MOSCOW Up to 300 Crimean Tatars who gathered in a Moscow parkMonday were surrounded by police and would probably be sent out ofthe capital, dissident sources said, as the Soviet governmentcontinued its effort to smash a protest movement by the Moslemminority demanding the return of its Black Sea coast homeland.
Police barred Western reporters from approaching the group inIsmailovo Park, where the Tatars have been meeting since early Juneto campaign for the restoration of their historic homeland in theBlack Sea peninsula of the Crimea.
A dissident supporter of the Tatar cause said 250 to 300 Tatarswere involved and police had prevented some of them from leaving thepark afterward.
"They were surrounded by the police," Valery Senderov said,quoting a Tatar participant who telephoned him.
He said he had no details on how many people had been heldwithin the police cordon, but suspected the police would send themback to their homes, as was done with a dozen protest leaders lastweek.
Another dissident who has kept in close contact with the Tatarssaid many of those at Monday's gathering had just arrived in Moscowto join others who have participated in protests and meetings thelast two weeks.
Senderov, who estimated that 1,100 Tatars attended a similargathering at the park last Thursday, said most of them had beenreturned to Soviet Central Asia and areas of southern Russia and theUkraine where they live.
Under Soviet law, police can send home people who break internalpassport regulations by staying for extended periods withoutpermission in areas where they do not formally reside.
Nine days ago, some 300 Tatars held an unprecedented 24-hourdemonstration on the edge of Red Square, followed by a meeting withSoviet President Andrei A. Gromyko to discuss their demand to beallowed to return to the Crimea.
But Gromyko told the Tatars the situation could not be resolvedquickly, and the demonstrators vowed to continue their protests. Ifa confrontation occurs, it could mark the first real test of MikhailS. Gorbachev's policy of glasnost, or openness.
The entire Crimean Tatar nation of some 194,000 people wasdeported from the peninsula in 1944 when Joseph Stalin accused themof mass collaboration with the German occupation forces. Tens ofthousands died during and after the deportations.
What complicates the Tatar homeland issue is Nikita S.Khrushchev's 1954 decision to hand over the Crimea, whichhistorically had been part of Russia, to the Ukraine. In theintervening years, many of the old Tatar villages and virtually allthe mosques on that picturesque coast have been destroyed asUkrainians settled in the area.
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий