Turning the pages back... September 16, 1978 (09/17/00)

Turning the pages back...

September 16, 1978

Twenty-two years ago the upcoming Moscow Olympics were in the headlines as human rights advocates and various commentators called for a boycott of the Games in protest to the Soviet Union's violations of fundamental human rights. Among them was Gen. Petro Grigorenko, speaking in Winnipeg, where he was the keynote speaker at a memorial service held on September 17, 1978, in commemoration of the 45th anniversary of the Great Famine in Ukraine. Two days earlier Gen. Grigorenko gave a press conference, denouncing Soviet repression and urging a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

Following are excerpts of an account of that press conference published on September 16, 1978, in The Winnipeg Tribune (as reprinted in The Weekly).

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Western nations should refuse to compete in the 1980 Moscow Olympics unless the Soviet Union grants a general amnesty to imprisoned dissidents and honors fundamental human rights, a former Soviet general said on Friday, September 15, in Winnipeg.

Former army Gen. Petro Grigorenko told a press conference the Olympic Games offer Canada and other democratic nations "a terrific chance" to put moral pressure on the USSR. Speaking through an interpreter, the 70-year-old Ukrainian dissident called the Soviet Union "a most tyrannical and dictatorial state."

The Western nations should not sit and watch small groups of idealistic dissidents fight alone against the great power without coming to their aid, he said. Gen. Grigorenko criticized the Canadian government for not speaking strongly against Soviet violations of human rights and said Canadians should pressure the USSR to implement the Helsinki agreement.

The Soviet Union is not honoring the Helsinki Accords, said Gen. Grigorenko, yet the free nations who also signed the document do nothing but issue mild criticism from time to time. Although almost all the founders of the Moscow and Ukrainian Helsinki groups are now exiled or in jail, "this movement cannot be suppressed," Gen. Grigorenko said.

Those who are jailed or exiled are continually replaced by others, he said, "and in my opinion they will increase in number." Because the dissident groups continue to grow they are "more dangerous to the Soviet Union than any modern weapon," he said, yet they receive little or no support from Western nations.

Sources: "Grigorenko urges Olympic boycott unless Moscow grants amnesty," The Ukrainian Weekly, October 8, 1978; "Canadian Ukrainians observe 45th anniversary of famine," The Ukrainian Weekly, October 1, 1978.

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