05/22/2004 | line305b

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From: "THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT" Year 04, Number 83
Action Ukraine Coalition (AUC), Washington, D.C.
Ukrainian Federation of America (UFA), Huntingdon Valley, PA
morganw@patriot.net, ArtUkraine.com@starpower.net
Washington, D.C.; Kyiv, Ukraine, WEDNESDAY, May 19, 2004


8. UKRAINE: 100,000 PEACEFULLY COMMEMORATE
CRIMEAN TATAR DEPORTATION IN 1944 BY STALIN

TV 5 Kanal, Kiev, Ukraine, in Ukrainian, 18 May 04
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, Tuesday, May 18, 2004

KIEV - [Presenter] Commemorative events are being held in Crimea to mark
the 60th anniversary of the deportation of the Crimean Tatars from the
peninsula. A memorial march took place in Simferopol. The organizers had
previously warned of the possibility of acts of provocation during the
rally. Our correspondent Volodymyr Aryev is on the line with the 5 Kanal
studio. How is the rally going, Volodya?

[Correspondent] Hullo, Natalya. In fact, everything so far has been
absolutely peaceful. There have not been any incidents around the venue of
the rally on the central square in Simferopol, where a lot of police are
concentrated. Crimean Prime Minister Serhiy Kunitsyn said that it was
decided to use mainly Crimean Tatars employed by the Interior Ministry for
policing the event.

Really, it was absolutely quiet and peaceful, and no incidents have been
observed so far. The meeting was addressed Ukrainian MP and Majlis
[self-styled Crimean Tatar parliament] leader Mustafa Dzhemilyov, Crimean
Prime Minister Kunitsyn and the head of the [parliament] committee for
ethnic relations Hennadiy Udovenko. No representatives of the executive
power from Kiev took part in the commemorations.

Now the meeting is finishing. The participants, of whom there are estimated
to have been up to 115,000, are now dispersing in different directions.

[Presenter] Did the rally participants make any specific demands?

[Correspondent] They voiced various demands. They were mainly to give Crimea
the status of an ethnic autonomous region. In addition, they are demanding
that the Crimean Tatar language should be given the status of a state
language in Crimea. And that was really as far as they went. And one more
detail - the participants were very unhappy to receive the news from Kiev
that the parliament did not today adopt a law that would give certain
privileges to formerly deported people.

[Presenter] That was Volodymyr Aryev on the line from Simferopol. [Passage
omitted: Historical background.]

[Presenter] As Volodymyr Aryev has just said, MPs sent the law on restoring
the rights of deported people for repeat second reading. According to the
bill, deported Crimean Tatar should receive the same budget benefits as the
victims of political repression.

[Our Ukraine MP (and Majlis deputy leader) Refat Chubarov] The bill was
agreed with everyone - with the government, and with all sides, the subjects
that gave their proposals. And it was not adopted for some political
reasons. I just think this is a disgrace.

[Socialist Party MP Yuriy Lutsenko] If this law was adopted as a whole, that
would be morally and politically right. But it would be impossible to
implement financially. That means we would be storing up conflicts in Crimea
and in western Ukraine too. (END)