As part of the summit of the North Atlantic Alliance, a communiqué was issued, part of which related to Ukraine. The key message regarding our state was the message about the need to implement a number of reforms through the mechanism of the Annual National Program under the auspices of the NATO-Ukraine Commission.
ANP is a kind of roadmap for the implementation of practical steps to harmonize Ukrainian legislation with NATO countries (and the EU too!). The implementation of the principles and standards of the Alliance not only in the field of defense and national security, but also in the political field, the field of legal proceedings, the economy, ethno-national politics, anti-corruption policy, law enforcement system and alike.
One of the points of the Annual National Program under the auspices of the NATO-Ukraine Commission, signed by the President in May 2021, is, among other things, the issues of improving the policy towards indigenous peoples (Crimean Tatars, Karaites, Krymchaks). Thus, the Purpose of ANP 1.3.3. voiced as follows: The conditions have been created for building a harmonious society, taking into account the ethno-cultural needs of indigenous peoples and national minorities in accordance with the standards of the European Union.
ANP-2021 states that during the year it is necessary to carry out the following measures:
– to develop proposals for improving legislation in the field of ethnopolitics within the framework of meetings of the Expert Council on Ethnopolitics, the Council of Ethno-National Organizations of Ukraine, an interdepartmental working group on the development of legislation in the field of interethnic relations and the protection of the rights of national minorities of Ukraine;
– To carry out cultural, educational, informational and other activities aimed at supporting national minorities and indigenous peoples of Ukraine.
Also, the law On Indigenous Peoples is needed to move towards membership in the European Union. Not only ANP-2021 indicates this, but also paragraph 60 of the resolution of the European Parliament on the implementation of the Association Agreement with Ukraine. In particular, they noted the need to draw attention to the issue of protecting the Crimean Tatar people, legislation on indigenous peoples, and the status of the Crimean Tatar people as an indigenous people.
Actually, the government has already taken the first step in this direction: the President submitted to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine a draft law On Indigenous Peoples of Ukraine, and this draft was approved by the relevant committee of the Verkhovna Rada and proposed to be included in the agenda of the current session of parliament.
There is very little left: to include it in the agenda of the plenary meeting and to vote. We hope that the MPs and the president will have enough political will to pass the law on indigenous peoples and thus fulfill one of the goals outlined in the roadmap – ANP-2021. As the head of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, Eskender Bariiev, correctly noted in his video blog, the law On Indigenous Peoples is a test of patriotism for MPs of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine."
We do not underestimate the importance of this bill, because it not only contributes to the implementation of homework on Ukraine's path to obtaining the MAP. The point is not only that the issues of protecting the rights of various ethno-national groups are part of the policy of the EU and NATO countries. There is another important point: the law on indigenous peoples breaks the paradigm of the Russian imperial project. Last week, a real panic began in Moscow over the draft law on indigenous peoples (and the Kremlin itself is not going to protect the indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation, moreover, no one in Russia planned to recognize the Crimean Tatars as an indigenous people). In their hysterical reaction, the Russian MPs came to the conclusion that at the official level they practically denied the right to their own state… to the Russians themselves. This is how the Ukrainian law lured all the cards to the aggressor state both in Crimea and on the prospects for the spread of the Russian world ideology.
In addition, do not forget that the bill also confuses the cards for those Russian technologists who are trying to embroil Ukrainians and representatives of indigenous peoples among themselves. Thanks to the law (I hope it will soon become so), Crimean Tatars, Karaites, Krymchaks will be fully integrated into the Ukrainian state and social mechanisms. So all the arguments of the invaders that the Crimean Tatars should not support the Ukrainian state because it does not care about their rights or that Ukrainians should not support the Crimean Tatars because they want to be not a part of Ukraine, but a part of Turkey, will be dismissed by the future law.
We hope our politicians will be able to take a decisive step for the adoption and subsequent implementation of the law on the indigenous peoples of Ukraine. After all, this law is a step towards the MAP in NATO, a step towards the de-occupation of Crimea and a step towards the destruction of the ideology of the Russian world.
Expert of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center Serhii Parkhomenko