Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 24 – Ukrainian commentator
Vitaly Portnikov says that Ukrainians must recognize that Crimea is like the
Donbas a Russian-occupied territory and will be returned to Ukraine only when
Russia no longer can afford its imperial project that they should create an
organization for the liberation of Crimea to assist in this process.
Pointing out that the primary goals
of those living under occupation are to avoid being destroyed and to promote
the end of foreign rule, Portnikov tells the Crimean Tatar QHA news agency that
this organization must include but be broader than the Crimean Tatars (qha.com.ua/ru/politika/portnikov-nado-sozdat-organizatsiyu-osvobojdeniya-krima/158513/).
Specifically, he says. “this
organization would be a representative of the interests of those citizens of Crimea
who as a result of the actions of the Russian military and its allies and
collaborationists on the territory of the autonomy have been deprived of the
chance to live in their native places and stripped of their civil rights.”
Such a body, Portnikov suggests, “could
aspire to the status of an observer at the UN, and it leader must give the
world from the tribune of the UN a clear assessment of the Russian occupation.
But this organization cannot be exclusively an organization of the Crimean
Tatar people. The Mejlis must be one of its members” but not the only one.
That reflects both the underlying
demographic reality – the Crimean Tatars are and will remain a minority in
Crimea and thus will not be able to win elections even in the future – and the
fact that the Ukraine to which Crimea will ultimately be returned will be “an
entirely different state, a democratic, European and civilized” one.
In that state, Portnikov continues,
the Ukrainian authorities will “defend every citizen of Ukraine regardless of
his ethnic origin, religion or language. And this approach will also be
extended to Crimea. Therefore, the
Crimean Tatars must recognize that Crimea is also just as inalienable a part of
Ukraine and Sumsk or Kyiv oblast.”
“All citizens of Ukraine living in
Crimea will have equal rights, and the interests of the Crimean Tatars will
have to be coordinated with the interests of every Crimean citizen. Thus we say
that the autonomy which will exist in Crimea must have a national-ethnic
component” but must not violate the rights of all others.
According to Portnikov, “the
overwhelming majority of the population” of Crimea consists of Slavs. In a
democracy, the majority must have the right to choose the leaders of the state
while the rights of minorities must be respected. The latter will require negotiation because “this
is the rule of European life.”
Portnikov’s comments come after the
Russian occupation has declared the Crimean Tatar Mejlis an extremist group and
moved to ban it and after some Crimean Tatars have begun to talk about
establishing a government in exile as the main way to put pressure on the
Russian government to return Crimea.
The Ukrainian commentator says he is
surprised it took the occupiers two years to take this step because those who
had been paying attention to Russia over the last 15 years could easily see
that the Kremlin is doing everything it can to marginalize all ethnic
organizations it does not completely control.
“Russia is absolutely indifferent to
what is happening with the Crimean Tatars and what the view of the international
community on their status happens to be,” Portnikov says. It will only care “when
the economic situation in that country leads to its actual and irretrievable
collapse, to the impoverishment of the population and possibly to the
disintegration of state structures.”
Russia “will not be able to avoid
this,” the commentator says, although some time will be required. For the
present, Crimea and Ukraine need to work closely together to ensure that the
world views the Russian role on the Ukrainian peninsula for what it is: an
illegal and undemocratic occupation of a people who want rule of law and
democratic freedoms.
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