CONTINUING REACTION TO "60 MINUTES" REPORT

Israel-Ukraine Association leader's letter to CBS News Division head

Below is the text of a letter sent by Dmytro Pavlychko, chairman of the Israel-Ukraine Association, to Eric Ober, president of the CBS News Division. The letter was translated from Ukrainian by the Canadian Friends of Rukh, Toronto Branch, and forwarded to CBS.

Dear Mr. Ober:

As the author of Ukraine's Law for the Protection of National Minorities, and having recently visited North America, I am writing to you in my capacity as chairman of the Israel-Ukraine Association to convey how deeply troubled I was to view the "60 Minutes" report on Ukraine televised by your network.

The producers of the "60 Minutes" report ignored the historical reality and instead sought to portray the Ukrainian people as a nation of genetically predisposed anti-Semites. Having watched this distorted program, a member of the viewing public unfamiliar with the current situation in Ukraine might easily buy into the warped message delivered by this report.

As a poet, former member of Ukraine's Parliament, and past chairman of Ukraine's Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Relations, I feel compelled to state for the record that anti-Semitism has never been an inherent Ukrainian characteristic. There is no better proof of this than Ukraine's recent past. It is to the credit of the Ukrainian people that, in the often chaotic dying days of the Soviet Union, when anti-Semitism could easily have shown its ugly face, the citizens of Ukraine gained their independence peacefully without civil unrest or repression of its minorities.

This is in marked contrast to the situation existing in Russia, where homegrown anti-Semitism has not only spawned the extremist organization known as Pamiat, it has given a dangerous nationalist like Vladimir Zhirinovsky the opportunity to promote his hate-mongering to a world audience.

It is worth recalling that, at the United Nations, it was Ukraine that condemned anti-Semitism as a dehumanizing ideology, and as such, it is inconceivable that Ukraine would ever endorse any form of racism. But those who would now fan the flames of Ukrainophobia are engaging in as dangerous a form of racism as is anti-Semitism. Worst of all, mutual defamation will only lead to deeper mistrust.

Lest we forget, a common history of statelessness and exile unites Jews and Ukrainians. Historically, Ukrainians were not the oppressors. The plight of the Jews in Ukraine was never in the hands of Ukrainians, so long as Ukrainians themselves were a subjugated nation. It was the advent of democracy in an independent Ukraine that became the best guarantor of freedom for Jews and Ukrainians alike. In failing to recognize this reality, the producers of "60 Minutes" have sadly dealt a powerful blow to the monumental gains made by both peoples.

Dmytro Pavlychko,
Chairman
Israel-Ukraine Association
Kyyiv, Ukraine

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, November 20, 1994, No. 47, Vol. LXII

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