REPORT the Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People M. Dzhemilev at the 4th session of the 3rd Kurultay (brief version)

Dear delegates of the Kurultay, dear guests,

During the recent Kurultay session, which took place on 1-3 October 1999, we adopted nine different documents, among which was the resolution “On drafting and approval of the Regulations on Electing the Deputies of the 4th Kurultay of the Crimean Tatar People”. In conformity with this resolution, a Temporary Working Group was established to draft the aforesaid Regulations, and it was decided that a special Kurultay session would be convened one year later. Thus, the main objective of this session is the adoption of this document. The Regulations have been drafted and presented for your consideration.<...>

We published 1000 copies of all the documents and materials of the previous Kurultay session as a book and distributed them among the Kurultay deputies and media representatives.

In my report I would like to give brief information on the extent to which the decisions of the previous Kurultay session have been fulfilled or are being fulfilled.<...>

On the decision of the Kurultay session regarding presidential elections

As you know, at our previous session, after many discussions we adopted a decision with overall majority to urge our compatriots to vote for the candidate from the People’s Rukh of Ukraine Gennadiy Udovenko in the first round of presidential elections. Adopting this decision, we were well aware that Gennadiy Udovenko did not have a real chance to be elected the President of Ukraine and that the second round would surely take place. Nevertheless, we adopted this decision for two reasons. First of all, we wanted and were obliged to abide by our partnership obligations, and second, we took into consideration that the People’s Rukh is the most consistent of all democratic forces in Ukraine in its permanent support of our national rights. The Kurultay authorized the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people to adopt the decision with regard to the second round of elections.<...>

The situation was much simplified in the second round of elections. There was no more need to propagate in favour of this or that candidate because it is difficult to find a person among sober-minded Crimean Tatars, who would vote for the presidential candidate from the party, which had deported us and was trying to destroy us physically. The only task was to ensure the highest level of our compatriots’ participation. We printed around 70 thousand appeals in the Crimean Tatar and Russian languages in support of the incumbent President which were distributed to all Crimean Tatars, and Crimean Tatar participation in the second round of voting in Crimea was very high.

Issue of Crimean Tatar representation in the Parliament of the Autonomy

As you know, in order to ensure adequate Crimean Tatar representation in the Verkhovna Rada of Crimea and the local councils, it is necessary to make amendments in the ARC Constitution and the Law on Elections to the ARC Verkhovna Rada which were adopted in 1998 and approved last spring by the Parliament of Ukraine with the help of adventurous maneuvers by its ex-Speaker O. Tkachenko. The second way is the adoption of the special law by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, which would protect the rights of the Crimean Tatar people. We did not succeed in achieving any of these. Adopting the Constitution of the Autonomy, which discriminates against the Crimean Tatars, the Deputies of the ARC Verkhovna Rada were obviously well aware of what they were doing so it would be naive to expect to convince them of the necessity to respect our rights or to negotiate with them. However, there is another way, which might convince them of the necessity to revise their Constitution and their law on elections. This might happen if they understand that otherwise they might lose what they have now. I mean some kind of repetition of the events of autumn 1993 when after large-scale Crimean Tatar civil actions the Deputies of the Autonomy’s Parliament understood that further development in this direction might result in imposition of the state of emergency in the peninsula and liquidation of the Autonomy itself in its present form. This is why they were forced to revise their election law and introduce the quotas of deportees at least for one term.

The Mejlis still has not started preparing such events for two reasons. First of all, in the current situation there are fears that events might get out of control and cause great damage to the interests of Ukraine in general, and second, all other less conflict-like parliamentary ways of resolving the conflict have not been exhausted.

Everyone is well aware that the main opponent of restoring the Crimean Tatars' juridical rights is the chauvinistic and pro-Communist majority of the ARC Verkhovna Rada headed by its Communist Speaker L.Hrach, main author of the recent sixth discriminating Constitution of the Autonomy.<...> But even they are likely to have recently understood the danger posed by the current situation as regards the Crimean Tatar representation in the Autonomy’s Parliament.

