Olexander PISKUN,
Center for Migration Studies,
Editor-in-chief, Problems of Migration magazine

CRIMEAN TATAR PEOPLE'S INTEGRATION INTO UKRAININA SOCIETY: MODERN PROBLEMS OF POLITICAL-LEGAL REGULATION

Historical background

In May 1944 the Stalin regime carried out a mass deportation of the entire Crimean Tatar people; about 200,000 people were deported to Uzbekistan, some areas in Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Tajikistan and Russia. In the summer of 1944 similar deportation actions involved Crimean Bulgarians, Armenians, and Greeks, with the total number of deportees estimated at roughly 38,000. Back in 1941 the ethnic German population was deported from Ukraine (over 450,000 ethnic Germans and non-German family members). Ethnic Ukrainians, particularly residents of West Ukraine, were repeatedly deported, too.

All those deportation acts along ethnic identity lines were performed in keeping with decisions by state authority bodies at various levels, largely on the extra-judicial basis. The forms, in which those deportation acts were carried out, were extremely cruel, resulting in massive loss of human lives, with those who survived having to eke, for many years, wretched and inhumane existence as outlaws and outcasts. However, over all those years the deportees were fighting for restitution of their rights, primarily the right to return to their ancestral homeland. In 1956, following the 20th congress of the CPSU, reprisals against the Balkars, Ingushes, Kalmyks, Karachaevs, Chechens were recognized as illegal, and the victims were allowed to come back home. The fight was forty-year long for the Crimean Tatars, though, who started coming in from the cold in the late 80s - early 90s.

As official data suggest, about 270,000 Crimean Tatars have returned to Ukraine (Crimea). According to the latest (1989) census, only 47,000 Crimean Tatars resided in Ukraine. The process of the ex-deportees’ return and social accommodation has been a complex one for a number of political-legal and social-economic reasons, and as demanding sizeable financing. While before 1993 the annual inflow of the returnees averaged 30,000, more recently the process has been sluggish at best, if not altogether suspended, for the said reasons. Ukraine is the only nation from among the former USSR’s successors that has been trying to do its utmost to facilitate the Crimean Tatar people’s repatriation and integration. However, the Ukrainian State cannot cope with the formidable task single-handed in view of the deep economic crisis and lacking experience with regard to solving problems of such magnitude. The repatriation process cannot be promptly and successfully completed by Ukraine without aid from other nations and the entire global community. The result has been deplorable, so far, with the Crimean Tatar people remaining split in two halves, one of which stay where the Stalin regime had brought them to, that is in Central Asiatic nations and the Russian Federation. A study of the Crimean Tatar repatriation process suggests that delays in solving pressing problems are fraught with the menace of adverse trends which may well jeopardize the society. To ignore these might lead to tragic consequences not only for Ukraine alone. The problem of returning (integrating) the Crimean Tatar people to Ukraine reaches beyond Ukraine’s and even other former USSR successors’ immediate concern, rather it pertains to the entire global community as a major humanitarian challenge.

Legal problems demanding urgent regulation to successfully complete ex-deportees’ return and integration into Ukrainian society

The process of the ex-deportees’ return and integration comprises at least four major dimensions:

1. support for and facilitation of the ex-deportees’ return to their ancestral homeland;

2. facilitating the returnees’ bid for solving their social and economic problems;

3. evolving necessary legal environments for the returnees’ rehabilitation (restitution of their civil rights), both on the individual and ethnic entity levels;

4. defining the legal status of the Crimean Tatar people in Ukraine.

As to the first of the above listed, the many-year-long fight by the Crimean Tatar people has brought about the opportunity for them to come in from the cold. However, the self-repatriation process has not been duly supported, so far.

When leaving their households in their deportation localities before heading for Ukraine, the ex-deportees get nothing to compensate for their expenses. Quite unseldom they have to abandon, being unable to sell, the dwellings that they had built with their own hands, taking along only those few belongings, which they can carry. Needless to say, there are no dwellings in Ukraine, waiting for them to move in, so they have to start from a scratch. In October 1992 Ukraine initiated an agreement which was signed by CIS Heads of State in the Kirghiz capital, Bishkek and which covered issues relating to the restitution of rights of the deported persons, ethnic minorities and peoples. As of today, the agreement has been ratified by Ukraine, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Kirghizstan, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. Regrettably enough, the agreement, as is the case with many other CIS documents, has not been operative, and Ukraine, its Government’s well-nigh yearly resolutions on the returnees’ problems notwithstanding, has failed, so far, to make the process orderly.

