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When Meshkov asked about U.S. assistance, I said, “Yes, we were very interested in
assisting development projects in Crimea, such as water projects for the city of Yalta and
Sevastopol. Mr. Meshkov and Mr. Suvorov, we'd be happy to do that as a part of our
assistance to Ukraine," and we would work through the government in Kiev. But in the
face of all of this, he was very stoic, and very courteous in many ways. I still have a bottle
of Massandra wine that he presented to me at one of our meetings, that was corked in the
year of my birth. I’m waiting for the right occasion to open that bottle of Massandra wine.
So I saw him from time to time and we maintained a reasonably civilized relationship. At
the same time that I met with Meshkov and the Ukrainian governor, I also met with the
Tatars. The Tatars had been demonstrating in front of the Crimean Parliament building on
the question of representation in the parliament as well as implementation of the right of
return of Tatars from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Q: These were expelled under Stalin.
MILLER: Right, and about 450,000 had been forcibly deported to Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Those that had survived and were able to return were led
by two Tatars who I knew from meetings in the United States. They had come to the
United States to participate in several human rights conferences when I was President of
the American Committee on U.S.-Soviet Relations. Mustafa Dzhemilev, who was the
leader of the Tatars, and Rifat Chubarov, both of whom are now deputies in the Ukrainian
parliament. They are still the leaders of the Tatars in Crimea.
We met again in Kiev. I called on them in turn in Crimea. They showed me their
parliament, Mejles, and we toured the many Tatar historic sites together and met with the
other Tatar leaders. We had wonderful meals at Tatar restaurants. We had the chance to
review many things. It was the first of many meetings that I had in Simferopol with the
Tatar community. Every time I go to Crimea, I call on, in particular, Mustafa Dzhemilev,
who is a great hero of the human rights movement.
The Tatars asked for help from the United States in support of their ethnic rights and I
was happy to give that. The Tatars were asking for their rights guaranteed by the
Ukrainian constitution, the UN Charter and other international conventions that Ukraine
was a party to. To the credit of both Kravchuk and Kuchma, they supported the right of
Tatar return and giving to the Tatars full rights as citizens, even though they were very
sensitive to the fact that the Russian-speaking people who had come and settled in
Ukraine after the Second World War, particularly in Crimea had taken over their lands
and their homes. Most of the population of Crimea had been wiped out, the Russians by
the Nazis, deported in the case of ethnic minorities, or majorities, in the case of the
Tatars, but also Bulgarians, Greeks, Germans, all of the Black Sea ethnic groups.
Q: And Germans, too.
MILLER: Germans, and some Jews, a small number of Jews. Germans, certainly who had
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