The following is a guest editorial by Orest Deychakiwsky, policy advisor, U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Commission). The text is adapted from his opening remarks at the commission’s November 10 briefing on “Ongoing Human Rights and Security Violations in Russian-Occupied Crimea.”
With Russia’s ongoing illegal occupation of Crimea and aggression in eastern Ukraine – where it continues to direct, arm and finance its separatist proxies – Russia continues to flout every single one of the core OSCE principles enshrined in the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, including territorial integrity, inviolability of borders, sovereignty, and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. The situation in Crimea is bleak, and continues to deteriorate both from a democracy and human rights, as well as a security standpoint and other standpoints as well.
The Russian occupying authorities persistently violate the rights of the Crimean people, first and foremost those who are perceived to oppose the illegal annexation. The Crimean Tatars have been especially targeted, as have been all those Ukrainians who do not remain silent in accepting Moscow’s rule. Examples abound. Whether it’s the banning of the Mejlis and persecution of individual Tatar activists or the unjust imprisonments of Oleh Sentsov and Oleksandr Kolchenko, Russia is demonstrating its contempt for human rights and democratic norms. At the same time, the security situation in Crimean and surrounding Black Sea region is becoming increasingly perilous with the militarization of the peninsula.
The international community has repeatedly condemned Russia’s illegal annexation. Like many in Congress, the Helsinki commissioners have been very supportive of sanctions against Russia, including Crimean-related sanctions, and in providing assistance to Ukraine to help counter Russian aggression and strengthen Ukraine’s efforts to become a successful democracy.
The Helsinki Commission has also been active on the international front. At the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, for instance, shortly after the Russian invasion, our then-Chairman Sen. Ben Cardin’s resolution condemning “the clear, gross and uncorrected violation of the Helsinki principles by the Russian Federation with respect to Ukraine” passed overwhelmingly over strident Russian objections. Similar resolutions have passed in the years since.
Now a bit of history. This briefing takes place on the 40th anniversary of founding in November 1976 of the Ukrainian Helsinki Monitoring Group – the largest and most-repressed of the five Soviet Helsinki groups. These groups were formed to monitor the Soviet government’s compliance with the Helsinki Final Act. The Soviet government, not surprisingly, saw these groups as a serious threat. The men and women who participated in these groups were persecuted as a result of their courage and commitment, and four Ukrainian monitors sacrificed their very lives in the notorious Perm Camp No. 36. The members of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group laid the groundwork for the events that were to follow, culminating in Ukraine’s freedom and independence. And, indeed, Ukraine’s independence movement, called Rukh, was led by members of the Helsinki Group.
In the West, there were numerous efforts by governments, parliaments, NGOs to defend the Helsinki monitors. Congress and the Helsinki Commission were especially active. Here’s just one small example. Thirty-five years ago this month, in November 1981, our commission held a hearing on the fifth anniversary of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group. One of the witnesses was someone named Petro Grigorenko, a founding member of both the Moscow and Ukrainian Helsinki groups. A giant in the Soviet dissident movement, he had also been a highly decorated veteran, a major general in World War II. Yet, he abandoned the comfortable life of the Soviet elite and became involved in the struggle for human rights. What was his reward? Repression, including nearly five years of psychiatric abuse at a Soviet psychiatric hospital. He eventually was allowed to the West for medical treatment, and stayed.
Why do I single out Gen. Grigorenko? Because among the things he was best- known for was his defense of the Crimean Tatar people, who had been forcibly exiled to Central Asia in 1944 by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Tragically, decades after returning to their homeland as the USSR was dissolving and living in an independent Ukraine, the Crimean Tatar people again face persecution at the hands of Stalin’s anti-democratic, imperialistic heirs. And in a frightening echo of what Gen. Grigorenko went through, a Crimean Tatar leader, Ilmi Umerov, recently was put in a psychiatric clinic for three weeks, and others very recently have been sent for forced psychiatric evaluations for their opposition to Russia’s occupation.
Now, as then, the principles and commitments enshrined in the Helsinki Final Act are under assault. Forty years later, Ukrainians of all ethnic and religious backgrounds continue to defend these principles in the face of Moscow’s egregious and unrepentant violations. And, just as the West did back then, so too now we need to keep shining the spotlight on violations taking place today.