After the long-lasting Crimean Tatar picket near the “pentagon” last June, the decision of the Presidium of the ARC Verkhovna Rada was published, and among other issues it also mentions the issue of the Crimean Tatar representation in the Autonomy’s Parliament. This decision offers the Mejlis to register as NGO and participate in the forthcoming 2002 elections on a proportional basis. Obviously, the Mejlis will not register itself for inclusion into the list of more than 2000 NGOs in Crimea because the Mejlis is not an organization but the nation’s representative authority. Concerning participation in the elections on a proportional basis, I consider this to be possible, but it is necessary for the Kurultay of the Crimean Tatar People to have the right to put forward its candidacies the same way as in the 1994 elections.

A few days after the publication of the aforementioned decision of the Presidium of the ARC Verkhovna Rada, a working group was established. It included three representatives from the Mejlis, the ARC Government, and the ARC Verkhovna Rada each, and two from the Representation of the President of Ukraine in Crimea. The task of the working group was to draft the proposals on amending the Law on Elections to the ARC Verkhovna Rada in order to ensure Crimean Tatar representation in the Autonomy's Parliament and to submit them for consideration to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. On 25 July 2000 the member of the working commission from the Mejlis R.Chubarov submitted his proposals on the amendments to be made in the Law on Elections for the cases where Crimean Tatar representation would be ensured during election both on proportional and quota basis. Soon the answers from the ARC Verkhovna Rada and Government were received saying that R.Chubarov’s proposals were unacceptable because they did not comply with current legislation. The main absurdity of this answer laying the fact that if the intention to ensure Crimean Tatar representation is serious, legislation must be amended and the current law should not be implemented. Other members of the working commission, i.e. those representing the ARC Verkhovna Rada, the ARC Government, the President’s Representation in Crimea, have not submitted any proposals. Some time later, at the beginning of last September, Communist Deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine N.Shtepa,<...> submitted to the Ukrainian Parliament a new draft law on elections to the ARC Verkhovna Rada on a proportional basis. By the way, the Communists very want the next elections to take place based exclusively on a proportional party system, otherwise the number of their Deputies at all levels is expected to decrease drastically. But the main point is that the Communists have decided to submit their proposals on amending the law not to the working commission for developing a mutually acceptable decision as it had been agreed, but directly to the Ukrainian Parliament.<...>

Thus, it is clear that if the issue of Crimean Tatar representation in the Autonomy's Parliament will be resolved as foreseen by the Crimean authorities, it come to nothing. The only hope is that this issue will be resolved by Ukrainian national legislation. I think the delegates of Kurultay are well aware of the current situation with regard to adoption of the law on the status of the Crimean Tatar people, which has a mechanism of providing of Crimean Tatars’ representation in all power structures. Nevertheless, I consider it appropriate to say a few words about this as well.

As is well known, on 5 April 2000, the parliamentary hearings on the Crimean Tatar problem took place in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. As a result, was adopted the recommendations on “The Problems of Legislative Settlement and Implementation of the State Policy on Ensuring the Rights of the Crimean Tatar people and other national minorities, which have suffered from deportation and are voluntarily returning to Ukraine”. The draft was developed with the participation of the legal department of the Mejlis and contains a number of very positive aspects. First, it fixes that the Crimean Tatars are as an integral people (nation) without using such wordings as “persons of the Crimean Tatar nationality”, or “deportees of Crimean Tatars or other national minorities”<...> Second, the existence and necessity of resolving the legislative problems of the Crimean Tatar people are recognized. At the same time, it should be noted that the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine did not adopt the draft, which it had been submitted for consideration. At the Communists’ insistence, the clause stating the necessity of adopting the Law “On the Status of the Crimean Tatar People” as implementation of article 11 of the Constitution of Ukraine, which stipulates the state’s obligations to indigenous people, was excluded from the draft. Only 190 persons out of 410 Deputies present in the session hall have voted for adoption of the recommendations not excluding this clause, while, as we know, at least 226 votes are necessary to adopt a decision.

I request you to pay attention to the brochure given to you which contains a shorthand report of the consideration of the draft Law “On rehabilitation and ensuring right of the persons of national minorities, who had been repressed and deported from the territory of Ukraine” by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on 1-2 November 2000. This draft law was not adopted either, and only 170 persons out of 392 Deputies present in the hall have voted to pass it to second first reading as we were insisting, because this document really needs to be seriously corrected. While reading this shorthand report, pay attention to the nonsensical and obviously chauvinistic statements made by the communists and other “leftists” during the consideration of this issue. Thus, we can conclude that the number of Deputies in this Ukrainian Parliament who are ready to support our justified demands at present does not exceed 170-190 persons.

Nevertheless, the consideration of the draft law “On the status of the Crimean Tatar people” has been included into the agenda of the Parliament’s session, but it is quite obvious that in order to ensure its adoption much work will be needed both by the Deputies of the Parliament and by our people for activating its struggle for own legal rights. It is also necessary to note that the President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma fully supports the demands of the Crimean Tatars to ensure their fair representation in all power structures of the Autonomy and to adopt the aforesaid law on the status of the Crimean Tatar people.

On Crimean Tatar representation in executive power structures in the Autonomy

During the 15 months since the previous Kurultay session, the Mejlis has as usual been making great efforts to ensure Crimean Tatar representation in the Autonomy’s executive structures, but no any substantial changes have been made. The average Crimean Tatar representation in the Autonomy’s executive structures is 10 times less than it should be under representation in proportion to the population.<...>

The reason is not only the well-known chauvinism and anti-Tatar moods in the administrative apparatus of the Autonomy, and especially in its pro-Communist Verkhovna Rada. It is clear that the reason does not lie in the statements made by the Speaker of this Rada and the leader of Crimean Communists Leonid Hrach saying that the Crimean Tatars allegedly cannot compete with Russians and representatives of other nationalities from a professional viewpoint. For example, the representative of the Administration of the President of Ukraine, who in 1999 conducted an inspection of the personnel policy of the Autonomy noted that approximately one third of government officials in the Autonomy are not fit to the positions which they occupy. As an example, he has indicated some names in his report. The Minister of Education is the Communist V. Levina, who previously worked as a secondary school teacher, the Minister of Culture is Communist M.Golubev who previously worked as the director of the club, and Deputy Minister of Labour is Communist Ye. Gorulko who previously worked as the secretary of the newspaper “Crimean Communist”, Chairman of the Republican Committee for Land Resources and Unified Cadastre is Ye. Zhagornikov who previously worked in Traffic Police<...> There is the majority of these “indispensable” officers in the Autonomy's administration, with which the Crimean Tatar specialists allegedly cannot compete.

Generally, the policy of the Crimean authorities was aimed at making excuses to refuse specialists of the Crimean Tatars for jobs in administrative structures, but if for certain reasons this could not be avoided, they took people who would be their “servants” and were opposed to the Mejlis.<...>

Even if we manage to place a normal specialist of the Crimean Tatars to a responsible position, quite often these specialists begin to change to such an extent that soon it is impossible to recognize them. The environment formed around this specialist forces him to act the same way as the others, also against his compatriots, otherwise his working conditions will become unbearable. At best, he will not be promoted, at worst, he will be dismissed on presumably “legitimate” grounds or even be sued on criminal charges and arrested after a kind of provocation against him.<...>

It is well known that the Autonomy’s Government is formed and approved on the basis of agreement between the Deputies’ factions represented in the Parliament.<...> But how can the representatives of the Crimean Tatar people participate in the formation of the Government or approval at these kinds of positions if they do not have a single representative in the Autonomy’s Parliament and this Parliament is headed by a person with openly racist views?

Besides this, if any position becomes vacant, each political force in the Parliament wishes to promote its candidate there, and the Communists are obviously the first of them. And even the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the ARC S. Kunitsin whom we know as a person not suffering of chauvinistic infection quite often, is unable to appoint a Crimean Tatar to this or that position because otherwise he will insult and push to Hrach’s side this or that Deputy who would like to see his person at this position.

Thus, the issue of Crimean Tatar representation in the executive power structures is directly related to ensuring our people’s representation in the Parliament.

