At Home Among Strangers?

On May 18, Ukraine will remember Crimean Tatar victims of the deportation sixty years ago. To this end, the Kyiv National Opera will host a requiem on May 14 to be followed by a similar requiem on May 17 in Simferopol with the participation of representatives of the Crimean parliament and government. Further, an all- Crimean mourning rally has been scheduled for May 18. Speaking in a roundtable discussion with The Day’s editors, Crimean Tatar Majlis deputy Refat Chubarov expressed his hope that as a sign of remembrance for the victims Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada will approve the bill passed in the first reading to restore the rights of persons deported for their nationality, it being the first bill designed to bring order into this complex sphere, where there are more questions than answers today.

As he put it, “I’m no opponent of Ukraine’s multi-vector policy. However, it is Ukraine’s soonest possible integration with European structures that will enable us to employ the mechanisms used in other societies to solve interethnic problems and avoid unwanted processes such as separatism.”

What has Ukraine done to right the wrongs done to Crimean Tatars? What solutions does Refat Chubarov propose to solve the most pressing problem of the Crimean Tatars, namely the land issue? Do the leaders of the Crimean Tatar movement realize the limits to their demands to the Ukrainian state? Why do some Crimean officials separate their fellow Crimeans into their own and aliens? Read further on this in one of the coming issues of The Day.