Ukraine's vice PM calls on Rada to seek U.N. recognition of Famine as genocide (05/18/03)

Ukraine's vice PM calls on Rada to seek U.N. recognition of Famine as genocide

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Vice Prime Minister Dmytro Tabachnyk called on Ukraine's Parliament on May 14 to turn to the United Nations to have the Great Famine of 1932-1933 recognized internationally as genocide.

Speaking during a special session of the Verkhovna Rada held in conjunction with the 70th anniversary of the Soviet-perpetrated Famine in which from 7 million to 10 million Ukrainians were starved, Mr. Tabachnyk said that there is no doubt that the Great Famine was a crime against humanity, but that a special effort needs to be made to have the United Nations recognize it as genocide, just as the United States did in 1988.

He said that by obtaining international recognition that those who were savagely starved to death by the deliberate actions of Stalin's henchmen were victims of genocide, Ukraine would do much to make sure that such a tragedy is not repeated.

"We are quite simply forced by the memory of these innocent victims to raise the level of their commemoration to the level at which victims of the Holocaust have been immortalized by the world," declared Mr. Tabachnyk.

Scores of empty rows - not just seats - marked the parliamentary session hall while Mr. Tabachnyk spoke, with at least half of the legislative body playing hooky, including the full complement of the parliamentary faction of the Communist Party.

While the Great Famine is now widely recognized as an attempt at ethnic extermination to bring the recalcitrant Ukrainian farmers under Communist control and collectivization, Ukrainian Communists, for the most part, still cling to the old Soviet party line.

National Deputy Adam Martyniuk, vice-chairman of the Communist Party, said prior to the session that his party would not take part because it felt that the issue had been addressed previously and had become redundant.

However, his colleague, National Deputy Ivan Herasymov gave more of an explanation: "In 1932-1933 there was a hunger ['holod'] caused by natural circumstances, but it was not death by forced starvation ['holodomor']."

What was more distressing, according to the Kyiv leader of a civic organization dedicated to maintaining the memory of all those who died at the hands of the Soviet regime, was that the legislative body did not vote on a resolution to have the United Nations recognize the Great Famine as genocide.

Roman Krutsyk, the head of the Kyiv branch of the Memorial Society, said that he was disheartened that during parliamentary discussion lawmakers debated whether or not the legislative body was entitled to propose such an action and whether it had merit.

"Shamefully, when the Congress of the United States, the Parliament of Canada even Denmark have recognized the fact of genocide in Ukraine, our Parliament continues to speak in half-truths," explained Mr. Krutsyk after the special parliamentary session.

The few lawmakers who cared enough to attend the session listened to Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn, National Deputy Hennadii Udovenko and Vice Prime Minister Tabachnyk explain why so many innocents had suffered such a brutal death, remember the victims and outline plans to commemorate them, and recognize the past injustice and the failure by the Soviet Union to acknowledge the horror of the Stalin regime.

Mr. Tabachnyk - who underscored that last year President Leonid Kuchma had declared via executive edict the objectives that need to be fulfilled in commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Great Famine - gave a thorough accounting of the efforts under way to better establish the facts behind the man-made famine and better bring them to light. He said U.N. recognition is the key to international acknowledgment of the genocidal act.

Mr. Tabachnyk said the Ukrainian government is continuing to develop an extensive collection of historical documents, publications and archival records as testimony to the artificial nature of the famine and the deliberate focus by the perpetrators on the Ukrainian farmer, the backbone of the Ukrainian nation.

"This was a deliberate effort at genocide of the Ukrainian nation, which has left its merciless imprint on all of our history and our national self-identity," explained Mr. Tabachnyk.

He noted that some 200,000 pieces of archival material, including 10,000 original documents already had been gathered from 17 oblasts of Ukraine, which constitute a relatively complete and thorough data bank. He said that archivists and historians now are working to gather additional information in Russia and the United States. He also pointed out that the incompleteness of an extensive oral history archive is a glaring omission in the historical record that must be corrected soon.

The vice prime minister, who carries the humanitarian affairs portfolio in the Cabinet, noted the abundance of information on the Great Famine on the Internet, but said he would like to see a single, all-encompassing and comprehensive website as well. He said the Ukrainian State Archival Committee is developing such a project.

Mr. Tabachnyk also informed the lawmakers that a television documentary on the Great Famine is nearing completion and would soon be broadcast.

In addition, plans for an extensive memorial complex to include a central archival depository to house the information on the Great Famine are under development, announced Mr. Tabachnyk. He said a museum to honor the victims of the Great Famine victims - as well as the victims of forced deportation and political repression - would be built in Kyiv on the banks of the Dnipro River in what is now Navodnytskyi Park. It would include the historical museum, a conference center, a scientific-research center, and an elaborate memorial.

In his presentation, Mr. Tabachnyk noted that Ukraine lost from 10 percent to 25 percent of its population during 1932-1933, losing on average 25,000 persons per day, which came to about 1,000 an hour or 17 a minute.

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