Crimean Tatars Asked to Vacate Land, Regional Official Says

[Tommy_Carcetti]

Source: Moscow Times

Ukraine's breakaway region of Crimea will ask Tatars to vacate part of the land where they now live in exchange for new territory elsewhere in the region, a top Crimean government official has said.

Crimean Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Temirgaliyev said Tuesday that the new government in Crimea, where residents voted Sunday to become part of Russia, wants to regularize the land unofficially taken over by Crimean Tatar squatters following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

"We have asked the Crimean Tatars to vacate part of their land, which is required for social needs," Temirgaliyev said. "But we are ready to allocate and legalize many other plots of land to ensure a normal life for the Crimean Tatars," he said.

Temirgaliyev emphasized that members of the Tatar community could receive senior political positions in the new government, in an apparent move to ease ethnic tensions in the region.


Read more: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/crimean-tatars-asked-to-vacate-land-regional-official-says/496451.html

---

Freedom is on the march.

[djean111]

1. Sounds like Israel and the Palestinians, a bit.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

3. I was thinking the US and Native Americans, but yeah

same old same old for minority ethnicities when the majority decides they want land, no matter where in the world you are.

[djean111]

5. Yup. And....in no way am I a Putin fan. Just thought I need to say that!

To all and sundry.

[DallasNE]

32. I Was Thinking More Like The Japanese Americans

During WW II except Russia has never made things right for the Crimean Tartar's and, indeed, are compounding the problem now.

[geardaddy]

33. Yep.

One difference is that the Tatars have been there since the 1400s.

[Chan790]

79. Ask the Irish about it.

There is an Irish curse, "To hell or Connaught", because that was the choice Oliver Cromwell gave them.

Give up your lands and property (for the good of the realm...or at-least the Protestants that Cromwell considered the only human beings living in Ireland) or else he would send forces to commit genocide. Not an idle threat, he really did order the English army to murder entire families, including infants, of any Irish-Catholics they found. Connaught, the westernmost province of Ireland, was basically uninhabitable: rocky, useless for farming, windblown, cold, rainy, plague-infested. This was a death sentence.

[Bad Thoughts]

2. Let the cleansing begin!

This is why international monitors are needed and why elections under duress produce tragic results.

[jtuck004]

7. Cleansing? Just fyi, they did the same thing in New Jersey for casinos. and it has been done

more than a few times around this country for the convenience of business, using government to take people's homes and property.

And if you don't go, they send people with guns to drag you out of your home.

Not a bit of difference. Just like the other examples above.

[Bad Thoughts]

10. Oh? This was just eminent domain?

There were hearings and discussions about compensation? Or are you saying that African Americans in NJ were targeted for removal?

[jtuck004]

45. I'm saying people here are freqently targeted for removal, and the only color seen is green.

It's happened all over the country, there is rarely a fair hearing when corporations and governments are involved. It is so rare, so few that are actually successful, that it makes news when they are.

It goes further back, though. Contrasted with Crimea at the moment, we would be disingenuous assholes to call them out, living in our homes on the bones of people we killed and dispossessed, on the back of millions of black folk who were denied the right to even be a whole human much less own property or vote, not to mention millions of immigrant workers from other countries who were treated as less than human here. And now we live in an age where the corps have done such an outstanding job in working with the government to destroy the economy of the majority of the Americans we are now moving to a time when homes and property are being bought not by working people but by investors and others who work with the thieving class to deprive people of ownership.

In the end, no matter the difference in process, it is people being moved for another groups convenience, something we built this country on and something that still raises its little head today. At least they are making an offer - we shall see what happens.

[MNBrewer]

14. Wow.

[okaawhatever]

17. Sure, just like New Jersey except for your day in court and right to appeal. I'd say it's more

similar to when Stalin "relocated" them the first time. Hopefully this time they will get representation in government and new homes. This doesn't have to end in cleansing or relocation away from Crimea.

[Xithras]

19. They aren't being relocated away from Crimea.

They're being moved from one bit of land in Crimea to another bit of land in Crimea.

