Report
by William Zuzak,
delegate of USRA-National
to the
XXIII
Triennial Congress of
the Ukrainian Canadian Congress
05/07Nov2010; Westin Hotel,
Edmonton
Part 1
(1) The 9:30 AM, Friday, 05Nov2010 opening address and
power-point presentation by Olenka Bilash set the tone of the whole
Congress. She recounted her own life experiences as an off-spring of a
"mixed marriage" with little knowledge of Ukrainian and evolution into
one of the "5000-Ukrainian-Canadian elite". (She pointed out that
Google and Youtube only recognized Ukrainian in 2009.)
[W.Z. Strangely, neither her presentation nor her bio refers
to her mother's German origin and to her former husband Radomir Bilash
and their children.]
(2) At the 8:00 AM Saturday session, James Temerty, chairman
of Northland Power and protégé of Taras Hukalo in the distant past,
revealed his "Ukrainian Jewish Encounter Project". He claims that he is
not naïve and that progress has already been made with Jewish
demonization of Khmelnitsky and Petlura. Unfortunately, only two
questions from supporters of his project were allowed and I only
managed to call out: "Do you discuss John Demjanjuk?" before being cut
off. (The UJE project is discussed in Part 2 below.)
[W.Z. To my knowledge this was the only reference to John
Demjanjuk during the whole Congress proceedings -- despite the fact
that Mr. Demjanjuk has been the litmus test of Ukrainian success or
failure for the past 35 years and despite my suggestion that the
records of the 23 Triennial Congress contain a sympathetic statement on
Mr. Demjanjuk's ongoing persecution in Munich for posterity.]
(3) I attended the 9:05 AM Saturday session "Can we retain our
cultural and ethnic identity in Canada without retaining our
language?". Paulette MacQuarrie (radio host of Nash Holos in Vancouver)
and Jason Golinowski (former aid to Anne McLellan) -- originally
outsiders trying to enter into the Ukrainian community -- took the yes
side, while Dobryan Tracz (son of Orysia Tracz) and Oksana Hrycyna
(life-long "Plastunka activist" and firebrand speaker) argued the no
side.
The discussion was fascinating in that all agreed that the
Ukrainian language was important, but the non-Ukrainian speakers are
searching for ways to enter the Ukrainian community; whereas Ukrainian
speakers insist that all Ukrainians learn the Ukrainian language. Jason
Golinowski referred to the 1.2 million Ukrainian Canadians that are not
represented by the "5000-Ukrainian-Canadian elite" comprising the UCC.
It was later announced that Dobryan Tracz would head a committee to
create a database of these 1.2 million lost souls. [It is obvious that
until the number of non-Ukrainian speakers entering the Ukrainian
community equals or surpasses the number dropping out, the Ukrainian
Canadian community will continue to decline.]
[W.Z. It is surprising that the bio of Jason Golinowski did
not reveal that he was Anne McLellan's employee, when Eugene Harasymiw,
Marco Levytsky and Taras Podilsky met with her to plead that she not
hire Neal Sher -- the former head of the OSI responsible for the
persecution of John Demjanjuk -- to advise the Canadian War Crimes Unit
how best to victimize Ukrainian Canadians via the denaturalization and
deportation mechanism.]
(4) Session C at 10:35 AM Saturday featured Paul Grod, Roman
Petryshyn and Slawko Kindrachuk on the overriding question, "Should we
change our membership structure to include individual memberships?".
Roman Petryshyn presented a list of proposals to improve the
role of UCC and Ukrainian organizations in Canadian society and elevate
our profile. He was not particularly in favour of individual membership
except as a means to raise funds. Paul Grod, referring to the 1.2
million disfranchised Ukrainian Canadians including the "novi prybuly",
was in favour of individual membership. Slawko Kindrachuk related the
Saskatoon experience with individual membership which works extremely
well. Dan Huzyk from Vancouver stated that the Vancouver bylaws from
1963 specifically allow for individual memberships. The general
consensus from the audience was that individual membership should be
allowed.
(5) At 12:45 hrs into Saturday's lunch break, Volodymyr
Viatrovych spoke on NKVD-KGB documents at the (pre-Yanukovych) SBU in
Ukraine revealing the genocidal nature of Soviet policies towards
Ukraine, especially the Holodomor. To my question referring to the
22Oct1992 article in Literaturna Ukraina by Ivan Bilas wherein it
states that in December 1991 (following the 91% vote in favour of
Ukraine's independence) the KGB documents on NKVD-MGB repressions
against OUN-UPA in Western Ukraine were sent to Moscow, Dr. Viatrovych
replied that this appears to have been confirmed by Taras Kuzio.
