2.  SBU STARTS CASE ON GENOCIDE IN UKRAINE IN 1932-1933
Member of Parliament Moskal calls action a PR move, people responsible are dead

7.  UKRAINE PROBES DEVASTATING SOVIET-ERA FAMINE
Associated Press (AP), Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, May 25, 2009  

Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, Head, Security Service of Ukraine
Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, May 25, 2009

Dear Friends,

The Security Service of Ukraine has launched the first Holodomor-related criminal case in Ukraine. Additional information is provided in the press-release attached hereto [found below].

We thank you for the political support, which helped to form public opinion that the mentioned above case is of great social importance. We also ask for your legal advice and probable involvement of attorneys both to the criminal case itself, and to the issues of civil indemnification.

Best regards,

Valentyn
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SECURITY SERVICE OF UKRAINE HAS LAUNCHED A CRIMINAL CASE
AGAINST THE PERPETRATORS OF THE GENOCIDE IN UKRAINE IN 1932-1933

 

KYIV - On May 22, 2009 the Security Service of Ukraine launched a criminal case against the perpetrators of the Genocide in Ukraine in 1932-1933 on the grounds laid out in part I, of article 442 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

The head of the Ukrainian National Memory Institute – I. Yuhnovsky, Members of the Ukrainian Parliament – G. Omelchenko, O. Chornovolenko, chief of the Holodomor Research Association in Ukraine – L. Luk’yanenko, head of  “V. Stus Memorial Association” – R. Krutcyk, and other citizens of Ukraine were all instrumental in making application to the Security Service of Ukraine with the objective of highlighting the illegal killings of millions of Ukrainians by famine in 1932-1933. These applications remain the basis of the prospective criminal case.

Having studied the applications on the crime of Genocide, the Ukrainian Security Service, together with the General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine and the Ukrainian National Memory Institute has undertaken the necessary research-work.   

 

The results of this work show that after the dissolution of Ukrainian People’s Republic in 1921, the Bolshevik regime mounted a systematic and unlawful campaign aimed at prevention of the independent state of Ukraine, thereby effectively denationalizing the nation of Ukraine and merging it into the common administrative unit of Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR).

To further its illegal aims, the Soviet Regime conducted the forced collectivization of the agricultural industry, nationalization of private property and massive deportation of the Ukrainian rural families, as well as the repression and physical extermination of the people.

The Stalinist totalitarian regime at the time adopted a set of measures, which completely destroyed traditional forms of agricultural production and deprived Ukrainian farmers of the vital reserves of grain and food. They implemented “natural fines” and repressive actions towards grain debtors, banned trade and delivery of food to the “black listed villages” and stopped the free migration of farmers all over the territory of the USSR.

The regime also created special armed forces and army divisions to isolate the territory of the Ukrainian SSR and brought about the creation, in 1932-1933, of repressive and punitive conditions aimed at the total physical elimination of the Ukrainian people.

Through its unlawful activities the regime’s objectives were wholly directed towards the wiping out, through famine, of the Ukrainian national entity.
Representatives of other nationalities and minorities also suffered from these crimes by the authorities.

The SSU inquiry is based on eyewitness testimony of the events in Ukraine during Holodomor (Great Famine) 1932-1933.

The consultation of declassified archival soviet secret documents, scientific researches of native and foreign scientists, historians, public figures published in the Mass-Media as well as the findings of Kyiv-Mogylyansk Academy and the Franko Lviv National University have led to the official designation of these activities of bolshevist authorities, i.e., mass killing through famine, as being classed as a crime against Humanity.

During their investigations into the case, the Security Service of Ukraine was guided by the national legislation and international conventions adopted by Ukraine. In particular, the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948, Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, 1968, as well as the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, 1950.

In addition, Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines that the crimes against humanity are officially designated to be: “acts, when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, in particular, extermination, deportation, forcible transfer of population, torture and/or other inhumane acts”.

