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The humanitarian crisis in northern Crimea remains unnoticed by the world. For nearly a month now, residents of more than 300 villages around Ermeni Bazaar (Armyansk), Dzhankoy, and Yani-Qapu (Krasnoperekopsk) have been living without electricity or water. Volunteers are delivering food and drinking water to them. There is no water even in local hospitals, and the occupying authorities are concealing information about disease outbreaks during the summer heat. Approximately 300,000 people reside in these areas, with a fifth of them being Crimean Tatars. There are almost no “newcomers” among them who arrived after the occupation of Crimea (not counting the occupying military), because there has never been anything attractive about living here…
An online discussion about the hardships faced by residents of northern Crimea began only in the Turkish media sphere.
The nationalist party Zafer (Victory) was the first to issue a public statement. A week ago, the party’s deputy chairman, Azmi Karamahmutoğlu, delivered a speech about the crisis in northern Crimea, which could endanger the lives of Crimean Tatars. Karamahmutoğlu called on Turkey to raise the issue of the humanitarian crisis at the international level to find urgent ways to resolve it. Karamahmutoğlu did not specify what actions should be taken. However, this party holds the most hardline anti-immigrant stance on the local political scene — though it would prefer to resettle members of Turkic peoples in Turkey rather than Afghans and Syrians.
In response, statements were issued by leaders of the Crimean Tatar community in Turkey, drawing attention to several details:
Diaspora leaders did not specify who they were addressing, but once again, one can surmise that their audience resides in the same place as those who launched the public campaign to “save the Crimean Tatars from the Russian-Ukrainian war.” To be sure, the diaspora also does not propose any concrete actions and, until recently, had not even paid attention to the problems of those Crimeans who sought refuge in Turkey due to repression (primarily the families of people being persecuted in connection with the Hizb ut-Tahrir case).
Both sides of the debate make valid points, and both generally come across as defenders of the Crimean Tatar people. Both avoid addressing the question of how to preserve the indigenous people in their homeland amid Russian aggression and Ukraine’s war of liberation.
One side is not ready to blame Moscow, given the special relationship between Erdogan and Putin, as well as the Turkish economy's dependence on Russian gas.
The other side bases its actions on the directives of the official government in Kyiv and the Mejlis, which is why the Crimean Tatars are being turned into a tool that must prove its loyalty to Ukraine and pass a test of Ukrainian identity at any cost.
Neither side is prepared to raise the key issue for indigenous peoples in this war: how to prevent Putin’s war of annihilation from “finally resolving the Crimean Tatar issue.” This refers to any actions taken against an indigenous people that could cause irreparable harm to their demographic makeup.
There is also a third approach, taken by civil society organizations that write hundreds of articles about the Crimean Tatars and speak at various international conferences on the rights of indigenous peoples.
To these actors, Russia comes across as the aggressor, yet they also offer no concrete proposals on how to save the Crimean Tatars from this devastating blow.
At present, the British Empire has some limited experience in preserving indigenous nations during world wars. This legislation has been partially preserved by the Canadians. In the 20th century, the world’s largest empire faced the problem of the annihilation of small nations in bloody wars. However, it was not until the end of World War II that the colonizers officially recognized that indigenous peoples could be enlisted in their wars only voluntarily.
