Attention waned, as it
does, and by 2010 relatively little attention was paid to the extremely
specific problems of this autonomous republic within Ukraine. That situation
needs to change now before the Crimean leadership, almost certainly with
encouragement from above, unleashes conflict of potentially tragic
consequences.
The latest remarks from
Anatoly Mohylyov, prime minister of the Crimea, are in no way out of
character. This is, in fact, the problem. President Viktor Yanukovych was
well aware of Mohylyov’s rabid hate speech directed against Crimean Tatars and role in
the gratuitously violent confrontation on Ai-Petri plateau in Crimea on Nov. 7,
2007 when he appointed Mohylyov as interior minister in March 2010. The
president then promoted him to the top post in the Crimean leadership in
November 2011.
Examples of how both Kyiv
and the peninsula’s leaders have been edging out the Mejlis of the Crimean
Tatars and bringing in others, either antagonistic to the Mejlis, or generally
more malleable can be found here.
As reported, the Simferopol
authorities are refusing to work with the Mejlis in coordinating the
remembrance events on May 17 and 18, commemorating the deportation of Tatars by
Josef Stalin’s regime in 1944.
Tens of thousands of
Crimean Tatars and other Ukrainians gather each year to honor the memory of the
victims of that crime. Last year’s ceremonies were attended by many former
Soviet political prisoners and – for the first time – totally ignored by the
peninsula’s leaders.
Any doubts regarding the
real driving force behind the Simferopol authorities’ sudden wish to coordinate
the remembrance events they ignored last year with highly marginal groups and
exclude the Mejlis were dispelled on 12 March. At a press conference, Mohylyov
had the following to say:
“The Mejlis is a structure
outside the legal framework in Ukraine. I am ready to cooperate with (member of
parliament) Mustafa Dzemiliev and member of the Crimean parliament Refat Chubaro.
However, let’s get rid of this word Mejlis.”
Since1991, when newly
independent Ukraine encouraged the Crimean Tatars deported in 1944 to return to
their native Crimea, the Mejlis has been the representative executive body
elected by the Crimean Tatar Kurultai [National Congress]. Tatars make up less
than 0.2 percent of Ukraine’s population, but the community is heavily
concentrated in Crimea.
Mohylyov is aware that the
lack of official recognition for the Mejlis has long aroused concern. The lack
of de jure status does not diminish the standing of the Mejlis, and his
attempts to “remove the word” or present the Mejlis as an outlaw organization
will not wash.
Mustafa Dzhemiliev is convinced that Mohylyov is simply carrying
out Yanukovych’s instructions. He believes that the latter has it in for the
Mejlis because it acts as an autonomous body and has in recent years supported
parties and candidates in opposition to Yanukovych.
With the European Union-Ukraine
association agreement in jeopardy most particularly over selective prosecutions
of opposition leaders, such extraordinary short-sightedness does not seem
improbable.
It remains extremely
hazardous. Predictions of confrontation during the remembrance events on May 17
and 18 are realistic. The Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Minorities has called on the president to intervene, but Dzemiliev,
a member of the committee, is not optimistic.
With Ukraine holding the
chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe this
year, it would seem appropriate for that body as well as other international
structures to remind Ukraine’s leaders of the country’s commitments and of the
grave dangers of fueling conflict and enmity in the Crimea, whether to settle
personal scores or for other questionable motives.
Halya Coynash is a member of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group
and can be read on the organization’s website at http://www.khpg.org/en/index.php?id=1363475844.
