SIMFEROPOL, Crimea -- The Crimean capital of Simferopol looked like a city prepared for mass riots on May 18. The central street was barricaded by hundreds of Russian riot police. Armoured personnel carriers were parked down side streets, and a row of prison vans greeted anyone arriving at the railway station.
The new
Crimean authorities were taking no chances on an annual Crimean Tatar
commemorative meeting going ahead on central Lenin square. But thousands of
Crimean Tatars defied the police and a ban imposed on public meetings to gather
on the city’s outskirts in a show of solidarity and defiance.
“How could
we not gather today?” said Elina Asanova, who runs a nursery school in
Simferopol. “Today we remember our elders who were unjustly exiled, simply
because they were Crimean Tatar. It was a huge injustice and we will never
forget it.”
For the
last two decades, the Turkic, Muslim Crimean Tatars have gathered in Simferopol
from all over the Crimean peninsula on May 18, for the anniversary of the
Soviet deportation of their people from their historical homeland.
2014 is an
especially significant year, marking 70 years since this entire nation was
rounded up and transported to labour camps in Siberia and central Asia,
purportedly for collaborating with the Nazis in World War II. An estimated 46
percent of the population died on the way, or in the first years of exile.
Since they
were permitted to return to Crimea in the late 1980s, around 300,000 Crimean
Tatars have resettled on the peninsula, making up 12-15 percent of the
population. They opposed the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March this year,
boycotting the referendum in which Crimeans could vote to join Russia. Their
governing body, the Mejlis, continues to call the new Crimean authorities
illegitimate.
The Kremlin-bacedk Crimean Prime Minister Sergei Aksyonov announced on May 16 a ban on all public
meetings in Crimea until June 6, citing troubles and provocations in southeast
Ukraine. The ban came just one day after the Mejlis had agreed with authorities
that the annual May 18 meeting would go ahead, without political speeches or
Ukrainian flags. The next day, riot police began mass training exercises in the
center of Simferopol.
But
unsanctioned Crimean Tatar anniversary meetings went ahead in towns around the
peninsular. The largest was in Akhmechet, a suburb of Simferopol built by
returning Crimean Tatars on wasteland in the early 1990s. Thousands carrying
the Crimean Tatar flag marched past parked buses full of armed police to reach
the Akhmechet mosque. During the meeting, two military helicopters circled
overhead, drowning out the speakers. But those there, many of whom had come
with small children, said they were not so much afraid as bewildered by the
show of force against them.
“Why was
our meeting banned? Look, nothing is happening except our grief,” said Asanova.
“We held this meeting every year for 23 years in Ukraine and nothing ever
happened; no provocations, no clashes, nothing.”
Fevzi
Ibragimov, born in 1937, survived the deportation in 1944. He and Adile
Ametova, two years older, recalled the hardships and losses they lived through
as children, and later during years of peaceful opposition to the Soviet
authorities which banned them from returning to Crimea. As a result, they said,
the Crimean Tatars are “unbreakable” and, back in their homeland, have nothing
more to lose.
“There’s no
way back,” said Ametova. “We’re in our homeland now, and we’ll stand here to
the death. We’re not asking for help, all we’re asking for is peace, and the
right to live here.”
Crimean Tatars mark 70th anniversary of their Josef Stalin-era deportation to Siberia and Central Asia.
At the
meeting, a resolution was adopted calling for Crimea to become a Crimean Tatar
autonomy. But although Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he supports
political rehabilitation of the Crimean Tatars from their alleged wartime
collaboration, he has not signed a proposed law recognising them as the
peninsula’s indigenous people, and said in a recent speech that they must recognise
that their future lies with Russia. The Ukrainian government adopted a
resolution recognising the Crimean Tatars as the indigenous people of Crimea in
March this year.
The
Akhmechet meeting was a peaceful and somber occasion, and afterwards the crowds
dispersed quietly. But the helicopters and massed troops in town left many with
no doubt of their new status in Russian Crimea, as a people with no rights.
“They
decided to ban us from showing that we exist and that we are united,” said
Asanova. “And we are supposed to keep silent, to just swallow this.”
Crimean Tatars defied a Kremlin ban on public rallies as they gathered on May 18 in Russian-annexed Crimea to mark the 70th anniversary of their deportation from the peninsula under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
Worse, many
fear that this is only the beginning of hostilities from the Russian and
Crimean authorities, intended to push the Crimean Tatars, who pride themselves
on being peaceful, into more extreme action.
“I don’t
understand what they want: some kind of war,” said local bulder Emil Akhmetov.
“All I can do is work with a spade. I don’t know how to fire a gun, I have
children to bring up. But they are trying to push us into this way, they’re
trying to push us into it, by sending army helicopters against women and
children.”
Editor’s Note: This article has been produced with support from www.mymedia.org.ua, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark and implemented by a joint venture between NIRAS and BBC Media Action, as well as Ukraine Media Project, managed by Internews and funded by the United States Agency for International Development. The content is independent of these organizations and is solely the responsibility of the Kyiv Post.
