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Associated Press MOSCOW — A group of Crimean Tatars who held a 21-hour protest in Red Square met in the Kremlin Mon day with President Andrei A. Gromyko and were told it wasn’t in their interest to put more pressure on the govern ment, Tass said. Gromyko heads a government commis sion formed last week to look into the problems of the Crimean Tatars, who want to return to the homeland from which they were expelled during World War II. Tass, the official news agency, said Gromyko told the Tatars that ‘‘any attempts of put pressure on the organs of state power can only complicate the work of the commission. “To stir up and heat up the situation is not in your interests,’’ Gromyko told the Tatars. He said it would take time to deal with their grievances, and said they would be carefully studied. The Tatars numbers swelled to more than 500 at one point during the protest, which ended Sunday, and they chanted the name of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and the word ‘‘mother land.”’ They demanded to meet with Gorbachev, but eventually settled for an appointment with Gromyko, whose role is largely ceremonial. Tass did not say how the Tatars react ed to Gromyko’s remarks. The Crimean Tatars, who today num ber 250,000 to 350,000, were expelled from the Crimean Peninsula during World War II after being accused of collaborating with the Nazis and de ported en masse to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and the Urals. Tatar activ ists say about 110,000 people, or 46 percent of their population, died during the deportation and soon after. The Tatars are not permitted to return to the peninsula, where they want to establish an autonomous homeland. The protest drew mixed reviews from Soviet civilians who paused to watch, pressed against police lines, and some times shouted at the activists. Diplomats applauded the government’s decision to allow the ethnic minority to demonstrate as a significant step in Gorbachev's efforts to encourage toler ance. When the Tatars demonstrated earlier this month at Red Square, plainclothes KGB police ripped up their banners. But police response this weekend ap peared more in line with Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost or openness, which permits limited democracy and public criticism. Police used crowd control rather than force. In a move viewed in Moscow as extraordinary, authorities allowed the protesters to camp overnight behind the 16th century St. Basil’s Cathedral, one of Moscow’s most visited sites. They also permitted some Tatars to leave the area they had cordoned off, get water, and return. ‘There seems to be a little more give and take than before’ on the part of the government, one Western diplomat told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity. ‘I would call it a guarded relaxation of previous re strictions, but it is certainly precedent setting. ‘I’ve never heard of anything like that before,’ said the diplomat, who has lived in Moscow for about six years. The protest was held in view of the Kremlin, the Soviet Union’s seat of power. Thousands of Soviets and tour ists, some snapping photographs, paused to watch the demonstrators. Several hundred police were stationed on Red Square throughout the pri est.
Newspaper Details
Panama City News Herald
Panama City, Florida, US
Tue, Jul 28, 1987
Page 4
Full Page
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USA 23 Jun 2026
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