The Tatars can play an important role in the power struggle in the Crimea Ukrainian nationalists calling for the preparation of attacks against Russians. Because the Muslim minority rejected a port of the peninsula to the hated neighbor.
In the Crimea threaten new bloody clashes between Russians and Crimean Tatars. On Wednesday already around 30 people had been injured in a brawl in front of the Parliament of the Black Sea peninsula. The Presidium of the Crimean Parliament thereupon made an appeal to the public to prevent bloodshed.
But cracked by Russian hackers e-mails from the deputy leader of the Crimean Tatars representation “Majlis” Omer Aslan Kirimli, clearly indicate that leading officials of the extreme right-wing “rights industry” want to incite the Crimean Tatars to support acts of terrorism against the Russians in the Crimea.
In a mail requests Andrei Tarasenko, one of the leaders of the “rights industry” of Kirimli to give his comrades ‘instruments’ and the coordinates of hidden weapons caches. The right-wing extremist writes: “Wild there’s a lot we need more hunting gear, helmets and sticks.” From the context it is clear that with “game” of political opponents are meant active members of the Russian community. Nationalist Crimean Tatars and the “rights industry” have converged at the rallies on the Maidan in Kiev.
Most of the inhabitants are Russians in the Crimea. The representation of the people of the peninsula calls for 25 May for a referendum on expanded rights for the autonomous region on. Parliament Bureau announced it was about a “perfection of the status of autonomy”. Only in this way could the Crimean residents “without external pressure and diktat determine the future of autonomy.” But a large part of the Crimean Tatars is against such an extension of autonomy: Many of them fear that Russian forces wanted to connect the peninsula to Russia.
Crimean Crisis:Thousands Tatars dead in deportation under Stalin
The Crimean Tatars , about 260,000 people of about 2 million inhabitants of the Crimea, are a Muslim Turkic people with a Turkish -like language . Since the eighth century , they lived on the peninsula. 1430 , they created their own state , the Crimean Khanate . To the Crimea fought for centuries rival powers , Genoa, Venice and Byzantium. After all, who dominated the Crimea , controlled the Black Sea , and thus access to the Bosphorus and the Mediterranean. The Crimean Tatars were forced into less fertile areas .
The ratio of the Crimean Tatars to the Russians has long been eager : Under Josef Stalin , the Soviet regime forced the Crimean Tatars as all the peasants in collective farms , it closed mosques and persecuted faithful Muslims . During World War II she then supported the Wehrmacht : The 1942 created ” Tatar Committee ” in the capital Simferopol created a ” department to fight against the Soviet partisans ” : Armed Tatar nationalists went in company strength brutally against Russian resistance in the Crimea , led by German officers.
For the bloody cooperation a part of their community with the Nazis even the innocent have paid a high price: Stalin had 183,000 Crimean Tatars after the reconquest of the Crimea to deport Kazakhstan. Thousands perished. The stories of this cruel fate are very much alive in the families of the Crimean Tatars today. In 1967, the Crimean Tatars were officially rehabilitated by the Soviet state. But only in 1988 they were allowed to return to their homeland.
Although many Crimean Tatars have been tried to a peaceful relationship with the Russian and Ukrainian inhabitants of the peninsula in everyday life. But again there was controversy and fights for land occupations by the baby-Tatars.
Now that the Russian majority population of the Crimea to defend their autonomy against the threatened violence of Ukrainian nationalists, fanning hotheads among Tatars old fears of the Russians. The Crimean Tatars run this risk of becoming an instrument of foreign interests: For the extreme right-wing nationalists in Crimea no basis – their only chance, therefore, is to abuse the Crimean Tatars as auxiliary volunteers against the Russians.