Kharkiv Oblast Council votes to destroy monument honoring UPA (11/12/06)

Kharkiv Oblast Council votes to destroy monument honoring UPA

by Olena Labunka
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

KHARKIV, Ukraine - The Kharkiv Oblast Council voted on October 26 to destroy the oblast's one modest monument honoring the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists - Ukrainian Insurgent Army (OUN-UPA).

The decision was passed two weeks after anti-Ukrainian agitators interrupted a panakhyda (requiem service) in Kharkiv and brutally attacked UPA veterans and their supporters who were commemorating the 64th anniversary of the army's founding on St. Mary the Protectress Day.

Mykhailo Dobkin, the mayor of Kharkiv and a Party of the Regions member, said, "These people who shot their country's regular army in the back - I can't and won't call them anything other than traitors."

The measure was raised by Oblast Deputy Leonid Stryzhko (Communist Party of Ukraine) and supported by 112 votes.

The Kharkiv Oblast Organization of the People's Rukh of Ukraine said it won't allow destruction of the UPA Stone of Remembrance in the Kharkiv Youth Park, which was established by the party in 1992 in memory of the fallen soldiers.

With the vote, Kharkiv's pro-Russian forces are creating an atmosphere of confrontation and enmity in society, according to a statement of condemnation released by the Kharkiv Oblast Organization of the Reforms and Order Party.

The decision is a sign of "historical revanchism," or politics aimed at recovering lost status, the statement said.

Kyiv human rights lawyer Oleksander Kryvenko said the decision has no legal foundation and doesn't adhere to the Constitution of Ukraine.

In discussing the matter prior to the vote, Mr. Dobkin referred to the UPA as a movement that has yet to be defeated.

The oblast has little relation to UPA issues and to the entire Ukrainian nationalist movement, he said. "UPA veterans are absolutely artificially situated within our territory's community," Mr. Dobkin said.

"Those who visit us and start to preach their own values, which are diametrically opposed to ours, and create feelings of offense in our people receive a dignified resistance. And I, as Kharkiv city chair, will do everything so that no one artificially mounts anything here."

For the first time, pro-Russian agitators decided to attack Kharkiv's annual UPA commemorations on October 14.

At the UPA Stone of Remembrance, veterans and their supporters attempted to place flowers and sing the Ukrainian national anthem amidst blaring sirens and nasty insults from pro-Russian agitators, who eventually broke past police barriers and inflicted injuries.

"For more than 10 years we went to these monuments in holy places for us Ukrainians," said Nelia Shevchenko, 68. "These others never knew the roads to them. Who invited them to our holiday?"

At another ceremony at a grave of UPA soldiers on the territory of St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church, pro-Russian agitators interrupted an Orthodox panakhyda and managed to inflict injuries, despite dozens of police attempting to restrain them.

Hired agitators engaged in the brutal acts, according to a statement released by the Eparchical Consortium of the Kharkiv-Poltava Eparchy of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.

"On the Day of St. Mary the Protectress, they committed an improper debauch on the graves of Kharkivites, interfering with the panakhyda for the slain soldiers, ... disregarding the Christian holiday and the memory of their resting countrymen," the statement said.

It's the first time since Ukraine's independence that a worship service was interfered with by aggressive politicians, the statement said.

"Leaving political decisions regarding the events of October 14 to laypeople, the consortium draws attention to the egregious violation of the fundamental rights and freedoms of Ukrainian citizens who belong to the Kharkiv-Poltava Eparchy," the statement said.

The consortium demanded that the oblast leadership of the political parties represented by the hooligans express their position on what it referred to as the debauchery at the graves of resting Kharkivites.

Only a few politicians in government will sympathize with the assaulted, in the view of Oleksii Slobodaniuk, assistant chair of the Kharkiv Oblast Organization of the Youth Nationalist Congress.

Nevertheless, "from this day forward, we are beginning an indefinite campaign against attempts to destroy the monuments of fighters for Ukrainian independence," he said. "The campaign will take place with all possible measures - lawsuits and street demonstrations."

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