1980: an overview: UCCA congress (12/28/80)

1980: an overview

UCCA congress

Despite the presence of Gen. Alexander Haig and National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, the personal representatives, respectively, of Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan and President Jimmy Carter, the unlucky 13th Congress of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the greatest failures of Ukrainian emigre community life.

After one political grouping managed to wrest control of the UCCA - all the while determinedly ignoring the opinions of the minority and, in effect, imposing a gag rule on all dissenting voices - over 20 national organizations walked out of the congress.

In an attempt to heal the painful rift in the Ukrainian community which effects individuals and organizations from the local to the international levels, a delegation of the Committee on Law and Order met with UCCA representatives on December 12. This first meeting bore no fruit, however, and future negotiations between the two groups were scheduled for 1981.

Twenty-seven organizations which protested the by-laws violations and other irregularities of the 13th congress later united to form the Committee for Law and Order in the UCCA and pledged to work together for the reform of the UCCA and normalization of Ukrainian community life in the United States.

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