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Sayı/Number : 1 Kasım/Novemer 2020Cilt/Volume: 1
Journal of Internatonal Mgraton and Humantaran Studes
ULUSLARARASI GÖÇ ve İNSANİ ÇALIŞMALAR DERGİSİ
Journal Of Internatonal Mgraton and Humantaran Studes
Uluslararası Göç ve İnsani Çalışmalar Dergisi
Journal of International Migration & Humanitarian Studies
Cilt 1, Sayı 1, Kasım 2020 / Vol. 1, Issue 1, November 2020
Journal of International Migration & Humanitarian Studies
Cilt 1, Sayı 1, Kasım 2020 / Vol. 1, Issue 1, November 2020
ISSN: 2718-0723
Sahibi ve Yazı İşleri Müdürü / Owner and General Director
Veysel AYHAN
Editörler / Editors
Sezai ÖZÇELİK * Esra TÜYLÜOĞLU * Erdem AYÇİÇEK
Hakem ve Danışma Kurulu / Advisory Board
Erdem AYÇİÇEK, Esra TÜYLÜOĞLU, Fatih ŞEN, Kaan DİLEK, Kemal KAYA, Nazlı
A. ALGAN, Ömer Çağrı TECER, Samir ALTUNKAYNAK, Sezai ÖZÇELİK
Yayın Danışmanı / Publishing Consultant
Nazlı A. ALGAN
Dergi Tasarım ve Mizanpaj
İbrahim DİLEK
İletişim / Contact
Web: www.hps://journal.fmstudies.org/
E-Posta: journal@fmstudies.org
Yayın / Publication
Altı Aylık, Yerel Süreli Yayın
Baskı: Salmat Matbaacılık Ltd. Şti.
Uluslararası Göç ve İnsani Çalışmalar Dergisi, yılda iki sayı yayınlanan uluslararası ha-
kemli bir dergidir. Yayımlanan yazıların sorumluluğu yazarına aiir. © Yayımlanan yazıla-
rın telif hakları Uluslararası Göç ve İnsani Çalışmalar Dergisi’ne aiir, yayıncının izni olma-
dan yazıların tümü, bir kısmı ya da bölümleri çoğaltılamaz, basılamaz ve yayımlanamaz.
Akademik ve haber amaçlı kısa alıntılar yapılabilir.
Journal of International Migration and Hımanitarian Studies
Uluslararası Göç ve İnsani Çalışmalar Dergisi
Cilt 1, Sayı 1, Kasım 2020 / Vol. 1, Issue 1, November 2020
:
:
9
47
65
79
Hakkımızda / About
Uluslararası Göç ve İnsani Çalışmalar Dergisi, zorunlu göç, si-
yaset, uluslararası hukuk, göç, insan hakları ve diplomasi ile
ilgili makaleleri içeren basılı ve çevrimiçi sürümleri bulunan hakemli
bir akademik dergidir. Aynı zamanda bir kitap inceleme bölümü içe-
rir.
Uluslararası Göç ve İnsani Çalışmalar Dergisi, zorunlu göç, insa-
ni yardımlar ve ilgili alanlarda akademik perspektier geliştirmeyi
amaçlamaktadır. Türkçe zorunlu göç literatürüne katkıda bulunmaya
öncelik vermenin yanı sıra, aynı zamanda bölgesel ve global düzeyde
yürütülen teorik, pratik ve / veya saha çalışmalarına katılarak, küresel
zorunlu göç ve insani çalışmalar literatürüne katkı sağlamaktadır.
Derginin yayına hazırlanmasında emeği geçen tüm dostlarımıza
teşekkürü borç biliriz.
§
The Journal of International Migration and Humanitarian Stu-
dies is a refereed academic journal with printed and on-line
versions that includes articles on forced migration, politics, interna-
tional law, migration, human rights and diplomacy. It also includes a
book-review section.
The journal of International Migration and Humanitarian Studies
aims at developing academic perspectives in forced migration, huma-
nitarian aids, and related elds. While it had prioritized contributing
to the forced migration literature in Turkish, the journal also contribu-
tes to the global forced migration and humanitarian studies literature
through engaging in theoretical, practical, and/or eld studies on regi-
onal as well as international level.
§
EXPLANATION AND UNDERSTANDING OF THE
CONFLICT IN THE CRIMEAN PENINSULA: THE
SOVIET GENOCIDE (SÜRGÜN) AND SITUATION OF
THE CRIMEAN TATARS
§
KIRIM YARIMADASINDAKİ ÇATIŞMANIN ANLAŞIL-
MASI ve AÇIKLANMASI: SOVYET SOYKIRIMI (SÜR-
GÜN) VE KIRIM TATARLARININ DURUMU
§
10
1
Abstract: This article aims to make it possible to explain and understand the root cau-
ses of conict in the Crimean Peninsula since the Crimean Tatars have returned their
homeland (Yeşil Ada). The analysis of the sources of the Crimean conict requires to
investigate the history of the peninsula and especially the Soviet Genocide (Sürgün).
After focusing on the psycho-analytical and psycho-dynamics of the Crimean history,
the research uses one of the most important conict resolution theory, the basic hu-
man needs (BHNs) theory, on the Crimean case. The 1994 Crimean Crisis with conict
problems and issues of the Crimean Tatars are examined in this research. In conclu-
sion, the Crimean conict may be resolved by the application of the conict manage-
ment, resolution and transformation. Also, there is a need to have a comprehensive
economic, political, democratic and social reforms in Ukraine and Russia in general
and in Crimea in particular.
Key Words: Crimean Tatars, Ukraine, Basic Human Needs Theory, Deportation, Cri-
mea, conict prevention, conict resolution.
Özet: Bu makale, Kırım Tatarlarının anavatanlarına (Yeşil Ada) dönüşlerinden bu yana
Kırım Yarımadası’ndaki çatışmanın ana nedenlerini anlamayı ve açıklamayı mümkün
kılmayı hedeemektedir. Kırım çatışmasının kaynaklarının analizi, yarımadanın tari-
hini ve özellikle Sovyet Soykırımı’nı (Sürgün) incelemeyi gerektirmektedir. Kırım tari-
hinin psikanalitik ve psiko-dinamiklerine odaklandıktan sonra, araştırmada en önemli
çatışma çözüm teorilerinden olan temel insan ihtiyaçları (BHNs) teorisine Kırım ör-
nekleminde başvurulmuştur. Bu araştırmada, 1994 Kırım Krizi ve Kırım Tatarlarının
sorunları çatışma sorunları ile birlikte incelenmiştir. Sonuç olarak, Kırım çatışmasının,
çatışma yönetimi, çözümü ve dönüşümü uygulamalarıyla çözülebileceği üzerinde du-
rulmuştur. Ayrıca, genel olarak Ukrayna ve Rusya’da ve özel olarak da Kırım’da kap-
samlı bir ekonomik, siyasi, demokratik ve sosyal reformlara ihtiyaç vardır.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Kırım Tatarları, Ukrayna, Temel İnsan İhtiyaçları Teorisi, Sürgün,
Kırım, Çatışma Önleme, Çatışma Çözüm
(
.
.
.
.
.
.
1 Prof. Dr. Çankırı Karatekin Üniversitesi, İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi, Uluslararası
İlişkiler Bölümü Öğretim Üyesi
Cilt 1, Sayı 1, Kasım 2020 / Vol. 1, Iss. 1, Nov. 2020
11
Sezai ÖZÇELİK: Explanation And Understanding of The Conict In The Crimean Peninsula...
1. INTRODUCTION
Although it is not as well-known as the ethnic conicts in Bosnia, Kosova,
and Chechnya currently there is an escalating conict with a non-violence
aspect on the Crimean peninsula between Russians, Ukrainians, and the
repatriating Crimean Tatars. The Crimean Tatars, a “deported people” forced
en masse to relocate from Crimea to remote parts of Central Asia in 1944,
began to return their homeland in 1988.1 In 1988, after more than thirty years
of pressure, the Soviet Union gave the Crimean Tatars permission to return
to Crimea. It is estimated that at least 250,000 Crimean Tatars have already
returned, and it is expected that tens of thousand more have returned in the
21st century.
Together with the dispute between Russia and Ukraine about the
political status of Crimea, the Crimean Tatars’ presence could spark a more
fundamental political crisis. Thus, the multi-national peninsula with very
sharp ethnic, cultural and religious cleavages is slowly turning into an area
of conict that might turn into violence any minute, if the international
community does not pay enough aention to prevent it.2
The Crimean Tatars case provides a clear example of the conictual
relationship between the interest in nation-state building, which is perceived
as vital by weak new states struggling to survive as independent entities,
and the aempt by minorities to preserve and regain their identity. In
the Crimean Tatars case, the ethnic identity is bound to the discourse of
“homeland” and the surgun (deportation).
This paper focuses on the explanation and understanding of the conicts
in the peninsula over the repatriation of the Crimean Tatars. The case of
repatriation of the Crimean Tatars has a number of basic features in common
with other post-Cold War disputes in the Eastern and Central Europe (ECE)
and former Soviet Union (FSU): the presence of minorities whose ethnicity
is shared with neighboring states or kin states (Turkey) which are generally
supportive of their kin, a situation of post-communist socio-political
and economic transition, and the more or less smooth disintegration of
multinational states (the FSU). However, the Crimean Tatars case has a
1 During this brutal deportation, over 250,000 people were relocated. Although the Crimea,
which is located north of Turkey, is today a part of Ukraine, the majority of the peninsula’s
population is Russian. Actually since the 13th century, Crimea was a homeland (rodina/vatan)
for the Crimean Tatars until the deportation (sürgün).
2 Özçelik, Sezai. “The Triangular Conict of Russia, Ukraine, and the Crimean
Tatars: Analysis of the 2014 Crimean Occupation and Annexation”, Sertif Demir (der.),Turkey’s
Foreign Policy and Security Perspectives in 21st Century: Prospects and Challenges, Boca Raton, FL,
USA: Universal Publishers/Brown Walker Press, 2016, ss. 143-167; Sezai Özçelik, “The Analysis
of the Crimean Tatars since 2014 Crimean Hybrid Conict”, Centre for European Studies Working
Papers (CESWP), vol. XII, issue 1, May 2020, ss. 42-64; Özçelik, Sezai. (2015). “Analysis of the
Crimean Tatars Situation during the Occupation of Crimea by Russia in 2014 with the Conict
and Peace Studies Approach”, E-Journal of Law, vol.1, no.1, June 2015, ss. 11-19.
12
certain characteristic that provides opportunities for assessing the same
kind of conicts in the ECE and the FSU countries. In this study, the research
focuses on these characteristics in the analysis of the events and conicts in
the Crimea. The study was undertaken in order to contribute to dealing
with repatriated communities especially in FSU region such as Chechnya,
Caucasus, the Balkans, and Central Asia
This paper consists of the following sections. First, the historical
background of the Crimean Tatars is reviewed. In order to analyze the
contemporary conicts in Crimea today, one must get a clear understanding
of historical developments. Thus, the history of Crimean Tatars from 1700s
up to today show that past historical grievances among Russians, Ukrainians
and the Crimean Tatars constitute one of the major root causes of the
contemporary conicts that exists in the peninsula today. In this chapter, the
study aims to look into the early history of the Crimean Tatars as well as the
1917 revolution and the establishment of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet
Socialist Republic (ASSR). Later, it examines the War period, deportation
(sürgün) and the post war period (the contemporary Tatar movement
and the Gorbachev era). Finally, the paper explores the resurgence of the
Crimean Tatar movement from 1990-1998.
