Standing up to be counted

June 02, 2008
Kevin Cavanagh
The Hamilton Spectator

For all the oratory that erupts when politicians gather, a nation's legislators are ultimately measured more by what they do than what they say. So it was no small statement of principle last week when Canada's House of Commons passed a bill recognizing the 1930s Ukrainian famine as an act of genocide.

The bill refers to a devastating famine of 1932-33 in which shocking numbers of people -- up to 10 million -- were starved to death in a fertile agricultural region known as Europe's breadbasket.

Whether such atrocities should be recorded for history's sake as state-sanctioned homicide is a politically explosive debate, which -- even generations after the fact -- can trigger backlashes from present-day regimes of countries that are implicated in, embarrassed by and/or in denial of said outrage.

As you'd expect in a debate fired with nationalism and pride, there's hot contention over whether such incidents constitute mass murder, or the slightly more benign consequence of politics of the day. In this case, some historians and a lot of Russians reject the notion that the famine was a calculated extermination by the Soviet Union's monstrous dictator Josef Stalin.

But a growing number of countries around the world have come to accept that the denial of food to an entire population was nothing less than a strategy by Stalin to exterminate millions of Ukrainians and silence their clamour for independence.

This was the second time in recent years a Canadian government had the gumption to take a stand on a controversial issue in the global community. Four years ago, our Parliament became one of a very few to stand up and recognize the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 as a genocide, a label that elicits fierce anger from Turkey.

Does it even matter that a country such as Canada takes a stand on something that happened so long ago? Yes. It's a statement of principle seen and heard around the world, and helps shape global consensus about what is tolerable and acceptable in civilized society.

Sensitivity and fear of controversy lead many governments to take the easy way out and simply not have an opinion, one way or the other. Cynics suspect Ottawa's decision last week was done to win favour with a million Canadian voters of Ukrainian descent, considering the feds just last fall said they had no plans to recognize the famine as a genocide. But the fact is this private member's bill received all-party support, as did the 2004 vote on Armenia.

In the end, side-stepping difficult decisions because of fear or intimidation is simply an abdication of responsibility by people who should lead. It's a dangerous step down a path toward submissively swallowing censorship, propaganda and freedom.

The world will never learn from its history if we don't face up to it.

Editorials are written by members of the editorial board. They represent the position of the newspaper, not necessarily the individual author.


Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Ukraine wants Russia to recognise genocide

22-12-2006
Radio Netherlands Worldwide
by Thijs Papôt*

Between five and seven million Ukrainians died from starvation in the winter of 1932-1933. The Ukrainian parliament maintains this was a deliberate attempt by the Soviet Union's then leader, Joseph Stalin, to exterminate the Ukrainian people. As such, this would make the famine equal to genocide.

The recent decision by parliament in Kiev - declaring that the famine was indeed genocide - would therefore seem to be a political move on the part of Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko to put pressure on the fragile relationship with Russia.

"My mother tried to flee to Russia with her children, but I was too weakened by hunger, so she left me behind in a hospital," says Kateryna Kholovan, who survived the famine at the age of four but never saw her family again.

"The winter of famine left its mark on my body. I never grew fully, and I've often been ill throughout my life."

At just 1.30 metres, Kateryna is indeed very small.

Famine
During the 'Holodomor' (death by starvation), as the Ukrainians refer to the great famine, an estimated five to seven million people lost their lives.

"I remember how brigades stormed into our village and literally took away everything that was edible or growing in the gardens."

How could it be that Ukraine, the grain store of the Soviet Union, with its fertile black soil, suddenly found itself without food? It's said that it was all a deliberate attempt by Joseph Stalin and the Communist Party in Ukraine to force Ukraine's obstinate farming community to accept the Soviet collectivisation of agriculture. Starvation as a means of repression. Historian Vasyl Marochka, who has studied the famine, says the evidence is conclusive:

"The harvest was made more difficult because the farmers' cattle was confiscated. The harvest itself was exported to Europe and the United States, and Ukrainians who tried to flee were stopped at the border or had their passports removed."

Material from the archives of the KGB, the one-time secret service of the Soviet Union, allegedly shows that Stalin himself gave the order that anyone who tried to steal food should be shot.

Extermination
However, the decision to officially describe the famine as genocide - which implies a targeted attempt to exterminate the Ukrainian people - is a controversial one.

"Yes, mistakes were made," says Sergei Gmyrya, a historian of the Communist Party in Ukraine, "But there was also a failed harvest, problems with collectivisation, and there was hunger in all parts of Europe."

He would rather describe the famine as a 'tragedy.' However, the new genocide law makes that a punishable defence, "Because I am now, in fact, a genocide denier."

Majority
Ukraine's President Victor Yuschenko managed to get the law through parliament with a narrow majority, much to the dismay of his political rival, pro-Russian Prime Minister Victor Yanukovitch, who doesn't want to strain ties with Moscow with this painful issue from the Soviet era. Messrs Yuschenko and Yanukovitch are caught up in a fierce battle for power over the issue of whether Ukraine should align itself with Moscow - as Mr Yanukovitch would like - or turn more towards the West, as Mr Yuschenko would prefer.

It would, therefore, seem to be no coincidence that the question of the famine has now ended up on the political agenda. Sergei Gmyrya believes that President Yuschenko is deliberately politicising the genocide issue for his own anti-Russian purposes.

"Yuschenko is fanning anti-Communist hysteria and anti-Russian feelings in society. This weakens our relationship with Russia."


Embargo
In Poland too, where incomprehension at, among other things, the Russian embargo on Polish food products recently led to a significant cooling of the relationship with Moscow, the parliament has - unanimously - declared that the Ukrainian famine was genocide. Meanwhile, Mr Yuschenko is trying to get official recognition of the genocide from the United Nations.

Just as the European Union has confronted Turkey with the genocide in Armenia, Ukraine is now calling for Moscow to acknowledge the genocide it suffered. With Russian President Vladimir Putin visiting Ukraine this weekend, this could be an opportunity to find out how far the Kremlin is prepared to meet that wish.

"The question will certainly be raised at some point," says Vasyl Marochka, who has little hope of any gesture of recognition being forthcoming. "I was shocked recently when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke of a 'so-called' famine. But if Russia wants to have moral and political authority as part of the international community, it has to be capable of recognising the mistakes of the past."

* Translated and Edited by RNW Internet Desk (tpf)


Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.