Crimea to receive new refugees from Uzbekistan and solve remaining problems
Yalta has hosted a workshop, Repatriation and Integration of the Crimean Tatars, organized by the Committee on Migration, Refugees, and Demography of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in cooperation with the Supreme Council and Council of Ministers of the Crimea. The workshop hoped to analyze how Ukraine is carrying out the recommendations PACE adopted in Strasbourg on April 5, 2000, and, to quote the workshop chairman, head of this PACE committee, Tadeusz Iwinski, “to conduct an on-the-spot study of how the Crimean Tatars live, see their future in Ukrainian society, what has already been done for the repatriates, to what extent their right to housing, employment, and landholding is being exercised, and, moreover, how PACE can help Ukraine solve these problems.”
The workshop was attended in addition to PACE representatives by Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Permanent Delegation to PACE Borys Oliynyk; his deputy Anatoly Rakhansky; People’s Deputies of Ukraine Mustafa Dzhemiliov and Refat Chubarov; Chairman of the Supreme Council of Crimea Leonid Hrach; head of the Crimean government Valery Horbatov; and representatives of Crimean Tatar non-governmental associations. It turned out, however, that the workshop assumed still greater importance last week because Crimea is expecting in the next few days an influx of more than 20,000 (maybe 30,000, according to other analysts) Crimean Tatar refugees from Uzbekistan now involved in the military confrontation in Afghanistan. As is known, over 9,000 Crimean Tatars in that country have already acquired Ukrainian citizenship and now have got a serious motivation to urgently move to their new-old homeland. The PACE workshop participants, often voicing diametrically opposed opinions on this matter, were perhaps unanimous in the following: as Ukraine has now admitted almost 300,000 Crimean Tatars as part of its own population, and this country must be fully responsible for their destinies. At the same time, this workshop also heard much more about the various aspects of this problem than concrete proposals of how to solve it.
WILL THE MENACE OF WAHHABISM RISE?
Some local Crimean newspapers have long been writing about Muslim fundamentalism and the arrival of Wahhabis on the peninsula. Both People’s Deputy of Ukraine Mustafa Dzhemiliov, and Mufti of the Crimea Emirali Ablayev have also expressed publicly and repeatedly their concern about the penetration into the Crimea of foreign Muslim agents from Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, who have not only been building mosques but also criticizing the local population’s religious customs, saying that Crimean Islam is not genuine. The point is that about a decade ago Mufti Adzhi Seitdzhelil was quite actively inviting the Arab teachers of Islam. However, the Majlis reacted quite promptly, and the Mufti was replaced. Now too, many Crimean mosques are being built or restored using Muslim funds from Saudi Arabia, in which Wahhabite Islam is the official religion. Yet, the Crimean Muslim clerical leaders believe they have now managed to stand up for their own version of Islam, distinguished for its democratic and tolerant ways: Crimean women have never worn the chador and most of the local Muslim men do not observe the Sharia traditional Muslim law.
However, the news of the inevitable arrival in the Crimea of more Uzbekistan refugees has aroused still new fears of Wahhabism. The Republic Committee for Nationalities of the Crimea is already reserving places in hostels and hotels for the unfortunate settlers. The committee has urged the head of government to take some unavoidable measures to smoothen any likely exacerbation of situation. But so far the Crimean Tatars are displaying only the outward signs of Wahhabism by chanting Allah akbar during the May 18 demonstrations and occasionally debating on whether it is worth wearing a beard. The fad for green bandannas has never caught on in the Crimea, where Islam has always had more democratic traditions than in the Arab world.
Mr. Dzhemiliov thinks that “the idea of jihad has been devalued: it is declared in a different way.” He believes that the US-led international struggle against terrorism should not be considered “a conflict between the Muslim and Christian worlds, but collective actions against bandits who committed a heinous crime against the peaceful population.” Mr. Dzhemiliov also believes that Muslim states should support the international drive against terrorism: “It would have only promoted mutual understanding between the Christians and Muslims if the decision on destroying terrorists had been made by the Organization of the Islamic Conference. As this did not happen, the Muslims should be grateful to the US for doing what they should have done themselves,” he told journalists. But things are not so simple. Undoubtedly, there can be drug traffickers and agents of extremist groups among the refugees. This is why the Crimea like the rest of the world is now bracing itself with extraordinary precautions. It is simultaneously becoming increasingly clear that Ukraine has also been a Muslim country for a long time, and its welfare also depends, inter alia, on how the problem of the Muslim community is solved.
NO ACCORD IN SIGHT
The expression, “PACE workshop participants were not unanimous,” is perhaps too mild to adequately illustrate the way the parties rejected each other’s positions. When Leonid Hrach welcomed the workshop audience, Members of Majlis and Crimean Tatar ethnic and cultural organizations walked out. When Mustafa Dzhemiliov mounted the rostrum, it was Mr. Hrach and members of the Crimean Supreme Council who walked out. This is the second serious instance of reciprocal enmity after the Crimean Tatars forced Mr. Hrach to leave the stage of a mourning session on May 18. It is this fact that, as Crimean observers note, allowed the PACE guests to claim they “understood Crimean specifics better.” Otherwise, the workshop came off in a businesslike and mutually tolerant atmosphere.