After this historical overview, the basic human needs (BHN) theory is
applied to understand the sources of contemporary conict issues faced
by the Tatars in the Crimea today as well as the other causes of disputes
with the local authorities. In this section, the research probes into both the
specic problems faced by the Crimean Tatars as well as the impact of the
reselement. Relations among the Crimean Tatars, ethnic Russians and
Ukrainians are currently peaceful, but are potentially volatile. The danger of
an ethnic conict provoked within the peninsula or from outside, remains
a serious concern. In the following section, the contemporary problems and
issues of the Crimean Tatars in today’s Crimea are reviewed. In conclusion,
the research suggests some points on the conict resolution options that
were used in the past 1994 Crimean Crisis: conict prevention regime, the
criteria and validity of a model for early warning, the prerequisites and
conditions, and the obstacles to the establishment of such a regime.3
3 Özçelik, Sezai and Soner Karagül, “Ukraine Crisis and Turkey’s Policy toward Crimea”, Karol
Kujawa and Valery Morkva (ed.), 2014 Crisis in Ukraine: Perspectives, Reections, International
Reverberations, Aslan Press, ISBN: 978-83- 939141-7-3, First Publication: Gliwice, December
2015, pp. 99-134; Sezai Özçelik, The Russian Occupation of Crimea in 2014: The Second Sürgün
(The Soviet Genocide) of the Crimean Tatars”, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart Üniversitesi Uluslararası
Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 5(1), 2020, 29-44, DOI: 10.31454/usb.721939
Cilt 1, Sayı 1, Kasım 2020 / Vol. 1, Iss. 1, Nov. 2020
13
2. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
In order to analyze the conicts that exist in Crimea today, one must
get a clear understanding of historical developments. This historical outlook
helps to prove that there have been ongoing conicts between Russians,
Ukrainians, and the Crimean Tatars since 1700s.
2.1. Early History
``Crimea without Crimean Tatars.’’
Tsarina Catherine II
The Crimean peninsula has always been a key crossroad, providing
transport and trading links between East and West, and North and South.
The Crimean Tatar national identity, which is so closely linked to the concept
of its home territory, is of course the product of many years of national
development in which the intertwined concepts of fatherland-motherland
and nation were developed and codied in this people’s collective psyche.
The process of nation building among the Crimean Tatars actually began
with the Russian Empire’s annexation of the independent Tatar state, the
Crimean Khanate, in the year 1783. At the time of the Crimean peninsula’s
conquest, the Crimean Tatars descended from the tribes of Chingiz Khan’s
13th century Mongol Eurasian Empire and earlier nomadic groups, had
an identity, in their shared sense of belonging to the world of Islam. The
Tatars of Crimea had maintained a Sunni Muslim identity since the spread
of Hana Islam into the steppes of the Golden Horde in the 1300s and Islam
permeated all aspects of life in Crimean Tatar society4. The rst aempt to
unite the peninsula into a single Islamic state was made by Haci Giray Khan
from around 1443 to 1466. Hacı Giray claimed direct descent from Chingiz
Khan, and in fact rst aempted to claim sovereignty over the Golden
Horde, but his bid failed, and he therefore set about building up Crimea as
an independent state. The dynasty he established ruled Crimea until 1783,
but from around the end of seventeenth century, the power of the Crimean
Tatar state began to decline. The loss of tribute from Poland and Russia
by 1700, coupled with the decline of the slave trade meant that the Girays
increasingly came to rely on assistance from the Ooman Empire. During
that time, the Oomans themselves became a declining force after a series
of military defeats at the hands of both the Habsburgs and the Romanovs.
Therefore, Russia took advantage of this weakness and began to take a
more aggressive line towards the Crimean Tatars. The Tsars were anxious
to secure their exposed southern steppes against constant Tatar raiding, and
4 Williams, Brian G. “A Community Reimagined. The Role of ``Homeland’’ in the Forging of
National Identity: The Case of the Crimean Tatars”, Journal of Muslim Minority Aairs, Vol. 17,
No. 2, 1997. p 226.
Sezai ÖZÇELİK: Explanation And Understanding of The Conict In The Crimean Peninsula...
14
Cilt 1, Sayı 1, Kasım 2020 / Vol. 1, Iss. 1, Nov. 2020
needed to wrest control of the mouths of major waterways such as the Don
and Dnieper from the Tatars.
Russia rst aacked Crimea in 1687 and 1689. A more serious invasion
in 1736 resulted in the burning of the Giray’s palace at Bahche Sarai. The
nal defeat came in the war of 1768-74. Around 1773, annexation of Crimea
by Russia has already begun. For a decade the Crimean Tatar state lived
on in limbo under the rule of the pro-Russian moderniser Shahin Giray
(who was also Catherine II’s lover). Shahin Giray passed into the Crimean
Tatar mythology as a notorious collaborator with Russia, but his aempts to
remodel the Crimea in Russia’s image were rejected by his compatriots, and
in 1783 Catherine II decided to formally annex the peninsula5.
From the major incorporation of Muslim subjects into the Russian Empire
under Tsar Ivan IV until the mid-eighteenth century, ocial Russian
treatment of these indels had been harsh. Inuenced by the church doctrine
and historical experience, the Russians had considered Muslim subjects
dangerous to state’s internal security and threat to its spiritual well-being.
Ivan IV set the paern for treatment of the Muslims with his two-pronged
aack on Islam. He destroyed the institutional foundations of Islam in
Kazan by destroying schools and mosques, and removing their educated
elite and clergy. He forced many Muslims to convert to Christianity. A
hundred years later, in the Sobornoe Ulozhenie (the law code of tsar Alexei)
of 1649, a special selection was devoted to the problem of Russia’s Muslims.
There it was stated that the punishment for ``proselytizing in the name of
Muhammad was burning at the stake6.
Catherine II, on the other hand, had reversed many policies of persecution
and discrimination against Muslims pursued by her predecessors. There
can be no question that, from Catherine II’s time, the administration viewed
Crimea both as a great potential economic resource and as an exotic place to
live7. Thus, Catherine’s interest in Crimea was economic and political rather
than national or ethnic, regardless in 1783, the statehood of Crimean Tatars
(The Crimean Khanate was destroyed).
After 1783, in addition to deportations, there was also a mass immigration
from the peninsula. In 1778, 30.000 Crimean Tatars were deported from
Crimea, and some 100,000 (out of a then Tatar population of some half
million) left in 1783-91. Thereafter, emigration continued at a steady pace
before another mass departure after the Crimean War (in which the Tatars
were accused of collaboration with the Turks). In the 1850s 100,000 to 150,000
left. By 1860 the total population of the peninsula had fallen to 194,000.
5 Wilson, Andrew, “The Crimean Tatars: A Situation Report on the Crimean Tatars”, London:
International Alert. p 6.
6 Alan W. Fisher, The Crimean Tatars, Stanford University: CA, Hoover Institution Press, 1987,
p.70.
7 Ibid. p. 92.
15
Thereafter, the percentage of the Crimean Tatar population on the peninsula
began to fall sharply as mass Slav immigration began in earnest. The Crimean
peninsula became a popular place for outsiders with the decision to rebuild
Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in 1870, with the growing industrialization, and
with growing popularity of the Crimea’s southern shores as a tourist resort.
In Crimea, especially in the coastal areas, there were valuable vineyards
that needed to be worked on. Thus, Russian government wanted to persuade
Russian landowners and peasants to move to the Crimea to ll the gap of the
population who left the land because of political and social change as well
as mass exodus of the Crimean Tatars into the Ooman Empire territories
(Ak Toprak).. But, by 1793, Russian landowners were only able to bring 226
male serfs to the Crimea, although they were more successful in seling the
other areas of Novorossia.
Instead, the Russians were forced to import various other nationalities
to ll up what appeared to be unnecessarily empty and unproductive land.
Old Believers, Armenians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Germans, and even Swiss
colonists were welcomed to the Crimea with handsome grants of land and
nancial privileges. A Swiss colony took root near Feodosia, a German
colony near Simferopol, and Bulgarian one on the river Alma8.
By 1897 the Crimean Tatars accounted for only 34 percent of the local
population, and only 26 percent in 1921.9
The government continued its policy of encouraging colonization and
selement by any possible means during the rest of the nineteenth century.
Between 1820 and 1860, this policy was much more successful. On the
southern coast of the peninsula, where both climate and land were superior
to that in the north, village and town selement intensied so that by 1854,
out of a total population of more than 250,000, the Tatars accounted for
only 150,000, the Russians accounted for more than 70,000, and Greeks,
Armenians, Germans, and Jews made up the rest10.
Crimean Tatar emigration developed large diasporas in Turkey, Romania,
Bulgaria, and some in USA and Germany. Today between 2 and 5 million
Crimean Tatars live in Turkey11.
8 Ibid. p. 92.
9 Wilson, Andrew, the Crimean Tatars, p. 6.
10 Alan Fisher, p. 92-93.
11 Altan, Mubeyyin Batu. “Structures: The Importance of Family –a Personal Memoir”, in
Tatars of the Crimea: Their Struggle for Survival. 1st ed., Edward Allworth, ed., Central Asia Book
Series. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1998, pp.99-110.
Sezai ÖZÇELİK: Explanation And Understanding of The Conict In The Crimean Peninsula...
Cilt 1, Sayı 1, Kasım 2020 / Vol. 1, Iss. 1, Nov. 2020
16
2.2. The 1917 Revolution and the Establishment of the Crimean
Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) 12
The First World War produced a crisis for the Crimean Tatars-in terms
of both their identity and their loyalty toward the Russian government.
The Tatars had been developing a national movement within the Russian
system, participating in Dumas, and leading various Muslim congresses.
Their economic and cultural life had steadily improved after 1906. At the
beginning of the war, there was no reason for the Tatars to oppose Russia’s
war aims against Germany and Austria; in fact, there was every reason for
them to take part in the war in as eective a manner as possible in hopes of
cultural and economic rewards.
However, war against the Ooman Empire caused problems. These
arose, not because of any special feelings of the Tatars toward the Ooman
government, but rather as a result of Russian policies against what they
believed to be a potential Muslim fth column supporting the Turks. The
record of the leaders of the Crimean Tatar community during the war
indicated that their movement for national separation did not begin until
the war was almost half over. It emerged as an act of self-defense on the part
of the Tatars and other Muslims in the face of a growing Russian hostility
toward them13.
During the war years, the more outspoken defenders of Crimean Tatar
rights were forced to ee the Crimea to avoid arrest. Among them were
Numan Celebi Cihan, and Cafer Seidahmet, both of whom became leaders
of the 1917 Crimean national movement. Along with other Muslim exiles in
the Ooman Empire, these men formed the Commiee for the Defense of
the Rights of Muslim Turco-Tatar peoples of Russia (Rusya Müslüman Türk-
Tatarlarının Hukukunu Müdafaa Komitesi). This action played into the hands
of the Russian administration, which was now given irrefutable proof of the
absence of Turco-Tatar loyalty14.