As regards the second point, following the Soviet Union’s disintegration, Ukraine has virtually single-handed been carrying the burden of expenses relating to the returnees.

Government commissions have been set up to address problems of interdepartmental nature, manned/womanned by senior ministerial and departmental officials and headed by Ukraine’s Vice Premier in charge of humanitarian policies. In March 1996 the Government of Ukraine endorsed The Program of priority measures toward settling and accommodating the once deported Crimean Tatars and individuals belonging to other ethnic groups who have returned to Crimea and presently live there.

Since Ukraine proclaimed its independent statehood, the National Budget has specifically provided for outlays, necessary for the ex-deportees’ accommodation. According to official estimates, about 3 bn dollars must be allocated to this end. However, over 1992-1999 the State was able to allocate just 300 million dollars. And it should be noted that the (thus allocated means were basically spent on construction of dwellings, infrastructure development, construction of communication lines and public utilities. About half of the Crimean Tatars have no dwelling. Places of the Crimean Tatars’ compact residence in Bilogorsk, Simferopol, and in districts of Bakhchisaray, Dzhankoi, Simferopolsky, Leninsky, Kirovsky are characteristic of very low employment rates, which average 23 percent. Also lacking there is the social infrastructure, that is, roads, water-electric power- and heat-supply systems, sewerage, etc. For lacking funds culture, education restoration of historical-cultural relics of the Crimean Tatar people have been largely neglected. And the problem remains acute of taking into account and regulating the Crimean Tatars’ rights to participation in the process of land plot privatization and sharing.

The third point. Actually, the process of political rehabilitation of the deported persons along ethnic origin lines got under way on November 14, 1989 when the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted The Declaration on recognizing as illegal and criminal the repressive acts against the peoples, subjected to forcible deportation, and on ensuring their rights. In accordance with the said declaration, the Russian Federation passed a separate law on rehabilitating the victims of political reprisals, which extends to those repressed on grounds of their ethnic identify.

There is no specific legislative act on the restitution of the Crimean Tatar people’s rights. Relevant provisions of the Law of Ukraine “On Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Reprisals in Ukraine” (adopted on April 17, 1991, amended on May 15, 1992)¹ extend to individuals from among the deportees.

In keeping with Articles 1 and 4 of the Law, persons, who were subjected to repressions, exiled or deported by the totalitarian regime, as well as their family members, enjoy, among their other resituated rights, the right to live in those populated places and localities in which they had resided before the reprisals. However, regardless of provisions contained in the Laws “On Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Reprisals in Ukraine” and “On the Ukrainian Citizenship,” there long existed problems with regard to the Crimean Tatars assuming Ukrainian citizenship and settling. Such a state of affairs created certain tensions within the Ukrainian society and gave grounds to state from international rostrums certain infringements on human rights in Ukraine.

Relevant commentaries and recommendations on that score were articulated by the UN Committee for economic, social and cultural rights, and by High Commissioner for ethnic minorities Max Van Der Stoel.

Limitations incorporated in Clause 2 of Article 2 of the Law “On the Ukrainian Citizenship” of 1991, were among the major causes of the unsatisfactory situation with regard to assuming citizenship by the ex-deportees, as specifying that Ukrainian citizenship may be granted only to persons, “who work, on the State’s direction, are on active duty, take their studies beyond Ukraine’s boundaries, or left Ukraine on legal grounds for some other country to permanently reside there …”

Naturally, such a definition could hardly be applicable to individuals who were deported from Ukraine in the extra judicial way. On April 16, 1997 the new redaction of the Law “On Citizenship” came into effect, with its provisions worded in such a way as to make the primary definition of Ukrainian citizenship extend to persons from among the deportees, to wit, “Persons, who were born or who permanently resided in Ukraine’s territory, as well as their descendants (children, grandchildren), if they lived, as of November 13, 1991, outside Ukraine, are not citizens of other countries, and who submitted, before December 31, 1999, following the procedures prescribed by this Law, applications for Ukrainian citizenship.” Those, who, for some reasons, fail to do so before the said deadline, shall be covered by Article 16 (assuming citizenship), without taking into consideration provisions of Clause 3, Part 2 of this Article (continuous residence, on legal grounds on the Ukrainian territory over the past five years). The adoption of the Law’s new redaction, considering the amendments, created better legal opportunities for solving the ex-deportees’ citizenship problems. And, at last, as a result of Ukrainian-Uzbek negotiations, in the summer of 1998 an agreement was reached on simplifying the procedure of relinquishment of Uzbek citizenship, with Uzbekistan still remaining home to the ex-deportees.²

The issue of juridically fixing the status of the Crimean Tatar people in Ukraine remains the most complicated and unregulated one, needing a political decision.

