RESOLUTION of All-Crimean Mourning Meeting Commemorating the Victims of the Genocide of the Crimean Tatar People – Deportation of May 18, 1944 and Decades of Forced Detention in Places of Expatriation

18 May 2011

Every year detaching us from May 18, 1944, when the Communist regime of the USSR committed the genocide against the Crimean Tatar people, increases an excruciating pain of our hearts from irretrievable losses of our relatives and close people instead of calming the souls of hundreds of thousands of victims of forcible deportation who died in the throes, sufferings, deprivations and buried in strange land.

Every year, awaited by Crimean Tatars both survived and returned to their Homeland and those who still forced to live in exile, hoping for adoption of the law of Ukraine on restoration of the inalienable rights of the Crimean Tatar people and ensuring of the legal guaranties for its revival and development, just ends up with increasing of our disappointment and doubts in readiness of the Ukrainian state to eliminate the consequences of the genocide committed against the Crimean Tatar people during the USSR.

Every day our fathers and mothers are passing away. They’ve suffered all deprivations and hardships of deportation, stood up lawlessness and discrimination and fought for return to their homeland. They’re leaving this world never seeing from the state the restoration of justice towards them and their people.

Lack of laws directed at restoration of the rights of the Crimean Tatar people makes seeking for the ways of solution of the most painful problems of modern development of Crimea very difficult, including the issues related to allocation of land to returned Crimean Tatars and reservation of land for those who forced to live in the places of deportation.

Ignoring of the legal demands and internationally recognized rights of the Crimean Tatar people – indigenous people of Crimea by the State contradicts to the interests of the Ukrainian state itself, as it doesn’t promote its integration to free family of European nations and states.

The memory of hundreds of thousands of Crimean Tatars who perished and died in exile, thousands of activists of the Crimean Tatar national movement who selflessly fought for the return of their people to its homeland and restoration of their rights along with the continuing ignoring of the inalienable rights and interests of the Crimean Tatar people make us – present generation of Crimean Tatars, responsible for implementation of hopes and aspirations of the indigenous people of Crimea, preserving the principles of non-violent fight, based on support of democratic forces of Ukrainian society and assistance of the international community.

It’s time when the international community, especially the European countries, that lived through two powerful totalitarian regimes in the 20th century – Nazi and Stalin’s, that brought with them the genocide and crimes against mankind, has to make concrete measures in order to overcome the consequences of these crimes – to restore the rights of the Crimean Tatar people and ensure the guaranties of its free development in its homeland.

We, participants of the all-Crimean mourning meeting, held on May 18, 2011 in Simferopol, being confident in that the formation of the democratic and independent Ukraine is impossible without restoration of the rights of the Crimean Tatar people, in compliance with the international norms on the rights of peoples and human rights, noting considerable work made by the delegates of Qurultay of the Crimean Tatar people, Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people and the World Congress of Crimean Tatars in preparation to the International Forum on the restoration of the rights of the Crimean Tatar people to their homeland, its security and guarantees of development in Ukraine, call the President of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the United Nations Organization, the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the European Union to fix in the nearest future the date and place of the International Forum.

Adopted by the participants of the of All-Crimean Mourning Meeting Commemorating the Victims of the Genocide of the Crimean Tatar People – deportation of May 18, 1944 and decades of forced detention in the places of expatriation.
Simferopol, May 18, 2011