Dear forum participants! Dear Members of the Japanese Parliament! I am Farit Zakiyev, chairman of the All-Tatar Public Center, the oldest Tatar national organization. Tatars are a people with an ancient history and literature, a rich and beautiful language. Tatar statehood is more than a thousand years old. The Tatar people are the founder of the largest states of the Middle Ages – the Volga Bulgaria, the Golden Horde, the Kazan Khanate. On February 24, 2022, Russia unleashed an aggressive war against sovereign Ukraine. Dozens of young men are killed every day in the name of satisfying Russia’s imperial ambitions. It is officially recognized that 537 natives of Tatarstan died in the war. Obviously, the true figure is many times higher. We assess this as a genocide of the Tatar and other peoples of Russia.
The Tatar people do not want to be cannon for the Russian Empire! We believe that the only way to save the Tatar people from complete annihilation is if Tatarstan becomes a state independent of the Russian Empire, pursuing a policy of forced assimilation and Russification, which unleashed a criminal war against Ukraine and the genocide of the Ukrainian people. The Tatar people have every legal basis to ask the international community for recognition of the independence and state sovereignty of the Republic of Tatarstan. I ask you to carefully listen to our arguments in favor of the fact that the Republic of Tatarstan is an unrecognized independent state:
1. On August 30, 1990, the Supreme Council adopted the Declaration on the State Sovereignty of Tatarstan.
2. In March 1992, the former autonomous republics, krais, oblasts, formerly part of the RSFSR and the USSR, signed the Federal Treaty and formed the Russian Federation. Chechnya and Tatarstan did not sign this agreement.
3. On March 21, 1992, a referendum was held on the state status of Tatarstan. To the question “Do you agree that the Republic of Tatarstan is a sovereign state, a subject of international law, building its relations with the Russian Federation and other republics, states on the basis of equal treaties?” 61.4% of the citizens of the republic who took part in the voting voted positively. The referendum was attended by international observers. Before the referendum, Ildus Sadykov, a member of the Presidium of the All-Tatar Public Center, flew to the United States, spoke in Congress and brought three congressmen to the referendum as observers. Three members of the US Congress watched the referendum in Tatarstan. The referendum of March 21, 1992 fully complied with the provisions on the self-determination of peoples, enshrined in the UN Charter. But the President of Tatarstan and the Supreme Council of Tatarstan sabotaged the people’s will – they did not announce the birth of a new independent state to the whole world, they did not turn to the states of the world, to the UN with a request to recognize the Republic of Tatarstan as an independent state.
4. Based on the results of the referendum, the Supreme Council of Tatarstan adopted on November 6, 1992 the Constitution of the Republic of Tatarstan. It was the Constitution of an independent state according to Article 1 “The Republic of Tatarstan is a sovereign democratic state expressing the will and interests of the entire multinational people of the republic.”
But in 2002, the attack on the sovereignty of Tatarstan began. At the behest of Moscow, the Constitution of Tatarstan was illegally changed. In Article 1, the words “being a subject of the Russian Federation” appeared. That is, the results of the referendum on March 21, 1992 were destroyed. In fact, an anti-constitutional coup d’etat took place in Tatarstan. We consider the forced change of Article 1 of the Constitution of the Republic of Tatarstan of 1992 to be illegitimate. This change was made under pressure from Moscow, against the will of the people of Tatarstan. Dear Members of the Japanese Parliament! We ask you to recognize the state sovereignty and independence of the Republic of Tatarstan on the basis of the results of the referendum on March 21, 1992 and in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. For a year and a half, a bloody, monstrous war has been going on in the center of Europe. How to stop the aggressor? We believe that it is necessary to create an anti-fascist coalition of world leaders and all members of the UN. We believe that our Forum should turn to world leaders Guterres, Biden, Sunak, Macron, Xi JINPING, Scholz Kisida, Trudeau, Meloni with a demand to take decisive steps against the aggressor:
1. Exclude fascist Russia from the United Nations . The situation is absolutely absurd – the aggressor country, the terrorist country is a member of the UN Security Council!
2. Forbid all UN members to buy oil and gas from fascist Russia. Those who buy oil and gas should be considered allies of the aggressor. UN members to interrupt all economic, political diplomatic ties with Russia. Exclude from the UN those countries that will not do this. Expel from the UN And impose tough sanctions against countries through which parallel imports to Russia go. We believe that it is necessary to create a world public movement NO WAR! We believe that our Forum should adopt an appeal to social and political organizations, to the peoples of democratic states with an appeal to hold mass public actions.
The nations must demand from their leaders and parliaments the complete international isolation of the aggressor!
Правительство Независимого Татарстана
