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Refat Chubarov: Simferopol City Hall Showed Disrespect to Victims of Deportation
17 April 2013
The First Vice Chairman of Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, Head of the Parliamentary faction “Qurultay-Rukh” in the Verkhovna Rada of AR Crimea Refat Chubarov has criticized on the survey, made by the executive committee of Simferopol City Council as to the construction of “the monument to the victims of the deportation in the capital of Crimea”, the IA “Argumenty Nedeli – Krym” wrote.
The special blank was designed. It includes 3 questions:
– Do you think it is necessary to build the monument to the victims of the deportation in the capital of Crimea? (Y/N)
– Should this monument commemorate all the nations that suffered the repressions? (Y/N)
– Where do you think it should be build? (Lenin public garden, Salgirka park, your own variant).
The survey was made by the volunteers of the public youth organizations in the central streets of Simferopol and next to Kuibyshev market, Moscow circle, rail road station, as well as “Selpo” supermarket. Everyone could take part in the survey, filling in the questionnaire.
«The selection of questions, the organization of the survey, and determination of respondents testifies to the imitation of the survey by the city’s authorities as to the construction of the monument to the victims of the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people and other national communities from Crimea.
The results of the survey could be considered in advance as nominal and that do not reflect the public opinion on the issues questioned, because the survey absolutely ignores the principle of the representativeness.
There are also a lot of questions to the very wording of the questions that were proposed to the respondents. None of them takes into consideration the legal right and aspiration of the Crimean Tatar people to build the monument or memorial to the victims of the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people, that was not only subjected to the deportation from their native land, but was forcible kept in exile for almost half a century. It seems like the organizers of the survey, to be more precise the authorities, really think that later on they could oppose the construction of this memorial, referring to the results of this survey…
At the same time the question – “Should this monument commemorate all the nations that suffered the repressions?” – is nothing else, but the attempt to carry the public opinion away from the understanding of the essence and disastrous consequences of the deportation on the ethnic grounds, suffered by the Crimean Tatar people, as well as by Armenians, Bulgarians, Greeks and Germans, living in Crimea.
Undoubtedly, the repressions (illegal arrests, shootings, dispossession of kulaks) affected all residents of Crimea in ’20-30s of the 20th century. The victims of the political repressions during the USSR could and has to be commemorated, but isn’t it a cynical, first of all towards the very victims of these repressions, to reduce everything to the opening of just one single monument?
In fact, covering under the good intentions, Simferopol’s authorities showed their desperate disrespect, not to say cynicism, both to the victims of the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people and some national communities of Crimea, and the whole Crimean society. It is twice a pity that they did it quite consciously, having far-reaching intentions.
I am not even mention that the place for the construction of the monument to the victims of the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people was determined back in the early ’90s. The memorable sign was installed in compliance with all religious traditions in this place in the park next to the rail road station and Crimean Tatars always gather there to commemorate their late relatives and friends.
Right here the monument, as a symbol of sorrow for those who died, as a honor to the firmness of those who could survive and admiration for the courage of those who fought for the return to their Homeland will be opened!”- Refat Chubarov said.
