ACTION UKRAINE REPORT - AUR       
An International Newsletter, The Latest, Up-To-Date
In-Depth Ukrainian News, Analysis and Commentary

Ukrainian History, Culture, Arts, Business, Religion, Economics,
Sports, Government, and Politics, in Ukraine and Around the World       
ACTION UKRAINE REPORT - AUR - Number 920
Mr. Morgan Williams, Publisher and Editor, SigmaBleyzer
WASHINGTON, D.C., FRIDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2008
 
INDEX OF ARTICLES  ------
Clicking on the title of any article takes you directly to the article.               
Return to Index by clicking on Return to Index at the end of each article


16.  RUSSIAN FEDERAL SECURITY SERVICE GENERAL DENIES HOLODOMOR 
Holodomor is a Ukrainian invention
By Conor Sweeney, Reuters, Moscow, Russia, Friday, Dec 19, 2008

17.  CHICAGO UKRAINIANS CONCLUDE HOLODOMOR 75TH COMMEMORATION
WITH SOLEMN ECUMENICAL GRAND REQUIEM IN CITY CENTER
By Maria Kulczycky, Chicago, Illinois, Saturday, December 6, 2008
Action Ukraine Report (AUR), Washington, D.C., Friday, December 19, 2008

18SITE OF FUTURE MONUMENT TO VICTIMS OF HOLODOMOR BLESSED IN WASHINGTON  
By Zoreslaw Bayduk, Voice of America (VOA), in Ukrainian, Wash, D.C.,  Tue, Dec 2, 2008 
English translation by Borys Potapenko, Detroit, Michigan, AUR, Wash, D.C., Dec 18, 2008
 
19SPEECH BY THE PRESIDENT OF LITHUANIA VALDAS ADAMKUS IN KYIV AT THE
INTERNATIONAL FORUM TO COMMEMORATE THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE
HOLODOMOR OF 1932-1933 IN UKRAINE "MY PEOPLE WILL LIVE FOREVER"
Address by H. E. Valdus Adamkus, President of the Republic of Lithuania
International Forum to Commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Holodomor, Kyiv, Ukraine
President of Lithuania Website, Vilnius, Lithuania, Saturday, November 22, 2008  

20 A EUROPEAN GENOCIDE
Review & Outlook Editorial: Wall Street Journal Europe, NY, NY, Tue, Nov 25, 2008

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16.  RUSSIAN FEDERAL SECURITY SERVICE GENERAL DENIES HOLODOMOR 
Says Holodomor is a Ukrainian invention

By Conor Sweeney, Reuters, Moscow, Russia, Friday, Dec 19, 2008
 
MOSCOW - A Federal Security Service general on Thursday dismissed as an "invention" a 1930s famine that Ukraine has asked Russia to recognize as genocide after Kiev urged the Kremlin to join in commemorations for millions of dead.

The dispute over the Holodomor, or mass famine, of the 1930s, in which historians believe 7.5 million died, is one of many pitting the Kremlin against Kiev's pro-Western leaders.

President Dmitry Medvedev stayed away from ceremonies to mark the 75th anniversary of the calamity last month and accused Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko of distorting history for political gain.

"The Holodomor is a Ukrainian invention," General Vasily Khristoforov, head of the registration and archives department at the Federal Security Service, or FSB, told Interfax. "Ukraine is trying to prove that the 1930s famine was an act of genocide that the Stalinist leadership committed against Ukrainians.

"Archive documents show undeniably that there was no deliberate genocide against the Ukrainian people. We have not found a single directive that would have even hinted about deliberate genocide against the Ukrainian people."

Researchers, Khristoforov told Interfax, had proven beyond all doubt that a famine in the late 1920s and 1930s did grip various southern Soviet regions.
"Yes, it did, but not only in Ukraine," he said.

About a dozen countries have recognized the Holodomor, one of three famines to hit Ukraine last century, as genocide. Addressing a gathering last month at the opening of a monument to the famine, Yushchenko denied any suggestion Russia was to blame for the famine. But he called on Moscow to denounce Stalinism and join in commemorations for the dead.

Millions were left to starve in their homes throughout Ukraine as Soviet authorities trying to bring independent farmers to their knees imposed impossible harvest quotas and requisitioned grain and livestock. Soviet authorities denied for decades that the famine had even occurred.
 
LINK: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/1010/42/373297.htm
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17.  CHICAGO UKRAINIANS CONCLUDE HOLODOMOR 75TH COMMEMORATION
WITH SOLEMN ECUMENICAL GRAND REQUIEM IN CITY CENTER

By Maria Kulczycky, Chicago, Illinois, Saturday, December 6, 2008
Action Ukraine Report (AUR), Washington, D.C., Friday, December 19, 2008

CHICAGO - Chicago’s legendary wind whipped brisk and cold as bundled groups formed in Washington Park, the historical site for public debate and eloquent discourse that faces Newberry Library, a storied genealogical research center.   People held on to flags, banners, signs and emblems as the wind bent and unfurled them.
 
