FACES AND PLACES: Motto for 1986: 1985

FACES AND PLACES

by Myron B. Kuropas

Motto for 1986: 1985 - never again

Anyway you look at it, 1985 was not a good year for the Ukrainian community in North America.

Recall and consider what happened to us.

"Quiet Neighbors" author Allan Ryan traveled around America pushing his book and the notion that the Displaced Persons Act of 1948 was "a brazenly discriminatory act written to exclude as many concentration camp survivors as possible" and to "extend the Statue of Liberty's hand to the followers and practitioners of Nazism." Among those followers and practitioners, Mr. Ryan contended, were Ukrainians and Balts, "thousands" of whom settled in the United States after the war. It is these Ukrainian and Baltic "Nazis" that the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) - which Mr. Ryan headed for a time - is committed to find, prosecute, and either deport to the USSR or extradite to Israel where, presumably, "justice" will prevail. During interviews with reporters and radio and TV commentators, Mr. Ryan made little effort to dispel the 40-year-old Soviet canard that all refugees who refused to return to the Soviet Union at the end of World War II were, in fact, Nazi collaborators.

A book titled "American Swastika" appeared in 1985 escalating the nazi mania initiated in Moscow and intensified in the United States by the OSI. Written by Charles Higham - who borrowed freely from "Sabotage: the Secret War Against America," a 142 book authored by Stalinists Michael Sayers and Albert Kahn - "American Swastika" contributed to the Soviet disinformation campaign in the United States by painting the entire Ukrainian nationalist community fascist black. Svoboda, for example, was identified by Mr. Higham as "the official Ukrainian Fascist newspaper."

In an article titled "Reagan and the War Crimes Lobby" which appeared in the Village Voice, Joe Conason further intensified the defamation campaign against Ukrainians and Balts by making it clear that the prime OSI targets were East European communities which represented "a bulwark of Reagan's hard-core political coalition."

Three Jewish American organizations - the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, the World Jewish Congress (WJC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith - joined the KGB-initiated conspiracy by accusing those of us who questioned OSI sources and investigatory methods of obstructing justice. The ADL report was especially scurrilous, suggesting that Ukrainians and Balts who "flew the banner of anti-communism" were "using tactics reminiscent of those used by Hitler himself" to justify killing Jews.

Responding to Jewish Canadian political pressure, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney established the Deschenes Commission to investigate the existence of Nazi war criminals in Canada. Using documentation supplied by the KGB, Sol Littman of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies immediately accused all members of the Ukrainian SS division Galicia of being war criminals.

The final blow of Ukrainian pride and dignity came early in November when Ukrainian seaman Myroslav Medvid was denied asylum in America despite two obvious attempts to defect from a Soviet grain ship docked near New Orleans. Ukrainian American protests, overwhelming media support, and efforts by various U.S. senators, most notably Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and Gordon Humphrey (R-N.H.) did nothing to dissuade the Reagan administration from allowing the Soviet ship to leave American waters with Mr. Medvid aboard.

The Ukrainian community was ill-prepared for the challenges presented by the KGB, Allan Ryan, Charles Higham, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the World Jewish Congress, the ADL, the Deschenes Commission, the Reagan White House, the State Department and the Justice Department. Herculean efforts by various individuals who quickly mobilized available resources weren't enough to save Mr. Medvid.

As we reflect back on the past year, what can we do to prevent a repeat in 1986?

Five things: energize, mobilize, systematize, politicize and aggrandize.

We need to energize our establishment leaders, many of whom are asleep at the wheel, blissfully believing that if a problem is ignored long enough, it will go away.

All segments of our community need to be mobilized. Our future in North America is being threatened by the KGB and its collaborators and unless we all fight back today, we'll all suffer tomorrow. Anyone who believes the OSI has finished defaming our community is a dreamer. The OSI has just begun, and 1985 was merely a prelude to what lies ahead.

Our community needs to systematize our strategy through better coordination and cooperation. There's no need for duplication because there's plenty of work for everyone. Let's get together and divide the labor.

We need to politicize our community and increase our presence in Washington and Ottawa. Hardly a week goes by in Washington during which some Jewish group isn't lobbying for some issue. We can't match that yet, but we can set goals for 1986 that would include monthly visits to our national capitals. Working with the Balts, we could increase our visits substantially.

Finally, we need to aggrandize our wealth by raising funds for political action. Let's learn from the Jews and defeat our enemies by financially supporting our friends. Congressional elections will be held in 1986 and presidential elections in 1988. It's not too early to begin making plans.

There you have it. Easy suggestions to conceptualize; not as easy to realize. But I'm optimistic. Last year wasn't a complete wash because, if nothing else, Ukrainians demonstrated that neither will we be intimidated nor will we roll over and play dead to satisfy ancient vendettas.

In the Medvid case we came that close to winning. In 1986 we can win if our motto for the year becomes "1985 - Never Again!"