FACES AND PLACES: A tribute to us all (11/12/06)

FACES AND PLACES

by Myron B. Kuropas

A tribute to us all

Many Ukrainian Americans work for the U.S. government in one capacity or another. Most live in the nation's capital. A number of them hold sensitive positions in the foreign policy arena. Although rarely recognized by the greater Ukrainian American community, their efforts have often been crucial in promoting Ukraine's aspirations.

One individual who has played an extraordinary role in Washington is Orest Deychakiwsky, staff advisor for the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (the Helsinki Commission) since November of 1981, a 25-year stint.

The Helsinki Commission is an outgrowth of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) adopted in Helsinki, Finland, in 1975. It was signed by representatives of 35 states, including the United States, Canada and the Soviet Union.

The Soviets signed the Helsinki Accords because certain clauses affirmed the territorial integrity and the inviolability of existing national borders existing at the time. From the Soviet perspective, the accords recognized the USSR's territorial gains in Eastern Europe during World War II.

The U.S. supported the Helsinki Accords because of provisions relating to increased cooperation in economics, science, technology and the environment. Most important for the U.S. was what was called the "third basket," clauses that clearly addressed humanitarian and human rights issues.

When President Gerald R. Ford signed the accords, he was severely criticized by "Captive Nations" leaders in the United States. Their anger was reinforced when, according to The Ukrainian Weekly of August 23, 1975, "Comrade Brezhnev said that provisions contained in the 'third basket,' including freedom of movement, freer flow of ideas and peoples, will require further negotiations ... The Communist Party boss," concluded The Weekly, "merely confirmed what scores of Western political analysts feared for some time: that the West gained little from the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, but may have lost quite a bit ..."

The president of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America was so outraged that he openly declared his opposition to President Ford in the 1976 election. This despite the fact that the UCCA president had consistently praised Congressman Ford for his steadfast support of the Captive Nations, as well as Mr. Ford's many pro-Ukrainian statements over many years. The UCCA president had even worked as the ethnic vote coordinator for the Republican National Committee during presidential campaigns.

I had the privilege (and misfortune) to represent President Ford at the 1977 UCCA convention, where I was roundly booed by the delegates.

Contrary to its critics, the Helsinki Accords were a boon for Soviet dissidents, wrote The Weekly in 2000, impelling them "to form groups aimed at monitoring fulfillment of the provisions contained in this historic agreement - among them the Moscow Helsinki Monitoring Group and the Ukrainian Public Group to Promote Implementation of the Helsinki Accords." Founded on November 9, 1976, group members, wrote The Ukrainian Weekly on August 7, 2005, "were jailed, exiled, sent to psychiatric institutions, sentenced to hard labor, convicted on trumped-up criminal charges, beaten and terrorized." They prevailed and in the end, concluded The Weekly, the accords "ultimately brought freedom to millions."

President Ford appointed Sen. Bob Dole to serve on the U.S. Helsinki Commission in 1977. I was the senator's liaison with the commission and that same year the two of us traveled to Vienna, where the senator met with Hungarian, Czech and Ukrainian dissidents. From there we flew to Belgrade for the first of a series of biennial conferences to monitor Soviet compliance.

Ukrainians from the free world later attended similar CSCE compliance conferences in Madrid, Vienna, Paris, Ottawa, Copenhagen, Geneva, even Moscow, all in an effort to call attention to Ukraine's freedom aspirations.

During the past 25 years, Mr. Deychakiwsky has remained in the center of activities related to the formulation of U.S. policy towards Ukraine as well as Belarus, Hungary and Bulgaria. He has written and often presented the official U.S. position at OSCE conferences. He has been an international observer at some two dozen elections in Ukraine (including every election since 1990), Belarus, Russia, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Bosnia. He worked on and helped draft the 1991 legislation calling on President Bill Clinton to recognize Ukraine. Other U.S. resolutions he has helped craft include resolutions addressing the Millennium of Christianity in Ukraine (which called for the legalization of Ukrainian Orthodox and Catholic Churches), Chornobyl, free and fair elections in Ukraine, and the Gongadze debacle. Mr. Deychakiwsky drafted several hundred Congressional Record statements, press releases and remarks on Ukrainian independence, individual political prisoners and U.S. foreign policy.

Mr. Deychakiwsky grew up in Cleveland, where he was a member of Plast and attended Ukrainian Saturday School. He earned his bachelor's degree from Notre Dame and his master's from Georgetown University. He was one of the founding members and has served as an officer of The Washington Group (TWG). He is the proud father of a daughter, Natalie, 19, and step-daughter Hanna, 27.

Readers of The Weekly will recognize Mr. Deychakiwsky as the author of dozens of articles related to Ukraine. Among the best is the August 7, 2005, article titled "A guide to who's who in D.C.'s Ukraine-related activities," which he co-authored with Taras Kuzio. Given the strategic importance of Washington, for Ukraine, they wrote, it is "imperative that Ukrainian Americans" provide "sufficient resources and personnel to have a meaningful, sustained presence in Washington, which includes having influential and committed people on the ground."

Mr. Deychakiwsky is certainly one of those "influential and committed people on the ground" who quietly, often behind the scenes, works on behalf of freedom for all peoples in Europe.

Our "Ukrainian presence" in Washington includes such luminaries as Dr. Lev Dobriansky, Paula Dobriansky, the late Eugene Iwanciw, Nadia McConnell, Adrian Karatnycky, Nadia Diuk, Taras Kuzio, Nicholas Krawciw, Andrew Bihun and others. Among the best of them is Orest Deychakiwsky, whose professional life is a tribute to all of us.

Mnohaya Lita, Orest, on your 25th!

Myron Kuropas's e-mail address is: [email protected].

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