Turning the pages back... November 6, 1996 (11/02/03)

Turning the pages back...

November 6, 1996

In 1996, members of the Ukrainian Public Group to Promote the Implementation of the Helsinki Accords commemorated the 20th anniversary of the courageous group's founding. As our Kyiv Press Bureau chief wrote: "Forty-two of them spent a total of 550 years incarcerated in the prisons and gulags of what was the Soviet Union. On November 6 those who survived the tyranny of the times gathered to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the ... Ukrainian Helsinki Group - the legendary people who did not give in, who decided that at all costs, their lives included, they would fight for an independent Ukraine. Some did not survive. Many of those who did gathered to pay tribute to an organization that spurred, if not ensured, eventual independence for Ukraine."

The Ukrainian Helsinki Group was established on November 9, 1976, in Kyiv to monitor implementation of the Helsinki Accords that were signed in August 1975 by 35 countries, including Canada, the United States and the Soviet Union. The accords guaranteed the human and civil rights of people with respect to the countries in which they resided.

The Kyiv group assumed three principle tasks: to monitor the implementation of the accords in Ukraine; to gather and disseminate information about their violation; and to secure an independent role for Ukraine in subsequent negotiations and in international affairs. The group's founding members were: Mykola Rudenko, Oles Berdnyk, Oksana Meshko, Gen. Petro Grigorenko, Ivan Kandyba, Lev Lukianenko, Myroslav Marynovych, Mykola Matusevych, Nina Strokata and Oleksa Tykhyi.

The surviving members of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, who were able to attend the 20th anniversary commemoration, were: Mr. Rudenko, along with his wife, Raisa; Mr. Berdnyk, National Deputy Lukianenko and Mr. Kandyba, followed by Bohdan Rebryk, Iryna Senyk, Iosyf Zissels, Mykhailo Horyn and National Deputy Vyacheslav Chornovil. Those who had gathered on stage, and those who were recalled, represented the political dissident movement of Ukraine of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980.

Within two years of the founding of the organization - which also was the seed that gave birth to the Ukrainian Republican Party as well as the Popular Movement of Ukraine, Rukh - all the original members were arrested and sentenced to anywhere from two to 10 years for their activities, all on trumped-up and unsubstantiated charges. More arrests and incarcerations followed in the next six years.

According to our Kyiv correspondent, Mr. Rudenko said in his presentation that the goal of the organization at its conception was largely an unspoken one. "Yes, we thought that there would be a free Ukraine eventually. No, we did not think that it would happen in our lifetimes. We knew we would spend time in prison and in the camps." He said 42 members of the group were sent to the camps during the Brezhnev repressions; five did not return. He spoke of Vasyl Stus, Valeriy Marchenko, Yuriy Lytvyn, Yevhen Sniehirov and Mr. Tykhyi. Ms. Meshko, whom Mr. Lukianenko called the guiding force of the UHG, was honored as the survivors gave personal testimonials.

Recalling the founding of the group, Mr. Lukianenko stated: "... because the Helsinki Agreement was signed by many countries, which included the Soviet Union, now we could monitor with an official voice. The Soviet system could not deny our voice before the world."

Oles Shevchenko gave a telling statement of how the current government looks upon those who suffered because of their affiliation with the Helsinki Group. "In the five years of a free Ukraine, the Ukrainian government regularly honors distinguished people. ... Not once in five years has the government honored one of these people, those dead or alive," he stated. "Although that is very sad, we do not need this, we know who the heroes are."

Source: "Ukrainian Helsinki Group marks 20th anniversary in Kyiv," by Roman Woronowycz, Kyiv Press Bureau, The Ukrainian Weekly, November 10, 1996, Vol. LXIV, No. 45.

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