Although very much has been done over the past ten years to integrate the Crimean Tatars into Ukrainian society, the state of affairs is far from being satisfactory. Valery Horbatov, head of the Crimean government, quoted many successful examples to this effect. He pointed out that, for example, “thanks to stable budget funding we have ensured in the past few years and the consistent work of all ministries and departments; we have managed to greatly increase the construction of housing, engineering, and public utility networks... Certain changes have occurred in the humanitarian sphere. Efforts are being made to preserve and develop the native language, culture, and education, to provide employment and attract international technological and humanitarian aid. Work is being done to reinforce the logistics of educational institutions, including the Crimean State Engineer Training Institute and a number of Crimean-Tatar secondary schools. The Ministry of Education of the Crimean Autonomous Republic has instituted a department in charge of teaching the Crimean Tatar language. Places are reserved each year for young Crimean Tatars in Ukraine’s institutions of higher education.”
However, Mustafa Dzhemiliov, chairman of the Council of Crimean Tatar Representatives under the President of Ukraine, pointed out that, out of nine recommendations adopted in Strasbourg last year, only two items on citizenship have been partially fulfilled.
PEOPLE AND THE STATE
The incident when representatives of the Communist Crimean Supreme Council and the anticommunist Majlis did not even want to listen to each other casts doubt on the possibility of solving the Crimean Tatar problem within the framework of the current political realities on the peninsula. What, then, are the main conflicts?
First, as one side represents power and the position of the other side is shared by a popular majority, the contradictions assume the nature of a confrontation between the supreme body of power and one of the regional peoples. Since this power continues, as it did in Soviet times, to try to solve the Crimean Tatar problem on the basis of de facto nonrecognition of their political and economic demands, this policy, so resembling that pursued in Soviet times, cannot have any future. Last year’s Strasbourg recommendations noted that Ukraine has to understand that repeating the Soviet experience of dealing with the Crimean Tatars is counterproductive.
Secondly, this country often solves problems that require considerable material expenses, for example, helping a community to settle, providing it with housing, fuel, etc., but refuses, with strange stubbornness, to solve problems that do not require major investment, for example, the equitable distribution of land in the course of the agrarian reform or representation of a community in the bodies of power. Mr. Horbatov noted at the workshop that the Crimean government “is consistently taking steps aimed at incorporating the Crimean Tatars into the autonomous republic’s executive bodies. Their number has increased over the past year and reached 5.1% of all civil servants in the Council of Ministers of the Crimean Autonomous Republic and 7.8% of those in district state administrations. Most of the district administrations have now the office of deputy chairman filled by a Crimean Tatar specialist.” Simultaneously, the Crimean Tatars account for a mere 2% of members of representatives in state bodies. The very difference of approaches to this problem is worth noting. As to the Crimean Tatars, they interpret this problem not as “incorporation into the bodies of executive power” but as “proportional and sufficient representation of the people in the bodies of power” to be guaranteed by law. While Mr. Dzhemiliov pointed out that, in his opinion, representation should be proportionate to the percentage of Crimean Tatars in the overall population structure, about 12%, Mr. Hrach suggests that the new elections try out a system that will give the Crimean Tatars only two seats, on the Communist ticket at that, although the Crimean Tatars even now do not recognize such deputies as their representatives.
Another problem is providing the Crimean Tatars, cultivators by vocation, with land plots by sharing out the lands of former collective farms. Mr. Horbatov said, “As of today, 18 Crimean Tatar agrarian units have been set up covering a sown area of over 17,000 hectares, where the deported people are concentrated, with still more units to be established.” Statistics say the local population of Crimea has received much more land in private ownership than the Crimean Tatars have, although the former have also suffered from numerous infringements and abuse of power by local authorities. Yet, the most characteristic feature of this situation is that the confrontation between the Crimean Tatars and the authorities is occurring on the level of the Crimea because it is precisely the Communists in power who often knowingly spurn the demands of a people once deported from its homeland by decision of their Party. At the same time, there seems to be a certain mutual understanding on the national level because the establishment of a Tatar representation under the president seems to have solved the problem of Majlis legalization, while Verkhovna Rada is debating (incidentally, without noticeable success) bills aimed at normalizing the ethnic situation in this country. It is the parliament of Ukraine, not of Crimea, that must pass a law on the Crimean Supreme Council elections, setting out the right to guaranteed representation of the people. On the other hand, the land problem in Crimea was caused by some specifics of the presidential decree on the basis of which the agrarian reform is being carried out, for this decree does not take into account Crimean specificity, and as a result formerly deported persons cannot receive land plots because they do not fit in with the general rule. But neither Verkhovna Rada nor the president have so far made amendments to the law in force. Nor has the Cabinet of Ministers issued any normative documents. Meanwhile, even one document of any of these bodies would be sufficient to generally ease the land- related tension in Crimea.
Moreover, there is no progress in the solution of material problems. As People’s Deputy of Ukraine Anatoly Rakhansky has noted more than once, Kyiv has not fulfilled the PACE recommendation to join the PACE Social Development Fund, from which Ukraine could draw considerable resources for solving the problems of deportees and which could greatly accelerate their integration. While even Germany, as experience shows, draws money from this fund to revitalize its eastern regions that fell behind while “building communism,” Ukraine acts like it needs no money at all for integrating the deported.