The second speaker, Lubomyr Luciuk, listed a large number of
documents indicating that since 1917, the Anglo-American powers
(indeed, all world powers) never wanted or felt they needed a free
Ukraine. These released documents indicate indifference, ignorance and
hostility. This hostile attitude proved fatal to Ukrainians forcibly
repatriated into Uncle Joe's clutches after WWII, although the
intervention of Bohdan Panchuk and Stanley Frolick (Canadian army
officers) from their London office managed to save a number of refugees
from Western Ukraine.
(6) The "Four Ambassadors" began their presentations at 13:55
hrs on Saturday. Since Ihor Ostash and Daniel Caron are incumbent
ambassadors representing Ukraine and Canada, they were very circumspect
in their comments. However, former ambassadors Yurij Scherbak (of
Jewish origin(?) and Ukraine's first ambassador to Israel, then Canada
and
U.S.) and Derek Fraser were under no such restrictions.
Yurij Scherbak stated that Yanukovych has initiated a 180
degree in foreign and domestic policy. His regime is implementing a
complete destruction of the Ukrainian identity. In a later session, he
emphasized that to facilitate resistance to the Yanukovych regime, it
is absolutely necessary that all press releases, articles and
pronouncements be immediately translated and be made available in
English and Ukrainian (and, presumably, Russian and other world
languages). These must be disseminated world wide.
Derek Fraser -- with his intricate knowledge of world
diplomacy -- was, by far, the most outspoken and helpful participant at
the Congress. He made several useful proposals and suggestions.
(7) At 15:30 hrs Saturday, Paul Grod chaired the session on
"UCC's strategic Approach to engaging Ukraine". There were a large
number of thoughtful comments and suggestions by Viatrovych, Fraser,
Scherbak, Roman Serbyn, Senator Andreychuk, Ihor Broda, Eugene Czolij,
Mykola Vorotilenko and others.
(8) Banquet at 19:00 hrs, Sat., 06Nov2010:
For me, this was a normal banquet until the master of
ceremonies greeted a number of dignataries present. Imagine my shock,
when he announced that Anne McLellan was in attendance. Who invited her
and why? Have the organizers forgotten that she was at the forefront in
promoting the d&d policy that targeted so many -- including
Josef Furman (from Edmonton), Vasyl Odynsky and Vladimir Katriuk? (See
my comment on Jason Golinowski in section 3 above.) Did the organizers,
or the people seated at her table, ask her to admit that this was a
mistake and to apologize? Did they ask her to make a public statement
calling on the federal government to apologize to the Ukrainian
community and to the victims of the d&d policy and to provide
financial restitution to these victims and/or their families?
The same demand should be made of Allan Rock (now President of
the University of Ottawa, infamous for suppressing free speech on
campus), who on January 31, 1995 announced the abandonment of criminal
prosecution of suspected Nazi war criminals under rigorous rules of
evidence in favour of the abhorrent d&d process used by the OSI
in the United States in the case of John Demjanjuk.
(9) At 11:45 hrs, Sun., 07Nov2010, the Resolution Committee
started going over the resolutions. I expect that these (as well as the
committees created, their chairmen and contact information) will be
posted on the ucc.ca website in due course.
Here, we will comment on only one resolution concerning the
number of victims that died during the Holodomor, which generated a
great deal of controversy. The death estimates seem to vary from about
3.5 million to 10 million. The intention of the resolution was to try
to establish a firm number which would be realistic and be acceptable
to the Ukrainian community. (As Stephan Romaniuk, the elder statesman
at UCC-Edmonton, stated: "For as long as I can remember, the figure was
always 7 to 10 million. Why the sudden decrease?")
[W.Z. Frankly, I do not think that it is advisable or even
possible to establish a firm figure. Ukraine's enemies and fifth
columnists will always insist on a number less than 6 million.
Ukrainian patriots will insist on the original larger figures. In his
introduction to the 1984 edition of Ewald Ammende's 1935 book "Human
Life in Russia", James Mace estimates the death toll in Ukraine to have
been 7,454,000 and bluntly states that it was genocide. Diplomats from
foreign countries posted in Ukraine consistently referred to the
annihilation of the rural population (over 80% of the total population
at that time). Even Soviet functionaries in conversation and
correspondence amongst themselves are reputed to have used the round 10
million figure -- including Stalin. Khruschev, who admitted to being up
to his elbows in blood during this period, refused to give a specific
figure -- saying that no one was counting the dead.
Rather than trying to impose an impossible task on the UCC, it
would be preferable if Ukrainian activists simply wrote a letter to the
editor or telephoned a radio or TV station, whenever they saw or heard
a figure less than 7 million being used.]