Paul
Goble
Staunton, October 28 – A few days
ago, Ruslan Balbek, the vice prime minister of the Russian occupation
government in Crimea, denounced the Crimean Tatar Mejlis as an extremist
organization, an indication that Moscow is planning to declare it so and thus
set the stage for banning it on the territory of the Russian Federation.
But close observers of the situation
say that such a ban not only highlights the weakness of Russia’s position in
the Crimea and its inability to rein in the Crimean Tatars but also is certain
to backfire, strengthening the Mejis and the Crimean Tatar national movement (/kavpolit.com/articles/krymskotatarskij_medzhlis_fantomnye_boli_krymskogo-20932/).
Pavel Kazarin, a longtime analyst of
Crimean affairs, says that at present, the Mejlis “remains an extra-systemic
player in Crimean politics” that Moscow has been unable to integrate into the
official “power vertical” there. As a result, the Russian authorities see as
their only other alternative the banning of the group.
Talk about banning the Mejlis is not
something new, he continues. Rather, it is “a continuation of that trend which
was begun already last year when Mustafa Dzhemilyev and Refat Chubarov were
banned from entering Crimea.” Since then, Moscow has continued to try to strip
the Crimean Tatars of their status as “a political subject.”
From the very beginning of the Russian
occupation, Kazarin points out, “Moscow has conducted toward the Crimean Tatars
a policy which should be called ‘forced to loyalty’ the final goal of which is
to achieve from the Crimean Tatar Mejlis and Kurultay official approval of the
new flags and the new reality.”
But “up to now, the Kremlin has not
been able to achieve that.”
Consequently, it is talking about a
ban, but such an action, Ilmi Umerov, a member of the Mejlis says, will have
just the opposite effect Moscow wants. That
is because the Mejlis is not going to recognize the occupation or register with
it lest such an action suggest it recognizes “the jurisdiction of the Russian
Federation on the territory of Crimea.”
The occupiers can do a lot to the Mejlis,
he continues. They’ve already taken away its offices, closed its schools, and
engaged in repressions against Crimean Tatar activists, media outlets, and
ordinary members of the community. But
none of these actions have had the result of making the Crimean Tatars loyal to
Moscow.
Thus, for Moscow, the only option
remaining is to prohibit the Mejlis by declaring it an extremist organization,
Umerov says. However, that will only invigorate the Crimean Tatar national
movement because it will show that the occupation powers “are powerless to
respond in a worthy fashion to the demands of the majority of Crimean Tatars.”
Zair Smedlyaev, the head of the central
election commission of the Crimean Tatar people, agrees. “Unfortunately, in
Russia there has appeared the tendency to call all those who are dissatisfied
with the actions of the authorities extremists!” The Crimean Tatars and the
Mejlis have never engaged in any action that any normal person would call
extremist.
A Russian occupation ban on the
Mejlis may even have some positive results, Ukrainian journalist Osman Pashayev
says. It will lead those in the organization who are dead wood or vacillating
to leave and mean that those who remain will be even more committed to the
goals of the Crimean Tatar national movement.
Nariman Dzhelal, the deputy chairman
of the Mejlis, is certain that if a ban occurs, the Mejlis and its supporters
will “find the strength … to continue their activity directed at the defense of
human rights and the rights of the Crimean Tatar people for the preservation
and development of its culture and the rebirth of its statehood.”
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