| |
 Print
Crimean Muslims to Establish Battalion
8-12-2015
Coping with the plight of Russian annexation since early 2014, Crimean Muslims revealed plans to establish a military unit to monitor transportation of goods and people across the border.
"Unfortunately, throughout history, the right of the Crimean Tatar people to live in dignity in their own homeland was undermined with collective deportations and repression. Today we are witnessing the illegal annexation of the Crimea and other regrettable events," Turkish President Recep Erdogan said after meeting with Crimean leaders, International Business Times reported Monday, August 3.
The announcement of the formation of the Muslim troops came a day after the second annual World Congress of Crimean Tatars which was held July 31 and August 2 in Ankara.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attended the conference that witnessed the participation of 180 civil society organizations from 12 countries, along with politicians.
Announcing intentions to form an autonomous Crimean Tatar Republic, Kirimoglu urged the Crimean people to take an active role in Ukrainian politics.
Deployed in the Kherson region on the Crimean border, the Muslim troops aim at monitoring transportation of goods and people between Ukraine and the peninsula, leader of Crimean Tatars, Mustafa Abdülcemil Kirimoglu, said.
Kazan Tatars, Uzbeks, Chechens, Azeris, Meskhetian Turks and other Muslim groups will join the Crimean Tatars to form the troops.
The final declaration of the World Congress of Crimean Tatars called for "all necessary measures" to be taken to return Crimea to Ukraine and bring an "immediate” ended to Russia’s takeover of the peninsula.
The 300,000-strong Muslim minority makes up less than 15% of Crimea's population of 2 million and has so far been overwhelmingly opposed to Russia's annexation of the peninsula.
The Russian move to annex Crimea followed an earlier vote in March on the peninsula’s future.
Exodus
Speaking during the conference, Mustafa Dzhemilev, a veteran leader of the Crimean Tatars, said that 10,000 members of Muslims Tatars have left Black Sea peninsula since the Russian annexation in March 2014.
Those who have fled were motivated by "discrimination and lawlessness" on the peninsula since the Russian takeover, as well as "forced conscription of young people to the Russian Army with the prospect of sending them to war with their Ukrainian brothers,” said Dzhemilev, Voice of America reported.
Crimean Tatars have also left because of the "complete absence of democratic freedoms and the lack of any prospects for young people."
On his part, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said the annexation "is temporary - because it is illegal."
Over the past months, hundreds of terrified Muslim Tatar families decided to leave their homes in Crimea, fleeing an ambiguous future under the Russian regime after annexation.
The Tatars, who have inhabited Crimea for centuries, were deported in May 1944 by Stalin, who accused them of collaborating with the Nazis.
The entire Tatar population, more than 200,000 people, was transported in brutal conditions thousands of miles away to Uzbekistan and other locations. Many died along the way or soon after arriving.
The Soviets confiscated their homes, destroying their mosques and turning them into warehouses. One was converted into a Museum of Atheism.
It was not until perestroika in the late 1980s that most of the Tatars were allowed back, a migration that continued after Ukraine became independent with the Soviet collapse in 1991.
Footnotes:
|