The Ukrainian Helsinki Group: 10 years of relentless repressions (11/09/86)

10th ANNIVERSARY OF THE UKRAINIAN HELSINKI GROUP

The Ukrainian Helsinki Group: 10 years of relentless repressions

by Nina Strokata

August 1975 marked the 10th anniversary since the leaders of 35 nations signed an act in Finland which is now known as the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Accords). In November of this year, 10 years will have passed from the time of the founding of the Ukrainian Public Group to Promote the Implementation of the Helsinki Accords (the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, or UHG). Let us look at the recent past and let us also try to see something of the future, which, even though it may partially depend on the movement of processes and events, is nevertheless linked to the Helsinki Accords.

In 1975, on the first day of the Helsinki Conference, the prisoners of the Perm labor camp carried out a one-day hunger strike and announced their doubts as to whether the Soviet government would abide by the accords.

And, on August 1, 1975, from another prison camp in Mordovia, Vyacheslav Chornovil wrote to President Gerald Ford that the leaders of the USSR would turn détente into a process which would take place simultaneously with the stifling of opposition in the USSR.

The following year saw a group of prisoners undertake a hunger strike and by such means call attention to their doubts of the value of any agreements with the USSR. Among the participants were future members of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, including the late Vasyl Stus. Stus, at that time serving his first prison term, advised the leaders of the USSR to consider, among other things, why there was no end to the repressions in Ukraine.

Everything that was to happen to the Ukrainian members of the Helsinki movement in the USSR was testimony to the acumen of those who, knowing the morality and habits of the Kremlin bosses, were able to foresee the crisis of the Helsinki process.

Repressions against the members of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group began on the very day that the group was formed, and in the course of the first year of the group's activity, four of its 10 founding members were sentenced for participating in its work. Nevertheless, new members joined the group.

Legal and illegal means were used against the group, including forcible emigration (which was supposed to look like a "liberal" meting out of punishment). At the end of 1979, six members of the group found themselves abroad. It is necessary to state, however, that aside from these six and Leonid Plyushch, no other Ukrainian defenders of rights were able to emigrate, no matter whether they wanted to do so or whether they actually had the documents and proofs required to leave the USSR.

Punitive medicine also was not forgotten. Some members, like Oksana Meshko, Vasyl Stus, and Petro Sichko and his son Vasyl, experienced only the threat of psychiatric terror. Hanna Mykhailenko, however, who was only a sympathizer of the group, has been incarcerated in a psychiatric prison since the start of the Madrid Conference in 1980; none of her friends sees any way to save her from further tortures.

Punitive measures are not just the misuse of psychiatry but the programmatic underutilization of medical care in Soviet camps and prisons. This is the very reason for the deaths of UHG members Oleksiy Tykhy and Vasyl Stus, both of whom needed qualified and humane medical treatment. If we consider other deceased UHG members, then it is clear that the deaths of Mykhailo Melnyk and Yuriy Lytvyn are the extreme results of the Soviet government's aggression against those who had hoped to incline the authorities toward abiding by the Helsinki Accords. Both men apparently committed suicide.

Despite this, however, new members continued to join the group up until the end of 1979. Some political prisoners announced their membership in the Ukrainian-based group, with the intention of supporting the Helsinki movement in Ukraine. Out of solidarity with events in Ukraine, Estonian political prisoner Mart Niklus and Lithuanian political prisoner Viktoras Petkus announced their entry into the Ukrainian Helsinki Group in 1983. Their actions were partially symbolic, since it must have been difficult to believe in the rebirth of the Helsinki movement at a time when almost all of its participants throughout the USSR - even in Moscow - were being repressed or forced to suspend their activities.

Few could know at that time of the formation in Ukraine in 1982 of the Initiative Group for the Defense of Believers and the Church, a group which considers itself a part of the Helsinki movement in Ukraine. In 1984, documents reached the West which show that this group calls itself a Helsinki group. Thus, it appears that the latest attempts at renewing the Helsinki movement in Ukraine took place fairly recently.

The organizers and leaders of this new religious Helsinki group were Yosyp Terelia and Vasyl Kobryn, both sentenced in 1985. Their recently created group has been included in the list of the participants in the Helsinki movement in Ukraine._1_

Some mention should also be made of those who, under circumstances not known to us, suddenly began to "accuse" themselves and their recent co-believers. Those who publicly confessed their "errors" also were victims of repression. (Among them was one of the founding members of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group.) One should not forget that Moscow knows how to fabricate recantations as well as accusations. For proof of this it is enough to recall the events surrounding Ivan Sokulsky and Yuriy Shukhevych.

The latest conference dealing with the problems of the Helsinki Accords is now under way. It was not an easy task to prepare for the Vienna Conference for those who know all the difficulties involved in dealing with Moscow's representatives. But let us remember certain events of this fall. President Ronald Reagan, after returning from his meeting with the Communist leader of the USSR in Iceland, stated that the existence of the Strategic Defense Initiative forced Moscow to begin talks with its enemy - Washington - because strength is a factor which must be taken into account by Moscow. This is known by exiles from the USSR. They speak about this often, yet until now the traditions of Western diplomacy have appeared too weak to stand against the brutal diplomacy of Moscow. President Reagan has provided an example of firmness in defending American interests.

Security and cooperation in Europe are interests on whose behalf the Helsinki Accords were signed. But security and cooperation are impossible without respect for human being and for their fundamental rights. Perhaps the strong stance of President Reagan will inspire the democratic signatories of the Helsinki Accords to demand from the USSR the following: the immediate release of all those sentenced for their ideas, political beliefs or religious activity - the imprisoned members of the Helsinki groups, first of all; immediate access by independent journalists and doctors of the West to all forced labor camps and psychiatric prisons; immediate agreement to permit international aid for the victims of the Chornobyl nuclear catastrophe.

It is impossible to believe in the safety of humanity if means cannot be found to protect people from arbitrary persecution and to help those in need.

There is reason to believe that Vienna will not become the site of the signing of a major document that would serve as one more example of the defective instruments of Western diplomacy.

1. See the list or imprisoned members of the Helsinki groups in the USSR compiled by the U.S. Congressional Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (November 1986). [Back to Text]

Nina Strokata is a founding member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group who now resides in the United States.

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