[okaawhatever]

21. I'm hoping that is the case. nt

[blackspade]

51. Probably a a distinctly shittier piece of land...

but hey, it's all ok, right?

[EmilyAnne]

85. Ah, well. That's cool then.

BTW- you need to move. Ok?
Like right now.
Vacate your home.
No big deal, though.
You won't be homeless or anything.

[jtuck004]

25. There's a fair number of people who would laugh in your face - or spit - when you told them

about their "rights" in this country where money buys its own justice.

The Tatars said they didn't want to be there. Russia is offering a decent deal, just like they are to the business and homes being relocated for a highway through our town - and they have NO fucking right to appeal or any choice.

The characterization of cleansing is just sensationalistic bs.

[okaawhatever]

28. In what country? You don't live in the United States Also, the idea that the Tatars don't want

to live in their ancestral homeland? Where did you get that idea? do you mean they don't want to live there under Russian rule?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/mar/19/ukraine-tatars-crimea-russian-future-video

[jtuck004]

44. Ok, it's obvious that you have a viewpoint and nothing is going to get in the way. But there are

in fact a lot of people in this country who never, honestly, had the ability to fight on a level playing field to avoid losing their property. We don't give a flying fuck about people's ancestral homelands. lol, If we want it, we kill them and take it. Look at this entire country. Look at how we helped Israel kick people out and keep them subjugated.

I have read reports that some no longer want to be there with the Russians ruling. Your video presents a different viewpoint. I am quite sure it is not only hard to see what is really happening but also that there are differing viewpoints among the people. But things change, and they are going to have to adapt.

The Russians have strategic reasons to take that area back, and, frankly, if the u.s. hadn't wanted this to happen we should have kept our snoot out of it, and not spent $5 billion and cookies engineering it. Now whining about what is inevitable sounds disingenuous, and naive.

I think the Russians are now occupying the area where their bases and people have been for a long, long time, and everyone needs to grow the fuck up and live with it. Don't like it? Too bad. There's little we can do without hurting a bunch of people here as well. Again, shouldn't start pushing people around unless yo know they are smaller and weaker than you - the thing we are best at now.

Here's one of our good folk, one who passed out the cookies and cash, chortling on about it...

[Cha]

57. It's obvious you have a viewpoint and nothing is going to get in your way.

[jtuck004]

67. Yup. Looking at more than just the propoganda. n/t

[Cha]

70. No, you are pushing the "propaganda".

[jtuck004]

71. Ok, waste of time. Let me push one more thing. Enjoy the echo. n/t

Yeah, I figured that would be too subtle...

[Cha]

73. You enjoy your propaganda.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. Wiki on Stalin's ethnic cleansing of the Crimean Tatars in 1944

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_the_Crimean_Tatars

[PatrynXX]

27. so March 11th this year

they admitted this was bad and now 8 days later doing something similar . Brains? Something else going on...

[MNBrewer]

6. Is it any wonder why the Crimean Tatars didn't bother voting in the "referendum"?

[jtuck004]

8. I think I met some of these folks right across the border. They were Idaho Tatars. n/t

[7962]

11. Ba-dum-bump!

[Cha]

58. Yeah, it's real funny.

[jtuck004]

64. The funny part is I actually did. Lot of Russians and others

here. The teller at my bank is from Kiev.

The unfunny part is that perhaps the United States should keep it's friggin' nose out of helping to depose other people's governments, and perhaps shit like this wouldn't have to happen.

[Cha]

66. Oh fuck yeah, it's all the USA's fault.. fucking putin gets a pass from some

of the putin propagandistas around here.

[jtuck004]

69. I guess it's easy to see from atop a high horse. n/t

[Cha]

72. You would know all about your high horses.

[thereismore]

9. Jesus, that did not take long. Who are the nazis again? nt

[HereSince1628]

12. What's Russian for lebensraum? n/t

[steve2470]

24. zhiloy ploshchadi nt

[SwankyXomb]

30. Pogrom might fit better. n/t

[HereSince1628]

35. It's really hard to know...are thay making room for Russians, or purging the unwanted

Yes, of course there is room for both...

