LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (04/14/96)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Weekly subscriptions lifeline for Ukrainians

Dear Editor:

Hooray and congratulations to Self-Reliance of New York on its donation of $3,000 to fund subscriptions of The Ukrainian Weekly to Ukraine (February 25). It was gratifying to read of Stephan Kaczaraj acting on a concern I share.

Last year I spent five months sailing my yacht Simoon from Odessa 500 miles up the Dnipro River. I was astounded that most Ukrainians in the southern oblasts had little or no knowledge of the existence of a living, breathing organized Ukrainian diaspora, or of the vibrancy and variety of its community life.

This was no Kyiv, Lviv or Halychyna. For many, I was the first foreigner - Ukrainian-speaking at that - they had ever met. Until independence, Dnipropetrovske had been a city closed off to all visitors. There is a lack of Ukrainian books, magazines and newspapers, and in discussions of modern history traditions or culture I ended up being the teacher and was even tagged a "Banderivka."

Many issues of Svoboda and The Weekly sailed with me. The Svobodas I gave away to teachers and librarians in small river villages where we anchored nightly. The librarian in Chervonyi Mayak had been appointed by the village council to teach "Ukrainian studies," but had no training, materials or supplies. She had to put up with laments of "Why do we need to study Ukrainian?" "Do we have to?" The history teacher in the village of Kapulivka was another educator happy to receive Svobodas and use them as a basis for lesson plans. I also gave away all the Ukrainian books I had carried overseas.

Parting with the year's supply of The Weekly was another matter. While traveling, this paper is my lifeline - both to events back home and in Ukraine. Stacks of back issues are sent to me in many a Mediterranean harbor. I use them as reference and source material for the many requests for contacts and aid every traveler to Ukraine encounters.

As Odessa is a sister city of Regensburg, I had donated a copy of the book "Regensburg: 1944 to 1949," a history of this large Ukrainian displaced persons compound in Germany. The assembled library personnel expressed so much interest in how we arrived in the U.S. and why we still speak Ukrainian, that I decided that the newspaper reading room of the Gorky Government Library would be a good home for my Weeklies, as it is accessible to the public. A desire was expressed to receive a subscription to this and other publications.

As we all know, there is a lack of quality, non-propaganda, non-political newspapers in Ukraine. All of our support, educational, economic or financial, is barely acknowledged in the press there, rarely reported in the larger southern cities and unknown in the villages.

We need to get our message out! The knowledge that in America we are proud of our Ukrainian heritage and are not ashamed of our language is a powerful tool whose influence is felt keenly by the youth of Ukraine. Kids who crowded around our sailboat but could not speak Ukrainian had to defer to those with whom I could communicate and were invited inside to visit. No admonishments, no accusations; this was a reality they could relate to.

I urge our churches, societies, families and individuals to consider donating a subscription to Svoboda, The Ukrainian Weekly or other quality periodicals and send them to your relatives and colleagues, village schools, libraries, reading rooms and universities - especially in the southern and eastern oblasts of Ukraine.

Our goal should be to cover Ukraine with subscriptions. From what other investment of $100 can Ukraine reap such benefit in nation-building? What is more powerful than knowledge? Ukraine needs more than the perpetual packages of shmatas (the bazaars are overflowing with used clothing).

So, in your next "posylka," include our newspapers. They're in style, they fit, the color is OK, and they can be recycled.

Olena C. Boyko
Urbanna, Va.

P.S.: Simoon has returned to the States after sailing 16,000 miles in the last 16 months and is now in Florida cruising up the Intercoastal Waterway to her home port in Virginia.

In the near future I will share with readers of The Weekly the adventure of this voyage. Not only was I the first Ukrainian to sail our boat to Odessa, but we were the first foreign sailboat to cruise to Dnipropetrovske up the Dnipro River.

U.S. aid to Ukraine assists select few

Dear Editor:

I recently read a letter in The Weekly lauding President Bill Clinton and urging Ukrainian Americans to support him in the upcoming election. While I don't give Mr. Clinton failing marks for his policy towards Ukraine, I find that most of his direction is impersonal and money-oriented, whose outcome is ambiguous. Consequently, I question supporting the incumbent based on his aid packages to Ukraine.

A case in point is my father-in-law, a beekeeper from Chervonohrad, Lviv Oblast. Every time I hear from him it seems that his condition worsens. One of his biggest problems is dealing with the kolhosp. Until recently, he was responsible for their beehives but has since quit because of deteriorating relations with the local kolhosp boss. Occasionally, the area where the beehives are kept, which are in an inconspicuous location in the forest, are plundered for the much-needed equipment that beekeepers carry. My father-in-law doesn't even bother going to the authorities because he knows it's useless. Apparently, protecting public property as well as his personal beehives is not in the interest of the local authorities.

The depredations on the farm are frequent. Recently, he has had trouble selling his honey in the market, except to wealthy "businessmen," and instead barters his product.

The upshot of my argument is that this money, allocated by the United States, has seemingly helping a select few, or perhaps Americans who are interested in opening joint ventures with kolhosp bosses. While I don't think the money has harmed stabilization, I believe that it is strengthening only a certain socioeconomic segment in Ukraine, while leaving the rest with little or nothing. The only recourse for my father-in-law is to farm in his home village, where he can rely on his extended family members for help. Without this home-grown system my father-in-law would be hopeless. U.S. aid is doing little for people like him who need it the most. Is this aid, in the hundreds of millions of dollars, for Ukraine or the Ukrain-ian people? In conclusion, I'm not fooled by these big aid packages. I'm disgusted, because my tax dollars are doing squat!

