NEWS AND VIEWS: Ukrainian World Congress establishes election fund (01/27/02)

NEWS AND VIEWS

Ukrainian World Congress establishes election fund

In recent years much scholarly analysis has delved into the Communist era spanning the 20th century. While many in the West, particularly the press, have willfully or unwittingly failed to condemn communism and, in fact, have decried comparisons between the Nazis and the Communists, even former Communist historians have concluded that while the Nazis were responsible for 20 million victims, Communists bear the blame for 100 million.

Renowned British historian Norman Davies, when asked during an interview what nation suffered most during the 20th century, responded unhesitatingly: "the Ukrainian nation."

In addition to two world wars fought largely on Ukrainian soil, Ukrainians were the object of repressive regimes from Lenin to Brezhnev. In 1932-1933 some 7 million Ukrainians were starved to death by a famine instituted for genocidal purposes by Joseph Stalin and his henchman in Ukraine, Lazar Kaganovich. While the number of victims and genocidal purpose of the 1932-1933 Great Famine is unparalleled in history, Ukrainians suffered famines also in 1921-1923 and 1946-1947.

The Great Famine itself was the culmination of a period of repression against Ukraine's religious and intellectual elite. Soviet occupation of western Ukraine pursuant to the Soviet-Nazi pact of 1939 resulted in a further significant number of brutalized victims. In fact, each day excavations shed more light on this tragic period. Following World War II, repressions, internments and deportations intensified. Of all nations in the USSR, Ukrainians consistently numbered the most inmates in Soviet gulags and concentration camps. Many internees perished.

Ten years after the demise of the Soviet Union, what is most striking, perhaps, is communism's lack of remorse.

Many Communists in Ukraine simply have changed colors. Others, unabashedly, still flaunt their bloody red, vowing a return to power. Ten years after independence approximately 25 percent of Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada bears not only the Communist mantra but its legacy as well. The March 2002 parliamentary and local elections in Ukraine will offer the Ukrainian people still another opportunity to castigate its tragic past.

The Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) urges the people of Ukraine to begin in earnest the process of healing our nation's wounds by removing this Communist cancer from our body. Their choice in the election process is their own. Let them vote for whomever appeals to them most. However, they ought not vote for those who directly or indirectly brutalized our people for almost a century.

In an effort to expose Communist brutality, the Ukrainian World Congress has set up an Election 2002 Fund for the sole purpose of preparing programming and arranging air time on local television networks in those regions of Ukraine still susceptible to Communist propaganda. Our programming will not propagandize. It will merely expose the tragedy of Ukraine's Communist past.

Those in the diaspora who would like to support this UWC effort may offer suggestions, materials and donations. Please forward these to the Ukrainian World Congress at 295 College St., Toronto, Ontario M5T 1S2; telephone, (416) 323-3020; fax, (416) 323-3250; e-mail, congress@look.ca; or 225 E. 11th St., New York, NY 10003; telephone, (212) 254-2260; fax, (212) 979-1011; e-mail, Askold@erols.com.

For the Ukrainian World Congress
Askold S. Lozynskyj, President
Victor Pedenko, General Secretary

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