The Crimean plateau – a success story of Latvian diplomacy?

The third parliamentary session of the Crimean Platform this week gave new impetus to the issue of the decolonization of Crimea, showing that Latvia is able to help not only in Ukraine as a whole, but also to the Crimean Tatar nation. Therefore, we are now able to pay back a kind of karmic debt to the Crimean Tatars.

The “Independent” made sure that by gathering representatives of about 50 countries in Latvia, the Crimean platform became an unexpected success story for Latvian diplomacy. The guests who came from almost every continent were invited to intensive meetings in our Saeima, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and at all other possible levels, as well as to discuss Ukrainian issues.

It is no secret that Latvia is preparing to apply for one of the non-permanent seats in the UN Security Council that are available on a rotating basis every few years, so such a high-level forum is a opportunity to establish cooperation with everyone. countries that will vote at one time for our application.

When the Kremlin’s playbook suddenly doesn’t work

As expected, the forum (which should have been called a summit) confirmed and confirmed the approach to which the entire free world adheres: the place of Crimea is in Ukraine – within recognized borders 1991 internationally. But such a situation exists only because the native people of Crimea made such a decision – if even ten percent of the Crimean Tatars became collaborators of the Kremlin during the connection in the spring of 2014, they would organize a separation between themselves and the parallel politics. the structures of the Crimean Tatars in the Kurultay (250 elected representatives) and the Mejlis (33 members of the governing body appointed by the Kurultaya) would create their own “pseudo Mejlis” and “quasi-kurultaya”, and the structures are the same. working in the hands of the Kremlin as the “Council of People’s Deputies of the LPSR” during the Soviet years.

The reference to the use of the Soviet era is not accidental, because throughout the Crimean Platform Conference the deportation of the Baltic people, which led to the death of tens of thousands, and ex- Crimean Tatars trade in 1944. , when the whole country was moved to Siberia and Central Asia, and half of them died in the following ten years. Now the Russian Federation is doing the same thing, only more selectively – abducting children from the occupied territories, sending them to orphanages inside Russia, or trying to force the young adults of Crimea to -forced to serve in the occupation army. Independent Ukraine, on the other hand, is the first and last state formation in the past 250 years that, since the destruction of the Crimean Khanate in 1783, did not consider itself a homeland. Crimean Tatars as a margin for inclusion. and oppressed, but as an organic part of the state, whose citizens are all equal regardless of whether they live in the capital or in a shepherd’s village on the steppe between the Azov and the Black Sea. The tsarist empire, the Soviet power, the Hitlerite invaders, the Soviet regime again, now Putin’s Russia – they have all treated Crimea as occupiers.

Crimean Tatars and the Renaissance of Latvia: this is not the first time Moscow has hit

The event organized by the Embassy of Ukraine and the Occupation Museum was interesting in terms of content, which added an intellectual and research aspect to the summit. History has turned a special semi-circle, forcing the leaders of our waking times to meet again after 35 years, but now with a new task: if in 1989 the right to self-determination of the Latvian people had to be taken back, now the same must be achieved with Crimea and other occupied territories of Ukraine.

People attended the expert discussion “Expulsion of the Crimean Tatars in 1944: from the recognition of genocide to the restoration of the rights of the Crimean Tatars in the Ukrainian state” which had the one kind of part already during our awakening. The Chairman of the Mejlis, multiple member of the Rada of Crimea and the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Refats Chubarovs was sent to Latvia as a young expert during the Soviet era, where he was a research fellow of our State Archives, and during the reorganization – director. Born as a refugee, Refats, who could not stand the rule of the Kremlin since he was a child, joined the People’s Front in Latvia at the first opportunity, where he met the leaders of them, including Romualdas Ražuks, who persuaded Čubarov to run in the city of Riga. elections from the ranks of the People’s Front, hoping that the voters would keep the candidate Čubarov about Russian. This is what happened, and the member of the Verkhovna Rada later began his political career in Riga, where the city deputies at that time were divided exactly in half – the same number of seats at the Interfront based in the Kremlin to the People’s Front. However, it was possible to elect Andri Teikmani as president, who was one of the great successes of the Awakening movement at that time, especially in Riga, Russia.

Now these three men from the Renaissance met again in the new building of the Career Museum to discuss how the same thing can be done again – in general – again in the Crimea. is attached to it. And since we once succeeded in our awakening, no one doubts that the Crimean Tatars will succeed in making it their homeland again. Especially since the resources of Russia today are smaller compared to the capabilities of the USSR.

One of the fundamental moments – in the late 1980s, the Soviet government tried to create the impression that the organizers of the Awakening (together with the Western special services, of course) were radical Latvian nationalists who can “suffer another ethnic group”. Refats Čubarovs, after the 33 diaspora Crimean Tatars found in Latvia, together with Latvian Poles and other minorities, created a network of associations that joined the People’s Front and were sympathetic with Latvia’s self-governance efforts, thus knocking the cards out of the hands of those who tried to write off the Awakening as a “thin nationalist medicine” account.

From Russian prisons to international forums

The big difference with the three is Nariman Djeljal, one of the many Crimean Tatar activists who were arrested and convicted in Crimea who is connected to him. In his case, it is 17 years, convicted in the legal system of the occupying power. Until half a year ago, his place was the Minusinsky colony in Krasnoyarsk (because it cannot be called a residence), while he was released as part of prisoner exchange. His example is a reminder of how unpredictable and unpredictable fate is in everything related to hostility – Dzheljal, a political prisoner less than half a year ago, is now a com- participant in the international summit and vice-president Majlis Chubarov. His fate in the experience of one person shows what the Crimean Tatars hope: if people are freed from Russian captivity one by one, although there is a problem, this can happen on a large scale with the peninsula all too.

Latvians are among the first friends of Crimean Tatars – our experience with exports shows that we understand similar situations in the history of other countries. Our awakening struggle, where the Crimean Tatars living in Latvia have been important helpers for us, moreover, by deciding to help us with the free choice of their own, meaning: we are now returning our “karmic debt” by helping the Crimean Tatars to recover themselves. – decide on their own free choice. In their case, it is in the form of Ukrainian sovereignty over the entire territory of the country, including Crimea.