Paul
Goble
Staunton, March 30 – Refat Chubarov,
the chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatars, reaffirmed in comments to the
BBC that the Crimean Tatar nation does not recognize Russia’s annexation of
their homeland and that they are recommitting themselves to the establishment
of a national-territorial autonomy in Crimea.
In making these decisions, the
Kurultay, which is the broader assembly of the Crimean Tatars, directed the
Mejlis to develop relations with the United Nations, the OSCE, and others as
well as with the governments of individual countries and to call on these
bodies and countries to support “the right of the Crimean Tatar people to self-determination”
(kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5337C84D1A9A2).
“Crimea is the historical territory
on which the Crimean Tatar ethnos was formed and which had its own national
statehood,” Chubarov said. In their actions now, he continued, they proceed
from the fact that “in our days a change in the status of Crimea has been
carried out without the agreement and clearly expressed will of the Crimean
Tatar people.”
Many, perhaps the overwhelming
majority of Crimean Tatars did not take part in that Russian-organized measure,
and when Moscow announced that the annexation of the peninsula had been
approved, the Crimean Tatars announced their intention to renew the efforts of
their own national liberation movement. This declaration appears to be a
confirmation of that.
Moscow is certain to be furious
about this given that the Crimean Tatars do have allies outside their homeland,
Turkey in the first instance but also the Turkic republics within the Russian
Federation and in Central Asia. Moreover, it gives Kyiv additional leverage
against Moscow which has insisted that the Anschluss of Crimea is an act of
national self-determination.
In responding to the principled
position of the Crimean Tatars, the Kremlin continues to find itself confronted
with a Hobson’s choice: if it fails to make concessions to the Crimean Tatars,
it will enflame opinion among them and only spark more sympathy among these
various allies.
But if it does make concessions of
any kind to the Crimean Tatars, Moscow will infuriate the ethnic Russian majority
in Crimea which the Russian government had forced to offer more to the Crimean
Tatars before the referendum in the hopes of attracting more of that nation to
its “referendum.”
More than that, if it makes such
concessions, Vladimir Putin and his regime will simultaneously undercut the
Russian nationalist rhetoric that they have been playing up and trigger demands by Turkic groups within
the Russian Federation for greater autonomy on the Crimean model.
There are two places in particular
where the latter is likely to occur: among the Chuvash, a Christian Turkic
nation in the Middle Volga whose members have been increasingly angry about how
Moscow has treated them, and the Balkars and Karachays in the North Caucasus,
two Turkic nations currently locked in Stalin-created bi-national republics
with Circassian groups.
Given the position the Crimean
Tatars have adopted, the crisis point with regard to them is likely to be
reached very soon. They, like other
residents of Crimea, have been told that they have 30 days to take Russian
citizenship or face the prospect that they will be treated as migrants (on
their own land) with significantly reduced rights.
Few Crimean Tatars are likely going
to be willing to change their citizenship status especially after the Kurultay
declaration and even though some of their Russian neighbors have sparked fears
about what people are already calling “a soft deportation” to other parts of
Ukraine by their question: “when are you going to leave because we like your
house?”
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