Setting the record straight (12/26/82)

Setting the record straight

Former Ukrainian political prisoner Sviatoslav Karavansky has brought to our attention an error that was made in the issue devoted to the Ukrainian Helsinki Group on the occasion of its sixth anniversary.

According to Mr. Karavansky, it is not true that the Ukrainian members of the Helsinki monitoring group in the camps are not members of the Kiev-based Ukrainian Helsinki Group.

The error arose when Nadia Svitlychna, another former Ukrainian political prisoner, provided The Weekly with information on the Ukrainian Helsinki Group and the camp-based Helsinki Group. Her information, taken from USSR News Brief (published in Munich under the editorship of Cronid Lubarsky), indicated that Ukrainian camp group members were not Ukrainian Helsinki Group members. Ms. Svitlychna was not aware that USSR News Brief later retracted the information printed in its original news item about the Helsinki camp group, noting that it had been full of inaccuracies.

Mr. Karavansky brought this fact to The Weekly's attention, along with another more recent item taken from the USSR News Brief which stated clearly that Oksana Popovych, Bohdan Rebryk, Danylo Shumuk and Yuriy Shukhevych had joined the Kiev-based Ukrainian Helsinki Group.

So, to set the record straight, the five Ukrainian dissidents The Weekly and Ms. Svitlychna had listed as members of the camp-based group, but not as members of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group - Oksana Popovych, Bohdan Rebryk, Yuriy Shukhevych, Danylo Shumuk and Sviatoslav Karavansky - are, in fact, members of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group.

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