30th anniversary of Ukrainian Helsinki Group marked in Kyiv (11/26/06)

30th anniversary of Ukrainian Helsinki Group marked in Kyiv

by Olena Labunka
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

KYIV - Ukrainian Helsinki Group members and their supporters commemorated the 30th year anniversary of the group's founding with a special gathering held on November 10 at the Smoloskyp publishing house in Kyiv.

The Ukrainian Helsinki Group (UHG) was founded November 9, 1976, as a means for Ukrainian dissidents to unite and form a legal front in their struggle for basic human rights in the USSR.

"For the first time after decades of repression, such a small group of Ukrainian intelligentsia organized and told the world about their own people's lack of liberty and lack of rights," said Vasyl Ovsienko, a dissident and human rights activist who joined the group in 1978. "In this sense, the Helsinki movement was much more important for Ukraine than those peoples who had their own nationhood."

More than 50 attended the anniversary, among them 12 of the original 41 Helsinki Group members.

For the event, Mr. Ovsienko and Osyp Zinkewych, of the formerly U.S.-based Smoloskyp, which published dissident documents, presented a new publication, "Ukrayinska Helsinska Hrupa" (Ukrainian Helsinki Group).

The book discusses the Ukranian Helsinki Group's formation, and includes key documents, biographies, photographs and articles about the group's activity in Ukraine and in the West, particularly Washington.

The Ukrainian Helsinki Group was a direct result of an attempt by Western nations to apply pressure to the Soviet Union.

During the Cold War, representatives from the Soviet Union, the U.S., Canada and 33 European states, met in Helsinki, Finland, and on August 1, 1975, signed the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.

With regard to human rights, the Helsinki Accords required the USSR to abide by the December 10, 1948, United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Among the most important human rights documents of the 20th century, the Helsinki Accords opened up legal avenues for dissidents behind the Iron Curtain to fight against human rights violations and to speak out for national rights.

Within months, Ukrainian dissidents formed a committee to monitor compliance with the Helsinki Accords and began to document human rights violations.

More than a year later, 10 Ukrainian dissidents representing all corners of the country - Oles Berdnyk, Petro Grigorenko, Ivan Kandyba, Levko Lukianenko, Oksana Meshko, Mykola Matusevych, Myroslav Marynovych, Oleksii Tykhy, Nina Strokata and Mykola Rudenko (chairman) - formally launched the Ukrainian Helsinki Group.

To implement the Helsinki Accords, the group sought to make society familiar with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to support freer exchange of information and to attain accreditation for foreign journalists in Ukraine.

The UHG accepted written complaints about violations of human rights in Ukraine and passed this information on to foreign mass media and national governments. It also published memoranda, manifests and appeals.

The human rights cause was directly related to the struggle for Ukrainian independence. The UHG managed to set Ukraine's national interests in the context of human rights and to raise the Ukrainian issue on the world stage, Helsinki members said.

Mr. Zinkewych created the Helsinki Guarantes for Ukraine committee in Washington on November 17, 1976.

At its peak, the Ukrainian Helsinki Group had 41 members, all of whom became familiar with persecution, arrests, forced psychiatric confinement and imprisonment in response to their advocacy of human and national rights.

Ukrainians were at the forefront of the freedom movement among the nations of the USSR. Helsinki groups soon appeared in Lithuania in November 1976, Georgia in January 1977 and Armenia in April 1. The Moscow Helsinki Group was formed in May 1976.

The UHG was eventually recognized by President Ronald Reagan, who declared November 9, 1982, the Day of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group.

The Helsinki Group veterans who addressed the 30th anniversary gathering expressed their disappointment with the apathy and indifference among Ukrainians today.

"Those who began acting in the 1950s and 1960s didn't get discouraged, even though they were only a handful," said Mykhailo Horyn, a former Soviet political prisoner. "We need to continue creating the Ukrainian nation and assisting in its rebirth."

Freedom of speech is the most important freedom achieved since the Soviet Union's fall, Mr. Ovsienko said. "Appreciate it and don't betray our accomplishment," he told the gathering.

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