The Latvian Parliament, known as the Saeima, has adopted a statement recognizing the World War II-era Soviet deportation of the Crimean Tatar people form their historical homeland as an act of genocide.
The statement was adopted on May 9, the 75th anniversary of the deportation, the EuroIntegration.com news site reported.
According to the statement, multiple historical sources indict that the Crimean Tatars were one of numerous nations and ethnic groups that faced deliberate genocide at the hands of the Soviet authorities.
The genocide of the Crimean Tatars was carried out with the aim of ousting them from the Crimean peninsula and annihilating their culture, social heritage, and historical identity, the document says.
The Saeima’s statement also mentions Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. And Latvian lawmakers have also condemned Russia’s ongoing persecution and violence against Crimean Tatars.
“Those Crimean Tatars who refuse to accept the Russian citizenship and do not recognize the illegal annexation of Crimea face discrimination. They are denied access to education, medical services, and not allowed to use their native language and follow their traditions and culture,” said Rihards Cols, chairman of the Saeima’s Commission for Foreign Affairs. “It is unimaginable that the Crimean Tatars are being oppressed and persecuted for the second time in 75 years.”
By passing the statement, Latvia has become only the second country after Ukraine to recognize the 1944 deportation of the Crimean Tatars as genocide.
On Nov. 12, 2015, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine recognized the deportation as genocide. A total of 245 lawmakers voted in favor of recognition. According the Ukrainian document, May 18 will be a day to commemorate the victims of the genocide of the Crimean Tatars.
On May 11, 2016, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine approved an appeal to the international community, urging it to condemn Russia’s ban of the Mejlis, the Crimean Tatars’ representative body, on the territory of Crimea and to recognize the deportation of the Crimean Tatars as genocide. Ukrainian MPs addressed the United Nations, the European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE, and world leaders in the document.
On May 18-20, 1944, the Soviet Union deported the entire Crimean Tatar population to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and other parts of Central Asia for alleged collusion with Nazi Germany.
The People’s Commissariat of Internal Affiars — the Soviet interior ministry widely known by its Russian-language abbreviation NKVD — carried out the deportation on the orders of the State Commissariat of Defense.
Overall, more than 180,000 Crimean Tatars were deported from Crimea to Central Asia. Around 45 percent of them lost their lives in the course of the deportation. Even more would perish due to famine and diseases in the winter of 1944-45. More than 80,000 houses and over 500,000 head of cattle would be confiscated from the Crimean Tatars, and 112 personal libraries, 646 libraries at primary schools and 221 libraries at secondary schools would be destroyed.
The Soviet authorities would close mosques in Yevpatoria, Bakhchysarai, Sevastopol, Feodosia, Chernomorske.
The deportation was intended as collective punishment against the Crimean Tatars for alleged collaboration with Nazi Germany.
However, some historians see a different motivation. They believe that the Soviet authorities were afraid that Turkey could use Crimean Tatars in the war against the Soviet Union, as Turks and Crimean Tatars are similar ethnic groups speaking similar languages.
At the time, Stalin was preparing for a war with Turkey, and feared that Crimean Tatars would take the side of Turkey. Moreover, Germany was planning to involve Turkey in the war against the Soviet Union.
