Rallies protest Crimea takeover

Ukraine marks 1944 deportation of region’s Tatars by Stalin

An elderly woman cries as she and other Crimean Tatars rally in Simferopol, Crimea, Sunday, May 18, 2014. Crimean Tatars gathered for a rally commemorating the 70th anniversary of Stalin's mass deportation. (AP Photo/Alexander Polegenko)

An elderly woman cries as she and other Crimean Tatars rally in Simferopol, Crimea, Sunday, May 18, 2014. Crimean Tatars gathered for a rally commemorating the 70th anniversary of Stalin's mass deportation. (AP Photo/Alexander Polegenko)

Monday, May 19, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine -- Several hundred people marched in Ukraine's capital Sunday to commemorate the deportation 70 years ago of Crimea's entire population of Tatars, while about 20,000 members of the ethnic group rallied in the peninsula's main city.

In both cities, the gatherings were also a protest against Russia's annexation of Crimea, which reopened old wounds for the Crimean Tatars and raised fears of renewed discrimination under Moscow's rule.

Also in the country's east Sunday, Ukrainian forces reported overnight fighting with insurgents -- killing one rebel and losing a police station -- as separatists prepared for a fall election after declaring independence and saying they want to join Russia.

Masked men set fire to a candidate's regional campaign office before a presidential ballot set for next Sunday as government troops and insurgents skirmished in Ukraine's Donbass regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. The separatists, who hold buildings and radio and television towers in about 15 cities, said Sunday that they'd hold a vote, possibly around Sept. 14, to elect new officials for their self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic.

"All the current members of the government and parliament of the Donetsk People's Republic were appointed without a vote," Dmitry Gau, a spokesman for the separatists, said by phone. "In the fall, we'll have elections."

Since holding May 11 referendums that they say justify their secession bid, the rebels have set up their own administration and intensified attacks against government troops, who in turn are pushing on with a military operation against the fighters. The government in Kiev and its U.S., European Union and NATO allies have rejected the separatists' independence calls and say Russia is trying to stir unrest before the presidential election.

Back in Crimea on Sunday, the peninsula's new Kremlin-backed leaders had refused to allow the Tatars to hold their rally on a central square, so they gathered instead near a mosque on the outskirts. The Interfax Ukraine news agency said the crowd whistled in anger when two Russian military helicopters flew low over the gathering.

The Tatars, a Turkic ethnic group, now make up 12 percent of the population of Crimea, but they ruled the Black Sea peninsula from the 15th century until the Russians conquered it in the 18th century.

In May 1944, shortly after Soviet troops drove German forces from Crimea, Josef Stalin accused the Tatars of collaborating with the enemy and ordered their deportation. About 250,000 Tatars were shipped in freight trains to Central Asia, where more than 40 percent died of hunger and disease.

Tatar community leader Mustafa Dzhemilev, who was barred from Crimea after the Russian takeover, was among the marchers.

Another Tatar leader criticized authorities in Crimea, saying they interfered with the rally on Simferopol's outskirts. Refat Chubarov, chairman of the Tatar national assembly, condemned the "helicopters flying over a peaceful rally where people were praying for the souls of hundreds of those killed by the totalitarian regime" and complained that police had blocked the roads to prevent thousands of others from attending the ceremony, Interfax reported.

By banning the rally in central Simferopol, the Russians were "trampling on our memory, on an entire people," Chubarov said.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry issued a statement before the anniversary expressing support for the Crimean Tatars.

"We commemorate the tragedy of 1944 with heavy hearts, even as we stand in solidarity with Crimean Tatars today against a new threat to their community," he said in Friday's statement.

Kerry also criticized what he said has been a rash of human-rights abuses in Crimea since it came under Russian control.

"Murder, beatings and the kidnapping of Crimean Tatars and others have become standard fare," he said. "Thousands of Tatars and others have fled their homes in Crimea, fearful for their safety. Those who remain face a future of repression, discrimination, censorship, limits on freedom of peaceful assembly and association, and the criminalization of dissent."

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned against the Crimean Tatars "becoming pawns" in disputes between countries, in particular between Russia and Ukraine.

"I understand that there are people who ... have done a lot for the Crimean Tatars, who have fought for their rights for decades," Putin said Friday. "But we all need to realize that the interests of the Crimean Tatars today are bound to Russia."

Information for this article was contributed by Nataliya Vasilyeva of The Associated Press and by Kateryna Choursina and Daria Marchak of Bloomberg News.

A Section on 05/19/2014