The land issue

<...>Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, among other important problems of the people, paid the greatest attention to the issue of protecting their compatriots’ rights as regards agricultural reforms, or to put it plainly, land privatization<...> During this period, 8 Mejlis meetings and 27 Presidium meetings took place. These issues were the most frequent ones to be discussed and certain decisions were adopted. The main demands of the Crimean Tatars at their numerous meetings, demonstrations and pickets are often those concerning fair land sharing. However, unfortunately, there are still no serious developments in resolution of these issues.

In conformity with acting legislation, the essence of land reform lies in passing land into ownership of former collective farm members only. But the predominant majority of the Crimean Tatars, more than 70 %, who reside in rural areas and make 25 % of Crimean rural population, obviously had not been and could not be kolkhoz members. As a result, many Crimean Tatars who reside in rural areas and whose land has now passed into private ownership of the people who had come there mainly from Russia after the war and to their descendants, will get 3-4 times less land in proportion to their population than the rest of rural population in the peninsula, and many thousands of people for whom land is the main source of earning their living will not get land at all.

As is well known, after the 1999 Crimean Tatar actions dedicated to the 55th anniversary of deportation, the ARC Council of Ministers adopted the resolution # 182 dated 24 May 1999 signed by S. Kunitsin which stipulated that it would be necessary to grant land shares to all Crimean Tatar residing in rural areas and that these would be of the same size as those granted to the members of collective agricultural enterprises. But this resolution had been and is sabotaged by the district authorities.

The formal reason for the non-fulfillment of the decision on granting the average share to the Crimean Tatars is the fact that, first, it is not envisaged in the President’s Decree # 720 dated 8 August 1995, and second, that it will cause discontent among the Russian-speaking population because their shares will become smaller.

The first reason is not grounded because in conformity with article 6, part 9 of the Land Code of Ukraine, depending on specific circumstances, the average size of a land plot may be reconsidered by local councils. The second reason is extremely cynical in general. The authorities are concerned only with the discontent of the Russian-speaking population caused by the prospect of the diminishing of their land shares, and they do not care at all about the discontent of the Crimean Tatars who will get nothing at all. This is nothing but a premeditated provocation to ignite indignation on the part of the Crimean Tatars and inter-ethnic conflict.

The Mejlis has sent dozens of appeals to different authorities in Crimea and in Kyiv putting forward concrete measures for the resolution of the issue and stating that if a fair solution is not found, serious conflict might occur. We have requested the addition of a clause to the Decree of the President dated 8 August 1995 which would stipulate that the Crimean Tatars who had returned to Crimea from deportation and their descendants now residing in rural areas have the right to land ownership within the limits of the average land share of the members of the collective agricultural enterprises in this area. We have also stated that the reserve land stock should not be distributed, it should be preserved for other needs, including granting land to those who still remain in the places of deportation not of their own will.

Officials of the Crimean administration were also sending reports to Kyiv and were making public statements to the press that there was no land problem at all and all this fuss was made by the Crimean Tatars only for gaining political capital. At the same time, false speculations that this problem could be resolved with the help of land from the reserve stock were propagated, though it is well known that all good land had been leased for the long term or seized by certain farms and shared long ago. At the same time, cynical statements were made that if there was any problem related to the allocation of land to the Crimean Tatars, they were guilty of this themselves. According to these statements, the Tatars should settle only in the steppe areas of Crimea, but they wanted to settle also in the southern areas of Crimea.

I shall quote only some statements of this kind.

For example, in his interview to the correspondent of the “Niva” magazine the Head of the Simferopol District State Administration has stated: “Land re-sharing is demanded not by ordinary people, but by their leaders. They demand in an extremist manner, by way of pressure. They are losing their political weight and they want to maintain it this way… (“Niva”, June-July 2000, p.8)

