Crimean Tatars divided between Russian and Ukrainian promises

[newthinking]

Crimean Tatars divided between Russian and Ukrainian promises
Shaun Walker
The Guardian UK

Ethnic Tatars have lived in region for more than 1,000 years and now report both entreaties and threats, from both Kiev and Moscow.

With a Qur’an on his bookshelf and a large portrait of Vladimir Putin hanging on the wall above him, Zaur Smirnov is convinced that Russia’s annexation of Crimea is good news for his people – the Crimean Tatars.

“In the incomplete year of 2014, Russia spent as much as Ukraine did in the previous seven years on issues of housing and support for Crimean Tatars,” said Smirnov, who heads the region’s committee on inter-ethnic relations.

Formerly the deputy head of the mejlis, Smirnov said he had no doubts about going over to work for the Russians. The best example for the Crimean Tatars, he said, was that of Chechnya. “Look at the Chechen people, and the leader of the Chechens, Ramzan Kadyrov. They went through two awful wars, but today they have been reborn as a nation.”

While critics say Kadyrov is responsible for a regime of fear and appalling rights abuses, he has rebuilt Grozny from ruins with Moscow’s money, and the Kremlin is clearly attempting to woo the Crimean Tatars in a similar fashion.

The Tatar people are now scattered over a vast land mass that runs from Mongolia to Finland, with the largest group being the Volga Tatars, who live semi-autonomously within a “federal subject” territory of Russia. Their Crimean brethren remain wary of Moscow after Joseph Stalin had the entire population deported in 1944 for alleged collaboration with the Nazis. Tatars were only allowed to return to Crimea in 1988.

But while the advent of Russian rule has rejuvenated many Crimean Tatars as Ukrainian patriots, some point out that their people did not benefit much from Kiev’s rule either, and it is only now that the government has started pushing the Tatar cause. In the long run, Moscow clearly hopes a combination of this ambivalence to Kiev, plus a combination of money and threats, will bring the population around.

Full Story: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/17/crimean-tatars-divided-between-russian-and-ukrainian-promises

[swilton]

1. K&R

for illustrating the cultural complexities of the Ukraine and some of Ukraine's numerous ethnic voices.

[newthinking]

2. What is surprising is this came from Shaun Walker

Who had been filling the Guardian with extremely tabloid and terribly biased articles. But there seems to be some recognition at the Guardian they were making mistakes.