10,000 Ukrainian Muslims March against Russia
By Riaz Haq
CA
"With cries of 'Allahu akbar,' Arabic for “God is great,” thousands of protesters in the capital of Ukraine’s Crimea region, a tinderbox of ethnic, religious and political divisions, added an Islamic voice on Wednesday to the tumultuous struggle for Ukraine that last weekend drove the president from power and that has pushed Russia and the West into a face-off reminiscent of the Cold War". - New York Times Feb 27, 2014
Ukraine is a deeply divided country. Though the majority of Ukrainians claim to be secular, the western part of the country has been mostly Catholic and supports integration with the West. The eastern part, on the other hand, is made up of pro-Russia Orthodox Christians. Crimea has a majority Russian-speaking population which favors close ties with Russia. The Crimean peninsula also has significant pro-West Catholic and Muslim minorities. About 10,000 Muslim Tartars rallied in the Crimean capital of Simferopol in support of the pro-West interim government in Kiev which Russia opposes.
Crimea is strategically important to Russia. The Russian Navy has a large base at the Black Sea port of Sevastopol. It helps Russia project its power in the Mediterranean Sea. Crimea was a majority Muslim Khanate in the Ottoman Empire before it was overrun by the Russian empire. After defeating the Ottoman Empire in Crimea, the Russian empire expelled large numbers of Muslims and brought Russians to settle there, reducing the Muslim population to about 12% now. It was transferred by Soviet Communist leader Nikita Khrushchev from Russia to Ukraine in 1954.
Here's an excerpt from a New York Times story on Tartar Muslims in Crimea:
"The minority Tatars, however, have little love for Moscow after being deported en masse by Joseph Stalin and, now back in their homeland, want to carve out their own space inside Ukraine. “We have a long memory of what Russia did to us Tatars,” Refat Chubarov, a member of the Crimean Legislature and a Tatar community leader said. Pro-Moscow members of the assembly, furious at the cancellation of an extraordinary session they had called to discuss a response to events in the capital, accused Mr Chubarov of using a mob to derail democracy. Most people on both sides of the Russia-Ukraine divide have no interest in violent confrontation, but small militant groups have been increasingly active in trying to rally people for battle. In Sevastopol, Crimea’s biggest city, pro-Russian groups have been signing up residents for so-called 'self-defense' units while hard-line Cossack organizations, recalling past campaigns to expand and secure Russia’s borders, denounced politicians who call for calm as cowards. A small number of militant Tatars, encouraged by extremists abroad, have tried over the years to recruit Crimea’s Muslims for jihad, but their efforts have fallen flat. Any move to restore Crimea to Russian rule, however, would risk breathing life into such calls for extremism".
Russia has offered evidence of western intervention in recent days in the Maidan uprising in Kiev. It has released a voice recording of a telephone conversation between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US Ambassador in Kiev discussing the composition of the future government of Ukraine while pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was still in charge as the pro-West protests raged against his government.
In response to the installation of a new pro-West interim government in Kiev, President Vladimir Putin of Russia has ordered massive military exercises close to the Ukrainian border as a warning to the West to stop interfering. US Secretary of State John Kerry has warned Russia not to intervene in Ukraine. The situation is very tense. Putin could complicate US efforts in the Iran nuclear talks and the resolution of the Syrian crisis in response to US intervention in Ukraine.
US and EU need to tread very carefully in Ukraine which Russia sees as its backyard. Any missteps could lead to a larger international crisis far beyond Europe.
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