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Not a demarche, but a refusal

The Qurultay of the Crimean Tatars believes that the Council of Representatives has lost its “representative functions.” Majlis will not participate in the Qurultay

FLAG OF THE CRIMEAN TATAR PEOPLE

Simferopol – Another Qurultay [political council – Ed.] of the Crimean Tatar People took place in Simferopol last weekend. The items on the agenda concerned the people’s participation in the elections to the Crimean Verkhovna Rada and local governments, and the convention of an international forum on the restoration of the Crimean Tatars’ rights. The situation was spiced up by President Yanukovych’s decree, issued on the eve of the convocation of the Qurultay, which altered the composition of the Council of Representatives of the Crimean Tatar People attached to the president of Ukraine, and triggered a heated and variegated discussion among analysts.

After the Simferopol meeting of the Crimean activists on August 3, when the Majlis representatives refused to take part in the meeting with the president practically for the same reason, this issue moved to the top of the Qurultay agenda. It turned out that neither the presidential decree on the formation of his own Council of Representatives, nor the Majlis’ reaction to it was accidental. With this decree, Viktor Yanukovych continued his policy of severing his contacts with the Majlis leaders and bringing the representatives of political and social structures in opposition to the Majlis into his orbit. The Qurultay, as well as the Majlis members, have unanimously disagreed with such policy on behalf of the head of the state. Thus, the issue has developed from a seemingly spontaneous decision into a major problem affecting international policy.

Many analysts who believe that it is the head of the Crimean government who shapes the main contents of the president’s policy towards the Crimean Tatars, are inclined to explain the president’s new line not so much by Vasyl Dzharty’s incompetence in international relations as by the old enmity between the Crimean Greeks, whom he represents, and the Crimean Tatars. Although obviously lame, this explanation reflects the essence of the process: the president’s international policy acquired a typical Party of Regions-rigidity, which is hardly appropriate in this case.

Mustafa Dzhemiliov explained the main points which the Crimean Tatars consider erroneous. Firstly, the agreement on the format of the meeting, reached at the conference with the president on May 13, was changed arbitrarily. Secondly, if the president had had a desire to meet with the representative body of the people and the Crimean Tartar NGOs (of which there are more than 200, and many of which are engaged in activities beneficial for the nation), why should have he chosen, out of all of them, only a handful of notorious provocateurs known for their anti-Ukrainian and anti-Majlis publications in the Russian media? Thirdly, why should the Majlis of the Crimean Tatar People negotiate with anyone as with “representatives of the Crimean Tatars” if they are not known to have been elected by anyone, and only represent their own minority interests? And finally, it was quite evident that in such a company no constructive dialog to solve the problems of the Crimean Tatars can be held. At the meeting on August 3, those persons repeated their well-known insinuations against the Majlis.

Dzhemiliov says that the president is instigated by his environment to take a wrong path, just as the leader of communists Leonid Hrach did in his time, when he created the so-called Council of the Elders, which was never acknowledged by the people and never played any significant role.

The Majlis thanked the president of Ukraine for signing a number of orders after the meeting of August 3, which are aimed at solving several problems the Crimean Tatars face. However, the resolution of the Qurultay says that “the principles of the organization and activity of the Council, prescribed in the Decree of the president of Ukraine of August 26, 2010, do not conform with Article 18 of the UN Declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples which indicates that ‘Indigenous peoples have the right to participate in decision-making in matters which would affect their rights, through representatives chosen by themselves in accordance with their own procedures, as well as to maintain and develop their own indigenous decision-making institutions.’” Therefore, the Qurultay decided to appeal to the president of Ukraine once more and propose to reconsider the new composition of the Council of Representatives so that its functions conform with the international law and it restored the lost functions of representing the people, rather than some odious, unpopular, and scandalous structures.

According to the President of the World Congress of Crimean Tatars Refat Chubarov, the Qurultay delegates did their best “not to make this resolution a demarche against the president.” They agreed that the head of the state has the right to create any structures he considers necessary, but they substantiated their doubts concerning the appropriateness of forming a body, which had been created according to international law, as a conglomeration of heterogeneous, often antagonistic political structures.

Summarizing the Qurultay, Dzhemiliov stated that the members of the new Council “no longer have a right to speak for the Crimean Tatar people.” That is why nine out of 19 members of the Council of Representatives of the Crimean Tatar People will not attend the session which the head of the Crimean government Dzharty will convoke in the next two weeks on instructions from the head of state. Thus, although the Qurultay’s decision does not look like a demarche, the refusal to take part in the dubious council is expressed quite convincingly.

The more so that this resolution seems to be corroborated by the decision of convoking an international forum on the restoration of the rights of the Crimean Tatars, which is being prepared by the Majlis together with the World Congress of Crimean Tatars. The Qurultay decided to send special invitations to the representatives of the UN, the Council of Europe, the EU, the OSCE and other international, government-to-government structures and NGOs.

The resolution states that the process of repatriation of the Crimean Tatars to their historical lands is far from completed: more than 100,000 Crimean Tatars, who long to return to Crimea and reunite with their families, still have to stay against their will in places of exile in the post-Soviet territories (mostly Uzbekistan).

Meanwhile, over all the years of independence in Ukraine, not a single legislative act has been passed aimed at the restoration of the rights of Crimean Tatars, and which would provide legal instruments for securing both collective rights of an entire nation returning to its historical lands after a 50-year-long exile, and individual rights of Crimean Tatars. Moreover, the Ukrainian state does nothing to implement the special Recommendation of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly No. 1455 (2000) on “Repatriation and integration of Crimean Tatars,” passed on April 5, 2000.

The absence of laws of Ukraine, as well as other special means aimed at restoring the rights of an indigenous nation which suffered from genocide at the hands of the communist regime, threatens Crimean Tatars (who also have the Divided Nation status) with complete disappearance. The Qurultay believes that under such conditions, an International forum under the auspices of international organizations should become “one of efficient steps to urge the Ukrainian state to pass a complex of legislative measures aimed at the restoration of the Crimean Tatars’ rights in their historical homeland, and guaranteeing their security and development in Ukraine.”

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