Gromyko Commission
[6] As special settlers in diaspora they had few civil rights and were forbidden from leaving a small radius of the village or city they were assigned to, punishable by 20 years in prison.
[11] Crimea was quickly resettled by waves of ethnic Russian and Ukrainian immigrants, many of whom were given houses and property of deported Crimean Tatars.
[12][13] In 1956 other nations deported with accusations of mass treason were permitted to return and their titular republics were officially restored - such as the Chechens and Ingush, Kalmyks, Balkars, and Karachays.
[28] When pressed on the issue by foreign journalists, the government insisted that Crimean Tatars had equal rights and but that most simply did not want to return to Crimea[33] and had "taken root" in places of exile.
On 20 June 1987 the first Crimean Tatar delegates arrived in Moscow, where they visited the offices of various newspapers, magazines, and TV stations as well as the writers union and talked about their exile and requested that their letters and petitions be published, but they were typically turned down.
Later on in early July several dozen Crimean Tatars began picketing in Red Square holding signs calling for right of return.
[48] The day before, a small delegation of Crimean Tatars met with People's Writer of the USSR Yevgeny Yevtushenko, who then encouraged Soviet leaders to give them a meeting or at least listen to them.
[51] Subsequently, Gromyko, who rarely handled domestic issues, was selected by Gorbachev to head the commission despite his extreme reluctance to meet with Crimean Tatars and his hostile attitude towards the ethnic group.
[51] The leadership of the commission consisted of various senior Soviet politicians who had strong feelings on the issue, specifically Viktor Chebrikov, Vitaly Vorotnikov, Vladimir Shcherbitsky, Inomjon Usmonxoʻjayev, Pyotr Demichev, Alexander Yakovlev, Anatoly Lukyanov, Georgy Razumovsky, but no Crimean Tatars.
[62] Despite Gromyko's warning that increased protests and other forms of public discontent would not be taken well, members of the Central Initiative Group (OKND) led by Mustafa Dzhemilev continued to remain in Moscow, holding rallies in Izmailovsky Park.
[63] While the original advocates of the Crimean Tatar national movement who were condemned by mainstream Soviet dissidents as Marxists,[64] many members of the more radical Central Initiative Group listed above, among others, openly solicited support from the West,[65] which concerned the more moderate NDKT.
The Central Initiative group disproportionately of the younger generation born in exile and had never been part of the national movement before, and grew in power as Soviet authorities failed to meaningfully address Crimean Tatar rights.
