05/28/2005 | line305b

http://www2.maidan.org.ua/n/krym/1117260705

REBEL CHECHEN GOVERNMENT HOPES FOR BETTER
FUTURE FOR TATARS IN UKRAINE
Appeal by Chechen Republic of Ichkeria to Crimean Tatar people.

Government of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria,
Chechenpress, official information department
Chechenpress web site, in Russian 19 May 05
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Thu, May 19, 2005

Dear brothers and sisters,

The most tragic date in the history of the Crimean Tatars, the deportation
of the entire Tatar people from the Crimean Peninsula to Central Asia on
accusations of support for Germany, which was fighting the Soviet empire,
turned 61 on 18 May. Shortly before (on 23 February 1944) the Chechens and
Ingush were massively deported to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan exactly under
the same pretext.

In all, about 3 million people including the peoples in the North Caucasus,
Crimea, the Volga and other regions were moved to special settlements in
the eastern part of the USSR on Stalin's orders in 1943-1944, while the
autonomous entities of those peoples were abolished. [Passage omitted:
examples, further developments in USSR, restoration of some autonomies]

As is known, the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist
Republic adopted a law "On the rehabilitation of repressed peoples" on 26
April 1991. However, this law is actually effective only on paper and many
peoples repressed during the so-called "Great Patriotic War" again turned
out to be in the iron grip of the Russian empire, which disguises itself
under the mask of "democracy" this time.

For example, the Ingush did not only not get back their native lands in
Prigorodnyy District, which were "gifted" by Stalin to North Ossetia in
1944, but also they were not allowed to resettle in their own houses in this
district after the developments provoked by the Russian special services in
1992. Over the past 11 years, the Chechen people has had to face the
severest trials of two wars of genocide launched by the Kremlin regime,
which has claimed the lives of over 250,000 people of the Chechen Republic
of Ichkeria, not to mention the republic's entirely ruined infrastructure.

The percentage of these immense human casualties (some 25 per cent) can
be compared only with the casualties suffered by the Chechen, Ingush,
Balkar, Karachay, Kalmyk, Crimean Tatar and other peoples deported in the
years of World War II with Stalin's "eternal exile" resolution.

But the fraternal Crimean Tatar people has one advantage over other
persecuted peoples: they are somehow lucky to have the Ukrainian people,
which itself suffered severely under Moscow. It is enough to mention the
monstrous artificial famine in Ukraine in the years of the so-called Stalin
"collectivization", which claimed the lives of millions.

The Chechen people said goodbye to its mourning back on 23 February 1994
and announced the day of mourning for the victims of the genocide of 1944 as
the day of revival of the Chechen nation. The first president of the Chechen
Republic of Ichkeria, Dzhokhar Dudayev, who, God willing, became the
immortal martyr at the end of the first Russian-Chechen war [1994-1996],
said the following in a nationwide rally dedicated to the 50th anniversary
of the deportation of the Chechen people: "We will not mourn. We will not
lose heart. And we will not forget". These words by General Dudayev were
engraved on the wall of the memorial to commemorate the victims of the 1944
deportation in the Chechen capital of Dzhokhar (formerly Groznyy).

The president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Aslan Maskhadov, who, God
willing, also became a martyr during the second Russian-Chechen war [which
began in 1999], said that "the pain of losses in those remote years did not
mark the end to the bitter fate of the Chechen people. It has become part of
our tragic present day, in which the genocide of the people is still going
on in a more sophisticated and cynical manner".

We would like to hope that finally the national problems of the Tatars in
Crimea will be honestly and fairly resolved with the accession of the new
leadership to power in Kiev and "the pain of losses in those remote years
will be an end to the bitter fate" of the fraternal people of Crimea and it
will never be subjected to genocide like Stalin's deportation 61 years ago.

For the revival of the Tatar nation of Crimea! -30-


"THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT - AUR" - Number 488
E. Morgan Williams, Publisher and Editor
morganw@patriot.net, ArtUkraine.com@starpower.net
Washington, D.C. and Kyiv, Ukraine, FRIDAY, May 20, 2005