From the statements made by the Head of the Republican Committee for Land Resources Ye.Zhagornikov, the former traffic police officer whom I have already mentioned speaking about the personnel policy of the ARC leadership, to the correspondent of the “Krymskoye Vremya”: “The Mejlis has stepped on the rake created by itself. In general, land stock in Crimea is sufficient, there are problems in some regions. The reason of the problem is non-systemic settlement” (“Krymskoye Vremya”, 21 February 2000). This is why Zhagornikov in his letter to the State Committee for Land Resources of Ukraine proposes “to develop urgently the State Program of the Deportees Settlement taking into account availability of free land in the reserve stock…” for resolving the Crimean Tatars’ land issue (from Ye. Zhagornikov’s letter addressed to the Deputy Head of the State Committee for Land Resources of Ukraine V. Kulinich). According to opinion of this person, the Crimean Tatars residing in the southern and central parts of Crimea where per capita areas of land are less should move out of their home, quit their job if they are employed and settle in the steppe areas where there is somewhat more land.

The Representative of the President of Ukraine in the ARC A. Korneychuk has also made numerous statements that the problem of land allocation to the Crimean Tatars does not exist in practice and their leaders raise this issue for political purposes. He has also stated that he in principle objects to making reserves of land for the Crimean Tatars who still remain in their places of deportation, and he has also made a statement on the necessity of certain restrictions on their entry to Ukraine (“Krymskoye Vremya”, 29 September 2000).

In the course of the recent months numerous meeting have taken place with the leadership of the Autonomy and the heads of district state administration, during which the issue of fair allocation of land to the Crimean Tatars was discussed. The attitude of the heads of administrations to the Crimean Tatar problems, including those related with the land issue was not simple. For example, if the Head of the Bakhchisaray State Administration V. Tsiganskiy was very cooperative in his attempts to find the way out of the situations without conflict together with the regional Mejlis whose chairman I. Umerov is at the same time Tsiganskiy’s deputy, the behaviour of other district leaders, for example, from Djankoy and Nizhegorskiy districts, was extremely provocative. It was their defiant behaviour which became the reason for large-scale Crimean Tatar protests related with blocking railway lines, serious conflicts with the authorities and then opening of the criminal cases against the leaders and members of regional mejlises.

Currently, the authorities already recognize in principle the existence of the problem of land allocation to the Crimean Tatars residing in rural areas and the necessity of its solution. The main subject of discussion is the way of solution of this problem.

On 2 August 2000 the Representative of the President of Ukraine in Crimea A. Korneychuk and the Chairman of the Mejlis signed the plan of joint actions for resolving the Crimean Tatars’ social, humanitarian and land problems. Later, at one of our recent consultations at the end of last September which took place in the ARC Council of Ministers with the participation of the Representative of the President of Ukraine in Crimea and heads of district administrations, the document entitled “The Protocol of Directives” signed by the Chairman of the Council of Ministers S. Kunitsin, President's Representative A. Korneychuk and the Chairman of the Mejlis was adopted.

In conformity with this document, the heads of state administrations got directives to sign the protocols of agreement with regional Mejlises by 5 October 2000 with regard to the allocation of land plots to the Crimean Tatars over 18 years of age residing in rural areas, their size equaling the average share, and the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Autonomy got the directive to draft documents on allocation of land to the Crimean Tatars which had to be resolved at the level of the President and other central Ukrainian authorities.

It meant that the district state administrations together with regional Mejlises would study the situation related with the size of available land plots and if it turned out that there was enough land to allocate the average land shares to the Crimean Tatars, there would be no problem. If it turned out that there was not enough land, they should indicate in the protocols their vision of the central authorities' decision for resolving the problem.

Only some districts have fulfilled this directive up to now. They have indicated that areas of land are not sufficient and relevant amendments to existing legislation will be needed to settle the issue. The majority of district administrations have simply avoided fulfilling this directive because they are aware that for allocating the average shares to the Crimean Tatars new decisions on re-sharing will be needed, and they do not want this to happen because the size of the Russian speaking people’s land shares will become smaller, including the lands they had obtained for themselves through other persons.

And at last, the recent official document aimed at the solution of land problems, the Directive of the ARC Council of Ministers # 376 dated 14 November 2000 entitled “On Allocation of Land Plots to the Deportees”.

