You're reading: Russia resumes Crimean Tatar deportation, one at a time

 “Together, let us recognize and celebrate the valuable and distinctive identities of indigenous peoples around the world. Let us work even harder to empower them and support their aspirations.”

These are the words of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Aug. 9, International Day of
Indigenous Peoples.

Russia marked
the day by denying another Crimean Tatar the right to his historic homeland.

Ismet
Yuksel, the general coordinator of news agency QHA, was turned back on Aug. 9
when he tried to enter Crimea from mainland Ukraine, and told he was banned for
five years. No reason was given.

Yuksel is
the third prominent Crimean Tatar to be banned since Russia occupied Crimea, after
national leader Mustafa Jemilev and Refat Chubarov, head of the Crimean Tatar
governing body the Mejlis.

An advisor
to the Mejlis on relations with Turkey, Yuksel is an ethnic Crimean Tatar and
Turkish citizen who has lived in Crimea since 1995, working on many projects to
revive Crimean Tatar language and culture. Turkish-owned QHA is one of a very
few news outlets in Crimea still producing independent coverage in Crimean
Tatar, Russian and English.

The Crimean
Tatars have fought a long battle to be recognised as the indigenous people of
Crimea. A minority for a hundred years after the first Russian annexation in
1783 drove many thousands to emigrate, the entire nation was finally removed
altogether in 1944 on Stalin’s orders, deported to Siberia and Central Asia.
Soviet authorities deleted references to Crimean Tatars from history and text
books, trying to deny their very existence.

The Crimean
Tatars finally returned home en masse in the early 1990s, only to continue the
struggle with Ukraine which granted them citizenship but not indigenous status.
It was not until March 20 this year, when Crimea was already de facto part of another country, that
the Ukrainian parliament adopted a resolution recognising the Crimean Tatars as
the indigenous people of Crimea. Too late for Mustafa Jemilev, who was banned
from Crimea by Russian authorities just over a month later. Too late for those
Crimean Tatars who went to meet Jemilev on the Ukrainian ‘border’ and blocked
roads in protest, who have been slapped with huge fines by Crimean courts. Most
members of the Mejlis have been threatened with Russian laws on ‘calls to extremism’,
which carry a sentence of 6 years in prison. The annual May 18 meeting in
memory of the 1944 deportation was banned by Crimean authorities, who filled
the centre of Simferopol with prison vans and thousands of armed riot police.    

 The UN
declaration on indigenous peoples recognises their rights to
self-determination, autonomy and self-government, and to full engagement in
political, economic, social and cultural life. It states that military activity
on their land can take place only with their permission or at their request;
and that they have full access to decision making and conflict resolution with
their own and other governments.

It is
impossible to argue that the Crimean Tatars enjoy these rights. They were not
consulted about the sudden appearance of armed Russian soldiers in Crimea in
March. Promises of official status for their language and of 20 percent representation
in the new Russian-backed Crimean government have stayed just that: empty
promises. Today’s ban on Yuksel removes yet another champion of Crimean Tatar
culture.

It is hard
not to conclude that Russia is implementing a new policy of deportation of the
Crimean Tatars, one at a time, starting at the top. But in fact, as a result of
Russian annexation about 10,000 Crimean Tatars have left Crimea, because they
feel it is impossible for them to live there anymore. The more well-known activists,
artists and business figures are afraid they will not be permitted to return.
And those still in Crimea must be wondering if they dare risk crossing the
‘border’ into what is legally still their country, Ukraine, to visit family and
friends – or if that will mean they too will be banished.

Russia has
already deported this entire nation all over again, by incorporating the
Crimean Tatars’ homeland into the Russian Federation where the vast majority
have no desire to live. The Crimean Tatars fought for fifty years for the right
to live in their homeland. Now their home has suddenly become another country,
whose government is steadily denying them their rights as indigenous people – and
just as people.   

Lily Hyde is a former Kyiv Post staff writer and author of several books, including Dream Land, a novel about Crimean Tatars.