Russian Olympics clouded by 19th century deaths
(Reuters)
A Muslim diaspora is demanding the Sochi 2014 Olympics be canceled or
moved unless Russia apologizes for the 19th century deaths of many of
their ancestors in the location where the Winter Games will be held.
The Circassian
diaspora, Muslim indigenous people from the northwest Caucasus now
scattered across the globe, join a swelling list of opponents to the
Games -- from environmentalist group Greenpeace to Amnesty
International.
Circassians argue
the Sochi Games are as insensitive as hosting a sporting competition on
the grounds of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz. 2014 marks 150 years since a tsarist military campaign wiped
out 300,000 Circassians in and around Sochi. Although recorded by
Russian imperial historians in 1864, no nation has recognized the
deaths as genocide.
Deportations and
turmoil led many Circassians south to Turkey and elsewhere, and their
seven million or so descendants are spread across the world from the
United States to Jordan to Israel. About 700,000 remain in the
northwest Caucasus.
"The Games are part
of Russia's policy of eradicating Circassian history," said U.S.-born
Lisa Jarkasi, co-founder of No Sochi 2014, a lobbying group comprised
of 30 Circassian organizations.
"They are
constructing on a mass grave. We need to put a stop to this," she told
a North Caucasus conference organized by U.S. think tank Jamestown
Foundation.
No Sochi 2014,
which held protests at last month's Vancouver Games as well as in New
York and Istanbul, has appealed to the International Olympic Committee
(IOC) to reconsider the chosen site but has not received an answer.
The Sochi 2014
Organising Committee, in a statement to Reuters, said: "It is not our
responsibility to comment on historic or political events or activity."
The Kremlin declined immediate comment.
On Saturday
Circassians, using documents from the state archives in Tbilisi,
formally presented Georgian lawmakers with a resolution asking them to
recognize what occurred as genocide.
Should ex-Soviet
Georgia agree to such a move it would likely further strain relations
with Russia, still in tatters after the two fought a brief war in
August 2008 over Georgia's breakaway region South Ossetia.
The closest the
Russian government has come to apologizing for the bloodshed was in
1994 when former President Boris Yeltsin acknowledged that resistance
to tsarist violence was legitimate.
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