Back in 1991-1992 when the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the 12^th convention was drafting the bill “On Ethnic Minorities in Ukraine” the issue arose of drafting a package of individual legislative acts toward regulating the status of the Crimean Tatar people and the process of their revival in Ukraine. Relevant instructions were issued and even draft documents drawn out; however, for sundry reasons, these were never submitted to the VR of Ukraine. So, it all could be boiled down to the Cabinet’s resolutions on social and economic issues…

The Ministry for matters of nationalities and migration submitted a draft law to the Cabinet “On rehabilitation and safeguarding the rights of persons from among ethnic minorities that were repressed and deported from Ukraine’s territory.”³ Needless to say, the document does not provide for regulating the Crimean Tatar people’s status. Versions of the draft concept of Ukraine’s state policy with regard to autochthonous peoples and the draft Law “On the status of the Crimean Tatar people,” which a group of experts under the aegis of the Justice Ministry drew out, appear more promising and encouraging. The new Constitution of Ukraine adds to a more optimistic outlook, too, as for the first time it fixes the term “autochthonous peoples.” (Articles 11, 92, Clause 3, and 119). However, the solution to this legal problem has been groundlessly delayed, too.

An analysis of causes underlying delays in solving the ex-deportees’ problems

So, what are the main reasons that could explain the delays in regulating the Crimean Tatar people’s status in Ukraine?

While not venturing an exhaustive explanation, major ones should be pinpointed, as we believe. Naturally, it would be expedient to focus on those of objective nature:

• lacking adequate experience in coping with such tremendous political-legal problems

• lacking relevant managerial bodies

• shortages of funds

  Subjective reasons should be mentioned, too:

• lacking clear-cut, scientifically substantiated (approved and sealed) concept of Ukraine’s ethnic policies

• low awareness on the part of Ukraine’s (Crimea’s) authorities of the significance of solving the problem of the Crimean Tatar people’s revival

• low awareness of interactions between human rights and the need to democratically regulate legal relationships within a multiethnic society which is composed of the title nation, autochthonous peoples (the Crimean Tatars, Karaimes, Krymchaks, Gagauzes) and ethnic minority groups

• lacking political will, the authority’s fear of making unpopular, or incomprehensible in the public’s eye, decisions

• apprehensions with regard to the society’s likely destabilization

• appeasing anti-State political forces

• conscious, deliberate (sometimes undisguised) actions by certain political forces, both inside Ukraine and beyond its boundaries, aimed at destabilizing the situation in Crimea and in Ukraine as a whole.

CONCLUSIONS

However superficial and sketchy the analysis may be of causes underlying the delayed action toward solving the Crimean Tatar people’s problems, it testifies, nevertheless, to the State’s lacking scientifically-substantiated and endorsed concept of the nation’s ethnic policies (and the migration component of these) as being the biggest, major cause.

So, the prime task is to see to it that such policies’ guidelines are developed and approved. And in tackling the task, it is of paramount importance to rely on international experience of solving such problems.

In keeping with what an expert analysis of international and national legal norms suggests, the grounds for recognizing the Crimean Tatar people as autochthones in Ukraine are as follows:

• the Crimean Tatar people historically evolved to form a distinct ethnic entity precisely on Ukraine’s territory

• the Crimean Tatar people has preserved its cultural, language, religious, ethnic identify, making it different from the Ukrainian nation (the title ethnic entity) and ethnic minorities, and is striving to preserve and further develop its ethnic identity

• the Crimean Tatar people has no ethnically affinitive state or homeland outside Ukraine

• it self-identifies itself as Ukraine’s autochthonous people.