Joseph V. Hirniak
Lancaster, Pa.

Community should thank Rep. Bonior

Dear Editor:

For quite some time, Ukrainians and/or Ukrainian Americans have been badgered by forces within this country that have an axe to grind regarding past actions, real or perceived. Many groups, afraid to point the finger at the actual offender, have used Uk-rainians as a handy "whipping boy" to air their grievance. Truth has very little meaning for these accusers. A perfect example of this was the notorious "The Ugly Face of Freedom" segment, compliments of our friends on "60 Minutes" and at CBS.

Therefore, if someone of stature takes risks to come to our aid, the decent thing to do would be to thank them. It has come to my attention that Rep. David Bonior was one of the few lawmakers who wrote a letter of protest to CBS. In this case, party politics should be put aside. This man risked taking the political heat that usually comes with such action. We need to show some appreciation for those who stick their necks out in our defense, regardless of their political philosophy - and to keep that in mind when we vote.

Christina Milburn
Richland, Wash.

Chornobyl statistics are half-truths, false

Dear Editor:

Rarely have I come across such melodrama or as many outright errors and half-truths regarding the alleged consequences of the Chornobyl accident as those expressed in Bozhena Olshaniwsky's short article "Chornobyl's realities are forgotten" (March 17).

Many of the "statistics" with which Mrs. Olshaniwsky tries to overwhelm the reader to support her statement that "...the deadly effects of radiation continue to maim and kill an unprecedented number of citizens of Ukraine," have long been discredited or are incomplete. One of the more egregious, "more than 125,000 people have died because of radiation exposure," is patently false. This figure, which was misquoted by the Western press, was later checked with Ukrainian authorities and found to be the total number of people who died in Ukraine over the stated period.

Another assertion that "6,000 clean-up workers have died directly due to radiation," also is false. Even if we assume her figure of 356,600 "liquidators" is correct (which it is not - many more were involved), this represents only 1.7 percent of that number - less than twice the number of people belonging to the population cohort that participated in clean-up efforts that would be expected to die under normal circumstances over a 10-year period. The implication is that Chornobyl's radiation decreased the death rate among the clean-up workers! This is not to mention the fact that this "statistic" has been circulating since 1991. Is it really possible the numbers haven't changed or that no other workers have died since then?

Further, what does it mean to say "3.2 million persons" and "over 1 million children are affected by radiation" without elaborating on the word "affected?" Mrs. Olshaniwsky is apparently trying to impress us with large numbers because surely she is not making much of a point. I lived in the town of Chornobyl for 18 months and traveled to the plant quite often during my stay in the "zone." Subsequent medical examinations (including blood tests specifically designed to look for radiation-induced abnormalities) found no affects whatsoever.

What "nuclear disaster at Chornobyl...in 1982"? If Mrs. Olshaniwsky is referring to the coolant channel rupture at Unit 1 that released no radioactivity to the environment, then her classification of this as a disaster leaves much to be desired. And what could Mrs. Olshaniwsky possibly mean by "109 accidents" at Chornobyl in 1994? In fact, there were six incidents, not accidents, that were rated either at Level 1 (the lowest with no safety significance) or "below scale."

Clearly, we can agree with the conclusion of a recent World Health Organization study that directly links childhood thyroid cancers with release of radioiodine from the accident. But we ought not compound people's fears with unsubstantiated or false information that can only serve to discredit genuine measures to help people affected by the accident. Mrs. Olshaniwsky can only label her own figures as "statistics" if one applies the old adage, "There are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics."

Alexander R. Sich
London

Urge media to cover Chornobyl effects

Dear Editor:

As the 10th anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster approaches, I would urge your readers and the rest of the Ukrainian community to try a somewhat different approach to the typical method of commemorating anniversaries.

My suggestion (in addition to, rather than in lieu of, any commemorative efforts already under way) is that individuals and organizations write letters or make phone calls to the major media outlets to urge them to provide in-depth coverage relative to the aftermath of the explosion, detailing the full extent of the disaster.

Ukrainians in North America are no longer strangers to the process of contacting the media after the CBS "60 Minutes" debacle. The Weekly could assist by running the addresses and phone numbers of the four television networks, plus CNN and key newspapers in New York, Washington, Toronto and other cities.

My guess is that the major media are well aware of the upcoming anniversary but will mention it only in brief, perhaps referring to the death toll of only 32, a figure that was cited in print (though only in passing) as recently as a year ago, and without any hint that there might be additional deaths or illnesses resulting from the radiation. It is necessary to let the major media know of the community's interest in this matter and to suggest that they look beyond the initial official and Soviet-provided figure of 32 fatalities.

There are other misconceptions about Chornobyl. Most seem to think that it is in Russia and are not aware that Ukraine and Belarus bear the brunt of the consequences.

Substantial coverage of the full extent of the disaster could help in the matter of obtaining or expanding the assistance of Western governments in abating the still omnipresent effects of the blast. Further, widespread coverage could also stimulate additional private assistance to the humanitarian organizations that are doing a commendable job in providing relief to the victims.

Victor A. Lapychak
Somerville, N.J.

| Home Page |