By Sabirzyan Badretdin

I met Mustafa Jemilev (Mustafa Abdulcemil Kirimoglu) only twice and spent no more than a few hours with him, but my impressions of him left an indelible imprint in my memory.

Our first meeting took place in New York in 1991. He was visiting the New York office of Radio Liberty at the invitation of the Ukrainian Language Service. At that time I was a young reporter who was about to be transferred to our Munich office. When I first saw Mustafa Jemilev, I was surprised by his short stature. He was about 5' 7" and was wearing an ordinary dark suit and shirt. Seeing surprise in my eyes, he smiled and said to me: "Many people have the same reaction when they see me."

Then he told me a story about his meeting with a criminal investigator during the notorious "Omsk trial," that took place in 1976. At that time he was incarcerated for "anti-Soviet propaganda." The Russian investigator, when he saw Jemilev for the first time, suddenly burst out laughing and said to him: "I heard a lot about you and I imagined you to be tall, big and tough-looking, but you are just a short little fellow. Hard to believe that you are capable of being a threat to the Soviet system!" Later, during the interrogation, the investigator found out just how tough and steadfast a "short little fellow" can be. Jemilev's strength was in his intellect, in his total dedication to the cause of achieving justice for the Crimean Tatars and in his courage.

I had the honor of interviewing Mustafa Jemilev for the Tatar-Bashkir Service of Radio Liberty in 1991. My questions were in Kazan Tatar, his responses were in Crimean Tatar. He did not use any notes and responded to my questions with clarity and exactitude. Despite being very tired after giving lengthy interviews to the Russian and Ukrainian Services and despite suffering from jet lag, Jemilev was willing to skip his lunch and spend as much time as necessary in the recording studio. He was content to sacrifice personal comfort for the sake of spreading the truth about the plight of the Crimean Tatars.

Our second meeting took place in Munich in 1992. It was clear to me by that time that I was dealing with an exceptional, unique and outstanding personality. His passionate devotion to the cause of justice was awe- inspiring. He could have easily stayed in the West if he chose to. His previous record of political activities as a dissident in Communist Russia was enough to justify a comfortable, respectable life in the US or Europe as a lecturer or a Soviet scholar at some university or think tank. What induced him to go back to Crimea, where ethnic animosity, political repression and material hardships had been and still remain an inseparable part of daily life?

Whenever I meet a celebrity (which does not happen too often), I always try to figure out what motivates his or her life, what makes that person "tick." Most of the time it's not hard to guess: they seem mostly to be motivated by one or more of the following three passions: money, fame or power. I tried to figure out what motivated Jemilev.

Money? Hardly. He had no interest at all in shopping or acquiring expensive things. Every last penny that he received for his interviews he spent on medications and emergency supplies for the Tatar migrants to Crimea.

Fame? Again, no: Jemilev had access to presidents and prime-ministers; he was scheduled to meet American congressmen during his short stay in the US; many members of the Russian intelligentsia were proud to be acquainted with him. And yet, he was a modest man, totally devoid of vanity and completely oblivious to one's social status.

Power? Again not. There is not much joy in being a leader of a small persecuted people trying to overcome the tragic consequences of a historical injustice of genocidal proportions. Jemilev was incarcerated seven times(!) by the Soviet authorities.

It took me a while to understand that a much stronger passion motivated Jemilev, a passion that is much more rewarding than money, power or fame: Namely, love and compassion. Love for his long-suffering people and compassion for the innocent uprooted and decimated victims of Stalin's horrible crime.

In terms of personal sacrifice and devotion to the cause of freedom and justice, Mustafa Jemilev is in the same category of people as Martin Luther King, Mahatma Ghandi, Nelson Mandela and other great leaders. He only differs from them because he belongs to a relatively small nation that most of the world knows nothing about. If Ghandi, King and Mandela were the leaders of the Crimean Tatars, they would have been just as obscure and unknown to the majority of humanity.

Mustafa Jemilev himself does not, of course, think of himself in those terms. He continues his work as the leader of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis in his modest office in the two-story building located on Lieutenant Schmidt Street in the city of Aq Mechet (Simferopol or Akmescit). Let's wish him all the best on the eve of the Crimean Tatar anniversary.

May 1998

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