LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (06/06/99)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

The UWC, the UOC and NATO strikes

Dear Editor:

Perhaps it was the pull of the April fool that prompted the Ukrainian World Congress to rise against the NATO's use of force against Slobodan Milosevic's Yugoslavia (April 11).

Like Ukraine's present government, the UWC posited that a sovereign state must be immune from outside military strike even if it commits monstrous crimes against its citizens, except perhaps when military intervention is authorized by the United Nations, with its unanimous Security Council - that is, with Russia's and China's consent. In the absence of such a mandate, so the reasoning goes, negotiation is the proper recourse. One might add, in the same vein, that the Ukrainian terror-famine in 1933 should have been avoided by negotiations between Stalin's Politburo and the Salvation Army or the peasants' committee.

Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma may be pardoned for taking his stance - considering that he is juggling impossible odds in his own precarious seat and is evoking applause even from NATO for his dexterity. But the UWC has no such excuse, unless it is determined to give credence to those who say its accomplishments are mainly in the realm of faux pas.

To top it off, the Synod of Bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada got into the act with its own expression of disapproval of NATO's action and with a characterization of the worst mass atrocities in Europe since World War II as "a conflict between Christians and Moslems." They must engage in a dialogue. Meanwhile, welcome to rape camps.

From the tone of the Synod's missive, you would never know that some of those "Christians" are wanted as war criminals at the International Court of Justice, or that the brutalization and expulsion of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians - a humanitarian disaster of biblical proportions in modern Europe - had been meticulously planned while an ongoing chit-chat was used to stir disarray in the Western alliance. Sorry, no cigar.

Boris Danik
North Caldwell, N.J.

America: last frontier and once-safe haven

Dear Editor:

Cherry blossom time is upon us. It is a perfect golden day. It is neither too warm, nor too cold. The sun is shining warmly and the white clouds are swimming by in the perfect blue. A gentle zephyr stirs the flower-laden branches and the pink and white petals snow down on us. The world is renewing itself.

Again we picnic on the green under a pink canopy of a flowering cherry tree, in the company of good friends. One might say, that this is about as close to paradise as you can get. All seems well in the world. But is it?

In Littleton, Colo., they have buried the dead and are wondering how this terror could have happened again in "the heartland of America." In April 1995 it happened in Oklahoma City. 1999 is the 50th anniversary of NATO, but we are bombing Serbia in the hopes of saving the Kosovars. It is also the 13th anniversary of Chornobyl; the aftereffects of the world's worst nuclear disaster continue to pose a threat to the entire continent.

Some of us remember how, 55 years ago, we left our homes, families and friends, and fled the "Red Terror" that threatened to annihilate us. We went through a series of stages and stops on our odyssey - Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Austria, Germany, France - and then, finally, we reached the haven: America. It was safe here - here there would be no more bombs. There was no more terror here.

Why then, in spite of the League of Nations, the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Helsinki Accords and a plethora of lesser treaties, covenants, councils and unions, are the bombs still falling? Why are the bombs made by children that take lives of other children still exploding in the neat-and-proper heartland communities of America?

For us, America has been and is more than just a home; it is a place to work and to rear families. It also became the last frontier - a safe haven. Once we had dreamed of returning to Ukraine, but with the passing of time we now realize that Ukraine neither wants us nor needs us - except for financial help.

Now, 50 years later, we have nowhere else to run. And, even if there were a place to run, we have become tired. We are here to stay, bombs and all.

Bozhena Olshaniwsky
Newark, N.J.

More on helping Ukraine's intellectuals

Dear Editor:

Reading Roman Voronka's reply (April 18) to my article "How can we best help Ukraine's intelligentsia?" (February 14), I was pleased to discover that my comments were received in the spirit in which they had been written, namely, as an attempt to find constructive solutions to the very important issue of our support for Ukraine's intellectuals.

I would like to reiterate that my article was never intended to question experience or past achievements of the Coordinating Committee to Aid Ukraine (the list of CCAU's past activities provided by Dr. Voronka is a clear reflection of the committee members' sincere dedication to their cause). My sole objective was to discuss a number of complex issues associated with their current, and very important, project. My ultimate hope was that the suggestions I expressed would constructively help the CCAU channel its aid to Ukrainian intellectuals as effectively and efficiently as possible.

I am very happy that our discussion in The Weekly has resulted in concrete positive developments. Inspired by the idea of providing direct help to Ukrainian scholars and writers through the program of grants for scholarly/literary publications in Ukraine's leading journals, a group of benefactors and partners of the Jacyk Foundation has pledged their support for this initiative. A separate fund has been established for this purpose at the Jacyk Foundation and negotiations with a number of Ukrainian journals, such as Krytyka, are under way. I expect that soon we will be able to inform the readers of The Weekly about the successful launch of the project. Once effectively established, the project will be open for other benefactors to join.

Dr. Marko R. Stech
Toronto

The writer is managing director of the Petro Jacyk Educational Foundation.

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