During the revolutionary months of 1917, the Crimean nationalist
movement passed through three phases. First phase was following the
February Revolution, when the Crimean Tatars struggled to achieve cultural
autonomy. The second phase was when they pressed claims for territorial
autonomy, and nally, following the October Revolution, they struggled
to establish an independent state. Actually, the Crimean Tatars actually
succeeded in establishing a short lived independence under the leadership
of Numan Celebi Cihan, on November 26, 1917, which was taken over by
12 See Kirimli, Hakan. National Movements and National Identity among the Crimean Tatars, 1905-
1916. Ooman Empire and Its Heritage, vol. 7, Leiden:E.J.Brill, 1996.
13 Ibid. p. 109.
14 Ibid. p. 110.
17
Sezai ÖZÇELİK: Explanation And Understanding of The Conict In The Crimean Peninsula...
Bolsheviks shortly after15.
The Tatar National Constituent Assembly (Kurultai) was called to meet in
the palace of the Khans in Bahche Sarai on November 24, 1917. Its delegates
were chosen ``on the basis of a broad franchise of all adult male and female
Tatars’’. After some understandable delay in electoral procedures, the
Kurultay was opened on December 9 and continued to meet until December
26, when it accepted a new constitution for the Crimean state. On that day,
too, the Kurultai transformed itself into a national parliament and elected
from its delegates a Crimean national government led by Celebi Cihan16.
In 1921, the Nar Komnats (Narodniy Kommiseriat Natsionalnastei/Soviet
Nationalities Commissariat) granted Crimea a secondary ranking as the
Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR). Although the
Crimean Tatars were not given de jure recognition as the titular national
group in this republic, they were given de facto recognition as the Crimean
ASSR’s privileged native nationality. This is not surprising as it became
obvious that the Soviet government may have had an ulterior motive in
creating the Crimean ASSR, namely, to use it as a showcase to promote the
rise of communism in neighboring Turkey17.
The Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) was established
on October 18, 1921. Despite the fact that the Crimean Tatars constituted only
25 % of the total population of Crimea, Crimean Tatar was made the ocial
language along with Russian. From 1921 until 1927 the Crimean Tatars
underwent the same tragic changes and oppression as the rest of the Soviet
people. After Lenin’s death, most of the Crimean Tatar intellectuals and the
ruling elite perished during Stalin’s purges. Furthermore, many members
of the Crimean Tatar intelegensia were arrested and charged for being
``bourgeois nationalists’’ and executed. Moreover, hundreds and thousands
of peasants were arrested as ``Kulaks’’ and deported from Crimea. On the
eve of the Second World War, the Crimean Tatars were totally demoralized,
politically weakened and highly vulnerable for any disaster. It was during
this period that the second part of the Russian political goal is to have ``A
Crimea without the Crimean Tatars’’ was accomplished by Joseph Stalin18.
While most able bodied Crimean Tatars were serving in the Soviet Armed
Forces defending the Soviet fatherland, the rest of the Crimean Tatars,
mostly women, children and elderly, were being uprooted from Crimea
15 Pipes, Richard, The Formation of the Soviet Union, Communism and Nationalism, 1917-1923.
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1964, p. 81. In fact, this republic is the rst Turkic
republic in the history even before the establishment of the Republic of Turkey. Also, the rst
female representative in the Turkic world was a Crimean Tatar woman, Seka Gaspirali.
16 Fisher, Alan. p 115.
17 Williams, Brian. p. 233.
18 Altan, Mubeyyin Batu. “Ukraine’s Nationality Problem-The Plight of the Crimean Tatars”,
Crimean Review 7, no. 7, 1995, p 6.
Cilt 1, Sayı 1, Kasım 2020 / Vol. 1, Iss. 1, Nov. 2020
18
with a stroke of a pen by Stalin19.
2.3. The Deportation of Crimean Tatars: 18 May 194420
Ocial Soviet historiography damns the Crimean Tatars for alleged
wartime collaboration with the German and Romanian occupiers of Crimea
regardless of any solid evidence to prove these allegations. Nevertheless,
for Stain the accusation of collaboration was sucient excuse to adopt the
drastic solution to the ``Crimean Tatar problem’’ of wholesale deportation.
During the night of 18 May 1944, without any warning 250,000 Crimean
Tatars were forcibly removed from their homes, loaded on trucks and taken
to the nearest train station where they were loaded on cale wagons and
shipped o to Central Asia, mostly to Uzbekistan. Due to hunger, thirst and
disease 46.2 percent of the total Crimean Tatar population perished during
this mass deportation. The deportation was a well planned operation,
carried out at a time when the Soviet Union was still locked in a desperate
struggle against Nazi Germany. Supervising the expulsion were about 5,000
agents of the Soviet state security services, supported by 20,000 interior
ministry troops and thousands of regular army soldiers21. The survivors of
this mass deportation were conned to highly regimented and strict `special
selements’ until 1956, unable to even visit their relatives or friends in case
of emergency without the permission of the camps’ commander.
In Crimea, the Soviet authorities took steps to eradicate all signs of previous
Tatar selement. The Crimean ASSR was ocially abolished with a decree
published on June 30, 194522. After that, the peninsula became an oblast of
the Russian SFSR. Tatar monuments, cultural facilities, and place names
disappeared with the laer replaced by hastily constructed alternatives such
as ``Sovetskii’’, ``Pervomaisk’’ etc. This aempt to `de-Tatarcise’ Crimea is
essential to an understanding of subsequent Russian aitudes to the Crimean
Tatars. The ocial Soviet interpretation of the Crimean history now claimed
that civilization only came to Crimea in 1783. Before becoming a `Russian
land’, the peninsula was depicted as either virgin territory, or populated by
itinerant migrants who never put down sucient roots to justiably claim
the land as their own. The Crimean Tatars were therefore stereotyped as
nomads and brigands, a people without a history. Instead, post 1783 history
was celebrated, and specically Russian victories and achievements praised,
such as the bales of 1854-55 and 1918, and the German siege of Sevastopol
19 Ibid. p 7.
20 Allworth, Edward. “Renewing Se-Awareness.” in Tatars of the Crimea: Their Struggle
for Survival. 2nd ed., Edward Allworth, ed., Central Asia Book Series. Durham, N.C.: Duke
University Press, 1998a, pp.1-27.
21 Burke, Justin, et.al. Crimean Tatars: Repatriation and Conict Prevention, New York: The Open
Society Institute, The Forced Migration Projects, p 12.
22 Fisher, Alan W. The Crimean Tatars, p. 167. This was rst published in Izvestia on June 28,
1946.
19
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in 1942. In all these events the Crimean Tatars were depicted as marginal
or traitorous gures, ever willing to collaborate with invading German or
Turkish forces.
The current conict between the Crimean Tatars and Russians therefore
has at its roots two mutually incompatible views of history. Both sides
consider themselves as the only true indigenous peoples of the peninsula.
The Crimean Tatars argue that their ethnic roots in the ancient population of
Crimea, and their achievement of statehood from the fteenth to eighteenth
century, mean that the peninsula is their patrimony as the true ``rooted
population’’ (korennoi narod). The Russian and Ukrainian presence in
Crimea is simply the result of conquest and colonization. Moreover, the
Crimean Tatars do not consider themselves as simply `Tatars’. They are
a unique people with only one homeland in Crimea, while Russians are
interlopers whose motherland is far from Crimea23.
The local Russians on the other hand (and also Ukrainians to an extent,
because they are often Russied), have become used to the ocial version
of history which depicts the Crimean Tatars as either an `ahistorical’ rootless
people, or as the natural enemies of Russian statehood, whom Stalin and the
Tsars were fully justied in expunging from the peninsula and from history.
Moreover, much of the present-day population of Crimea is the result of post-
war immigration (the population of Crimea in 1945 had fallen to 228,000,
and was 2,4 million in 1989). A result many Slavs now occupy Crimean Tatar
homes and land, and therefore have a material interest in maintaining the
traditional Russian/Soviet version of history. Such stereotypes, however, are
obviously a key barrier to prospects for future inter-ethnic understanding24.
2.4 The Contemporary Tatar Movement and Repatriation25
On February 19, 1954, Nikita Kuruschev decided to transfer the entire
Crimean oblast to the Ukrainian SSR, as a special gift to commemorate the
300th anniversary of the Ukrainian-Russian friendship26. The hidden reason
behind this transfer was that the Soviet regime needed to integrate Crimea’s
economy into Ukraine’s in order to solve the peninsula’s economic problems.
The majority of the peninsula’s population was ethnically Russian, and
nobody was interested in the views of the Crimean Tatars, who were still
living in deportation in special areas under martial law. Few considered the
23 Wilson, Andrew The Crimean Tatars, p. 9.
24 Ibid. p. 9.
25 Cemiloglu, Mustafa. “A History of the Crimean Tatar National Liberation Movement:
A Sociopolitical Perspective”, in Crimea: Dynamics, Challenges, and Prospects, ed. Maria
Drohobychky, American Association for the Advancement of Science, pp.87-105. Alexeyeva,
Ludmilla. Soviet Dissent: Contemporary Movements for National, Religious and Human Rights.
Translated by Carol Pearce and John Glad. Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press,
1985.
26 Lewykyj, Borys. Politics and Society in Soviet Ukraine, 1953-1980, Edmonton, 1984, p. 5.
Cilt 1, Sayı 1, Kasım 2020 / Vol. 1, Iss. 1, Nov. 2020
20
implications of this move until the Soviet Union found itself on its death-bed
in 1991.
The de-Stalinization campaign, launched by Nikita Krushchev, marked
a watershed for most of the 20 ethnic groups that had been punished
during the war. In his famous secret speech at the 20th Communist Party
Congress in February 24-25, 1956, Kruschev had stunned the world with his
denunciation of Stalin’s crimes. In January 1957 most ethnic groups were
rehabilitated, including Chechens, Ingush, Karacay and Kalmyks. Only
three nationalities-Crimean Tatars, Meskhetian Turks and Volga Germans
failed to receive exoneration. The only gesture made to the Crimean Tatars
was the right to publish a newspaper, called Lenin Bayragi (The Banner of
Lenin)27.
In a special unpublished decree dated April 28, 1956, the Soviet
government almost freed the Crimean Tatars. The catch was that ``their
properties conscated at the time of deportation would not be returned, and
they did not have the right to return Crimea28. Despite its limitations, this
much freedom was enough for Crimean Tatars to get organized and launch
an unprecedented human rights movement in the history of the Soviet
Union, the Crimean Tatar National Movement (CTNM).
The Tatar campaign for the ``right to return’’ began with petitions, signed
by thousands and sent to Soviet leaders in Moscow. In 1961, one petition
containing 25,000 signatures was delivered to the 21st Communist Party
Congress. The increasing numbers of petition signers alarmed Soviet
authorities, who responded with a series of crackdowns that resulted in
harsh sentences for several Tatar activists.
The Crimean Tatar National Movement reached its peak during the Breznev
era. More and more people were actively participating in the movement,
and as a result petitions with over 100,000 signatures were delivered to the
government organs. ``On the eve of the XXIII Party Congress (1966), 14,284
leers and a petition signed by more than 120,000 Crimean Tatars, together
with seven volumes of data was handed to the Central Commiee29.
During those years, the most important development was the
establishment of a permanent Crimean Tatar lobby in Moscow. The Crimean
Tatar representatives were able to establish contact with the leading Moscow-
based Soviet human rights activists such as Andrei Sakharov, Ilya Gabin,
Alexei Kosterin, Alexander Lavut and Pyotr Grigorenko. It has been largely
through the work of such prominent gures that the western observers have
become interested in the Crimean Tatar question.
