While Moscow claims to be protecting ethnic Russians in the
Ukraine, the minority of Tatars fear they will suffer as they did in 1944 when
hundreds of thousands were deported by Stalin.
The Soviet leader claimed the Tatars, who have lived in the
area since 1441, had cooperated with Nazis.
They were put on trains, just like Jews headed to the
Holocaust, and sent deep into Russia. Many died on the trip, only a small
fraction ever made it back to Crimea, the New Yorker reported.
It has taken seven decades for them to trickle back to the
Crimea. Sounds like a Hollywood movie in the making.
The 70th anniversary of the deportation is in
May, and it is on the minds of the estimated 300,000 Tatars who live in Crimea
now. That forced exodus began with Stalin’s secret police tagging their homes.
Some in the Crimea claim it is happening again, even before
the area becomes part of Russia, which seems inevitable. Houses of the mostly
Sunni Muslims have been marked by unidentified masked men.
“Just as we thought we finally had a future. How could
anyone do this in the 21st Century,” asked Ava Memtova.
Where will they go, in world tired of Muslims, if the worst
occurs? Turkey, where other Tatars live, is overwhelmed by refugees from Syria.
Many are already trying to leave.
It won’t be easy to trample on their rights; they do make up
15 percent of the population. They have created their own representative body,
the Qurultay, the Guardian wrote.
They were strong opponents of ousted President Yanukovych,
chanting “Glory to the Ukraine” at protest rallies and were seen as Ukrainian
patriots.
A Tatar organization, the Mejlis, briefly blocked
pro-Russian forces from entering the regional parliament.
Russian delegations have met with them, but were unable to
gain their trust. Reports have reached the area of the “Rustification”
occurring in Muslim communities in Russia, where the Tartar language is being
undermined, and Muslims are considered terrorists, Al Jazeera reports.
The Crimean Tatars know there are Quislings just across the
border, ready to cooperate. The pro-Russian Tatars are known as the Kazany, and
they claim to be treated well in the Russian Republic of Tatarstan.
There are millions of Muslims in Russia, and it would seem stupid
for Russian President Putin to further ignite Sunni unrest.
Yet Putin has been willing to risk it, and has used
overwhelming force to try to end it.
Biographer Masha Gessen writes that the only thing post-Soviet rulers
have had to offer Russia is to restore its standing as a super power. Efforts
to raise their standard of living to Western standards, such as exist in the
European Union, have largely failed. But they have succeeded enough to give
them a taste of the good life.
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