For weeks, radio stations, leaflets, church bulletins, posters, email postings and other information channels had been inviting, encouraging, and exhorting Ukrainians all over the city and suburbs to come to the city center on Saturday morning, November 15, to join the procession down Chicago’s central avenues heading for Holy Name Cathedral, the seat of the vast Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago. 
 
The community had planned  a Solemn Ecumenical Requiem to mark the end of the its year-long commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Ukrainian Genocide-Holodomor.

The Soviet-organized and meticulously executed genocide was launched to crush Ukrainian political aspirations and maintain the integrity of the Soviet Union, a strategy that has resonance in current events. 
 
Decades-long secrecy about the tragedy was enforced on victims and reinforced with a blockade on travel and a muzzling of the press, making it the largest unknown genocide of the 20th century.  The anniversary milestone was a link in an international campaign to bring attention to the horrific event and to acknowledge it as a genocide.

As yellow buses disgorged their occupants, many traveling from distant suburbs, the park filled.  Monitors nudged and shaped the crowd into groups by affiliation—parishes, youth groups, civic organizations, Ukrainian schools, the Ukrainian consular staff, and the general public of seniors, parents holding the hands of small children, families with strollers.  Uniforms and embroidery, as well as black ribbons, adorned many participants.

The procession stepped from the part and  into the wide street cordoned by police patrol cars.  It moved slowly along the route to the cathedral.  In the lead were young men and women in Ukrainian folk ensembles carrying a birch cross festooned in black ribbon.  Three thorn wreaths came next, then a 10-foot blue and yellow banner, followed by a coffin, draped in black with a large, stark lettering “10,000,000 VICTIMS.” 

A large group of clergy from Ukrainian Catholic and Orthodox parishes followed the coffin.  Then came Ukrainian and American flags carried by veterans.  The procession of orderly, somber participants stretched for city blocks as the park emptied. 
 
The mood grew exuberant  as the marchers looked forward and back and realized what had happened!  They saw friends, colleagues, and neighbors, but also at faces they didn’t recognize.  They were all united, making a statement with their large ranks, their number calling attention of passersby:  We ask the world to recognize our genocide, our national tragedy.

As the procession crossed State Street and moved to the stairs of the cathedral, the massive central doors stood closed, cold, forbidding.  Then the bells began to intone a rhythmic, grim chant, a funereal peal.  The procession stopped, stood for interminable minutes, buses and traffic piling up on either side.

Suddenly the great doors were flung open, and within, four hierarchs stood in full religious raiment, inviting the marchers inside.  The cross, wreaths, coffin, flags and clergy entered and proceeded down the main aisle as the marchers, 2,000 by some counts, silently streamed into the cavernous sanctuary.

Nestor Popowych, chairman of the 75th Anniversary Commemoration Committee, welcomed the assembled crowd and introduced Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago, for whom Holy Name Cathedral is the home parish.  This was the first public event at the cathedral since a long renovation had kept the main sanctuary shut to services.

The cardinal came to the lectern and cited St. Paul, remarking on the ecumenical nature of the service.  He inveighed against all totalitarian regimes, particularly the communist terror that destroyed millions. Next, the new bishop of the Western Eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Bishop Daniel (Zelinsky) addressed the crowd. 
 
An impassioned speaker, he quoted Shevchenko’s poem, “The Plague,” noting how it foreshadowed the horror and suffering of Holodomor of 1932-33.  His shout, “10 million!” rang out through the cathedral, to the 65-foot rafters.  “We have to teach our succeeding generations.  And we can never forget!” he charged.

Archbishop Alexandr (Bykovetz) of Detroit, a survivor of Holodomor, spoke in Ukrainian about the loss of future generations, both in numbers and in potential, “the Sheptytskys, Mazeppas, Vyhovskis, Petluras, and Bandery,” as well as the artists, musicians, writers, and other lights of the community that were extinguished before they could be born.

The hierachs returned to the altar and the requiem service began: lyrical, melodic incantations in the Kyivan style of the Panakhyda (requiem) sung by a choir collected from the best voices of the numerous Ukrainian Orthodox and Catholic parishes throughout the region. 
 
It was conducted by Dr. Vasyl Truchly, noted for his deep and comprehensive study and propagation of knowledge about Ukrainian liturgical music, assisted by Michael Holian, a conductor, musician and teacher.  The music resonated through the sanctuary, supported by the responses of the bishops and the 20 priests surrounding them, and melding the spirits of the assembled crowd.

Photographers, reporters, and cameramen from the local NBC and ABC affiliates and Ukrainian media wandered through the cathedral, capturing the uplifted faces, the rows of Holodomor survivors in the front pews, the youth organizations in uniforms, and the sleeping baby in a mother’s lap.

