Ukrainian American Coordinating Council statement regarding the UNA's resolution

The Executive Committee of the UACC met to review the resolution of the UNA concerning the renewal of ties with the UCCA and carefully analyzed its content.

The UACC shares the UNA's position that the strength of our community is in unity. At the same time, however, we wish to emphasize that the UACC has always stood for and continues to stand for unity founded on democratic principles, on tolerance, pluralism, consensus and respect for the opinions of all, and that in the past the UACC has worked towards achieving such a consensus with the community based on these principles. Therefore, the UACC continues to welcome every effort at consensus within the Ukrainian community.

Unfortunately, the UNA did not follow this path; it did not consult with either the Executive Committee of the UACC or with organizations that do not belong to either the UACC or the UCCA prior to making its decision, nor did it indicate what changes had taken place within the UCCA, showing that the leadership of UCCA has renounced its efforts - which began after the 13th UCCA Congress in 1980 - to place the entire organized Ukrainian American community under the control of one political entity. That attempt to achieve the partisan monopolization of Ukrainian American society after the 13th UCCA Congress was the basis for the founding of the UACC, the main creator of which was the UNA, and for the assumption of key positions in UACC by John Flis, Ulana Diachuk, Wolodymyr Sochan, who all stood firmly for maintaining the strongest possible democratic principles in community life. These statements are based on indisputable facts.

Today we do not see any sign that the UCCA's goal of partisan monopolization of Ukrainian American society has in any way changed.

As a matter of fact, in past years there was, generally speaking, some agreement and even friendly cooperation between the UACC, the UCCA and unaffiliated organizations. One could expect that things were improving. The goal of solidarity of actions seemed near. Unfortunately, in recent times this cooperation for unknown reasons fell by the wayside. There was an upsurge of complete indifference towards others by the UCCA - treating others as if "they did not even exist."

The UACC continues to stand on democratic principles and for action on the basis of tolerance, pluralism, consensus and coordinated cooperation, and we continue to maintain that this is most important foundation of the strength of our community, which at some point may indeed lead to ultimate unity.

The Executive Committee of the UACC hopes to see the creation of a single coordinating center, based on democratic principles in community activity. This ideal should be achieved in accordance with the proposals adopted at a conference of all organizations which took place in May 2001 at Ramada Inn, East Hanover, N.J. (Participants were organizations that were constituent organizations of the UCCA, the UACC and unaffiliated organizations.)

Why haven't any of the proposals of this conference been realized thus far?

The Executive Committee of the UACC wishes again and again to make it plain that the UACC stands firmly on the democratic principles of tolerance of all in the Ukrainian community. On the basis of these principles, the UACC is always ready to work in concert with others and to strive for solidarity and ultimate unity.

For the UACC Executive Committee:

Ihor Gawdiak
President

Dr. Roman Baranowsky
Secretary

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, February 8, 2004, No. 6, Vol. LXXII

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