In this document, the district state administrations are instructed to explain the plan of forming of special land funds which would include land from the reserve stock, land voluntarily given by the owners, and land whose owners have not claimed their land certificates for the past three years. Then it was proposed to pass land from this special fund to the deportees, however not to all of them, but to some categories, and not into private ownership as to the shareowners, but only for their household farming.

Unlikely, there is a necessity to comment on this document, except to say that it is incorrect, unrealistic, does not comply with the principles of justice with regard to the Crimean Tatars and is in violation of the agreements reflected in previously adopted documents entitled “Protocol of Directives” which had been signed by three sides.

Thus, the land issue continues to remain among the most acute ones. To our opinion, for solution of this problem without conflicts it is necessary to suspend preparation and issuing of the state acts on private ownership for land at the whole territory of Crimea, to conduct inventory of all shared land, to amend the relevant clause of the Decree of the President of Ukraine # 720 dated 8 August 1995 or adopt a certain special legal document saying that individuals who had returned from the places of deportation and reside in rural area should be included into the list for obtaining an average land share, that the reserve fund should be formed for the Crimean Tatars, who temporarily remain in the places of deportation, and to begin issuing the state acts only after this.

I have great fears that if the fair solution of the land issue is not found, we might face a very serious conflict which might transform into an inter-ethnic conflict, because thousands of our compatriots who reside in the rural area are unlikely to agree not to get land or to become employees of the persons, who immigrated to their land from Russia and their descendants.

The situation of the budget financing of the repatriation program

I would like to say a few words about budgetary financing of the program on repatriation and resettlement of the Crimean Tatars and other deportees.

We should note that in the course of the recent two years relative improvements could be traced in this sphere.<...> In 2000, 40 million UAH were allocated from the Ukrainian budget and 11 million UAH from the Autonomy’s budget. One should note that last year it was the first time when we have managed to receive all allocated funds.

But this does not mean at all that there is a new trend in the power corridors to gradually increase the amount of financing for resolution of the deportees’ problems. Above all, everything depends on our own activities, on the support that we shall get from the President, from democratic forces in the Government and Parliament of Ukraine.

For example, only 20 million UAH were envisaged for the deportees’ needs in the draft 2000 budget, and great efforts were needed for increasing this figure twice, especially from the side of R. Chubarov because he mainly had numerous meeting with the ministers and heads of parliamentary factions of Ukraine. The same figure of 20 million UAH was also envisaged in the draft 2001 budget. But then this issue was discussed during our meetings with the Prime Minister, Finance Minister, with the leaders of parliamentary factions of Ukraine, during the meetings with the President of Ukraine. The situation has reached the level when the factions of the People’s Rukh of Ukraine and Reforms-Congress whose members are the Crimean Tatar Deputies announced that they would not vote for the budget if this figure will be not increased to the minimum required amounts. As the result of all efforts, the figure was increased from 20 to 45 million UAH.

However necessary to note that the regulation, which had been adopted by the Autonomy’s Verkhovna Rada still in the period of activities of so-called “Shevyev-Danelyan group” under which 20% of the budget funds received for the deportees’ program are transferred for the needs of the Armenians, Bulgarians, Greeks and Germans whose total share is about 1.5% of all the returnees to Crimea is still in force. It means, that average per capita allocations for these ethnic groups are about 13 times higher than for the Crimean Tatars. This principle is especially scrupulously followed when the funds are allocated from the Crimean budget.<...>

Among the most significant events during the period after the Kurultay session which took place last October I would like to note, first of all, the increase of anti-Tatar and anti-Mejlis propaganda in Crimean Russian-language news media, more frequent illegal actions of the Crimean law and order and judicial authorities against the Crimean Tatars and the Mejlis, provocative actions of some Orthodox representatives of the Moscow Patriarchy and the politicians who had brought inter-confessional relations to explosive level, parliamentary hearings in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on political and legal problems of the Crimean Tatar people, hearings on the Crimean Tatar problems in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, three meetings between the Mejlis and President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma.

