by Refat Chubarov, leader of the Tatar parliamentary faction. Uncharacteristically for the Tatars, they joined together with pro-Russian factions to vote out Mr. Supruniuk, who was accused by the latter of being too "pro-Ukrainian."

Mr. Kyseliov, the newly elected Crimean Parliament chairman, was born in 1948 in Russia but has worked within the agricultural sector on the peninsula during the last 25 years. During the last 10 years he was chairman of the Druzhba Narodov collective farm.

In contrast to the incumbent deposed speaker, Mr. Kyseliov is more pro-Russian, with some views that are reminiscent of former Crimean President Yuriy Meshkov. Nevertheless, Mr. Kyseliov denied that he would promote pro-Russian separatism. "The renewal of pro-Russian feeling is possible only in the economic sphere, and I'll do everything to restore business ties with Russia," Mr. Kyseliov cautioned.

Mr. Kyseliov is merely bowing to local feelings, which turned against separatism in the winter of 1994-1995. Sergei Tsekov, the former Crimean Parliament chairman and a leading ally of Mr. Meshkov, admitted recently that, "Separatism as Ukraine saw it - rejoining Russia - did not have much support (in Crimea)."

Despite the election of the more pro-Russian Mr. Kyseliov as the new Parliament chairman, his ability to abruptly alter Crimea's strategic and geopolitical course will be limited. Both the Crimean Parliament and government have few real powers. Real power in the Crimea is held by two groups: that of Ukraine's permanent presidential representative, Dmytro Stepaniuk, and organized crime (which is closely tied to local politics).

The Crimean Parliament or government (the post of president was abolished by Ukrainian presidential decree in March 1995), for example, has no influence over the appointment of the heads of the local branches of the power ministries (Security Service, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Defense, National Guard, Border Troops). Crimean officials can meet foreign dignitaries only upon obtaining prior agreement from the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Crimea already closely resembles the former Soviet Union's contribution to the world of organized crime. It has the worst levels of organized crime and corruption within Ukraine. Not a single arrest was made for the nearly 100 contract killings undertaken last year in bars and restaurants, and even against two collective farm chairmen. At stake are privatization of assets once held by the Communist Party or its affiliated institutions. "People enter politics now merely to line their pockets," Crimean Communist Party leader Leonid Grach freely admitted, pointing to the close ties between the peninsula's political and "biznes" worlds.

The irony is that pro-Russian factions within the Crimean Parliament, who have close ties to Russian organized crime, which uses the peninsula as a steppingstone to the offshore island of Cyprus, organized an "Anti-Crime Opposition" to obtain populist support against Mr. Supruniuk.

There are also two other alarming trends. First, cooperation between the militia and organized crime, a concern which led to the creation of a counter-intelligence unit within the Crimean Ministry of Internal Affairs directly subordinated to Kyiv; second, the influx of large numbers of weapons from the separatist regions of Trans-Dniester and Chechnya.

Three major mafia-style groups

Some 120 active criminal gangs exist in Crimea; 52 of them are organized into mafia-style families. Three of these extend their influence throughout the peninsula and beyond - into Ukraine, Russia and even Western Europe. The accumulated capital of these three mafia groups (Seilem, the Sheviov group and the Bashmaki) reportedly exceeds that of the entire Crimean annual budget.

Seilem and the Bashmaki control deliveries of metal and oil into Crimea and abroad, and act as patrons to local banks and commercial firms involved in tourism and transportation. They are strongly interested in moving into the potential oil and gas sector after deposits found off the Crimean coast are developed.

The Sheviov group is led by Vladimir Sheviov, an Armenian born in Russia who moved to Crimea in 1985 and is reportedly one of the richest persons on the peninsula. Mr. Sheviov is the leader of the Construction faction within the Crimean Parliament.

The Seilem are a Tatar-organized crime group closely tied to the Tatar Mejlis (the Tatars have 12 seats in the Crimean Parliament). Violence during the summer of 1995 in Crimea, which led to riots and the deaths of two Tatars, was linked to conflict between the Seilem and Bashmaki organized crime families.

The Bashmaki are a Crimean organized crime group that has close ties to the political bodies that unite former members of the local nomenklatura (e.g. the Party of Economic Revival or the "Party of the Fat Cats," as they are described). The deposed Parliament chairman, Mr. Supruniuk, was supported by the PER. Another former chairman of the Crimean Parliament, Nikolai Bagrov, who unsuccessfully ran for the post of Crimean president against Mr. Meshkov, also is close to the PER.

The ouster of Mr. Supruniuk comes at a time when domestic developments within the Crimea and its position vis-à-vis Ukrainian-Russian relations have sharpened.

This month the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice revoked the registration of 15 Crimean political parties and groups after they refused to re-register themselves (Ukraine's new Constitution does not recognize regionally based political movements). Of Crimea's 17 political movements only two re-registered with the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice as all-Ukrainian political parties. These were the Party of Economic Revival and the Union in Support of the Crimean Republic, both uniting representatives of the former nomenklatura and Soviet-era Crimean leaders-turned-businessmen.

The Russian Party of Crimea, one of the largest pro-Russian groups in Crimea whose legal status was revoked, protested that, "a Crimean party with an all-Ukrainian status is legal nonsense." It re-formed under a new title, the Congress of the Russian People, led by Sergei Shuvainikov, aiming to copy the tactics of the Tatar Mejlis (Council). Thus, Crimea now has two unofficial "Parliaments" (besides the official Verkhovna Rada) uniting Russian and Tatar nationalists.

The new Russian Congress will agitate for a new east Slavic union of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. It claims the right to use acts of civil disobedience and reserved the right to use arms "in the event of genocide or open terror against the Russian people or its representatives, as well as attempts to colonize the native Russian territories."

The Communists, the largest political party on the Crimean peninsula, have created a Popular Opposition Union of Crimea to campaign for early elections.

Divisions within the Crimean Verkhovna Rada and government have racked Crimea for over two years, causing three negative effects: first, domestic instability in Crimea has scared away tourists, an important source of revenues, and dissuaded foreign investors; second, it prevented the implementation of economic reform, as seen in the slow pace of privatization; third, dissension within the Crimean leadership and vis-á-vis Kyiv only served to create a power vacuum into which stepped organized crime and corruption.

Ironically, despite the repeated claims to Crimean territory (e.g. Sevastopol) by Russian leaders, there is a greater security threat to the peninsula from the three factors listed above than from Crimea becoming the spark that could ignite a Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

Taras Kuzio is senior research fellow, Council of Advisers to the Ukrainian Parliament, and research fellow, Center for Russian and East European Studies, The University of Birmingham, England.