1988: A LOOK BACK: Noteworthy events and people (12/25/88)

1988: A LOOK BACK

Noteworthy events and people

This section is for all those notable events and people of l988 that simply could not be classified under any of the aforementioned headings. So, here goes.

Among the noteworthy events were the following.

The Canadian government announced on January 23 that it was awarding grants totalling $1 million to spur Ukrainian community development. The grants included $500,000 to the Ukrainian Resource Development Center at Grant McEwan College in Edmonton; $350,000 for the fourth volume of the English-language Encyclopedia of Ukraine and $150,000 for the Ukrainian Canadian Committee's Ukrainian Information Bureau.

In June, the Alberta provincial government announced that it would guarantee a minimum of $1.5 million for the endowment fund of the URDC, the first center of applied Ukrainian arts to be housed in a higher educational institution in North America.
Among the Canadians carrying the Olympic torch in the 88-day relay that took it from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Calgary, Alberta, site of the 1988 Winter Olympics were more than 20 Ukrainians. According to reliable sources in Quebec, the first Ukrainian to carry the torch was Taras Pawlowsky, 18, of Lachine who ran in Laval (actually in 1987, on December 13).

Also on the Olympic scene, some 300 Calgary Ukrainians participated in a candlelight vigil on February 14 to draw attention to religious repression in the Soviet Union. The vigil coincided with the opening of the XV Winter Olympiad, and it was organized by the Ukrainian Canadian Committee and the Calgary Coalition for Human Rights in the Soviet Union.

Notable as well in the opening ceremonies of the Olympics was the presence of Ukrainian dancers (their performance, alas, was not shown on TV in the United States). During the course of the games, Ukrainians were in evidence at various venues of Olympic competition with their flags, banners and placards.
Dr. Roman Cetenko, a retired dentist and born-again Christian from Palm Desert, Calif., realized his dream of sending 100,000 Ukrainian-language Bibles to Ukraine in time for the Millennium year. All the Bibles have now reached Kiev. However, fund-raising continues to cover the costs of the project initiated by his Ukrainian Family Bible Association .
The board of governors of the American Bar Association decided at its April 15 meeting not to renew an agreement of cooperation with the Association of Soviet Lawyers. The action resolved a three-year controversy over the ABA's ties to the ASL, which, critics said, played a leading role in Soviet disinformation efforts. Members of the Independent Task Force on ABA-Soviet Relations were ecstatic, but pledged to continue monitoring the ABA's dealings with the Soviets.
The Ukrainian Studies Center at Macquarie University and the Shevchenko Scientific Society of Australia sponsored an official Australian Bicentennial conference on the "History of Ukrainian Settlement in Australia." The conference was held at Macquarie on April 22-24.
One hundred ninety-two Ukrainians from Poland defected while on a bus trip to Rome for celebrations of the Millennium of Christianity in Ukraine. They sought asylum in Austria on July 4. Since then other refugees, Ukrainian refugees from Poland have joined the group, raising the number to more than 400 persons. Canada has indicated that it will accept a large portion of the refugees, however, sponsors are needed. The first group is expected to arrive in Canada sometime in the spring of next year, according to the Canadian Ukrainian Immigrant Aid Society.
An amazing 2,800 dancers performed together on June 30 during the opening program of Festival '88, billed as the largest spectacle of Ukrainian arts ever attempted in North America. The four-day festival, held in Edmonton and Vegreville to mark the Millennium of Christianity in Ukraine, featured a Ukrainian dance extravaganza, the annual Pysanka Festival, the first ever Ukrainian music awards and closing ceremonies that included an indoor fireworks display.
On August 31, a U.S. federal court ruled that Secretary of State George Shultz and Commissioner Alan Nelson of the Immigration and Naturalization Service "violated, and threaten to violate in the future, the rights of the Ukrainian American Bar Association to communicate effectively an offer of free legal service to unadmitted aliens seeking asylum" from the USSR and East bloc countries. The decision came as the culmination of the UABA's lawsuit filed in October 1985 after its member-attorneys were denied access to counsel and advise Myroslav Medvid, the Soviet Ukrainian seaman who jumped from a Soviet grain ship near New Orleans in an attempt to seek U.S. asylum.

As a result of the federal court ruling, the U.S. government is required to give notice to aliens seeking asylum that private attorneys, members of the UABA, can assist them free of charge and to provide the number of the UABA hotline. The notice is to be given in English, Armenian, Byelorussian, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Russian and Ukrainian - the languages most frequently spoken by disaffected Soviet citizens.

There were notable people, too, on the pages of The Ukrainian Weekly in 1988. Here are some of them.

The Very Rev. Michael Kuchmiak CSsR, pastor of Holy Family Ukrainian National Shrine in Washington, was named in March by Pope John Paul II to serve as auxiliary bishop to Archbishop-Metropolitan Stephen Sulyk of the Philadelphia Archeparchy for Ukrainian Catholics and as titular bishop of Agathopolis. He was ordained bishop during a pontifical divine liturgy celebrated at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Philadelphia on April 27.
Roman Popadiuk was named on March 14 by President Ronald Reagan to serve as special assistant to the president and deputy press secretary for foreign affairs. He latter accompanied President Reagan on his trip to Moscow for the U.S.-Soviet summit.
John Sopinka, one of Canada's top litigation attorneys, was named on May 24 by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney to Canada's Supreme Court.
Katherine Chumachenko on June 20 assumed the position of associate director of the White House Office of Public Liaison. In that capacity she is the Reagan administration's ethnic affairs liaison.
A Raynell Andreychuk was appointed on August 17 as Canada's representative to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. She continues to serve also as Canada's high commissioner to Kenya with accreditation to Uganda and as ambassador to the Comoros.
Dr. Sylvia Fedoruk became the first female lieutenant governor of Saskatchewan. She took office on September 7.
Four-year-old Olesia Bereza underwent successful heart surgery to correct a series of malformations known as tetralogy of Fallot. The tot from Lviv had the operation on November 1 at the world-renowned Deborah Heart and Lung Center in Browns Mills, N.J., thanks to the efforts of Dr. Bohdan Woroch and Dr. Andrew Olearchyk of the Ukrainian Medical Association of North America.

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