While investigating the criminal case the Security Service of Ukraine will strictly adhere to the Criminal Code of Ukraine and to the Law of Ukraine “On Holodomor 1932-1933 in Ukraine” which the Verkhovna Rada (Supreme Council) acknowledged that the Holodomor did indeed conform to the criteria of a ‘purposeful act of mass killing of innocent victims’, i.e. genocide against the Ukrainian People.
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2.  SBU STARTS CASE ON GENOCIDE IN UKRAINE IN 1932-1933
Member of Parliament Moskal calls action a PR move, people responsible are dead

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1932 FAMINE THAT KILLED MILLIONS

By Matthew Day, The Scotsman, Edinburgh, Scotland, Wed, May 27, 2009

BITTER enmity between Ukraine and Russia could be rekindled after the Kiev authorities launched a criminal investigation into a devastating famine that claimed millions of lives, stating it was an act of genocide orchestrated by Moscow.

More than 70 years since the famine struck Ukraine, which was then part of the Soviet Union, the country's prosecution service believes it has enough evidence to begin criminal proceedings.

A statement issued by Ukraine's security service, the SBU, said that through murder, the forcible collectivisation of agriculture, dispossession, deportation and confiscation, the Soviet authorities had "aimed at organising hunger to kill the Ukrainian people as an ethnic group".

It went on: "The Stalinist regime wanted to create living conditions that would result in the total physical elimination of ethnic Ukrainians."

Although estimates of how many people died in what Ukrainians call the Holodomor, which ravaged the nation in 1932 and 1933, conservative estimates have put the death toll at more than seven million.

Ukraine has long maintained that Stalin wanted to wipe out the Ukrainian people, because of their questionable loyalty to the Soviet Union and their stubborn adherence to age-old farming practices that stood in his way of the plan to destroy private agriculture.

In the early 1930s, Stalin launched a brutal campaign of collectivisation and requisition across Ukraine that few historians dispute turned a natural famine into a human tragedy of massive proportions. Eye-witness accounts from the time speak of whole villages being obliterated by starvation and disease, and people resorting to cannibalism to stay alive. Often, the authorities prevented survivors fleeing the famine-stricken regions in fear that if news got out, it would damage the credibility of Stalin's regime and policies.

The Ukrainian government has waged a long campaign in the international arena to have the famine classified as genocide, while some Ukrainian nationalists argue that Russia, as the successor to the Soviet Union, should now be held responsible.

However, the Russian government disputes the genocide claim, pointing out that famine and starvation struck other regions of the Soviet Union at the same time. It also argues that so far no evidence, such as a paper trail, clearly stating that the Kremlin wished to starve Ukraine has ever come to light.

With Ukraine and Russia at odds over links to the West and energy, Kiev's genocide claims have assumed a political dimension. Some in Russia consider Ukraine's willingness to open old wounds as evidence of its determination to antagonise Moscow and seek sympathy in the West.

Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, has charged Ukraine's pro-western president, Viktor Yushchenko with exploiting the famine for "instantaneous political goals", while General Vasily Khristoforov, head of the registration and archives department at Russia's federal security service, dismissed the Holodomor as a "Ukrainian invention".

Ukraine's decision to push ahead with a criminal investigation could fall under the scrutiny of a new Russian commission, appointed by Mr Medvedev last week and charged with guarding against "the falsification of history at the expense of Russian interests".

But opposition to the inquiry also comes from within Ukraine, with some politicians questioning the sense of investigating events of 70-plus years ago.

"From the legal point of view, what the security service is doing is absurd," said Gennady Moskal, a member of parliament. "Who will criminal charges be brought against? Maybe against a cemetery? Who can be brought to justice? If a person was 18 years old in 1933, then how old are they now when criminal proceedings are beginning?"

LINK: http://news.scotsman.com/world/Ukraine-accuses-Moscow-of-genocide.5304415.jp

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4.  SBU BROUGHT CRIMINAL CASE ON FACT OF COMMITTING

GENOCIDE IN UKRAINE

UNIAN News Service, Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, May 25, 2009

KYIV - The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) has brought a criminal case on the fact of committing a genocide, which caused death of millions, in Ukraine in 1932-33.

SBU head Valentyn Nalyvaychenko claimed this on Monday at a meeting with representatives of the World Congress of Ukrainians, the SBU press-service disclosed to UNIAN.

 

“Ukraine has collected enough evidence to bring a criminal case on the fact of the famine, which was artificially created by the Bolshevik regime and caused mass death of citizens”, the SBU head stressed.

 

Through the World Congress of Ukrainians, he turned to leading foreign lawyers with a request to help find out all the circumstances connected with preparing and committing the genocide in 1932-33.

