During the year since the forceful and illegal annexation of Crimea by Russia, the international community has remained largely silent in its words and invisible in its actions in working toward the return of Crimea to Ukraine. Although sanctions have been put in place, some countries in Europe are indicating a lessening of pressure on Russia in a bid to get on with business as usual.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which is charged with monitoring Russia’s war in Ukraine, seems out of step with its governing democratic principles. Both Lithuania and Ukraine reacted with outrage at the refusal of the OSCE to hold a joint exhibition on March 19 that was to mark the first year of Russia’s occupation of Crimea. Six months prior, the OSCE had hosted a Russian propaganda exhibit “Ukraine: Beyond the Red Line” during the 2014 OSCE conferences in Warsaw, as reported by the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. The OSCE, of which Russia is a member, is led by a presidency on a rotating basis, with this term held by Serbia, a Russia loyalist.
The Lithuanian Foreign Affairs Ministry reacted with surprise that “the OSCE presidency of Serbia and the OSCE leaders did not permit such a display in the organization, which aims at the protection of human rights and the standards of democracy and rule of law. This is the first time in the history of the OSCE when the exhibition intended to draw attention to the severe human rights violations is prohibited. By preventing the display of the pictures, a large part of the population of Crimea cannot tell their story about the occupation of the peninsula, in the OSCE headquarters.”
Ambassador of Lithuania to the U.N. Algimantas Cekuolis underscored that the OSCE cannot be “taken hostage” by the wishes of one delegation, namely Russia, and stressed that “discussion about Russia’s crimes against Ukraine should be open and uncensored.”
The Serbian Foreign Affairs Ministry press secretary, Marina Markovich, said that the exhibition had been “postponed until further announcement due to the need for consultations with member states.”
Human rights abuses in Crimea have been reported by the Council of Europe, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and others, but is anyone listening?
Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev has addressed the United Nations and the European Parliament with documented evidence of human rights abuses in Crimea, specifically the targeting of Crimean Tatars. After an informal closed meeting on March 19 at the United Nations headquarters about Crimea’s human rights situation (that was boycotted by Russia, and not attended by China and Venezuela), Mr. Dzhemilev said, “The Crimea that used to be a tourist area is being turned into a military base … and the most alarming is that Crimea is likely to return into a nuclear weapons base.” He added, “There are no freedoms and rights in Crimea right now… those who stand up for their beliefs, and first of all for their willingness to go back to become part of Ukraine, are being repressed.”
It has also been a year since the killing of 39-year-old Reshat Ametov, a Crimean Tatar who was abducted in Symferopol by uniformed assailants; his body was found in a warehouse with signs of torture. The Crimean authorities consistently deny that so-called Crimean self-defense forces had anything to do with it, even though video evidence showed that uniformed men outside the Council of Ministers in Symferopol were responsible.
In another blunder, the EU has tied economic sanctions to the fulfillment of the Minsk agreements, but nothing in those agreements says anything about Crimea. The fact that these two issues are separate will give Moscow leverage in mitigating Europe’s response, as Andrii Klymenko’s report (sponsored by the Atlantic Council with Freedom House and the McCain Institute) on human rights abuses in Crimea noted (see story on page 1). We will know more about where the EU stands on Crimea after its summit in June. Some of the current sanctions against Russia and its proxies are set to expire in July, while others are set until December as per the Minsk agreements.
President Vladimir Putin has more time to cause more problems, as the U.S. and its European allies have ruled out barring Russia from the Society of Worldwide Interbank Financial Transactions (SWIFT), saying that would penalize too many legitimate companies that trade with Russia. However, two-dozen Iranian banks were cut off from the SWIFT system in 2012, in a move the U.S. Treasury Department called “unprecedented and extraordinary.”
Will the second year of Russian occupation in Crimea bring a more effective response from the international community as Russia tightens the screws against those who are resisting the Kremlin? Or is Russian occupation a cancer that will be allowed to spread due to insufficient action?