Propaganda war and lawlessness against the Crimean Tatars

<...> The most hostile of the Crimean periodicals are: the official newspaper of the Autonomy’s Verkhovna Rada “Krymskiye Izvestiya” [“Crimean News”] which can get the name “Hrach’s News” because the greater share of the newspaper is occupied with Hrach’s speeches, interviews, portraits and descriptions of his numerous meetings; another newspaper “Krymskaya Pravda” which is mainly financed from the budget; periodical of Deputy Mirimskiy’s party “Soyuz” “Krymskoye Vremya” where the main experts in anti-Tatar theme are A. Nezhivoy and N. Gavrileva; the newspaper of the Russian Black Sea Fleet “Flag Rodiny”: not to mention semi-fascist newspapers of the kind of “Suvorovets”, “Russkiy Mir”, or newspapers of so-called “Russian Society of Crimea” having the title “Otechestvo”. The major principle of all these chauvinistic publications is to write nothing related with the Crimean Tatars, but is something is written, it happens only in cases when there is an occasion to say something bad.

However, it should be noted that there are decent<...> newspapers, for example the weekly low-circulation “Respublika Krym” whose editor is H.Ioffe, and some others, but it is clear that they are not influential in Crimean information environment. The influential ones are those, who prompt hatred to our people and provoke inter-ethnic and inter-confessional conflicts.<...>

On provocation with the crosses

I would like to tell a few words about the history and development of the events regarding the Orthodox crosses in Crimea, of which a lot was written in the press for anti-Tatar and anti-Islamic propaganda.

As you remember, last spring huge boards with the text “Crimea is the cradle of Orthodoxy!” and large-size Orthodox crosses began to appear near the central highways and especially near the entrances to towns and settlements. Then with L. Hrach’s active participation a decision was adopted to build a huge complex of another Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchy in Simferopol’s central square. The plans to erect either 400 or 2000 “road crosses” in the whole of Crimea are under consideration.

We are trying to clarify the problem, who needs this and why. We were especially alerted by the sudden “Orthodox zeal” of the Communists because there has been nothing from their side which might resemble repentance for the crimes which they had committed under the Soviet rule against both Orthodox and Muslim peoples, as well as other religions. There are speculations that all this is in connection with the 2000th anniversary of Christianity. But all religions have certain significant dates and holidays, and if everyone begins to install symbols of his religion everywhere and without restrictions, what will come of it? The Religious Department of the Crimean Muslims was forced to issue the statement in which it made an attempt to explain to those who initiated the “baptizing” of Crimea that they were living not in a single-ethnic Russian village but in a multiconfessional region and their behaviour in this delicate issue should have been more decent. In response, Russian-language press began to publish statements made by Orthodox clergy that the declaration of the Religious Department of the Crimean Muslims had been dictated by the Mejlis which is on friendly terms with the “apostate” Metropolitan Filaret and that we did not realize what goodness was brought to all people by the Orthodox cross, etc.

Since the very beginning of the installation of provocative slogans and crosses, Crimean Tatars, full of indignation, began to appeal to the Mejlis that if it did not undertake any measures for stopping this political hooliganism, they would undertake the relevant measures themselves. We have requested them to abstain from the unilateral dismantling the crosses because we understood that this surely would be used by certain forces for aggravating anti-Tatar hysteria and would not serve the cause of strengthening the already not very stable inter-ethnic relations. But the number of crosses continued to increase, and then what the initiators of the “cross” campaign had planned was finally realized.

The first cross was dismantled in the village Kapshor in Sudak district by the decision of the regional Mejlis where about a thousand of indignant Tatars were present. This was a huge multi-ton cross made of cast iron in the Russian city Lipetsk<...> And it was installed at the highest hill in the settlement on which there are pre-war Crimean Tatar graves. An outsider might get the impression that all residents of this settlement, including the Muslims, lived there under the protection of an Orthodox cross.<...>

I would like to add that large-scale installation of crosses outside the temples is not practiced in any Christian or Orthodox country, even in Russia and Ukraine in general, and I have visited a lot of countries. Such absurdities did not happen in Crimea even in the Russian Empire period when Orthodoxy was the official state religion, because there was enough wisdom to understand what consequence this might have. But it can be easily assumed why the “baptizing” of Crimea was undertaken at this moment under the “keen leadership” of a Communist-atheist.