The intensied lobbying, demonstrations, and determination of Crimean
27 Burke, Justin, et.al. p. 23.
28 Sheehy, Ann. The Crimean Tatars, Volga Germans, and Meshketians, London, 1971,p. 9. This is
a report prepared for Minority Rights Group in London.
29 Whitaker, Ben, ed. The Fourth World, New York, 1970, p. 186
Tatars nally convinced the Soviet authorities to promulgate a decree
on 9 September 1967. But nowhere in this decree the proper name of the
Crimean Tatars was mentioned. This decree that withdraw the accusation
that ``citizens of the Tatar nationality formerly resided in Crimea’’ had
collaborated with Germans was published only in Central Asian press and
most Russians remained ignorant of its contents. At the same time, although
the decree referred to the Crimean Tatars right to `live on any territory of the
Soviet Union’, it described them as having `taken root (kornizatsia) in the
Uzbek and other Union Republics’, and placed severe practical obstacles in
the way of their returning home. Chief obstacle among these was the denial
of exit (vypiska) and entry/residence (propiska) permits from Central Asia
to Crimea. Therefore although some 100,000 Crimean Tatars aempted to
make the journey home in the immediate aftermath of the 1967 decision,
only about 900 families managed to sele permanently in the peninsula30.
The feelings of shock and disappointment among the Crimean Tatars were
profound and a generation that had grown up in exile always believing in
the reversible nature of their displacement began to device a new strategy to
fulll their goal of returning to Crimea. The Crimean Tatars’ shared sense of
injustice and their growing frustration with the Kremlin gradually fostered
the rise of a mass ``Return to Homeland’’ movement among this dispersed
people. In remarkable display of organization and national unity, the
Crimean Tatar activists formed action commiees in all the places of their
exile which worked to energize the Tatars politically, keep their culture alive
and forget greater national solidarity. The activists intensied their eorts
and the Soviet authorities matched the growth of Tatar determination with
an increased willingness to use force.31
In this fashion, the Crimean Tatar nationalists issued the rst ethnically
based, frontal challenge to the Soviet regime in modern history. During that
time, dozens of activists and dissidents were arrested and given lengthy
jail terms in the Gulag. Demonstrations calling for re-establishment of the
Crimean ASSR were forcibly broken up by the militia. Individual Crimean
Tatars who aempted to return to Crimea were routinely beaten, arrested
and deported. Increasingly more Crimean Tatars became involved in the
struggle for homeland by defending friends and neighbors who had been
arrested for opposing the forced selement regime. This was not however,
a spontaneous outburst of frustration as in the case of Intifada. The Crimean
Tatars abstained from violence, the activists skillfully manipulated Soviet
law to demonstrate the illegality of their continued exile and the leaders of
the movement were, increasingly highly educated or white collar workers32.
30 Wilson, Andrew. The Crimean Tatars: A Situation Report on the Crimean Tatars, p. 10.
31 Özçelik, Sezai. “Uluslararası İlişkiler Bağlamında Kırım ve Kırım Tatarları”, , Yücel Öztürk
(ed.), Doğu Avrupa Türk Mirasının Son Kalesi: Kırım, İstanbul: Çamlıca Basım Yayın / 168, 2015,
ss. 341-367.
32 Williams, Brian G. A Comunity Reimagined. The Role of ``Homeland’’ in the Forging of National
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One of the dissidents who is representative of this new parallel leadership
among the Crimean Tatars, Mustafa Cemiloğlu, emerged as the primary
leader of the Tatar cause.
2.5. Gorbachev and the Crimean Tatars
With Mikhail Gorbachev’s ascendancy to the leadership of the
Communist Party (CP) in 1985 new possibilities appeared for the realization
of Tatar aspirations. Gorbachev’s liberalization policies rejuvenated the Tatar
movement. A petition was drafted and signed by 30,000 Crimean Tatars and
sent to President Gorbachev in March of 1987, appealing to him to review the
Crimean Tatars’ national problem with seriousness33. In July 1987, a group of
Tatars succeeded in demonstrating on Red Square. On July 29, 1987, a group
of Crimean Tatar representatives met with Andrei Gromyko. It took the
Gromyko commission eleven months to study the Crimean Tatar problem,
and on July 9, 1988, it declared that due to the demographic changes in
Crimea it was not possible for the Crimean Tatars to return to Crimea and
have their autonomous republic reinstated34.
By the late 1980s it became widely apparent that even Crimean Tatars who
had never seen Crimea had certainly not ``taken root’’ in Central Asia in any
sense, in fact thousands of Crimean Tatars began to move to the Ukrainian
provinces bordering Crimea to the north to position themselves closer to
their cherished homeland.
Signicant concessions to the Crimean Tatars, who maintain their
campaigns of demonstrations in Moscow, Central Asia, and when possible,
in Crimea, only came after the rst semi-democratic elections to the
USSR Supreme Soviet in March 1989. The Supreme Soviet formed a new
commission under Genadii Yanaev on July 12, 1989 which on November 28,
1989 recommended that the Crimean Tatars should be returned to Crimea
under a government sponsored plan, and have their autonomy restored. The
decision ushered in the beginnings of mass Tatar return to Crimea (83,000
were living in the peninsula by May 1990, and 120,000 by October 1990, but
before signicant sums could be disbursed to aid the Tatars, the USSR had
collapsed35.
Identity: The Case of Crimean Tatars, p. 239.
33 “The Crimean Tatar Representatives’ Appeal to M.S. Gorbachev”, The Crimean Review, no.1,
1987, p. 17-19.
34Cemiloglu (Kirimoglu), Mustafa ``Kırım Türklerinin Anavatanlarina Dönüşlerindeki
Dikenli Yol’’, Emel, Ankara, Nov-Dec. 1989, p. 5.
35 “Yanaev Komisyon Raporu”, Kirım-Kırım Türklerinin Aylık Dergisi, April 1990, p. 44.
23
2.6. The Crimean Tatars and the Crimean Tatar Leadership, 1990-199836
The Crimean peninsula had been largely seled over the previous 50
years by Russians and, by the 1990s, there were 1,6 million Russians in
Crimea and 620,000 largely Russied Ukrainians. Although as much as 90%
of this population arrived in Crimea after the war, the Russian portion still
considered Crimea to be part of the historical Russian Rodina (Motherland)
despite its ocial inclusion in the newly independent Ukraine. The regional
Communist party of Crimea was among the crumbling USSR’s most
conservative and, while statues of Lenin were being toppled and Communist
party assets seized elsewhere in the Soviet Union, Crimea was described as
a ``storehouse of conservative forces’’ and an ``oasis of communism’’. The
entrenched and unrepentant local communist bureaucracy that had ordered
the brutal beating and deportation of Crimean Tatars aempting to resele in
Crimea in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s began stirring up the Crimea’s majority
Russian population against the Crimean Tatars arrivals37. The main reason
for this was, after the collapse of the USSR in late 1991, the Crimean Russian
leaders changed course and undertook measures designed to isolate the
peninsula so as to preserve Russian power there. Eventually a determined
group of ethnic Russians began to agitate for Crimea’s return to Russia, and
the issue became a cause celebre (famous lawsuit) in Moscow
The Russian secessionist movement alarmed the Tatar community, which
had lile desire to continue to take orders from Moscow. Both to counter
Russian separatism in Crimea and to provide beer direction to overall
repatriation eort, Tatar activists decided to formalize existing leadership
arrangements. The Second Kurultai, or national assembly of the Crimean
Tatar People, convened in the Crimean capital of Aqmesjit (Simferopol) in
26-30 June 1991 (the assembly was called the Second Kurultai in order to
emphasize continuity with the body rst established in December 1917). The
Kurultai adopted a national ag (the symbol of the Giray dynasty on a light
blue background) and hymn (Ant Etkenmen) for the Crimean Tatar people.
It also passed the “Declaration of National Sovereignty of the Crimean Tatar
People” which stated that ‘Crimea is the national territory of the Crimean
Tatar people, on which they alone possess the right to self-determination’.
Furthermore, it declared that ‘the political, economic, spiritual and cultural
rebirth of the Crimean Tatar people is only possible in their own sovereign
national state’. The Tatars also claimed control over all ‘the land and natural
resources of Crimea’. However, the Declaration also stated that ‘relations
between the Crimean Tatars and [other] national and ethnic groups living
in Crimea must be based on mutual respect and the recognition of human
36 Allworth, Edward. “Mass Exile, Ethnocide, Group Derogation–Anomaly or Norm in Soviet
Nationality Politics?” in Tatars of the Crimea: Their Struggle for Survival. 2nd ed., Edward
Allworth, ed., Central Asia Book Series. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1998b, pp.
180-206.
37 Williams, Brian G. p. 244.
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and civic rights’.38
Refat Chubarov, Vice Chairman of the Mejlis, stated at the Crimean
Parliament in Simperopol, for the Crimean Tatar movement non-violence
was a key, although not an absolute principle. On some occasions the
Crimean Tatars could not adhere the principles of non-violence. On this
issue, Chubarov said:
recently the Crimean Tatars have been forced on several occasions to act
inconsistently with the principle of non-violence, but these were instances of
self-defense, including defending new selements from pogroms. When the
Crimean government threateningly sent in the military or when buildings
were being torn down, people would not simply look on without acting to
prevent it from happening’39.
In July 1993, the second session of Kurultai supported the restoration of
the Latin alphabet, which was forcibly changed rst to Arabic and then to
Cyrillic in the 1930s, for the Crimean Tatar language.
The Kurultai also selected a standing body, known as the Mejlis, which
was designed to operate as a shadow legislative body advocating Tatar
issues. Mustafa Cemiloglu, the dissident leader, was elected as the Mejlis
President. The Kurultai with the establishment of the Mejlis, the Tatars
signaled their intention to become a permanent and immovable part of the
Crimean political landscape40. Consequently, Crimean Tatars would create
their own organizations and would develop their own political strategies.
In the Summer of 1993 radical from the Mejlis, led by the head of
Bakhcisarai Mejlis Ilmi Umerov, announced their intention to reestablish the
Milli Firka (National Party), the radical Tatar party prominent in the events of
1917-18. According to Umerov, the Milli Firka struggle against both Russia
and Ukraine as “occupying power” and against “the authorities in Crimea
[who] are a colonial administration”. Moreover, Umerov has declared that
“our aim is a national state of the Crimean Tatar people, on all territory of
Crimea”, in which ethnic Crimean Tatars will receive priority treatment.41
Similarly, an organizing commiee for an Adalet (Justice) appeared in 1995
under Mejlis member Server Kerimov, as did a shadowy Islamic Party of
Crimea.42
Besides Milli Firka, there are other Crimean Tatar organizations currently
38 Avdet, nos.15/16, 11 July 1991, and Document 1: Declaration of National Sovereignty of the
Crimean Tatar People, Translated by Edward A.Allworth, in The Tatars of Crimea: Return to the
Homeland, ed. Edward A.Allworth, Duke University Press, Durham, 1998, p.352-354.
39 “The Rise of Nationalism in Eastern Europe & the Former Soviet Union–Dierent
Nationalisms: The Case of Crimea”, Uncaptive Minds, Special Double Issue, Summer-Fall 1997,
vol.9,nos 3-4 (33-34), p. 45.