My gut feeling is that the pro-Russians that have lived in Crimea know exactly what lands are valuable/desirable. The Russian annexation is looking to be starting with corruption, this won't end well, because corruption is universally hated.

[ashling]

13. At least they asked |sarcasm|

... to move to the reservation.

[TwilightGardener]

15. What "social needs" exist in Crimea today that didn't exist last week

or last month or last year, that a whole ethnic group suddenly needs to be moved? It sure didn't take long for the mask to slip off, did it?

[blackspade]

52. Was the mask ever on?

I mean Russia invaded and annexed Crimea. Nothing too subtle about that!

[Cha]

59. It's too subtle for some around here.

[closeupready]

16. Disgusting.

K&R

[Berlin Expat]

18. But, but

Putin is so much better a leader in that glorious land of freedom and democracy that is Russia! How can this be?



For heaven's sake, anyone who didn't see this coming is either a cretin or wilfully blind.

[okaawhatever]

20. Yeah, I'm gonna have to double check the numbers on this one:

"Nearly 30 percent of Crimean Tatars voted in favor of reunification with Russia at Sunday's referendum, Temirgaliyev said."

That would be: Crimean Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Temirgaliyev

Not saying it didn't happen, but seriously questioning it.

[Cha]

60. And, from the link..

The Tatars, who make up 15 percent of Crimea's population, remain amongst the staunchest supporters of the new government in Kiev that ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych last month.

[happyslug]

22. On March 11, Crimea also admitted what happened to the Tartars in 1944 was a huge crime

SIMFEROPOL (QHA) - The Crimean Parliament has adopted a decree on ‘Guarantee of restoration the rights of Crimean Tatars and their integration to Crimean society ’.

The document was adopted during an extraordinary session of Parliament.

Total of 81 out of 100 members of the Parliament voted for the decision.

“Aware of the tragic fate of the Crimean Tatar people in the twentieth century, we recognize their return and settlement in their historical homeland as act of justice. In order to contribute to the restoration of rights of Crimean Tatar people Crimean Parliament adopted a decree on Guarantee of restoration the rights of Crimean Tatars and their integration to Crimean society”- read the statement.

Speaker of Crimean Parliament Vladimir Konstantinov noted, this decree is ‘historical’, adding that Crimean Tatar people waited for such a decree for 70 years.

“Neither Soviet Union nor Independent Ukraine offered Crimean Tatar people so much. This is what Crimean Tatars have struggled for. It will make all the residents of Crimea feel safe and comfortable on our Crimean land”- Konstantinov stressed.

Among the main points of the decree there are:

Declare Crimean Tatar language official in Crimea along with Ukrainian and Russian languages;

Guarantee that Crimean Tatars will represent %20 in Crimean Parliament;

Declare Qurultay as national congress, the supreme representative plenipotentiary body of the Crimean Tatar people;

Settlement of Crimean Tatar issues, among them legal, financial and land issues;

Realization of the rights and interests of the Crimean Tatar people in cultural sphere, and the others.

http://qha.com.ua/crimean-parliament-approves-a-decree-on-crimean-tatar-rights-130815en.html

Sorry, this sounds more and more like a decision to actually address the CONCERNS of the Tartars, who technically are NOT on land they own, but they just moved into.

Now the above cite is from the Crimea Government and thus can be held with some suspicion, but it at least shows a desire to address the problems of the Tartars.

[steve2470]

23. all the Tartars are just fascists, dontcha know ?

in case I need to

[DFW]

26. They'll love hunting buffalo on the reservation.... n/t

[christx30]

29. I wouldn't be surprised to see

some government buildings in Crimea blow up at this point. Strangely enough, people don't like being ejected from their homes because of their ethnicity.

[Jack Rabbit]

31. But, but, but . . . what about the right wing elements in Kiev?

Look there, look there.

Does any one want to call Putin the liberator of the Crimea now? It looks like both sides have right wing thugs. The right wing thugs are directing events in Crimea.

Meanwhile, the spotlight is on Putin. If its from a lamp post, that would be a good thing.

[Ash_F]

47. Yes this is right wing racial polarization

People can't live normal lives all over the world because of this mindless antagonism.

