WAM | 27Nov2010 | Emirates News Agency
http://www.wam.org.ae/servlet/Satellite?c=WamLocEnews&cid=1289830819696&p=1135099400124&pagename=WAM%2FWamLocEnews%2FW-T-LEN-FullNews
Ukraine commemorates the victims of the Great Famine
(Holodomor) 1932-1933
WAM KYIV, 27 Nov. 2010 (WAM) - Ukraine commemorated today the victims
of the Great Famine (Holodomor) 1932-1933 and the 77th anniversary of
the Holodomor. The Day of Remembrance of Victims of the Holodomor and
Political Repressions in Ukraine is marked every year on the fourth
Saturday of November annually.
In 2006, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine recognized the Holodomor 1932-33
as a genocide of the Ukrainian people, it was also recognized as a
genocide by another 15 countries. By different estimates, the
artificial famine or the Holodomor, organized in Ukraine by the Stalin
totalitarian regime at the expense of confiscation of foodstuffs from
peasants, took away the lives of from 7 million to 10 million of
Ukrainian residents.
President Viktor Yanukovych has called the Great Famine a targeted
crime of Stalin's regime. "This is a terrible event in the history of
the Ukrainian people, in the history of Ukraine's neighboring peoples -
Belarusians, Russians and Kazakhs. It was really a targeted crime
against own people. These were our ancestors, these were people lost by
their country, lost by their families, and this memory for a modern
society remains holy," he emphasized. "We will always condemn the
regime of Stalin, who committed this crime" Yanukovych stressed,
UKRINFORM reports.
Foreign Minister of Ukraine Kostiantyn Hryshchenko thanks the countries
and the peoples assisting in renewal of the memory about the Holodomor
1932-1933 in Ukraine. He appreciated efforts of the Ukrainians abroad
on the spread of truth about the reasons and consequences of the
Holodomor and addressed the words of gratitude to all the countries and
the peoples, sharing our grief and assisting in renewal and
preservation of remembrance about the experienced hard times.
"Our sacred duty today and in the future is to make everything possible
so that remembrance about the Ukrainians and representatives of other
nations, who died of the artificial hunger, remained alive for the
present and the future generations, being a warning for the future,"
the address emphasizes.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), with the assistance of Ukrainian
institutions and civil society organizations, has issued a scientific
handbook, entitled "The Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine According to
the Documents of the Branch State Archive of the Security Service of
Ukraine: An Annotated Handbook." The book is the first edition of the
complete list of all declassified documents of the SBU's Branch State
Archive on the Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine, which cover the
causes and consequences of this tragedy. In general, the handbook
includes annotations to 420 documents, name and geographical
directories pointing to people, villages, and regions mentioned in the
archival documents. The book also contains the signatures to secret
documents, regulatory and administrative documents, the archival
materials of criminal cases, agent documents, personal documents,
postcards, the memories of witnesses and their descendants.
WAM/TF