The largely peaceful return and resettlement of over 260,000 Crimean Tatars and other ethnic groups, which were deported by the Soviet government to Central Asia and Siberia in 1944 for alleged collaboration with Nazi Germany, is a major achievement in recent Crimean history. It attests to the capacity of Crimean society to accommodate the views and interests of different ethnic and religious groups,¹ and is a foundation on which lasting stability in Crimea can be built. However, a definitive solution to the challenges facing Crimea will require continued commitment from all stakeholders in Ukraine, as well as continued external support. Ironically, because it has managed to avoid the escalating tensions that led to conflicts (now frozen) in Transdnistria, South Ossetia, and other CIS territories, Crimea has gradually lost international attention since the early 1990s.

Since the late 1980s the deported people have been returning to an economically depressed region that has been unprepared to handle such a large and rapid migratory influx.² Tensions over access to employment, resources, and social services in Crimea have played on negative stereotypes and prejudices concerning Crimean Tatars that were nurtured over several generations.

Current situation

As Sasse points out in the companion article on pp. 2-4, the management of ethnic and other tensions in Crimea has been quite successful on the whole. Recent trends, however, give cause for concern. Violent clashes between some 800 people around a local market in Bakhchisaray in August 2006, a tripling in the unauthorized occupation of land during the past year (from 19 to 53 sites), confrontations with sectarian overtones in Feodosia and Alushta, and increasing numbers of people (64 percent as compared with 21 percent in 2002) who, according to public opinion polls, feel that inter-ethnic relations are getting worse–all this underscores the depth of social cleavages and perceived injustices in Crimea. Disillusionment with central governments, especially the Orange team, and particularly in terms of lack of progress on land distribution, language issues, the rights of deported peoples, and unequal socio-economic development, has led to rising impatience among the Crimean Tatars. The radical elements within the Tatar and Russian communities are now growing.³  The radicals argue that dialogue has failed and more forceful measures are needed.

Risk factors

Many of the Crimean Tatars’ problems are linked to perceptions of ethnic identity and of historical injustice.

Land disputes: Tensions over the administrative allocation of land under the Ukrainian land code have become more acute, exacerbating the incidence of land squatting.⁴  On 13 December 2006, the Ukrainian Parliament amended the criminal code to prohibit the unauthorized occupation of land, making land-squatting punishable by up to 6 years’ imprisonment. Tensions also arise from the fact that Crimean Tatar land squatting often occurs in areas in which they formerly lived, and which are now desirable and expensive parts of the Southern Coast and around Simferopol. In anticipation of this market value, Crimean Tatars intensified their land seizures, which now involve some 15,000 people (up from 8,000 in April 2006). According to pronouncements by some Crimean Tatar groups, attempts to enforce the ban on land squatting will be opposed by ‘any available means’, including active resistance, demonstrations, and demands to legalize the ownership of houses that have already been constructed on these lands. Crimean Tatar leaders have also threatened to escalate their demands to cover the restitution of all property owned prior to their deportation, rather than simply the right to return to areas where they used to live.⁵ (Thus far, the Crimean Tatar Mejlis⁶ has limited its demands to ‘social justice’–understood as equal opportunities for the deported people–rather than full property restitution). In the absence of a fully functioning land registration system,⁷  it is difficult to ascertain the correct number of Crimean Tatars that do not have access to land.

Two inter-related factors are behind these disputes: the lack of a properly functioning land administration system (which allows the local authorities to allocate land in a quasi-arbitrary manner); and the willingness of Tatars to engage in land-squatting in protest against their perceived exclusion from land allocation decisions. According to the Mejlis, Crimean Tatars are being denied access to land in the places where they used to live prior to deportation, including areas of symbolic importance in Tatar culture, while large landholdings on the expensive Southern Coast are being acquired by oligarchs from Russia or Ukraine (or their companies). The authorities in turn complain that their attempts to provide land to those in need are jeopardized by duplicitous land claims by some people (including squatters), who seek to acquire land in different places for speculative resale purposes.

