Crimea: a comeback...

Past week Prime Minister Arsenii Yatseniuk appointed deputy chairman of Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People Aslan Omer Kirimli the head of the Governmental Service of Ukraine for the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol. Since July 1, 2014 Kirimli has worked as the head of the Department for the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol with the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers. The Governmental Service for Crimea and Sevastopol was founded on July 17, 2014, but it has existed only on paper till May 2015, without leadership and structure. The Day asked Andrii KLYMENKO, the editor-in-chief of the portal BlackSeaNews and expert of the charity foundation “Maidan of Foreign Affairs,” about the sphere of future activity of the new Governmental Service with newly appointed leadership at the helm, Ukraine’s successes on the way of returning Crimea, and problems connected with governing the occupied territory of the peninsula.

 “We cannot but welcome the fact that in a year time at least a Governmental Agency for Crimea and Sevastopol has been founded. But I do not know what this Governmental Agency will do and how. We can draw some conclusions when we see its staff – 5 or 100 people, budget – 1 or 20 million hryvnias. Because a governmental body cannot work without employees, budget, and a possibility to finance something. Its status will depend on the first persons of the state, the president and the prime minister.

 “It has taken a year to approve at least some body of executive power which will deal with Crimea. The law ‘On securing rights and freedoms of people and legal regime on the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine’ took effect on April 28, 2014. And on May 18 of the same year I, soon after leaving the autonomous republic, was present at a commemorative evening at the National Opera of Ukraine in Kyiv, where Prime Minister Yatseniuk was passionately speaking about his love for the Crimean Tatar people. Representatives of the EU were standing next to him, and there were patriarchs of the Ukrainian churches present in the hall. He said that the ‘Ukrainian House’ will become the ‘Crimean Tatar House’ and that corresponding documents would be signed for this. Only more problems have arisen since then, but nothing has happened. And I have a feeling that Mr. Yatseniuk appointed the head of the Governmental Service for Crimea and Sevastopol only to date it with the anniversary of deportation.

 “I know personally Aslan Kirimli, he is a very decent person, but I am not sure that the status of the head of a state agency will enable him to coordinate the work on a million questions that are related to the effects of the annexation of Crimea and the development of a national strategy for its return. Such a strategy does not exist at the moment, although it does in the minds of members of the Maidan of Foreign Affairs, but we are not alone and it is shared, we hear some of its provisions listed in the speeches by Mustafa Dzhemilev, Refat Chubarov, and other leaders of the Crimean Tatars. We hear it in assessments produced by Ukrainian analytical structures as well. Generally, it looks this way: civil society, expert community, American and European organizations have their views on what to do with Crimea.

“However, the Ukrainian Cabinet does not pay attention to it, and the president, who is the guarantor of constitutional rights, has promised to change the law that established a free economic zone in Crimea, but six months have passed without him acting on it. Crimean refugees are at work today: we meet, coordinate activities, have achieved a lot in terms of sea and air blockade. However, it is the infamous thesis ‘we cannot do it because we are at war’ which holds us back, and it will soon cease to carry weight.

 “About 20 organizations of Crimean refugees as well as Kyiv-based NGOs that deal with Crimea, including the Maidan of Foreign Affairs, wrote a letter to the prime minister, listing their grievances, that is, the measures which the Cabinet had to take, but has not, pursuant to the law on occupied territories. In addition, they still have not overturned the treacherous law that established a free economic zone in Crimea.

 “According to official figures, there are about 21,000 Crimean refugees, of which 8,700 are Crimean Tatars. I think these figures are understated by about half, for those registering with the Ministry of Social Policy are primarily those needing benefits or accommodation. However, there are great many Crimean political exiles as well. They are very different from the Donbas refugees, because many of the latter have fled the shellings, gunfire, and lawlessness imposed by the Russian terrorist forces. Meanwhile, people who have left Crimea departed because they understood that they were fundamentally unable to live under occupation.

 “In late May, we will hold the Congress of the Crimean Refugees. Should Arsenii Yatseniuk fail to respond by that date to the questions that we have sent to him in writing, the congress will call on the Prosecutor General’s Office to launch a criminal investigation into the criminal inaction of the head of government on matters of returning Crimea.

 “The Maidan of Foreign Affairs, other NGOs and I, in my recent speeches at the Atlantic Council and Freedom House in Washington, voiced the idea that Europe has now understood and President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz repeated recently: the annexation of Crimea and war in the Donbas are elements of Ukraine’s war for Europe. Still, some Ukrainian officials have somehow failed to understand this. This is why they have sabotaged taking any decisions on Crimea, while the government has labeled Crimean political exiles as non-residents instead of using them as the basis for reintegrating and de-occupying the peninsula. The civil society shows that it can do something. Unfortunately, the government shows that it does not want to do anything. This gives rise to various speculations and the feeling that the nation’s top leadership, for some unknown reasons, does not want to deal with the problems of Crimea.”