The global community possesses certain experience in dealing with problems, which involve regulation of autochthonous peoples’ political-legal status. The journal “Migration Problems” recently launched a new column, “Autochthonous Peoples,” requesting Ukrainian and foreign scientists, researchers, public figures to contribute to formulating both concept-related guidelines and practical steps with a view of regulating the political-legal status of the Crimean Tatar people in Ukraine.

While not attempting at a speedy and comprehensive solution to the said problem, we hope for facilitating the problem’s comprehensive study and its gradual and consistent regulation.⁴

The thesis, stating that the Crimean Tatar people is an autochthonous people, returning to its historical homeland, must be among the key provisions; also, it must be a subject of policies. A different thing, though, is in what form and when it may become a real political factor.

As studies attest, the young Ukrainian State’s priority steps should be toward drafting legal mechanisms to ensure the Crimean Tatar people’s representation to bodies of representative authority of both Crimea and Ukraine as a whole, toward legitimizing the status, fixing its functions involving the Crimean Tatar people’s representation, and toward legally fixing the Crimean Tatar people’s status in Ukraine.

In solving the Crimean Tatar people’s political-legal problems, bodies of state authority should rely on and take into consideration what Crimean Tatar representatives to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and the Crimean Supreme Soviet think on that score. Sure enough, in addition to these principal and top-priority problems there are a lot of other issues, which can be solved only if handled comprehensively. The Crimean Tatar people’s spokespersons should be involved in drafting a comprehensive program toward returning the deported people to their homeland and restituting their hitherto neglected rights, toward revival of their cultural-ethnic legacy.

Now that the young Ukrainian state is in the process of being established, such approaches will most certainly facilitate its independence and democratic order, will promote stability both in Ukraine and in Europe. Now the time for this is good also because the global community has developed an attentive and understanding stance on the Ukrainian society’s bid for a law-abiding and democratic state. So, there are good grounds to hope for not only moral support, but also a sizeable financial prop to this end.

¹See: The Law of the UkrSSR “on Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repressions”/Bills, resolutions and other acts adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of the UkrSSR at its 3d session, February-July 1991; Part I, p.316; The Law Of Ukraine “On Making Amendments to the Law of the UkrSSR “On Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Reprisals in Ukraine”// Bills, resolutions and other acts adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of the UkrSSR at its 5th session, January-July 1992; Part II, pp. 98-99

²See: The Agreement between Ukraine and the Republic of Uzbekistan on cooperation in solving citizenship problems of the deported persons and their descendants. Collection of Documents. – Kyiv, 1999, p. 206

³Yu. Bilukha, Forming Ukraine’s Migration Legislation //Ukrainian Magazine on Human Rights, 1997, no. 1, p.g. 9

⁴See: Oleksandr Piskun. Editorial; Bill Bowring. The Rights of Autochthonous Peoples: International Experience Review; Valeriy Vozgin. The Crimean Tatars: Discrimination, Consequences of the Hushed Conflict/The Migration Problems. 1998, no. 2, pp. 21-43; Jeremy Webber. The Particular Situation of the Autochthones: Situation in Canada and Other Nations // The Migration Problems. 1998, no. 3, pp. 29-30; Nansen Award to Ukraine’s national; the speech by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees during a Nansen Medal awarding ceremony; the speech by Mustafa Dzhemilev at the award presentation ceremony; the address by the UN Secretary-General on the occasion of the Nansen Medal presentation: the address by Prime Minister of Ukraine Valeriy Pustovoitenko to UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ms. Sadako Ogata; Yuriy Bilukha. The speech at the 49^th session of the Executive Committee for the UN High Commissioner Agency’s program // The Migration Problems. 1998, no. 4, pp. 37-44; Nadir Bakirov. The Crimean Tatar Problem and Legislative Support of Ethnic Minorities’ Rights in Ukraine // The Migration Problems. 1999, no. 1, pp. 28-33; Tetyana Klynchenko, Olena Malynovska, Ihor Mingazutdinov, Oleg Shmashur. The Turk-Meskhetins in Ukraine: De Jure Citizens, De Facto Refugees // The Migration Problems, 1999, no. 2, pp. 37-48; Olena Braichevska. Repatriates in Ukraine: Ways to Integration // The Migration Problems, 1999, no. 3, pp. 34-39; Olena Malynovska. Repatriation to Ukraine // The Migration Problems. 1999, no. 4, pp. 17-29