40 Burke, Justin, et.al. Crimean Tatars: Repatriation and Conict Prevention, p. 28
41 The draft programme of the Milli Firka can be found in Avdet, no. 18, 9 September 1993.
42 Wilson, The Crimean Tatars: A Situation Report on the Crimean Tatars, p.298.
25
active in Crimea. One of the main one is the National Movement of the
Crimean Tatars (NMCT) that was established in 1967. The NMCT has
largely continued the traditions of the protest movement of the 1950s and
1960s. In the late 1980s it supported the restoration of the Crimean ASSR
rather than the creation (or recreation) of a Crimean Tatar national state, and
since 1991 unlike the Mejlis and Organization of the Crimean Tatar National
Movement (OCNM), has challenged the Crimean authorities. NMCT has
favored cooperation with the Crimean Supreme Soviet.
OCNM is the largest of the three Tatar groups. After a split with the
moderate NMCT, it was formed in May 1989. The OCNM is a radical
nationalist party, which although strictly nonviolent, has 600-800 members.
Its guiding principle is “the return of [all] the Crimean Tatar people to their
historic homeland and the restoration [vosstanovlenie] of their national
statehood.”43 The OCNM was largely responsible for organizing the elections
to the Kurultai in 1991; half of the Mejlis’ ruling council of 33 are members
of the OCNM.
Since their mass return, the political situation of Crimean Tatars has had
three characteristics. Although, their numbers reached at around 250,000-
260,000 (10 percent of local population), there were too many Tatars to be
ignored but to few seriously to challenge the power of the Russophone
majority of Crimea. Second, there was a contradiction between the radical
agenda about ‘sovereignty’ and ‘indigenous rights’ and the realities of the
Tatars’ minority position in the 1990s. Third, Crimean Tatars pragmatically
and practically aligned themselves with Ukraine and Kyiv, but they often
had lile support in return44.
Since 1991 the Tatar Mejlis has claimed the right of self-determination over
the whole peninsula, in eect demanding the creation of an ethnic Crimean
Tatar state. However, they are not accepted by Russians and Ukrainians
as an ocial organ. Local authorities in Crimea are still insisting that the
Crimean Tatars should be considered as one of the ``minority groups’’
which fails to do justice to the Crimean Tatars’ special historical claims and
sense of rootedness in the peninsula. If the authorities continue to treat
them as a marginal group, it can only encourage the process of the Tatars’
radicalization.
Before 1994 Crimean Council election, The Mejlis demanded 24 seats
in the 98-member chamber and the right of the Crimean Tatar people to a
veto in a council. After mass demonstrations, they received 14 seats in the
chamber plus four seat for the other deported peoples-the tiny Qrymchag
43 Wilson, Andrew. “Politics in and around Crimea: A Dicult Homecoming”, in The Tatars of
Crimea: Return to the Homeland, ed. Edward A.Allworth, Duke University Press, Durham, 1998,
p.352-354.
44 Chubarov, Refat. “Dierent Nationalisms: The Case of Crimea”, Uncaptive Minds, Summer-
Fall 1997, nos.3-4 (33-34), pp.48-54.
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(Kirimcak) and Qaraim (Karaim) populations. During 1994, the Kurultai
held considerable weight in the Crimean politics45. In October 1994, Ilmy
Umerov became the rst member of the Kurultai to be appointed to a major
government post, deputy prime minister responsible for health, social
security, and ethnic aairs. Moreover, Refat Chubarov became a head of
the commiee for nationalities policy and deported nations in the Crimean
Council.
The summer of 1996 was a particularly sensitive time for the Mejlis. The
Third Kurultai convened in Aqmesjit (Simferopol) in June 1996. The primary
responsibility of the Kurultai was electing a new Mejlis. Two-thirds of the
Mejlis ended up changing, with radicals such as Umerov and Kerimov. The
core leadership remains in place, meaning moderate policies are likely to
continue in the near term.
3. BASIC HUMAN NEEDS THEORY AND THE ANALYSIS OF THE
CRIMEAN TATAR CASE
According to scientists, social-psychological theories possess strength
to explain the emergence of social orders. John Dollard assumed that
frustration was both a necessary and a sucient condition of aggression.46
In his book, Abraham Maslow theorized human needs theory.47 He asserted
that human beings are motivated to satisfy their ontological needs. Maslow
enumerated these needs in a hierarchy of basic and meta needs. He believed
that the satisfaction of meta and physiological needs (hunger and identity)
is very important for human survival and self-actualization.
John Burton indirectly makes a relationship between Abraham Maslow’s
basic needs theory and the frustration-aggression theory developed by John
Dollard in the 1930s.48 Today, in the eld of conict resolution, most scholars
apply basic human needs (BHNs) theory in order to explain the ‘root causes’
of intra-state conicts. According to BHNs theorists, conicts often occur
when the needs for physical security and well being; communal or cultural
recognition, participation and control; and distributive justice are repeatedly
45 Doroszewska, Ursula. “Reclaiming a Homeland: An Interview with Mustafa Dzhemilev.”,
Uncaptive Minds 5, no.3 (21), Fall 1992, pp.51-62.
46 Dollard, John. Frustration and Aggression, New Have: Yale University Press, 1939, p.1;
Ogretir-Ozcelik, Ayse Dilek. (2017). Explanation and Understanding of Human Aggression:
Freudian Psychoanalytical Analysis, Fromm’s Neo-Freudian Perspectives, and Bandura’s
Social Learning Theory, International Journal of Social Science and Economic Research, vol. 2,
no.1, January 2017, ss. 2151-2164.
47 Maslow, Abraham. Motivation and Personality, New York: Haper & Row, 1954
48 Burton, John. Conict: Resolution and Provention, St. Martin Press: New York, 1990; Öğretir-
Özçelik, Ayşe Dilek (2017). “Agression Theories Revisited: Lorenz’s NeoInstinctivism, Wilson’s
Socio-Biology, and Skinner’s Behavioral Theories”, Journal Of Asian Scientic Research, vol. 7,
no. 2, pp. 38-45.
27
denied and threatened especially over long periods of time.49
As a one of the main theorists, John Burton recognizes that positions or
issues may be only the manifest levels of some types of conict and that the
real conict may reach deeper, to basic human needs.50 These needs underlie
interests, values, interests, and positions. Unlike positions, interests, or
values, needs are ontological and non-negotiable. Individuals and groups of
individuals pursue fulllment of these BHNs. Burton claims:
Human needs theory argues that there are certain ontological and
genetic needs that will be pursued, and that socialization process, if not
compatible with such human needs, far from socializing, will lead to
frustrations, and to disturbed and anti-social personal and group behaviors.
Individuals cannot socialized into behaviors that destroy their identity and
other need goals and, therefore, must react against environment that do
this¼Behaviors that are a response to frustration of such human needs will
often seem aggressive and counterproductive, but they are understandable
in this context.51
In the case of the Crimean Tatars, it is obvious that the systemwide political,
economic, and cultural disintegration and the aempts at reintegration
along ethnic lines are the principal sources for the emergence of an ethno-
national conict. The Crimean Tatars dene their national identity in the
realm of homeland discourse which connects the political, economic and
cultural realms. Their homeland -Crimea- is an inseparable part of their
national identity. Competition over political, economic and cultural issues
aims to fulll their return to homeland. Overall, the return to homeland is
reproduced by the chosen traumas and chosen glories.52 For the Crimean
Tatars the main chosen trauma is the deportation (surgun) and the main
chosen glory is the establishment of the Crimean ASSR in 1921.
Most BHNs theorists distinguish needs, values, interests, and positions.
Positions (or issues) comprise the surface layer. Underneath this layer are
interests which are dened as “central to ¼ thinking and action, forming
the core of many aitudes, goals, and intentions”.53 The layer below
interests is made up of values-and this where culture enters. Thus, culture
49 For more information, E.E. Azar. The Management of Protracted Social Conict: Theory and
Cases, Hampshire, England: Dartmouth Publishing Company Ltd., 1990, J. Burton. Conict:
Human Needs Theory, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990; Sezai Özçelik, Uluslararası Çatışma
Analizi ve Çözümü, Ankara: Nobel Yayınevi.
50 Burton, John. Resolving Deep-rooted Conict: A Handbook. Lanham, MD: University Press of
America, 1987, p.15.
51 Burton, John. Conict: Resolution and Provention, St. Martin Press: New York, 1990, p.33-34.
52 Ogretir, Ayse Dilek and Dr. Sezai OZCELIK, (2008). “The Study Of
Ethnocentrism, Stereotype And Prejudice: Psycho-Analytical And Psycho-Dynamic Theories”,
Journal Of Qafqaz University, 24 Fall 2008, ss. 236-244.
53 Prui, D.G. and J.Z. Rubin. Social Conict: Escalation, Stalemate, and Selement, New York:
Random House, 1986, p.10.
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28
is reasonably deep, but it is far from fundamental.54 The fundamental layer
consists of basic human needs. Needs are ontologically given and essentially
non-negotiable.55 For Prui and Rubin, interests are virtually universal
and perceived as the root of conict. Overall, BHNs theory try to answer
following questions: “What are the fears and concerns that are behind their
claims or demands?” “Why is the other party advocating a given position?”
“What do they consider to be their BHNs that are being denied, frustrated
or threatened?” Answering these questions requires the parties to try to
understand the historical and cultural perspective of the other side in order
to beer comprehend why it feels aggrieved.
In the Crimean Tatars case, there are two positions. On the one hand, the
Crimean Tatars demand the re-establishment of national autonomy and
self-determination. On the other hand, for Russians, the return of Crimean
Tatars means a deterioration of their own living standards. For Ukrainians,
Tatars are allies in the struggle with Russia over possession of Crimea, but
they are extremely sensitive to questions relating to the unity of independent
Ukraine. The stability and inter-ethnic harmony in Crimea are in the interest
of both sides. The greater the stability, the greater the economic growth, and
the more jobs created. In other words, conict-prone situation in Crimea
costs both sides. Hence, to beer understand the conict situation in
Crimea, we should focus on both sides needs. For Crimean Tatars, the basic
human needs is the recognition of communal and cultural identity which is
closely linked to ‘homeland’-Crimea. On the other hand, both Russians and
Ukrainians worry about their physical security and well-being.56
The best way to resolve deep-rooted conicts is problem-solving approach.
For this, one must dig out interests and needs buried beneath positions.
In other words, one needs to get beneath the surface things-personalities,
positions, and issues-to underlying causes. And solutions must fulll the
basic needs of all the parties. In this process, third party’s role as a facilitator
is crucial in order to show both parties the eects and costs of conict.
Moreover, the parties avoid positional arguing and emotional outbursts and
see a conict as a problem requiring the parties to work together to nd a
creative and integrative solution. Consequently, both parties take the other
side’s needs and concerns into account when structuring a solution.
There are some major limitations in the BHNs theory. First, it does not
54 Öğretir, A.D., “The Relationship Between Culture and the Conict Resolution Styles: A
Survey Method and a Statistical Analysis” Middle-East Journal of Scientic Research, 3 (2), 2008,
96-104.
55 Avruch, Kevin and Peter W.Black. “Ideas of Human Nature in Contemporary Conict
Resolution Theory”, Negotiation Journal, July 1990, p.224.
