35,000 Crimean Tatars demonstrate in Symferopol (05/23/99)

35,000 Crimean Tatars demonstrate in Symferopol

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Nearly 35,000 Crimean Tatars gathered in the Crimean capital city of Symferopol on May 17-18 to mark the 55th anniversary of their forced exodus to Central Asia on the orders of Joseph Stalin.

Picketers carrying signs that read, "Deportation-the Most Horrible Crime" and "We Demand the Right to Live," demanded inclusion into Ukraine's political and economic processes as well as simpler citizenship procedures, teaching of the Crimean Tatar language in their schools and changes in the Crimean Constitution to protect their rights.

They were commemorating the beginning of a nearly 40-year exile, which started on the night of May 17, 1944, when nearly half a million Crimean Tatars were marched to train cars and deported to Uzbekistan on the orders of the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin for what he alleged was their complicity with Nazi Germany.

In the days leading up to the commemoration, some Crimean Tatars had threatened violence if their demands were not met. But after President Leonid Kuchma and Verkhovna Rada Chairman Oleksander Tkachenko flew into Symferopol the day of the mass rally to meet with Tatar leaders, the situation was defused.

Interfax-Ukraine reported that President Kuchma agreed to set up an advisory board - the Council of Representatives of the Crimean Tatar People - within the Presidential Administration to hear and resolve Tatar legal problems.

The two sides also agreed to a parliamentary hearing in September that will deal with the economic and political problems of the Crimean Tatars.

Verkhovna Rada National Deputy Mustafa Jemilev, who leads the Crimean Tatar National Assembly, the Mejlis, said that a key demand of the Tatars was not met, although he admitted that the talks offered hope. "Unfortunately, yesterday's meeting with President Leonid Kuchma did not have the intended result. Although we wanted recognition for the Mejlis as the consultative body of the Crimean Tatar nation under the president, all that was agreed to was a consultative committee to look into the matter," said Mr. Jemilev, according to Kyiv newspaper Den.

The plight of the Crimean Tatars since they began to return to the Crimean peninsula, their ancestral homeland, has been precarious. Originally they had been promised government subsidies to help them build homes and establish new lives. As Ukraine's economy went into a free-fall after independence, the money quickly dried up, leaving many homes and lives partially constructed.

The heavily Russian population of Crimea has put up further roadblocks, seeing the presence of the Tatars as a threat to their own very fragile economic situation. Many Tatars claim that they suffer social and economic discrimination.

Although nearly 271,000 Tatars have returned to the Crimean peninsula, most of them settling around Symferopol and in Bakhchesarai, their historic former capital, they still do not have their own schools, and have encountered barriers while attempting to attain Ukrainian citizenship. Seven years after they began to come home, less than half have obtained Ukrainian citizenship.

In a law passed after the Verkhovna Rada election of March 1998, the process was supposed to have been streamlined. But only 25,000 of the 61,000 newest Tatar immigrants from Uzbekistan, for whom the law is intended, have become Ukrainian citizens.

Without citizenship, the Tatars cannot take part in elections, which has left them politically impotent, especially within the Crimean Autonomous Republic. They had several representatives in the Crimean Parliament prior to the March 1998 elections, however, afterwards they were completely frozen out.

In Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada their situation is only slightly better. Two Crimean Tatars are national deputies, but only because the Rukh Party gave Mr. Jemilev and Refat Chubarov a place high on its party list in the voting by party.

Crimean Tatars began massing in Symferopol for the commemoration of the forced mass exodus on May 17. Gathering before the Crimean Autonomous Republic Parliament, they demanded that the Crimean Tatar flag be hoisted atop the government building and that it, along with the Ukrainian and Crimean flags, be set at half-mast during their two-day mourning vigil.

As the protesters pressed their demand, a scuffle took place, during which three Crimean Tatars were severely beaten by local militia, said Mejlis representative Remse Ablaiev. After the brief altercation the demonstration proceeded peacefully.

That day, demonstrators gathered for the unveiling of a monument to the Soviet dissident and war hero Petro Grigorenko, a bust of whom has already been erected in Soviet Square, near the city center. The late Gen. Grigorenko, who was a founder of the Helsinki monitoring groups in Moscow and Kyiv, avidly supported the rights of the Crimean Tatars. The unveiling was attended by Gen. Grigorenko's son, Andriy. Participants took part in a communal prayer session led by Crimean Tatar Mufti Hadzhi Nuriefendi and a representative of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate.

Among the Ukrainian leaders who addressed the Crimean Tatars during their two-day vigil, were Vice Prime Minister of Humanitarian Affairs Valerii Smolii, National Deputy Hennadii Udovenko of the Rukh Party, Mykola Horbal of the Christian Republican Party and Chairman of the Crimean Council of Ministers Serhii Kunitsyn.

While most of the demonstrators dispersed on the evening of May 18, about 120 leaders remained behind and constructed a tent city in which they will live for approximately a week, or until they see that their demands are being considered.

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