[Jack Rabbit]

49. Well, surprise, surprise

The definition of the Left is to hold to a democratic ideal where all the human race are brothers and sisters to each other. Consequently, when we support the rights of the people, no one is left out. Each person has the same rights as the next person. Moreover, it ridiculous to laud some people as entitled to special privileges because they are somehow more important or just "better". The chief officers of industry, even in the case where private industry exists is no more important than the trash collector, even if such a person has a greater responsibility; if the trash collector doesn't perform his job well, there are many other trash collectors and the job still gets done; but if the officer responsible for industrial enterprise doesn't do his job right, the result may be the collapse of the enterprise or even the collapse of the world economy (am I getting through to you, Mr. Dimon? Mr. Blankfein?).

The right wing ideology takes for granted that some people are better than others and have the right to rule over others. Unfortunately, there never seems to be an agreement among various and sundry right wingers as to who is superior. Hitler said it was the Aryans, Bibi says it Jews, Slobo Milosevic said it was Serbs, Osama said it was Muslims and the Koch brothers say it's rich Americans. Well, they can't all be right, but they do agree that they have the right to persecute inferior peoples, to include driving them from their homes or even killing them. So eventually they end up driving each other from their homes and killing each other. Is there no sense of universal human brotherhood among such bastards? Of course not. Not when they are so convinced that each is elite either by nature of divine providence.

Which is why such people belong locked up in the slammer with the key thrown down the Mariana Trench (am I getting through to you Bibi? Dave? Charlie? Vladimir Vladimirovich?)

[geardaddy]

34. So, will they have to move their sauce factories?

[Cha]

61. You better

hide. Poor things.. I sure the hell don't want to move out of my home.

[geardaddy]

81. They used to be the majority

until Stalin moved many out and moved the Russians in. They don't need any more crap to happen to them.

[Cha]

84. Kick for that!

[Bosonic]

36. Guardian report from last week

Crimea's Tatars fear the worst as it prepares for referendum

Attacks on Muslim minority have increased, bringing memories of Stalin-era deportation in which half died.

On the outskirts of Simferopol a cluster of uneven houses and a mosque cling to the edge of the highway. "This was once just a field, but now we have built our own city. We built this with only our bare hands and a few tools," says Dzhalil Ibrahimov, a member of the Mejlis, the Tatar council which represents Crimea's Muslim minority. "This is a creation of the Tatar people. The state didn't help us as at all."

The Tatars' existence in Ukraine has long been precarious. In 1944 Stalin ordered that the Sunni Muslim group be deported en masse on the pretext that they had collaborated with the Nazis. Crammed into cattle-wagons, nearly half of them died before they had even reached their destination in the wastelands of central Asia.

...

A Crimean nationalist group called Russia Unity has openly organised attacks on Tatar properties and desecrated graveyards. Last week, the leader of the party, Sergei Aksyonov, was named Crimean prime minister after Russian forces seized control of the peninsula.

Now, as Crimea faces a referendum that is likely to seal its fate as a province or satellite of Russia, ethnic tensions are reaching boiling point. In a chilling echo of history, Tatar houses in the Crimean city of Bakhchisarai have been marked with an ominous X, just as they were before the Soviet-era deportations. On Monday two Tatar businesses were firebombed.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/13/crimea-tatars-fear-worst-prepares-referendum

[dixiegrrrrl]

40. The point people are missing is

the Tatars are Muslim.

"In a chilling echo of history, Tatar houses in the Crimean city of Bakhchisarai have been marked with an ominous X, just as they were before the Soviet-era deportations. On Monday two Tatar businesses were firebombed."

[OilemFirchen]

42. ...

And the Russians have such a sterling reputation as regards their own Muslim population:

Meskhetian Turks in Russia, especially those in Krasnodar, have faced hostility from the local population. The Krasnodar Meskhetian Turks have suffered significant human rights violations, including the deprivation of their citizenship. They have been deprived of civil, political and social rights and are prohibited from owning property and employment. Since 2004, many are now leaving the Krasnodar region for the United States as refugees.

[Cha]

62. thank you for this, Bosonic.. Poor things..