Status: The fact that the status of being a ‘formerly deported person’ (or a descendant of such a person) is not legally defined has created difficulties in setting up clear rules for restoring what the Crimean Tatar leadership calls ‘social justice’. Attempts to pass legislation to clarify legal status or returnees’ social rights⁸ have failed. Most recently, national legislation (which many Crimean Tatars regard as far from adequate) was vetoed by President Leonid Kuchma in 2004; similar legislation has not made it out of parliament since President Viktor Yushchenko’s inauguration in 2005.

Language rights: The issue of language rights is a significant mobilizing force in Crimean politics. According to public opinion surveys, 85 percent of the ethnic Russian population and 73 percent of the Crimean Tatar population are concerned about threats to their respective language rights.⁹ On 18 October 2006, the Crimean parliament adopted a resolution requesting that the Ukrainian parliament conduct a national referendum on making Russian a state language.¹⁰ The Tatar Mejlis argues that, during the last 15 years, only 15 Crimean Tatar schools and five Ukrainian schools have been opened in Crimea, representing 3 percent and 1 percent (respectively) of total schools. By contrast, Tatars constitute some 12 percent of the population, while Ukrainians constitute 24 percent. In short, the language issue, which features prominently in the programme of nearly every political group in Crimea, is being used for ethnic mobilization by all sides.

Socio-economic disparities: Land, legal, linguistic, and ethnic tensions are occurring against a background of socio-economic difficulties, especially in rural areas. Crimea has some of the highest poverty levels in Ukraine,¹¹ and suffers from socio-economic cleavages that interact in subtle but potentially explosive ways with ethnic and other perceived inequalities. Public opinion data indicate that 54 percent of Crimean Tatars feel that their living standards are below those of other Crimeans (41 percent feel it is the same), whereas 66 percent of ethnic Russians believe that Crimean Tatar living standards are higher than theirs (23 percent feel it is the same).¹² These data reflect the widespread perception among the ethnic Russian population that Crimean Tatars receive undeserved preferential treatment from the Ukrainian government.

Actors

While the ARC government and the Crimean Tatar Mejlis have been engaging in dialogue to resolve incidents of tension and avoid their escalation, capacity for developing more systematic solutions to the underlying causes of ethnic tensions remains inadequate. Moreover, while the Mejlis has thus far been able to accommodate both radical and moderate factions, recent developments point to growing popular support for more radical alternatives and a loss of authority by moderates. For example, only about half of the Crimean Tatars followed the Mejlis’s voting recommendations during Ukraine’s March 2006 parliamentary elections.¹³

The Crimea Integration and Development Programme

As a joint initiative of the international donor community¹⁴, UNDP’s Crimea Integration and Development Programme (CIDP) has since 1995 been responding to these risk factors. Over 150,000 people have been engaged in or benefited from CIDP projects that have worked across ethnic lines to increase access to rural water and gas supply, health facilities, schools, and rural roads. Income generation and rural development projects also constitute a growing part of the CIDP portfolio. Wherever possible, CIDP projects are accompanied by policy recommendations and advocacy in the areas of public service reform, strategic public sector planning, and public expenditure management. At the request of the Crimean Human Security Council,¹⁵ the CIDP has completed an extensive assessment of the problems with land administration and titling, and proposed measures to increase transparency in the land allocation process, avoid speculative land claims, and thereby reduce the frequency of land-squatting. The CIDP is also supporting the development of bi-/tri-lingual education policies, based on experience from dozens of rural school projects.

All in all, some $16 million have been invested in the CIDP, a sum that has been leveraged by growing amounts of co-financing from local communities, municipalities, and the Crimean government. This track record allows the CIDP to engage in regular policy dialogue with the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and parliament. Beyond the concrete impact of the development assistance itself, CIDP activities for many beneficiaries symbolize the international community’s commitment to ensuring that Crimea’s conflict potential remains latent.

Sascha Graumann is International Programme Coordinator for UNDP’s Crimea Integration and Development Programme.