Bishop Richard (Seminack), head of the Western Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy and pastor of St. Nicholas Cathedral, concluded the service with a moving recollection of the ritual of baking bread that his grandmother practiced, “blessing and praying at each step, picking up a crumb that fell to the floor and kissing it,” he recalled.  Bread is holy to Ukrainians, and this bread, the basis of their diet, was taken away from them, he noted.  Their resulting starvation created a wound that hasn’t healed through succeeding generations.

Bishop Richard thanked all the participants who so massively participated in the solemn ceremony, concluding right at high noon. The crowd filed out, a little more noisily now.  All had been visibly inspired by an event that will rank among the most memorable and affirming expressions of a community message in the city’s history.
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18.  SITE OF FUTURE MONUMENT TO VICTIMS OF HOLODOMOR BLESSED IN WASHINGTON  
 
By Zoreslaw Bayduk, Voice of America, in Ukrainian, Washington, D.C.,  Tue, Dec 2, 2008 
English translation by Borys Potapenko, Detroit, Michigan, AUR, Wash, D.C., Dec 18, 2008
 
WASHINGTON, D.C. - A ceremony took place in Washington, D.C. to bless the site of the future monument to the victims of the Ukrainian Holodomor. Permission to erect the future monument was signed by President George Bush. Participating in the ceremony was the First Lady of Ukraine, Katerina Yushchenko.
 
The clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox and Greek Catholic Churches blessed the site in the center of the American capital where the monument to the victims of the Ukrainian tragedy will stand.
 
The ceremony was the culmination of a host of programs and projects of the Ukrainian community to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Holodomor. The yet to be completed monument project began many years ago. The President of the UCCA, Tamara Gallo noted that the Ukrainian community has been working on this for over 15 years.
 
Efforts to secure permission to erect the Ukrainian monument in the center of the American capital were aided by Congressman Sandy Levin from the State of Michigan. He was the sponsor of the necessary resolution that was signed by President Bush: “We have gathered to tell the world that this blessed site will become a symbol not only for Ukrainians or Americans but for the whole world.”
 
The First Lady of Ukraine, Katerina Yushchenko, for whom the question of the Holodomor is personal, as her whole family suffered the tragedy, also thanked Levin, who is a long time close friend of the Ukrainian community:
 
“I am very grateful to all, who participated in this, especially Congressman Levin, as well as my gratitude goes out to the community for the many years of work to secure this beautiful site.”
 
Participating in the ceremony blessing the site for the future monument were Ukrainian and American diplomats, survivors of the Holodomor and those who came to Washington from various corners of America. Borys Potapenko came from Detroit: “Praise God that on this land in Washington, D.C. will stand a monument. Now, no professor will dispute that my family suffered, that the whole Ukrainian nation suffered.”
 
Soon a competition will be announced in Ukraine that will end with the government of Ukraine erecting in Washington, D.C. a monument that will remind the world about the little known tragedy.
 
LINK: http://www.voanews.com/ukrainian/2008-12-02-voa4.cfm
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19.  SPEECH BY THE PRESIDENT OF LITHUANIA VALDAS ADAMKUS IN KYIV AT THE
INTERNATIONAL FORUM TO COMMEMORATE THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE
HOLODOMOR OF 1932-1933 IN UKRAINE "MY PEOPLE WILL LIVE FOREVER"

Address by H. E. Valdus Adamkus, President of the Republic of Lithuania
International Forum to Commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Holodomor, Kyiv, Ukraine
President of Lithuania Website, Vilnius, Lithuania, Saturday, November 22, 2008  
 
AUR EDITOR'S NOTE: Five heads of state spoke at the International Forum to Commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Holodmor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine, "MY PEOPLE WILL LIVE FOR EVER" held in Kyiv on November 22, 2008. The Presidents of Ukraine, Poland, Georgia, Lithuania and Latvia all made presentations that were powerful, very strongly supported Ukraine and spoke out clearly and forcefully against the evils of totalitarian regimes, brutal Soviet policies, and the many Stalinist and Soviet crimes against humanity. Below you will find the speech by the President of Lithuania, Valdus Adamkus, who spent many years in the United States while the Soviets occupied his country, http://www.president.lt/family/biografija.

KYIV, UKRAINE - Mr. President,

Excellencies,

Dear People of Ukraine,

Today as we remember the suffering and the tragic fate of millions of people in Ukraine, we bear witness to the power of human and national memory. This memory does not allow to conceal, distort or forget the cruel actions and policies of totalitarian regimes and their crimes against humanity.

We will never forget the genocide that killed tens of millions of people in Europe and worldwide: the brutal Soviet policy that doomed hard working Ukrainians to famine seventy five years ago, and Communist repressions against the peaceful inhabitants of the Baltic States, Hungary, Poland, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Russia, and many other countries.

