"Few peoples in history have suffered as much as the Turkish group called the Tatars. They once lived in the Crimea, in what today [in 1989] is the southern Ukraine and Russian S.S.R.s, and in the Northern Caucasus region. Through a combination of murder, expulsion, and illegal taxes and other "administrative pressure" most of the Tatars were forced from their lands by the Tsars. The few who remained in the Crimea were banished to Central Asia during World War II by Stalin. Yet they are seldom if ever mentioned as an example of historical genocide. Why are they ignored? Their fate has been well documented by historians, so ignorance of their history cannot be the reason. The Russian operations against the Circassians and Abkhazians have similarly been ignored. In the nineteenth century there was a mindset among Europeans and Americans that denied that Muslims could ever be oppressed. Westerners of the time were seldom able to see Muslims as anything but oppressors. Has that mindset continued in our day?"
Source: Justin McCarthy and Carolyn McCarthy, Turks and Armenians, Washington, 1989, p. 27.
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