OTTAWA -- Four ethnic communities that have suffered persecution in their homelands will join Jewish groups in demanding that Immigration Minister Diane Finley deport six men accused of aiding the Nazis in the Holocaust.
[W.Z. This is false. The the Statement of Claim in these civil proceedings provides no evidence of individual war criminality of any of the accused.]
Representatives of the Armenian National Committee of Canada, the Darfur Association of Canada, PAGE-Rwanda and the Roma Community Centre will take part in a news conference on Tuesday to press for the action that has been urged by Jews in this country for many years.
"If any community can understand the moral imperative, it's communities that have themselves been part of the murderous aspect of genocide," Bernie Farber, the chief executive officer of the Canadian Jewish Congress, said yesterday.
[W.Z. We note that Mr. Farber does not mention the Holodomor -- the Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33.]
"They feel it viscerally. They feel it in their bones. They understand that they, by the grace of God, escaped. They came to this country to live in freedom. And the last thing they would have expected is that the country . . .would deem it appropriate . . . to allow war criminals to live here."
[W.Z. Why is Mr. Farber speaking on behalf of these communities?]
The Canadian Jewish Congress and other groups like the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies have asked successive governments to expel six men found by the courts to have misrepresented their wartime activities to gain entry to Canada.
[W.Z. The hypocrisy of Simon Wiesenthal and his supporters is illustrated at /tp/wllzzk/zuzak20060629Folco.html ]
They are Helmut Oberlander, whose citizenship was ordered revoked for his activities as a member of an elite killing unit; Vladimir Katriuk, who was accused of Nazi collaboration; Wasyl Odynsky, who is alleged to have served as a guard at two SS forced-labour camps; Jacob Fast, who is alleged to have collaborated with the Nazis; Jura Skomatchuk, who is alleged to have been a guard at an SS camp; and Josef Furman, who is also alleged to have been an SS guard.
The Jewish groups had hoped that Prime Minister Stephen Harper would announce some movement on the deportations when he attended a B'nai Brith dinner in Toronto last year. That didn't happen, and Ms. Finley did not return phone calls yesterday.
But Mr. Farber said he and other members of the Jewish community still hope something will be done.
"This gathering on Tuesday will focus that hope and make it clear this is not just a Jewish issue, that this is an issue about multicultural Canada," he said.
[W.Z. How true! The d&d policy being promoted by Mr. Farber is an abomination that should never have been initiated in multicultural Canada. It should be denounced and abandoned. Apologies and financial compensation should be awarded to its victims.]"We cannot even start to deal with the present and understand the impact in the future in relation to war criminals being in our country until we at least start dealing with the past."
[W.Z. So why doesn't Mr. Farber deal with the war criminality and crimes against humanity being perpetrated against the Palestinians, Lebanese and others since 1948?]
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What can community leaders, and "ordinary" community members, do?
Kudos to Marsha Skrypuch for sending this letter to the head of the Armenian National Committee, after learning that it supports the witch hunters out to lynch naturalized Ukrainian Canadians falsely accused of Nazi war crimes.
But where is the rest of the Ukrainian community?
It is obvious the Armenian, Rwandan and Roma communities were aggressively solicited to support this malicious agenda.
It is equally obvious that the Ukrainian community, while making the academic point that what is being done to naturalized Ukrainians sets a legal precedent that endangers all naturalized Canadians, has not bothered to get its message across to the representatives of those actually endangered.
In other words, our community talks the talk while our predators walk *our* walk, taking full advantage of our collective somnolence to deceive potential allies into supporting something that is actually detrimental to them.
Shame on us! What will it take for our community to wake up and get moving?
See below "What can community leaders, and "ordinary"community members, do?"
Paulette "Pawlina" Demchuk MacQuarrie
"Paulette MacQuarrie" [[email protected]]
Producer/Host
Nash Holos Ukrainian Music Radio Progam
www.nashholos.com
nashholos.blogspot.com
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Subject: from Marsha Skrypuch
Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007
From: Marsha Skrypuch [[email protected]]
To: Babikian Aris
Dear Aris,
I read in the Globe & Mail yesterday that the Armenian National Committee of Canada is joining with Jewish groups to push for the deportation of Nazi suspects.
This is a huge folly on the part of ANCC. The men listed as worthy of deportation have never been found guilty of war crimes, nor have they been found to be Nazis.
These men have not been given criminal trials. They have not been given the opportunity in a court of law to be presumed innocent until found guilty. Instead, our government has taken advantage of the fact that these men are all immigrants. It is an unfortunate reality that naturalized Canadians do not have the same rights as Canadians by birth.
Instead of giving these men a criminal trial to find out whether they're guilty or innocent, they have been put through deportation proceedings, where guilt or innocence have nothing to do with it. The whole issue is whether "on the balance of probabilities" that person lied during their immigration process. That "lie" doesn't have to have anything to do with crimes and it doesn't have to be proven.
ANCC should be championing equal rights for naturalized Canadians. All Canadians should be treated equally under the law. If a person is accused of a serious crime, they should have the right to defend themselves in a criminal trial.
Please realize that what's happening to these men could easily happen to an Armenian immigrant.
As you know, I have written many books on the Armenian Genocide. I am passionate about getting the truth out about this topic. The reason I write about this is because, as a Ukrainian Canadian, I know how easily pressure groups can twist history to their own political needs and I am determined to shed light on truth. Like Armenians, Ukrainians have been maligned by various groups. I suggest you read my novel, Hope's War, which is about a Canadian teen whose Ukrainian-born grandfather has been unjustly accused of Nazi war crimes.
Sincerely,
Marsha Skrypuch
http://www.calla.com/
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Letter to editor: Ethnic groups unite in push to deport Nazi suspects
Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007
From: Marsha Skrypuch [[email protected]]
To: Globe and Mail [[email protected]]
re your story: Ethnic groups unite in push to deport Nazi suspects
The men listed in your article have never been found guilty of war crimes, nor have they been found to be Nazis.
These men have not been given the opportunity in a court of law to be presumed innocent until found guilty. It is an unfortunate reality that naturalized Canadians do not have the same rights as Canadians by birth.
These ethnic groups should be championing equal rights for naturalized Canadians. If a person is accused of a serious crime, they should have the right to defend themselves in a criminal trial.
What's happening to these men could easily happen to an Armenian, Jewish, Rwandan or Roma immigrant.
Sincerely,
Marsha Skrypuch
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What can community leaders, and "ordinary" community members, do?
Paulette "Pawlina" Demchuk MacQuarrie
Producer/Host
Nash Holos Ukrainian Music Radio Progam
www.nashholos.com
http://nashholos.blogspot.com/