Crimean Tatars Deported by Stalin Oppose Putin in Ukraine

“Where are the separatists?”
demanded the Crimean Tatar protester as he stamped his wooden
stick on the ground after bursting into the region’s parliament.

As calls from the Russian majority in the southern
Ukrainian region of Crimea for incorporation into Russia grow
louder, the Muslim Tatar minority is growing militant too.

Deported from Crimea in 1944 by Soviet leader Josef Stalin,
with almost half dying from hunger, thirst and disease, the
Tatars support the pro-European opposition that toppled Kremlin-backed President Viktor Yanukovych after three months of
protests. Their opposition to Russia is already sparking ethnic
conflict as Russian President Vladimir Putin sees an opportunity
to play the Crimean secessionist card.

“The Ukrainian people paid with their blood to get rid of
one dictator,” said Nebi Sadlaev, 60, another protester. “We
don’t want another one.” The demonstrator with the stick, who
had a Ukrainian flag wrapped around himself, rushed up the
stairs to the assembly chamber.

Pro-Russian gunmen occupied parliament and the government
building yesterday in Simferopol, the regional capital, and
raised the Russian flag as lawmakers in Kyiv met to approve a
new cabinet after last week’s ouster of Yanukovych.

Expanding Autonomy

Deputies were let into the legislature in Simferopol and
agreed to hold a May 25 referendum on expanding the territorial
powers of Crimea, part of Russia until 1954 and the home of
Russia’s Black Sea fleet, within Ukraine, the parliament’s
spokeswoman, Lyudmila Mokhova, said by phone.

A vote in favor of the new status would mean that Crimea
would no longer send its tax revenue to Ukraine’s national
budget, she said.

Any attempt to hold a local referendum on Crimea’s status
would be illegal under Ukrainian law, which requires a national
plebiscite to declare the secession of any region, Hatidzhe
Mamutova, a lawyer who is the head of the League of Crimean-Tatar Women, said by phone.

Russia is moving troops and equipment to its western and
central military districts near Ukraine as part of military
exercises, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on
its website yesterday. As many as 90 planes and 880 tanks are
taking part in drills that began two days ago to test military
readiness, according to the statement.

Armored Trucks

Seven armored personnel carriers belonging to Russia’s
Black Sea fleet were seen several kilometers from Simferopol at
about 10 a.m. yesterday, according to Irina Galinskaya,
spokeswoman for Crimean Security Service. The vehicles turned
around and there was “no conflict,” she said by phone.

In a separate incident, Russian servicemen last night took
over an airport in Sevastopol — where the Black Sea fleet is
based — to prevent the landing of hostile forces, Interfax-Ukraine reported, citing unidentified military officials.

Several thousand flag-waving protesters from both sides
faced off two days ago outside parliament in Simferopol.

The rights of Russian speakers in Crimea and eastern
Ukraine are already being used as a tool of Kremlin policy aimed
at putting pressure on the Western-backed interim government,
according to Alexander Kliment, an analyst at New York-based
Eurasia Group.

Illegitimacy Claims

“The Russian authorities and state-controlled media are
portraying the current government in Ukraine as illegitimate and
beholden to fascist groups that played a lead role” in the
protests, and representing “a threat to the rights of Russian-speakers in southeastern Ukraine,” Kliment said in an e-mailed
research note.

Still, Russia’s economic interests are “key mitigating
factors” to current tensions in Crimea, according to Lilit
Gevorgyan, a senior economist at IHS Global Insight in London.

With exposure of almost $30 billion for Russian banks in
Ukraine and falling Ukrainian gas imports, Russia “would not
like to see Ukraine in economic distress, which could be
compounded by instability in Crimea and further in eastern
Ukraine,” Gevorgyan said by e-mail.

Divisions between the Ukrainian-speaking west and center
and the pro-Russia east and south are straining the country’s
unity. The European Union and NATO have urged leaders to
preserve Ukraine’s integrity.

NATO Concern

“I’m concerned about developments in Crimea,” North
Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a Twitter posting yesterday. He later told
reporters in Brussels: “We have no information indicating that
Russia has any plans to intervene militarily.”

Pro-Russian groups in Simferopol want a referendum on
Crimea joining Russia. Demonstrators outside the parliament Feb.
26 chanted “Crimea! Russia!” as they held up Russian flags.

Ukraine’s acting prosecutor-general, Oleg Mahinitskiy,
opened an investigation into the encouragement of secession in
Crimea, Ukrainskaya Pravda reported.

In Sevastopol, the city is in the hands of pro-Russian
groups that appointed their own mayor, Russian businessman
Alexei Chaly, at a rally attended by thousands of people on Feb.
24.

Ukraine’s acting President Oleksandr Turchynov said in a
speech yesterday in parliament in Kyiv that Russian forces on
Ukrainian territory must not break laws and that he would
consider any movement of Russian troops outside the Black Sea
bases as acts of aggression.

Moscow Allegiance

Hundreds of pro-Russians massed outside the Sevastopol city
hall building, declaring allegiance to Moscow. Militiamen set up
a roadblock with an armored personnel carrier on the approach to
the city from Simferopol.

“In one minute we became Ukrainian citizens and no one
asked for our opinion” about Ukraine’s break from the Soviet
Union in 1991, said Galina Sosluk, 60, the widow of a Russian
naval captain who served 33 years in the Black Sea fleet. “We
aren’t immigrants. We were born and raised here. Neo-fascists
are taking over the government in Ukraine.”

Such talk alarms Refat Chubarov, head of the Council of the
Crimean Tatar People, who was born in Samarkand, Uzbekistan,
where his father was deported when he was aged 13, and his
mother when she was 10.

While the Crimean Tatars are still fighting for their
rights, such as more representation in government and parliament
and schooling in their native language, Ukraine offers more
security than Russia, Tartar representatives say.

Russian ‘Allergy’

“Over the past 250 years, all the misfortunes that befell
the Crimean people came from Moscow.” Chubarov said in a phone
interview from Simferopol. “We have an allergy toward Russia.”

Tatars returned to their native land in 1989 after Stalin,
who accused them of collaboration with Adolf Hitler’s Nazis,
deported them to Siberia, the Urals and Uzbekistan.

The Crimean Tatars are the indigenous people of Crimea.
After their Turkic-speaking Muslim state was annexed by Russia
in 1783, hundreds of thousands left in waves of emigration. The
population decreased to 300,000 from an estimated 5 million
during the time of the Crimean Khanate in the 18th century,
according to the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization.
Under Soviet rule, repression increased and culminated in
Stalin’s deportation.

When the Crimean Tatars returned, their former homeland
soon became part of an independent Ukraine. They now represent
12 percent of the Crimean population of more than 2 million,
compared with more than 60 percent Russians. Ukraine’s total
population is 45 million.

Pro-Russian forces pressing ahead with their campaign would
threaten a scenario ending in major violence, according to
Chubarov.

“Each time territory splits off from a country, you get
bloodshed,” he said. “If it happens in Crimea, the Crimean
Tatars will suffer the most. We don’t want that to happen.”

To contact the reporters on this story:
Henry Meyer in Simferopol, Ukraine at
hmeyer4@bloomberg.net;
Kateryna Choursina in Kyiv at
kchoursina@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
James M. Gomez at
jagomez@bloomberg.net;
Balazs Penz at
bpenz@bloomberg.net