56 Özçelik, Sezai ve Ayşe Dilek Öğretir, “Islamic Peace Paradigm and Islamic Peace
Education: The Study of Islamic Nonviolence in Post-September 11 World”, IV. ATCOSS
Arap-Türk Sosyal Bilimler Kongresi, “Ekonomi, Eğitim ve Kalkınma”, 26-27 Ekim 2014,
Amman, Ürdün, Ankara: SDE Yayınları, 2015, ss. 237-255.
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29
consider the cultural component of conict. Second, it is dicult to prove
empirically the existence of human needs and the link between these needs
and actual behavior. Regardless of its limitations, in my opinion, BHNs
theory is still the most eective framework in explaining this particular
conict. First, it aempts to explain interstate and ethnic conicts that have
been dominant after Cold War. Second, it introduces analytical approach
and the relationship among needs, interests, values, and positions to conict
resolution. Third, a human needs approach allow us to examine the micro-
macro problem by focusing on individuals, groups, structural relationships.
Lastly, it has heuristic value for evaluating the extent to which social
institutions and structures fulll human needs. In short, it oers a realistic
foundation for understanding the sources of individual behavior, a basis in
which to analyze social change and continuity, and a standard by which to
evaluate the progressiveness of changes occurring in world society.
4. CURRENT PROBLEMS AND CONTEMPORARY CONFLICT
ISSUES OF THE CRIMEAN TATARS
In Crimea, we have a multi-ethnic state undergoing a painful socio-
economic and political transition where the Crimean Tatars are struggling
for their perceived rights such as to be a rightful citizen of Ukraine, able to
use the social services for themselves and for their families, to be able let
their voices heard in the Crimean political arena in their process of nation-
state building. Since there are three major ethnic groups that share the
peninsula, for obvious reasons, the nationalist card plays an important role
in the hands of some politicians and the needs of the Crimean Tatar peoples
runs in endless circles.
Today, the returning Crimean Tatars face three major problems: The
social conditions, the economic conditions, and Tatars’ constitutional and
political position of the `Republic of Crimea’ since 199257.
Under the social conditions the citizenship, language and land disputes
questions are the three most important issues for the Crimean Tatars. In
addition to these three main factors; chauvinism of ethnic Russians towards
the Tatars, religious dierences between Ukrainians, Russians and Muslim
Tatars, and the need for cultural and educational institutions; also place
additional burden on the repatriates.
Today Ukraine still does not grant the right of citizenship to repatriating
Tatars and still treats them as one of the ``national minorities’’ causing
enormous amount of economic, and social problems to returning masses.
The ambiguity of Ukraine’s citizenship law regarding the acquisition of
Ukrainian citizenship is a very important concern for the repatriates. Ukraine
57 Doroszewska, Ursula. “Crimea: Whose Country”, Uncaptive Minds 5, no.3, serial no.21, 1992,
pp.39-50.
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does not accept dual citizenship, thus repatriates rst have to denounce their
other citizenship (in case of most Crimean Tatars it is Uzbek citizenship).
Persons born in Ukraine and living in Ukraine at the time of independence
are considered citizens. The non-citizens do not have a right to have a place
of residence and accordingly they a not register at the workplace. If they are
not registered at the work place and don’t have a place of residence, they
are denied to have an access to free medical care and other social services
guaranteed by the state. According to 1997 U.S. Department of States Human
Rights Country Report, 100,000 of the 250,000 Tatars who have returned
to Crimea are homeless, unable to nd jobs, and illness and death rate,
particularly among children and elderly people have increased sharply.
In addition as non-citizens, repatriates are excluded from participation
in elections and from right to take part in privatization of land and state
assets. The 1998 elections renewed the conict between the Ukrainian state
and the Crimean Tatars, because 90,000 of the repatriates were denied to
right to have a vote based on their status as non-citizens. As a result they
have almost no representation in the Crimean Parliament where they had
fourteen (14) representatives prior to last election, elected by the Crimean
Tatars themselves. One of the real reasons for this denial was the fear that
all Crimean Tatars may vote for the Nationalist Rukh (Popular Movement
of Ukraine) party58.
Ukraine seems to be wanting to help the Crimean Tatars to resele in
Crimea, by showing willingness to nance the repatriation, and trying to
get the world community to help the Crimean Tatar’s return. But if one looks
closely one can see that Ukraine’s position towards the Crimean Tatars is
inconsistent in many ways. First of all, Ukraine’s government is ignoring
and delaying a decision on the political and legal aspects of the problem.
Under current law, more than one hundred thousand Crimean Tatars living
in Crimea, forty percent of who have returned, can not receive Ukrainian
citizenship.
There is obviously a duality in the approach of Ukraine’s government
towards the Crimean Tatars. Many Ukrainian politicians can not rid
themselves of the stereotype of the Crimean Tatar that was for decades
propagated in Soviet history and ocial propaganda. Soviet history books
made sure that ``chosen glories’’ of the heroic Russ against Barbaric Tatars,
as well as the ``chosen traumas’’ that caused horric and painful memories
in the hands of Turco-Tatar peoples in general.
The Ministry for Nationalities and Migration that was established in
Kyiv in April 1993, and their task is ``assisting the return of the deported
peoples, supporting their linguistic and cultural rebirth, and dening their
58 Doroszewska, Ursula. “We Prefer Ukraine: An Interview with Nadir Bekirov”, Uncaptive
Minds 8, no.2 (29), Summer 1995, pp.55-61.
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legal status59. Regardless on July 22, 1997 the Ukrainian government and
the president’s oce have submied a bill to the Parliament under which
Ukrainian would become the only ocial language in Ukraine. The bill
proclaimed Ukrainian as the only ocial language in all social spheres
throughout the country, including the autonomous region of Crimea.
Furthermore, according to this bill all civil servants and other persons
speaking languages other than Ukrainian in public oces could be ned60.
This discriminatory ``Ukrainian language’’ requirement creates an obstacle
for the repatriates. Almost all Crimean Tatars speak Russian uently. That
is because they all were educated within the Soviet system. They also speak
Uzbek, since it is a sister language to Tatar, and because the Crimean Tatars
had lived in Uzbekistan after their deportation in 1944. Naturally, most
of them (especially the elderly) speak Tatar. Thus, Ukrainian is literally a
foreign language to them, and this creates another pressure on the Crimean
Tatars and their relationship with the Ukrainian government. Currently,
Crimean Tatars demand that the Mejlis parliament be recognized as the only
representative body of the Crimean Tatar people, but so far it does not seem
like this is going to become a reality in the near future.
In the mean time the Crimean Tatar people look at these political and
social issues within their own realm. After forty-ve years of exile, they are
now nally returning to their homeland, their father’s lands (otechestvo) to
resele, and their only goal is rebirth as a nation. They all realize that they
need to establish both legal and nancial conditions necessary for their return
and reselement. They know that this rebirth is not going to be an easy one,
but they return to their land regardless. Their land and property was taken
from them in 1944, so most now live in makeshift accommodation as they
try to construct new communities in the face of economic hardship and the
obstructive aitude of local authorities. Although most Tatars are returning
to their traditional homelands in central Crimea, severe restrictions are
placed on their selement in the more prosperous coastal strip, the Crimea’s
key economic region61. Despite the limitations, they are trying to build
houses in towns by carrying stones from the near by mountains, they live
without water, without electricity, without any basic human needs. They
are also trying to rebuild their social lives from zero in a new environment.
Moreover, they are trying to build schools where they can educate their
children in their native tongue, print textbooks, construct roads, telephones,
water pipes, all of which require the support of a government under normal
circumstances. The Crimean Tatars don’t have such support, and they take
on the government’s role themselves. In each village a Mejlis is elected by
the local population that takes upon a great responsibility. It tries to arbitrate
personal and local conicts, including between individuals from dierent
59 Wilson, Andrew. The Crimean Tatars, A Situation Report on the Crimean Tatars, p. 20.
60 RFE/RL report, July 23, 1997.
61 Wilson, Andrew. The Crimean Tatars: A Situation report on the Crimean Tatars, p. 1.
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ethnic communities that might otherwise grow into something larger. The
local government is often connected to the Maa and provokes conicts
that easily could end in bloodshed. Most of the local conicts are caused
by Maa who wants to control everything. The criminal world at times
purposefully instigates tensions, but The Russian mass media uses these
local conicts to foster ethnic conict in a dangerous fashion. These kinds
of twisted information inict a lot of economic damage on all of Crimea,
especially in tourism.
There is no system of education for teaching in Crimean Tatar. In
Simferopol there is a School of the Crimean Tatar language, where about 30
students are accepted each year. Furthermore, there is Crimean Industrial
Pedagogical Institute, where 65 percent of the students are Crimean Tatars.
There are only four secondary schools with teaching in the Crimean Tatar
language. In addition the Ministry of Education of Turkey hosts 25 to 30
students each year at various institutions of higher learning in Turkey62.
This is denitely not enough for the children of repatriating Crimean Tatars.
This kind of an educational necessity inadvertently creates some other
problems. For example, there is a Turkish High School of Crimea in the city of
Kerch that was established in 1993 by Fetullah Hoca (an Islamic sect/tariquat
leader from Turkey). This high school is only for boys and enrolls over 200
students, about 70 % Crimean Tatars and 30% Ukranians and Russians. There
are also plans to open a school for girls. This school’s curriculum is mostly
in English, with language courses oered in Turkish, Ukrainian, Russian,
and Crimean Tatar. The school has an excellent academic reputation having
won several awards recently. The school is nanced completely with Turkish
funds. Although this school seems like a good thing for the Crimean Tatar
students, due to Fetullah Hoca’s hidden agenda, unintentionally it may also
help Russian mass media’s claim of spread of Islamic fundamentalism in
Crimea through nances and ideology that are imported from the kin state,
Turkey.
Under the economic conditions, rst we can look into the unemployment
rates among Crimean Tatars as well as in Ukraine in general. The United
Nations Refugee Agency states that more than half of the working age
population of the Crimean Tatars are unemployed. Actually the level of the
registered unemployment rate of capable workforce in Crimea has increased
by 0.7 per cent and on January 1 amounted to 1.8 per cent. At the end of the
1997 for each vacant place of employment as many as 22 persons applied.
During the last year 85 thousand people or 18 per cent of the workforce were
sent to compulsory, unpaid for leaves. The number of hidden unemployment
62“The Rise of Nationalism in Eastern Europe & the Former Soviet Union–Dierent
Nationalisms: The Case of Crimea”, Uncaptive Minds, Special Double Issue, Summer-Fall 1997,
vol.9,nos 3-4 (33-34), p. 49; Sezai Özçelik, “Kırım’ın İşgali ve Türkiye: Jeo-Strateji, Kamuoyu,
Türkiye-Ukrayna İlişkileri ve Kırım Tatarları”, Ertan Efegil (der.), Türkiye’nin Çatışma
Bölgelerine Yönelik Dış Politikasının Analizi, İstanbul: Gündoğan Yayınları, 2016, ss. 301-335.
in Crimea is 56 thousand63. For the Crimean Tatars, this problem is mainly
connected with unresolved issue of Ukrainian citizenship for the returning
Crimean Tatars. Today, 110,000 Crimean Tatars who have returned to their
original homeland Crimea are without citizenship. As a result, they are
deprived from access to social services to privatization and to land ownership,
as well as to legitimate jobs and so on. According to government statistics
between 1992 and mid-1997, only 141 stateless Crimean Tatars acquired
Ukrainian citizenship. In mid-1997 Ukraine amended its law making it
simpler for repatriates to apply for citizenship. However, it is also true that
at the same time, there was an absence of mechanism for implementing the
new law on citizenship. It is also certain that local authorities, having an
extremely hostile aitude towards Tatars, created obstacles preventing them
from obtaining citizenship.
