Kyiv Post | 27Apr2010 | Interfax-Ukraine
http://www.kyivpost.com/news/nation/detail/65184/
PACE draft resolution: Great
famine of 1930s in Soviet Union caused by Stalinist regime
Strasbourg, April 27, 2010 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) is planning to recognize that
the totalitarian Stalinist regime led to the death of millions of
innocent people in the former Soviet Union in the early 1930s.
"The totalitarian Stalinist regime in the former Soviet Union led to
horrifying human rights violations which deprived millions of people of
their right to life. One of the most tragic pages in the history of the
peoples of the former Soviet Union was the mass famine in grain-growing
areas of the country, which started in the late 1920s and culminated in
1932-33," reads the draft resolution by the PACE.
The parliamentarians are planning to pass the document on April 28, 2010
after a discussion of a report, entitled "Commemorating the victims of
the Great Famine (Holodomor) in the former USSR," which was drafted by
PACE President Mevlut Cavusoglu. The draft resolution says that
"millions of innocent people in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia
and Ukraine, which were parts of the Soviet Union, lost their lives as
a result of mass starvation caused by cruel and deliberate actions and
policies of the Soviet regime."
"In Ukraine, which suffered the most, the peasantry was particularly
hit by the Great Famine and millions of individual farmers and members
of their families died of hunger following forced 'collectivisation,' a
ban on departures from the affected areas and confiscation of grain and
other food. These tragic events are referred to as Holodomor
(politically-motivated famine) and are recognized by Ukrainian law as
an act of genocide against Ukrainians," reads the document.
The draft resolution reads that "in Kazakhstan, too, millions fell
victim to the mass famine, and the ratio of the dead to the whole
population is believed to be the highest among all peoples of the
former USSR."
The document says that the famine also took millions of lives in rural
and urban areas in Russia.
"In absolute figures, it is estimated that the population of Russia
paid the heaviest death toll as a result of the Soviet agricultural
policies," reads the document.
It also says that "tens of thousands of farmers also died in Belarus
and Moldova."
"The Assembly honors the memory of all those who perished in this
unprecedented human disaster, and recognizes them as victims of a cruel
crime of the Soviet regime against its own people," reads the draft
resolution.
The document says that the assembly "strongly condemns the cruel
policies pursued by the Stalinist regime," and "welcomes the efforts
aimed at revealing the historical truth about, and at raising the
public awareness of, these tragic events of the past."
The assembly also calls on all countries of the former Soviet Union "to
open up all their archives and facilitate access thereto to all
researchers, including from other states."
"The Assembly calls on historians of all countries of the former Soviet
Union, which suffered during the Great Famine, as well as historians
from other countries, to conduct joint independent research programs in
order to establish the full, un-biased and un-politicized truth about
this human tragedy, and to make it public," reads the draft resolution.
The assembly also welcomes the decision by the Ukrainian authorities to
establish a national day of commemoration of the victims of the Great
Famine (Holodomor) in Ukraine, and encourages the authorities of other
countries that also suffered to do the same with regard to their own
victims.