After protests and hunger-strikes, 100 Crimean Tatars finally claim what belongs to them by law.
It took over a month, including 13 days on hunger strike. But in the end, about 100 Crimean Tatars who have been camped outside the Cabinet of Ministers building in Kyiv got what they came for.
Leaders of the protest from the Avdet (Return) organization said on May 28 that the Cabinet of Ministers had agreed to their demands to assign them state land in Crimea.
“Protesting is the only way to get our voice heard,” said Nariman Potelov, a representative from Avdet. “If we hadn’t protested, nothing would have been done.”
The Crimean Tatars have a troubled past. After inhabiting the Crimean peninsula for centuries, the Tatars were deported en masse to Central Asia in May 1944, falsely accused by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin of collaborating with the Nazis. Around half of the almost 200,000 deportees died in the first year; the survivors were banned from returning for over 40 years.
The first wave of Tatars retuned to Crimea in 1986 when restrictions were lifted. Hundreds of thousands more came after independent Ukraine invited them back. But this was far from the end of their struggles.
Questions of citizenship, land and language proved difficult to resolve, exacerbated by mistrust and fear of the Tatars spread in Soviet days. “Soviet propaganda remains in people’s heads,” said Yulian Rybchinskiy, a protester whose Tatar mother and Ukrainian father returned from exile in Uzbekistan.
Their ancestral land is some of Ukraine’s most expensive Black Sea coastal property and the returning Tatars have not been able to recover it from the people who moved in after the deportation, mainly ethnic Russians. Today, many of Crimea’s Tatars are political allies of Ukraine’s right-wing parties that are wary of Russian influence on the peninsula.
When local authorities failed to give them land, many Tatars seized land to build on. These “self-seizures” are dotted across the landscape of Crimea. “All we ask is to be given land to live on. We want the government to carry out the laws which they themselves had passed,” said Server Saidaliyev, one of the protestors.
The Crimean authorities have been accused by both Tatar organizations and the central government in Kyiv of widespread corruption. “They would rather sell land to businesses than give it out legally,” Potelov said. For their part, the local authorities accuse the Tatars of trying to get more than their fair share, and criticized them for illegal seizures.
“But land is a problem for everyone in Crimea,” Potelov said. “In fact, we work with Slavs to solve the problems. The authorities are trying to split us, as they are frightened that people will unite against them.”
Crimea’s Tatars say that their situation has improved in recent years, primarily through personal contact breaking down myths. “Things were difficult before, but now we get on with our neighbors,” said Rybchinskiy. “People got to know us and realized that we weren’t extremists or traitors, but normal people.”
Tatars have also become more involved in local governance, and Potelov said that they have a “working relationship.”
But one major obstacle to progress is Kyiv’s lack of influence in Crimea and perceived lack of interest in the Tatars’ plight. The Tatars have been among the most consistent supporters of President Victor Yushchenko, but their disappointment with his performance may mean their votes are up for grabs ahead of the 2010 presidential election.
The latest protests concerned specific land plots across Crimea, including near Alushta and Simferopol, which belong to the state but are unused. Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko demanded a resolution to the problem, and sent Georgiy Filipchuk, the environment minister, out of a cabinet meeting on April 15 after he failed to meet with the protesters.
The Environment Ministry’s press office said on May 28 that it could neither confirm nor deny the decision to concede to the Tatars’ demands. But the protestors still gathered outside the Cabinet of Ministers’ building said they were heading home satisfied by the decision and insist their protest had been successful. But they are still far from resolving all of their problems.
“There is enough land under the sun for everyone,” Rybchinskiy said. “We are determined to achieve our rights peacefully.”
