Paul
Goble
Staunton, September 18 – The world
must end its “shameful silence” about the intensifying “moral terror” Moscow
and its agents are waging against the Crimean Tatars to drive them again from
their homeland or to force those who do not go to accept the status of “second
class” citizens on the occupied Ukrainian peninsula, according the Ayder
Muzhdabayev.
The Moscow commentator himself a
Crimean Tatar says that Russia “an enormous
and strong state” is oppressing the Crimean Tatars who number “no more than a
million” in the world at large and “all of 300,000” in Crimea, an action that
is “unworthy” of a powerful state against a weak and peaceful people” (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=541A83060571B).
The Russian occupiers have “prohibited
the Crimean Tatars from their holidays and remembering the victims of political
repressions” except, Muzhdabayev notes, in “’places of compact settlement,’
which are in fact becoming national ghettoes.” They have banned the elected
leaders of the Crimean Tatars from entering their homeland.
Moreover, the occupiers are
encouraging non-Crimean Tatars to “’suggest’” to their Crimean Tatar neighbors
that they leave the peninsula, and “people in masks and without them calling
themselves ‘self-defense’ forces” are acting in ways that show that they do not
feel that they have to obey any law.
“Mass searches are being conducted,”
he continues, “during which such people search for ‘arms and extremist literature’
in the Mejlis building and the homes of ordinary people.” Nothing is ever found, of course, because the
Crimean Tatars are “a peaceful people” who have never taken up arms or engaged
in “extremist” activity.
Whatever the Russian authorities say,
Muzhdabayev says, they “do not represent a threat for the authorities or for
their neighbors of other nationalities.” What Russian officials are doing is “unworthy
of a great country. It is a shameful blot on the civilized world. It is inhuman
in relation to defenseless people. [And] it must be stopped.”
The Moscow commentator says he is appealing
to Vladimir Putin who could end this if he chose. He says he is also appealing
to leaders of other countries and international organization to “express their
support for the Crimean Tatar people” and to take action now to prevent things
from reaching the point of “forced deportation and apartheid.”
And he says he is appealing to the
intellectual and social leaders of all countries to “raise your voices in
defense of the Crimean Tatars.”
“Unfortunately,” Muzhdabayev says, “up
to now the Crimean Tatars have heard from these people and organizations either
unfulfilled promises or indifferent silence. This is unthinkable and in the
final analysis shameful” -- given the history of the Crimean Tatars almost half
of whom died as a result of their deportation in 1944.
“No country can be considered great if it oppresses the
weak, and the world cannot be considered civilized if such injustice is allowed
to go on,” the Moscow commentator says.
Moreover, “not one can have a clear conscience if he or she sees this
and does not respond.”
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