Historical truth always finds its way in defiance of hindrances and prohibitions. The Stalinist and Soviet crimes against humanity concealed for long decades are now well known and deplored by many nations.

In 2003, representatives from different parts of the world issued a joint declaration at the United Nations remembering the victims of the Holodomor. In 2005, the Seimas of Lithuania condemned the genocide in Ukraine.
 
Last year, UNESCO adopted a resolution on the Holodomor and its horrific consequences, and this year the European Parliament paid tribute to those who were starved to death by the Great Famine.

The people of Lithuania identify themselves with the people of Ukraine in their painful memories of Soviet totalitarian crimes. We too experienced Soviet repressions and brutality: mass deportations and the killing of innocent people that decimated one fourth of Lithuania’s population.
 
Next year we will commemorate the 70th anniversary of the shameful Nazi-Soviet deal: the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocols.

After the two totalitarian regimes partitioned Europe, Lithuania – like many other European countries – was invaded and occupied.
 
However, despite long decades of deception and Soviet propaganda, the memory of the Lithuanian nation – passed on from generation to generation – had kept our love of freedom and spirit of independence alive throughout the entire period of occupation.
 
After long years of oppression we restored independence and made a free choice for Euro-Atlantic integration.

Today we strongly support the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, the resolve of its people to build their future in the family of democratic nations.
 
Today we say with strong commitment: “Nobody can take away the right of an independent European state to choose its path of freedom and security.”

We are ready to share the historical memory of our nations with the world: the memory of Ukraine’s deep cultural roots in Europe, the sacred memory of Ukrainian freedom fighters, and the painful memory of Stalinist atrocities to suppress freedom and liberty. 

The contemplation and spread of historical truth is not directed against a specific nation or country. Saying the truth means identifying and condemning the crimes of totalitarian regimes.
 
Therefore, I believe that a time will come when nobody will ever attempt to deny the cruelties of the Soviet regime unleashed in Ukraine and claim that 25 thousand people were starved to death per day by a mismanaged economy or poor harvest.

The Nazi and Soviet-committed crimes against humanity, casting a long and deep shadow on the history of the 20th century Europe, will be equally condemned and their victims remembered and commemorated.
 
It is the last indispensable precondition for Europe’s moral and spiritual unity on the road towards mutual openness and genuine solidarity among the nations.

In the name of our fallen parents, brothers and sisters, in the name of those who fought for the independence of our countries, in the name of our future and the future of our children, we have to preserve and spread that memory of our shared past.

We must raise our own and global awareness, deepen respect for human life and dignity. It is the only way that we will stop the spread of totalitarian ideologies and prevent such experiments with nations and people like the Holodomor from ever happening again.

LINK: http://www.president.lt/en/news.full/9878
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20.  A EUROPEAN GENOCIDE
 
REVIEW & OUTLOOK EDITORIAL: Wall Street Journal Europe, NY, NY, Tue, Nov 25, 2008
 
Among the past century's horrors, the Great Famine in Ukraine manages to stand out. First, for the scale of the mass starvation inflicted by Stalin on millions of people in Europe's agricultural breadbasket. Second, for how little the world knows about this genocide. A now-free Ukraine wants to change that and just marked the 75th anniversary of the 1932-33 "terror famine," or Holodomor.

Starting in the late 1920s, Stalin set out to collectivize and hobble the Soviet peasantry. His aim was to crush "the peasantry of the U.S.S.R. as a whole, and the Ukrainian nation," wrote Robert Conquest in his groundbreaking book, "The Harvest of Sorrow." An estimated 14.5 million people starved to death in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus when farmland was collectivized and harvests requisitioned. The submission of Ukraine to Moscow helped prolong the Soviet Union's life for another 60 years.

The Stalinist regime and its ideological soulmates denied the famine at the time and later. Walter Duranty, the New York Times's longtime Moscow correspondent, was Stalin's chief apologist, sending false dispatches from Ukraine; he won a Pulitzer Prize. The left-leaning academy condemned Mr. Conquest and the late James Mace, the leading researcher of the famine, when their work appeared in the 1980s. The Berlin Wall's collapse shamed some of the denialists. "I want to express my deepest appreciation to all who refused to be silent," President Viktor Yushchenko said Friday.

The exception is the current Russian leadership. Ahead of the official commemoration this past weekend, President Dmitry Medvedev accused Ukraine of seeking to achieve "opportunistic political goals" based on "manipulations and distortions, falsification of facts about the number of dead." As in Stalin's day, Ukraine's independent identity and nationhood stands in the way of a resurgent Russian imperium. By remembering the Holodomor, Ukrainians say -- Never again.

LINK: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122757088058354659.html
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