Circassian ethnic cleansing

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Main article: Russian-Circassian War

Circassian ethnic cleansing is a modern term that refers to the anti-Circassian campaign by the Russian Empire in the early 1860s under Alexander II that lasted for years. It was what is today called ethnic cleansing – the systematic emptying of villages by Russian soldiers and the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Circassians to the Ottoman Empire. ^[1] It was accompanied by the Russian colonization of these lands. ^[2]

1 Introduction
2 History
3 Death toll
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Introduction

Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin's May 1994 statement admitted that resistance to the tsarist forces was legitimate, but he did not recognize "the guilt of the tsarist government for the genocide."^[3] In 1997 and 1998, the leaders of Kabardino-Balkaria and of Adygea sent appeals to the Duma to reconsider the situation and to issue the needed apology; to date, there has been no response from Moscow.

On July 5, 2005 the Circassian Congress, an organization that unites representatives of the various Circassian peoples in the Russian Federation, has called on Moscow first to acknowledge and then to apologize for tsarist policies that Circassians say constituted a genocide. Their appeal pointed out that "according to the official tsarist documents more than 400,000 Circassians were killed, 497,000 were forced to flee abroad to Turkey, and only 80,000 were left alive in their native area." ^[3]

In October 2006, the Ageyan public organizations of Russia, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, Syria, the USA, Belgium, Canada and Germany have sent the president of the European Parliament a letter with the request to recognize the genocide against Adygean (Circassian) people. ^[4]

[edit] History

After the surrender of Imam Shamil (Chechnya and Dagestan) in 1859, Russia's war campaigns concentrated in the Circassian lands of the North Caucasus and the Black Sea coast, at that time the largest Muslim nation in the region. Even before their final victory over the Circassians, Russia decided that all the historical territory of the Circassians, the Kuban plains and the Black Sea coast, were to be cleansed of the majority of their indigenous peoples and settled instead with Cossacks. The plan on the subject of the Circassian question was agreed upon at a meeting of the Caucasus commanders in October 1860 in Vladikavkaz and officially approved on May 10, 1862 by Tsar Alexander II.^[5]

Mass deportations started in 1860. A humanitarian disaster followed, and the Circassians immediately organized armed resistance. They made Sochi their capital, appealing to Turkey and the Western countries for recognition of an independent state of Circassia; these appeals were ignored. In 1862, Russia again started violent deportations, and by May 1864, the Circassian resistance had been crushed. The Circassians were given the choice of removal to the lowlands in the interior parts of the Empire, or flight to Turkey and beyond.

Most were forced to leave for exile.^[6] More than 400,000 Circassians, as well as 200,000 Abkhazians and Ajars, were compelled to flee to Turkey. ^[6] Between March 6 and May 21, 1864, the entire Ubykh nation had departed the Caucasus; today the group has linguistically vanished.

The anti-Circassian campaign ultimately ended in the 1880s. Suddenly, as in the case of the Crimean Tatars, Russia stopped the persecution of the remaining populations, and crushed the voluntary emigration movements by deporting the organizers to Siberia.^[6]

[edit] Death toll

In all, some 90 percent of Circassians (estimated at more than three million ^[7]) had been expelled from the territories occupied by Russia. During these events, and the preceding Caucasian War, at least hundreds of thousands of people were killed or starved to death, but the exact numbers are unknown. ^[8]