Furthermore, Crimean Tatars returning from Uzbekistan, nd themselves
in deplorable nancial conditions. The crisis of housing decit, tent cities
and shanty towns, lack of drinking water, electricity, roads and social
services create very dicult living conditions for the repatriates. For a long
time Crimean Tatars demand the re-establishment of the Crimean ASSR that
existed in 1920s, and request monetary compensation from the Ukraine and
Russia as well as from Uzbekistan for their misfortunes after the deportation.
Crimean Tatars claim that since they worked very hard and paid taxes in
Uzbekistan, now they deserve some re-selement fees from Uzbekistan.
Although Uzbeks are also Moslem peoples, it was not easy for Crimean
Tatars to adjust into the life in Uzbekistan. There existed some hostility
between the host Uzbeks and deported Crimean Tatars who were sent
to Uzbekistan without their consent. Initially, some of this antagonism
was partially based on NKVD’s (Narodniy Komiseriat Vnutrinniy Del-
precursor of KGB) anti-Tatar propoganda among Uzbeks during the years
of deportation. Furthermore, Crimean Tatars never saw Uzbekistan as their
new homeland. They have always associated Crimea as their one and only
“homeland” (vatan/ rodina). The one condition that separates the Crimean
Tatars from other deported Turkic peoples is their territorial based identity
with the Crimean peninsula. In addition to this very important fact, having
collective memory of surgun (mass deportation), re-learning how to live in
the Uzbek deserts after being used to living in their green island (yesil ada),
poor working conditions in Uzbek factories after being used to be farmers in
the coastal vineyards in Crimea, kept the Crimean Tatars from assimilating
into the Uzbek society.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Crimean Tatars who continued
to remain in their places of exile felt both the `push’ to leave Central Asia
and the `pull’ of the Crimea. Some of these Tatars had to leave comfortable
63 Turkistan News leer. April 22, 1998. These statistics were provided by the Ukrainian State
Commiee of Statistics.
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housing and successful carriers in Central Asia in order to be able to realize
their dream of repatriation to Crimea. In addition to this `pull’ factor of
repatriation, there were additional incentives for Crimean Tatars to return
to their homeland such as the growing xenophobia on the part of the
Uzbeks who have recently used the slogan `Ruskii doloi, Tatarskii Domoi’
(Down with the Russians, Tatars go home) that created a push factor for the
Crimean Tatars. According to one source, ``hundreds’’ of Crimean Tatar
homes were burned and pillaged by Uzbek gangs who fought another
exiled nation, Meshketian Turks, in the Fergana Valley in June of 198964. The
increasing lack of tolerance toward minorities in Uzbekistan and complete
breakdown of civil society resulting from civil war in neighboring Tajikistan
has certainly provided further incentive for Crimean Tatars to migrate to
the Crimea despite the hostile reception they receive there from the Russian
population and the sacrices made in the quality of life by the returnees65.
Furthermore, Crimean Tatars argue that both Russia (Crimean was part of
Russia in 1944, and Russia claims to be the legal successor of the USSR) and
Ukraine as well as Uzbekistan (host to most of the Crimean Tatars after 1944)
are morally responsible for their plight. But so far, Ukraine and Uzbekistan
failed to reach an agreement on Tatars. At the meeting that took place in Kyiv
on April 18, 1998, Uzbek Prime Minister Utkir Sultanov and his Ukrainian
counterpart, Petro Lazerenko, failed to reach an agreement on the return
of the Crimean Tatars to Crimea. Uzbekistan wants only those who were
actually deported to be given deportee status, while Crimean Tatars and
Ukraine insists that all their relatives and descendants be included66. To date
only Ukrainians have provided some nancial assistance to Crimean Tatars,
although the former USSR authorities had begun to disperse some money
before the collapse of the Union in 1991. However, the Crimean Tatars are
deeply dissatised with the Ukrainian scheme as the money is disbursed
by the local Crimean Cabinet of Ministers, and the Crimean Tatars have
no direct control over when and where that money is spent. According
to the Voice of America report of May 6, 1998, in Geneva, United Nations
Aid Agencies have urgently appealed for international assistance to help
reintegrate more than a quarter-million Crimean Tatars who are living in
desperate conditions into Ukrainian society. According to the same report,
Mr. Dolph Everts remarks that assisting people like the Crimean Tatars can
help to prevent a conict within a society.
Thirdly, Crimean Tatars are concerned about political and constitutional
position of the ‘Republic of Crimea’ since 1992. Although the peninsula
64 Guboglo, M.N. and S.M. Chervonaia, Krymskoe-Tatarskoe National’noe Dvizhenie. Istoria,
Problemi, Perspektivi , Vol. 1, Moscow: Rossiskaia Akademia Nauk, 1992. p. 245.
65 Williams, Brian G. A Community Reimagined. The Role of `Homeland’ in the Forging of National
Identity: The Case of Crimean Tatars. Journal of Muslim Minority Aairs, Volume 17, no. 2, 1997.
P. 247.
66 RFE/RL report. April 19, 1998.
35
remains a constituent part of Ukraine, its leaders, who tend to be pro-Russian
and anti-Tatar, have been granted considerable autonomy, and have used
it to deny the Tatar political representation67. Since 1991 the Tatars have
claimed self determination over the whole peninsula, whereas Crimean
authorities are only prepared to grant them certain `minority rights’. This
clash between two totally dierent conceptions of the Tatars’ rightful place
in the Crimea has led to growing political confrontations between two
irreconcilable camps and the rise of extremist groups on both sides.
The law on elections to the Supreme Council (Verhovna Rada) of Crimea
that was adopted in October 1993 did not provide for any Crimean Tatar
representation in parliament. After these elections, the Crimean Tatars
undertook a campaign of civil disobedience in order to obtain representation,
including closing down railways and blocking highways. As a result of
this campaign, the law was amended to reserve fourteen out of ninety-
eight seats for Crimean Tatars. In the last Ukranian election that took place
on March 29, 1998, two Crimean Tatar deputies (Mustafa Cemiloglu and
Refat Chubarov) were elected to be at Ukrainian Verhovna Rada (Upper
house). This seems to be a fresh start for the time being, but one should
also remember that in the same elections eighty thousand Crimean Tatars
electorate were denied to right to vote68. Although they constitute more
than fty percent of the eligible Crimean Tatars, they were unable to cast
their ballots in the elections because they were not considered as citizens
of Ukraine. As a result, they have almost no representation in the Crimean
parliament where they had (14) representatives prior to last election, elected
by Crimean Tatars themselves.
There exist a few dierent explanations why Leonid Kuchma refused to
sign an order that would have granted the right to vote in parliamentary
elections to those resident Tatars who have not yet received citizenship. Above
all, such an order would be contradictory to the Ukrainian constitution,
which gives only citizens of Ukraine the right to vote. But according to
Leonid Pilunskij, who heads the Crimean section of the National Movement
of Ukraine (Rukh Party), “Tatars had those rights that were in accordance the
Ukraine-Bishkek agreement”69. Some experts do not exclude the possibility
that a particular role was played by (parliaments) balloted the present prime
minister of Crimea, Anatolij Franchuk, and former vice-prime minister, Ilmi
Umerov, a Crimean Tatar. If those Tatars who were not eligible to vote were
allowed to vote, Franchuk’s entrance to parliament would have been much
more problematic. Furthermore, in the previous presidential elections, the
67 Voice of America report. May 06, 1998.
68 Kazarin, Vladimir. Problems of the National Identity in Crimea and Construction of Regional
Autonomy. Paper given at the Third Annual ASN (Association of Nationality Studies)
Conference on April 19, 1998.
69 Kravchenko, Vladimir. Why is the Ukranian Government Ruining Relations with Tatars.
Turkistan NewsleerISSN:--1386-6265, Crimea Bulletin, May 1998.
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Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people appealed to people to give their votes
to Kuchma’s opponent, Leonid Kravchuk70. Just ve days before these
elections, on March 24, 1998 several thousands of Tatars clashed with police
in the Crimean capital of Simferopol (Ak-Mesjit). The Tatars began their
protest in the Central Lenin square and then blocked railway tracks and a
key highway after the Ukrainian parliament took no action on their request
for surage rights. Eight policemen were hospitalized and an unspecied
number of Tatars were also injured in the confrontation. This clash
happened, because Crimean leaders and the peoples feared that they will
not be properly represented in the local, regional, or national legislatures71.
A Parliamentary district is made up of 110,000 residents. Meanwhile,
under Ukraine’s reselement policy, the Crimean Tatars are not allowed to
exceed 27 percent of the population in any single administrative unit72. Thus,
Crimean Tatars have never been able to achieve a high enough proportion to
win a district seat. This problem of representation naturally makes the Tatars
feel powerless, and this powerlessness can cause some conict escalation in
the near future.
The tension between Ukraine and Russia about the possession of the
Crimean peninsula itself (the ownership and status of the Black Sea Fleet
and the use of the port of Sevastopol) create another problem in Crimea.
Kyiv and Moscow are both using the Crimean Tatar situation for their own
ends. Ukraine and Russia signed an agreement on Black Sea Fleet on 28th of
May, 1997. According to this agreement, Ukraine had agreed to allow Russia
to keep its share of the eet at Sevastopol for the next 20 years and agreed
to lease their port facilities to Russia. Under the deal, Russia compensated
Ukraine for about $526 million worth of ships and paid $100.000,000 a
year for the next 20 years. However, the payments were balanced against
Ukraine’s $3 billion debt to Russia rather than paid in cash. Russia also
forgave $200 million of the Ukrainian debt in exchange for the nuclear
missiles removed from Ukraine in 199273. These are strategic, economic or
geopolitical interests on both sides seeking to manipulate the overall issue
of Crimea. Furthermore, there are some strategic considerations connected
with the Crimea’s location, speculating that Tatars could act as a ``fth
column’’ for Turkey. The Crimean Tatar problem is seen by the Russians
and the Ukrainians as part of the danger of Turkish expansion in the region,
because both Turks and the Crimean Tatars are Muslim and they share
a similar ethnic and racial background. All this nds a certain resonance
within Ukrainian society and among some politicians.74 The continued
70Ibid.
71 RFE/RL report. March 25, 1998.
72 Ibid. p 51.
73 RFE/RL Reports on May 29, 1997 and May 30, 1997.
74 Özçelik, Sezai (2018). “Kırım 2014 İşgaline Kırım Tatarları ve Türkiye’nin Politikaları
ve Yaklaşımları”, Hasret Çomak, Caner Sancaktar, Volkan Tatar ve Burak Ş. Şeker (ed.),
37
moderation of the Mejlis-the Crimean Tatars representative organ- can not be
assured. The cohesiveness of the Tatar community and their commitment to
nonviolence is breaking down. A full examination of the living standards of
returning Tatars requires a look at the situation of other residents of Crimea,
especially ethnic Russians. The ethnic Russian community in Crimea-
roughly 1.7 million people- feels traumatized by the events of the last seven
years. Before 1989, Russians occupied a pre-eminent position in Crimea,
comprising more than 70 percent of the population. They dominated the
political, social, and economic life in the region. Today, inter-ethnic relations
between Russians and Tatars in Crimea appear marked by deeply entrenched
feelings of distrust, based on myths and misperception. Although Crimea is
in Ukraine, only 20 percent of the Crimea’s population is Ukrainian, and
their presence is hardly felt75. This inequality among the repatriates and the
local Russian population creates another possible seedbed for a possible
conict in the future.