Consideration of the Crimean Tatar problem in the PACE

Among last year’s most positive events, I would like to note the parliamentary hearings in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine dedicated to restoration of the Crimean Tatar people’s legal rights and the hearings on the Crimean Tatar problems in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, which took place on the same day, 5 April 2000. I have already spoken about the importance of the document adopted by the Ukrainian Parliament and the procedure of its adoption. This is why I shall brief only on the hearings in Strasbourg.

This event is really very important for us because it was the first time that the Crimean Tatar problems were considered by this highly respected international organization. Numerous diplomats, including the Ukrainian Ambassador accredited to PACE, congratulated us on this occasion. This event was preceded by much work by our legal department, our contacts with different international organizations, our participation in different international conferences and symposiums, meetings with the PACE leaders, with diplomats in NATO headquarters in Brussels, with the Deputies of the European Parliament from different countries.

The informational bulletin “Krimski Studii” # 3, which was published in Kiev in Ukrainian and English by the Crimean Tatar Information and Documentation Center<...>, has published the shorthand report of the hearings in the Parliamentary Assembly and Recommendations of the Parliamentary Assembly for resolution of the Crimean Tatar problems. Of course, the content of the Recommendations is not exactly the same, as we wanted it to be. Many problems, which we are facing, are not reflected there. Judging from the shorthand report of the hearings, it can be seen that the participating Deputies have little idea of the essence of Crimean Tatar people’s problems. Mainly this is our fault. We should have worked with the Deputies better, we should have supplied all Deputies with sufficient information in English or French, we should have studied draft Recommendations and put forward our proposals before their consideration at the relevant committee of the Parliamentary Assembly, we should have had our permanent representative in Strasbourg who would have informed us and fulfilled our instructions. For numerous reasons, we were unable to do this. Now we already have the Mejlis representative in Strasbourg. We have had a meeting in Kiev with the delegation from the Council of Europe. They were interested in the way of implementation of their recommendations, and we have reached agreement on closer contacts.

During the previous period the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People was obviously dealing with the whole complex of the problems faced by our people, but due to time restrictions for the report I have decided to speak in detail mainly about these issues. All information about the Mejlis activities was regularly published in our press, and in case the delegates have any questions, the Mejlis members and its Chairman can give brief answers to them within the time limits envisaged by our agenda.

As the conclusion, a couple of words about the document for adopting which this Kurultay session had been convened: the draft Regulations on elections of the delegates to the Kurultay of the Crimean Tatar People. In conformity with this document, in case of its adoption, a number of new provisions are introduced, thus substantially changing the quantitative and qualitative composition of the next 4th Kurultay.

First, 250 delegates are supposed to be elected, i.e. approximately 80 delegates more than there are in this Kurultay. The main positive aspect of this novelty is the fact that there will be greater choice for electing the new Mejlis because the Mejlis members are elected exclusively from among the delegates of the Kurultay, and also the fact that more people will be involved into the main structure of our highest representative authority, and this envisages our people’s greater activity.

Second, some delegates (50 persons) will be elected from the Crimean Tatar voluntary and political organizations. You should judge to what extent this is expedient. I shall only say that this decision is a kind of compromise between those who consider that elections should be conducted only basing on single-mandate system and those who consider that the delegates should be elected only from voluntary and political organizations.

The third novelty is the fact that qualification for the knowledge of the Crimean Tatar language is introduced for the delegates’ election. This means that any Ukrainian citizen, regardless of his nationality and religious confession, might be elected as the delegate of the Kurultay on condition he knows the Crimean Tatar language. I consider this novelty to be well justified because the Kurultay will not lapse to the Russian language if certain delegate does not know the Crimean Tatar language. And if a person does not understand the content of the discussions at the Kurultay, there will be minimum use from him as a delegate.

Immediately after adoption of the Regulations and the end of the session we should come to election of the delegates of the 4th Kurultay. It is very important to have strictly democratic elections and to elect our people’s representatives who deserve this the most of all because the nation’s permanent representative authority, the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, is elected only from among them.

Thank you for your attention.