Mustafa Dzhemilev on Crimean Tatar resettlement
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Subject: Mustafa Dzhemilev on Crimean Tatar resettlement
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Mustafa Dzhemilev on Crimean Tatar resettlement
KYIV POST, Issue 84, 23 October 1998
'There's been a lot of lost time'
Q&A with Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev
Interview by Nathan Hodge
Photos by Viktor Suvorov
[email protected]
Mustafa Dzhemilev was less than a year old when Stalin deported the
Crimean Tatars to Central Asia in 1944, and his life of deportation
and imprisonment - as well as resistance and return - has been
uniquely tied to the fortunes of his people.
Dzhemilev is now head of the Mejlis, the self-proclaimed Crimean Tatar
parliament, and also serves as a deputy for the Rukh party in the
Ukrainian parliament. The former political prisoner sits on the
Verkhovna Rada's human-rights committee, monitoring the descendents of
the security agencies that kept him in forced exile and hard-labor
camps for 20 years.
The irony is not lost on Dzhemilev, a soft-spoken man whose slight
stature and retiring manner reveal little of his iron constitution: In
1976, he survived 303 days of a hunger strike and forced feedings, the
longest such protest seen in the USSR. "The tables are turned
somewhat," he said with a smile.
"Mustafa-aga," as he is honorably known among Tatars, received the
1998 Fridtjof Nansen medal and a $100,000 prize this month in Geneva
for his dedication to the cause of Tatar resettlement.
This latest award is not his first international recognition; his
trial and subsequent hunger strike for anti-Soviet activities in 1976
had tremendous international resonance. Andrei Sakharov spoke out in
his defense, Radio Liberty carried continual updates of his trial
proceedings, and Nobel Laureates Heinrich Boell and Salvador Luria
protested his conviction.
The Post asked Dzhemilev to speak about Crimean Tatar resettlement.
- You have always been resolute in asserting that the resettlement
question must be resolved by peaceful means. Is this pragmatism an
acknowledgment of Tatar status as a minority?
- It's not because we see that such means have no chance; we simply
consider that those tactics do not pay in the end. There is a strong
ethical subtext to these considerations - all the elements of
immorality involved in forceful struggle. There is a second
consideration, the impossibility of achieving a democratic society by
those means. Even when on trial in 1976, I always called for autonomy
within an existing government. With the ruin of the Soviet Union, we
are looking for a framework within an independent state.
- Why was the Chechen solution not an option? After all, they were
deported at the same time for the same alleged collaboration, and they
used force to regain lost property.
- I don't want to introduce analogies to Chechnya here. It's an
entirely different situation. I want to say that I support them,
absolutely. I visited Grozny. Their means were justified in the
situation.
- Including eviction of people who had occupied their homes during
exile? What is your stand on the question of compensation?
- First of all, it is too simplistic to say that the Chechens simply
appeared in the middle of the night to evict people from their homes.
They also employed legal means to achieve their own ends. Many of the
people living there - Caucasians and Koreans, for instance - knew that
they were occupying someone else's property, and they themselves asked
for a solution.
Of course, in a country where rule of law prevails, there are
precedents for property return. But first of all, you have to note
that it was not the Ukrainian government that conducted the
deportation and resettled people there, it was the Soviets. Also, time
has passed - you can't just ask people to up and leave. It's not
realistic. Nor is it just. We know that many traditional settlements,
especially coastal ones, are prized by the resort industry, and they
involve potentially lucrative properties that they won't let go. So we
took a different course - building from the ground up.
On the other hand, were the government to decree the return of
ancestral property, we would welcome it. But that is not our decision
to make.
- The government has acknowledged that they can't return your homes.
How have they proposed to resolve the housing problem?
- Unfortunately, the experience of seven years of independence has
been an unhappy one. First, the government has for the most part
approached the problem of formerly deported peoples with absolute
indifference. There's been a lot of lost time.
You see, in 1992, they began to earmark funds for resettled Tatars,
but without any sort of oversight. I'd say that 60 percent of the
money allocated by the central government didn't get to its
destination. And if it did reach Crimea, it was used for something
else. For instance, in Dzhankoi raion, it was used for building a bath
house. Fine - but that was supposed to be for housing, not for common
public-works projects. As a result, half the Tatar population still
lacks proper housing.
- Do you see cause for optimism, then, in the new bilateral agreements
between the governments of Ukraine and Uzbekistan to streamline
procedures for Tatars to attain Ukrainian citizenship?
- It is a positive step, and it is a precedent, I hope, for bilateral
agreements with other states. But the new protocols only cover 60 to
65 percent of the returnees. It's important to remember that many have
to surrender citizenship from other independent states to become
citizens.
- What about these issues on a local level?
- The Crimean Autonomous Republic's administration is the most serious
threat at the moment. Look at Leonid Hrach, the speaker of the Crimean
parliament. The Crimean Communists are trying to frighten people with
the specter of Islamic fundamentalism. They say, "There are millions
of diaspora Tatars waiting in Turkey to return to the peninsula. You
will be evicted by Muslim fanatics who will outnumber you," and so on.
This is sheer demagoguery. The Mejlis is secular. Our protests have
always been grounded in the language of human rights.
A lot of news that is carried by the Russian press about the Tatars is
a provocation. Security agencies create these "Muslim parties" to give
a face to fanaticism. As far as support for the Tatars from Turkey,
those allegations are also nonsense. It is a secular state!
Hrach, of course, is very careful about his image, what with his
presidential ambitions - although I don't take them too seriously.
Vasyl Kiselyov, the president's appointed representative to Crimea,
still says that Tatars were "rightly punished." How can this person be
expected to perform his duties responsibly?
There's another point: The Crimean Tatars do not have a single
representative in the Autonomous Republic's
parliament.
- Do you support quotas?
- Yes. I recently visited Romania. They received us very well.
Minorities there are guaranteed a single seat [in parliament]. If they
want greater representation, they have to run in open competition.
- How do you respond to some veteran dissidents who talk about
imprisonment as "their best years"?
- As the cliche goes, prison experience is a great teacher. But it's
best to go through this school by correspondence course! The most
important thing that came out of my imprisonment was that I had the
opportunity to become acquainted with the best people of the Soviet
era. A person either collapses, or something crystallizes within you
- if you can preserve your dignity.
- How do you gauge the response of the international community to
problems of Tatar resettlement?
- It is gratifying that they recognize the issue. The U.N., the
International Organization for Migration and so on have all devoted a
lot of attention to us. But the fact that anything was achieved at all
was due to the determination of the people.
Republished from Kyiv Post, [email protected]
23 October 1998
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