All of these above issues, demands from all three sides of the ethnic triangle
in Crimea are connected to ‘identity’, security and well being, communal or
cultural recognition, participation and control; and distributive justice. In
other words, the root causes of all these conicts can be explained by using
the BHNs theory as a framework in their explanation. On the one hand,
the Crimean Tatar side demand the self-determination and secession right
in order to satisfy their ‘security’ and identity need, on the other hand the
peninsula remains a constituent part of Ukraine as the pro-Russian and anti-
Tatar tendency in peninsula try to destroy Ukrainian authority and Tatars’
existence in Crimea. One of the main reasons of this situation is that majority
of peninsula (% 67) is Russian, and they feel like Crimea belongs to them.
This creates a similar situation to Nagorno-Karabagh conict between the
Armenians and the Azeris in the Transcaucasus region of the FSU.76
Karadeniz Jeopolitiği, Ocak 2018, ss. 1199-1222. İstanbul: Beta Basım Yayım.
75 Burke, Justin, et.al. Crimean Tatars.: Repatriation and Conict Prevention. The Forced Migration
Projects of the Open Society Institute. p. 41-43.
76 Özçelik, Sezai. “Rusya’nın Çifte Çevreleme Politikası: Kırım ve Dağlık Karabağ
Çatışmaları”, Betül Karagöz Yerdelen (ed.),, 2. Uluslararası Hocalı Soykırımı ve Bölgesel
Güvenlik Sempozyumu, 26-27 Şubat 2018, Giresun, ss. 180-196; Özçelik, Sezai, “Kırım’ın 2014
İşgali Ekseninde Rusya-Türkiye-Ermenistan İlişkileri: Rusya’nın Çifte Çevreleme Politikası”,
19. Yüzyıldan Günümüze Türk-Ermeni İlişkilerinin Bölgesel Politikalara Etkisi, Atatürk
Araştırma Merkezi Yayınları, Ankara, 2017, ss. 443-458.
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5. CONCLUSION
5.1. Suggestions
Talks on selement must be tied to a visible economic reconstruction
program. It is widely agreed the possibility of conict are not decrease until
the average person has adequate shelter over his or her head, enough to eat,
and a job with a steady income.
Neither the United Nations (UN) nor the non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) came to the Soviet republics with experience working in the FSU.
On an interorganizational level, intergovernmental organizations and
NGOs must develop liaison groups to share the information and insights.
Ukraine’s political and administrative structure is full of obstructionism.
International organizations (IOs) and NGOs must devote signicant time
to educating the public-both government ocials and local populations-
about the role of international human rights and humanitarian law, the
concept of individual rights, and the role of private voluntary organizations,
all of which are still relatively new to the FSU.
Dialogue between parties should be encouraged by promoting and
device or process that rewards inter-ethnic cooperation such as electoral
or constitutional devices that encourage the development of coalitions and
aid distribution to the Crimean Tatars and by encouraging moderate and
centrist group such as the Democracy Party of Crimea and the Party of Inter-
Ethnic Concord of Crimea.
The Crimean Tatars case provides a basis for establishing general rule
for conict prevention, at least in ECE and FSU. Like all cases of potential
or actual conict in ECE and FSU involve multi-ethnic state undergoing a
painful socio-economic and political transition, where ethnic minorities are
struggling for their perceived rights against an ethnic majority that is engaged
in a process of nation-state building. With past inter-ethnic grievances, some
politicians play the nationalist card in order to regain power.
Moreover, the seing up of instruments such as the CSCE missions
and the High Commissioner of National Minorities (HCNM) devoted to
conict prevention has also had a positive eect. CSCE missions and fact
nding missions, visits and recommendations by the HCNM, and contacts
and technical expertise from the Council of Europe (COE) have greatly
contributed to the defusing of tension in Crimea, where the parties are
relatively amenable and open to compromise.
Minority rights together with democratic practices and economic stability
is one part of the answer. Beyond legal provisions, international action
should aempt to improve the minorities’ living conditions, increase their
presence in administrations and raise the number of centers of education,
teachers, newspapers, radio and TV stations, cultural associations and trans-
39
border projects. The international community can contribute to the nancing
of some of these projects.
5.2. Obstacles
- Conict prevention, in an international environment where external
interference to states’ internal maers is looked suspicious is hampered by
the constraints imposed by sovereignty.
- The diculties of decision-making in most IOs, where consensus
is the rule and the slowness of the international community in gathering
momentum for action, constitute another hindrance to eective prevention.
Moreover, the lack of political will greatly undermines the credibility of
international action.
- The existing instruments are also far from perfect. To begin with, IOs
have certain inherent shortcomings because of their dependence on the
cooperation of their leading members. Moreover, some of the institutions
that deal with the key element of early warning are badly understaed
(HCNM) and there is no arrangement for recruiting international mediators.
- Bureaucratic inertia, lack of common interests, and lack of political are at
present appear formidable obstacles to conict prevention regimes.
There is no question that internal violence and ethno-national conict
present an increasing threat to stability in ECE and FSU region. The real
danger today is not that the international community may intervene at all.
However, sophisticated our warning systems, it is only when conicts are
“on the screen”; literally as well as guratively, that they received aention.
Often, that is when it is too late. We should thus strip prediction from
prevention to the greatest extent possible. In the same vein as the distinction
between “preventive” and “predictive” medicine, conict prevention
may be the most cost-eective strategy with regard to domestic and inter-
ethnic conicts. Rapid reaction capacities need to be enhanced and relied
on automatically. Provided that they can be designed to minimize perverse
eects, systemic transformative actions should progressively become part
of the operational design of international institutions and NGOs. Priority
should be granted to preventing the recurrence of conicts through
adequate reconstruction and reconciliation program. The early warning bell
has been rung in Crimea. We should focus on whether the signals are being
interpreted properly and how future responses may best be formulated.
In the long run, developing infrastructure for peace requires an increasing
degree of institutionalization and long-range planning.
Justiably, Crimean Tatars want to rectify the injustice done to them
by the 1944 deportation. With or without outside help, their reselement
of Crimea have continued until the Millenium. However, poverty is
Sezai ÖZÇELİK: Explanation And Understanding of The Conict In The Crimean Peninsula...
40
widespread-aecting many Tatars, but also plenty of Russians, Ukrainians,
and others-and a mood of desperation threatens to proliferate. Amid such
conditions, irrationality can overpower common sense, sparking a chain-
reaction of violence. Even if the inux of Tatars is not a direct cause of conict,
repatriation could be used as a pretext to initiate trouble (scapegoating).
Keeping in this mind, The Crimean Tatar political gures especially
Mustafa Abdülcemil Kırımoğlu and Rıfat Çubarov have continued to play
a central role in determining how development will unfold in Crimea. The
international community should therefore implement extensive conict
prevention measures.
As it stands now, the Crimea’s problems are so extensive that they can
not be completely alleviated by international aid. But additional foreign
assistance may ease the widespread feeling of hopelessness among
the Crimean Tatars, as well as the frustrations and fears. In my opinion
fact nding missions, regional or international NGOs, and some other
international organizations can help prevent an explosion of a conict in
Crimea. Conditions are now favorable for undertaking conict-prevention
initiatives. First, after the bloody war in Chechnya, radical tendencies
in Crimea, both among Russians and Tatars decreased.77 Also, the low-
grade nature of the Crimean territorial dispute facilitates the opening of a
constructive inter-ethnic dialogue. Meanwhile, constitutional arrangements
dening the Crimea’s status within Ukraine await nalization, meaning
the remains some room for bargaining. Finally, the Mejlis remained in the
hands of moderates following the Kurultai in June 1996, meaning Tatars
have continued to show restraint for the foreseeable future. Changes in
the existing set of circumstances might complicate the chances that conict
prevention measures would have desired eect. Moreover, the diaspora
communities of the Crımean Tatars in Romania, Bulgaria, European
Union, the United States, Uzbekistan and Turkey may play important and
productive role to convince both Ukraine and their home government on the
Crimean Tatar question. The economic, political, and lobbying contributions
should be increased for the conict prevention and resolution in Crimea.
The window for eective action may not remain open forever long.
Feelings of frustrations in the Crimea are increasing. After the signed
agreement about the Black Sea Fleet, the relations between Ukraine and
Russia seems to be cooling down, but under the surface there are still many
unaddressed issues. Furthermore, there appears to be a sharp division
between the radicals and the other within the Crimean Tatar Mejlis. The
time is now for eective international action. Waiting heightens the risk of a
conict that could deal a mortal blow to the development of civil society not
only in Crimea, but also across much of the FSU.
77 Özçelik, Sezai. (2018). “II. Soğuk Savaş ve Kırım’daki Jeopolitik Gambit: Rusya’nın Stratejik
Derinliği Bağlamında Kırım’ın İşgali ve Kırım Tatarları”, Karadeniz ve Kaaslar: Riskler
ve Fırsatlar: Ekonomi, Enerji ve Güvenlik, Osman Orhan (ed.), İstanbul: TASAM Yayınlar,
Temmuz 2018, 179s., ss. 57-76.
Cilt 1, Sayı 1, Kasım 2020 / Vol. 1, Iss. 1, Nov. 2020
41
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Cilt 1, Sayı 1, Kasım 2020 / Vol. 1, Iss. 1, Nov. 2020
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ISSN: 2718-0723
İçindekiler
Contents
Prof. Dr. Sezai ÖZÇELİK
Kırım Yarımadasındaki Çatışmanın Anlaşılması ve Açıklanması:
Sovyet Soykırımı (Sürgün) ve Kırım Tatarlarının Durumu
Dr. Erdem AYÇİÇEK
Mültecilere Yönelik İnsanî Yaklaşımlardaki Temel İlkeler ve Sektörel Müdahaleler
Ömer Çağrı TECER
Türkiye’nin Göç ve Uyum Politikasının Kurumsal Boyutu Üzerine Bir İnceleme:
Suriye Mülteciler Örneği
Nazlı A. ALGAN
Türkiye’deki Iraklıların Eğitim Hizmetlerinden Yararlanma Durumları ve Karşılaşılan
Sorunlar: Ankara Örneği
Prof. Dr. Sezai ÖZÇELİK
Explanation and Understanding of The Conflict in The Crimean Peninsula: The Soviet
Genocide (SÜRGÜN) and Situation of The Crimean Tatars
Ömer Çağrı TECER
A Study on Institutional Dimension of Turkey’s Migration and Integration Policy: Syrian
Refugees Example
Dr. Erdem AYÇİÇEK
Essential Principles in Humanitarian Approaches towards Refugees and Sectoral Interventions
Nazlı A. ALGAN
Utilisation Situation of Educational Services and Barriers Faced Among Iraqis in Turkey:
Ankara Case