[Sunlei]

37. oh so that is why putins armed thugs walked through neighborhoods last week with lists &

put a mark outside the Tatar homes. No wonder those families were so terrified. They knew what was to happen.

[Cha]

63. Damn.. wonderful wonderful Putin.

[hobbit709]

38. Here we go again. Amazing how history repeats.

[christx30]

39. There's that wonderful right of self determination

As long as you aren't an ethnic minority.

[Bad Thoughts]

41. Nothing to see here

[awoke_in_2003]

43. Our activities in the Ukraine...

are definitely forcing the innocent saviour Putin to do this (just in case)

[Cha]

65. yes indeedy.. it's Obama's fault. Thanks Obama.. You #$%^&&()**&^%$@#^&&

[awoke_in_2003]

75. ...

http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/489972-thanks-obama

[Cha]

76. I know.. I got my own..

[Beacool]

80. Well, according to Mittens and the other RW clowns, it's all Obama and Hillary's fault.

Damn them for trying to restart relations with Russia after 8 years of a very contentious relationship between both countries.

[Ash_F]

46. Oh boy. /nt

[blackspade]

48. So the Tartars get cleansed again by the Russians?

Russian democracy, Yay!

[Adrahil]

50. Crimean Tatar found murdered after being taken away at anti-Russian protest.

http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/03/18/crimea-disappeared-man-found-killed

[Cha]

68. Thank you for the link, Adrahil

[Beacool]

53. And so it begins...........

Nyet, I just want this little bit of land. No one will miss it.

Why does all of this bring to mind Mel Brooks and Springtime for Hitler? Change "Germany" for "Russia".

[davidpdx]

54. I hope these minority groups are protected

Only time will tell.

[CFLDem]

55. In this case they're being forcefully moved.

There's no ambiguity about their lack of civil rights.

Besides, he has to gather them in the ghetto first before shipping them to Siberia.

[Cha]

74. I hope not. :(

[davidpdx]

77. I hope Simon from Vice News does some reporting on this

He's done some great work. At some point they are going to throw him out though.

[Xithras]

82. You realize, of course, that most Tatars are Russian.

Discussions about the Tatars on DU tend to lose sight of the fact that the Crimean Tatars are just a small portion of the overall Tatar population. The Tatars are the descendants of the old Turkish nomads and slave traders who started farming in the middle ages after they were conquered by the Mongols and encouraged to settle. Their native lands stretched from the Black Sea into modern China...most of "southern Russia" today..and they are the SECOND LARGEST ethnic group in Russia, behind only the ethnic Russian's themselves. They even have their own federal republic in Russia (Tatarstan) in which they are the majority population, and Tatars make up a large percentage of the population in several other Russian republics.

Tatars have no more or less rights than any other ethnic group in Russia, and modern Russian Tatars aren't beaten down the way they were over 70 years ago. There is no way that Russia could ship the Crimean Tatars to Siberia without the millions of other Tatars in Russia revolting. Putin doesn't wield anywhere near the power that Stalin did.

[Cha]

56. Literally.. "Eligible Crimean Men to Be Drafted into Russian Army Next Spring"

Several pundits said Crimeans were promised an embellished picture of Russia before the vote, and some residents may now feel they are getting more than they bargained for with news of their eligibility for conscription.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024695071

From your link, Tommy.. thank you..

"The Tatars, who make up 15 percent of Crimea's population, remain amongst the staunchest supporters of the new government in Kiev that ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych last month."

[Nye Bevan]

78. Whoa. Who could have seen that coming? (nt)

[TroglodyteScholar]

87. Um

Everyone?

Yes, I'd say everyone could have seen that coming....

[dreamstst]

83. I had a high school gym teacher who was an ex-Tatar.

We had to call him "Colonel Morrat." When my older brother went to school there, he was a major. Somehow or other he got himself a promotion. Boy was he a disciplinarian! That was back in the days when teachers could hit students. He had a favorite wooden paddle, and did not spare its use. No offense to Tatars. Maybe that was just Colonel/Major Morrat.

[TroglodyteScholar]

86. ...and here we go...

I'm sure thus will end well.