WCU executive secretary Stephan Romaniv noted that Ukrainian communities in the world assess such steps as a significant progress on the way towards establishing the historical justice.

 

Participants of the meeting agreed to collaborate in the sphere of disseminating the true information about the Holodomor genocide by means of organizing exhibitions, holding public hearings, publishing books, etc.

 

LINK: http://www.unian.net/eng/news/news-317488.html 

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5.  UKRAINIAN COURT SHOULD CONFIRM THAT HOLODMOR

IHOR YUKHNOVSKY 

UkrInform, Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, May 26, 2009
 
KYIV - The main aim of instituting the criminal proceedings on genocide in Ukraine in 1932-1933 should be a legal proof of the crime against humanity made by the court, author of one of addresses on the basis of which the Security Service instituted criminal proceedings and Chairman of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory Academician Ihor Yukhnovsky informed.

“We want to achieve that the Ukrainian court confirmed that the Holodomor 1932-33 was a crime against humanity and that the terror regime reigned in Ukraine at that time”, he said.

According to his information, today the Ukrainian Institution of National Memory possesses hundreds of thousands of evidences about criminal actions of the Communist power, a part of which has been already handed over to the Security Service.

At the same time, Yukhnovsky noted that the present criminal case will not most probably concern any concrete persons.  “We will not be able to do it, since thousands of persons were involved in those events and some of them became victims of that regime”, he noted.

On May 25, the Security Service instituted a case on the basis of the genocide of the Ukrainian people in 1932-33. The Holodomor 1932-33 was recognized as genocide of the Ukrainian people by parliaments of 14 states and the Vatican.

According to different estimates, an artificial famine organized by the Communist totalitarian regime, or the Holodomor, at the expense of confiscation of foodstuffs at the beginning of the 1930ies took lives of seven to 10 million of Ukrainian residents, including about four million of children that made up 25% of Ukraine's population at that time.

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UkrInform, Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, May 26, 2009 

KYIV - Ukrainian ex-President Leonid Kravchuk (1991-1994) stated that he believes it is untimely that the Security Service instituted criminal proceedings on the basis of genocide of the Ukrainian people in 1932-1933. “I support it (investigation into genocide - Ed.), but I believe that it is untimely today”, he said on air at the Fifth Channel.

The politician expressed anxiety that investigation could intensify a split in the society. “Those people who did it - there are no them, a part of very important documents is absent as well, and the moods in the society are such that this can only intensify the split”, Kravchuk says.

 

On May 25, 2009 the Security Service instituted proceedings on the basis of genocide of the Ukrainian people in 1932-33.  The Holodomor of 1932-33 was recognized as genocide of the Ukrainian people by parliaments of 14 states and by the Vatican.

 

According to different estimates, an artificial famine organized by the Communist totalitarian regime, or the Holodomor, at the expense of confiscation of foodstuffs at the beginning of the 1930ies took lives of seven to 10 million of Ukrainian residents, including about four million of children that made up 25% of Ukraine's population at that time.

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7. UKRAINE PROBES DEVASTATING SOVIET-ERA FAMINE

Associated Press (AP), Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, May 25, 2009  

KIEV - Ukraine has opened a formal investigation into a Soviet-era famine that killed millions of people, as part of a government campaign to prove the famine was an act of genocide.  The State Security Service said in a statement on its Web site Monday that it was launching a criminal probe into the tragedy. 

The 1932-33 famine was engineered by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin to force peasants to give up their private plots of land and join collective farms.
Ukraine, which has rich farmland, suffered the most of all Soviet regions. President Viktor Yushchenko has led efforts to win international recognition of the famine as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian nation.

Russia opposes the term genocide, saying other ethnic groups also suffered.

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Mr. E. Morgan Williams, Director, Government Affairs,
Washington Office, SigmaBleyzer,
Emerging Markets Private Equity Investment Group;
President/CEO, U.S.-Ukraine Business Council (USUBC)
Publisher & Editor, Action Ukraine Report (AUR)
1701 K Street, NW, Suite 903, Washington, D.C. 20006
Telephone: 202 437 4707; Fax: 202 223 1224
Ukraine Mobile: 380 50 689 2874
[email protected]; [email protected]
www.sigmableyzer.com; www.usubc.org