Verkhovna Rada agenda will include bill on recognition of Ukrainian Insurgent Army (10/27/02)

Verkhovna Rada agenda will include bill on recognition of Ukrainian Insurgent Army

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - As many Ukrainians celebrated the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), lawmakers who belong to the National Rukh of Ukraine Party announced they had finally succeeded in putting a draft bill to officially legitimize the UPA as a World War II Ukrainian fighting force on the agenda of Ukraine's Parliament.

"The Verkhovna Rada has a unique chance to begin the process of eliminating the half-century of opposition to recognition of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army by veterans of the Soviet Army," explained National Deputy Yaroslav Kendzior on October 14, two days after he had finally succeeded in introducing the bill.

Mr. Kendzior along with National Deputies Bohdan Kostyniuk and Ivan Stoiko, all of whom belong to the National Rukh of Ukraine, a part of the Our Ukraine faction in the Verkhovna Rada, had an uphill battle getting the draft law put on the parliamentary agenda because many lawmakers raised on a steady diet of anti-UPA Soviet propaganda in the post-war years resisted the initiative.

The bill was given impetus after it received support from the government of Prime Minister Anatolii Kinakh. The prime minister recently stated that, "the historical record needs to be corrected" regarding the UPA.

This was not the first time a bill to legitimize the UPA had met resistance in the legislature. There have been several unsuccessful efforts since 1997 to introduce similar bills. Last year a piece of legislation on the recognition of the UPA never reached the legislative floor for consideration.

If a majority of national deputies were ever finally to support the bill, the UPA would be recognized as a Ukrainian fighting force on par with members of the Soviet forces and the Communist underground that fought on Ukrainian soil during World War II. The several thousand surviving UPA veterans would then become eligible for government benefits and pensions.

Although outwardly a simple piece of legislation, it is doubtful that this session of the Verkhovna Rada will be capable of approving an UPA bill. Not only are most Communists and a good portion of the Socialist members of the Verkhovna Rada still against recognizing a military organization they consider to be anathema to their ideology, but centrist, pro-capitalist lawmakers also remain wary of recognizing the UPA.

"I doubt that even many of them will be able to support an UPA bill if only because of their ignorance. They simply do not know Ukrainian history," explained National Deputy Hennadii Udovenko, the leader of the National Rukh of Ukraine.

Mr. Udovenko noted that the Ukrainian government has considered recognizing UPA veterans as World War II combatants for five years - without any results or final conclusions. The Rukh leader explained that the government committee charged by the president in 1997 to review all historical aspects and make conclusions has simply stopped working.

"It has met and the facts have been discussed, but no one is ready to make decisions," explained Mr. Udovenko. "I believe this matter will be decided only when the president steps in with an executive order."

Mr. Udovenko said that almost every European country had freedom fighters who fought the German Nazis. He mentioned French and Polish underground movements as examples. Ukraine, tragically, had to fight on a second front, as well - against the totalitarian regime of the Soviet Union. The war that lasted well into the 1950s, long after the West had, for all practical purposes, forgotten about the UPA.

Commemorations in honor of the Ukrainian freedom fighters - a force that some say numbered nearly 200,000 at its peak strength at the close of the second world war - occurred in many parts of Ukraine on October 14, including in the town of Brovary, outside of Kyiv, where a conference on the UPA was held, and in Khmelnytskyi. Mr. Udovenko noted that recognition of the UPA as a heroic fighting force today exists in areas outside the Halychyna region of western Ukraine, where the UPA and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, were most active during and after the war.

"This shows that a wider and wider circle of Ukrainian society recognizes the importance of the UPA in the fight for Ukrainian independence," explained Mr. Udovenko.

The largest commemorations were held near the town of Malyi Stydyn in the county of Kostopil, Rivne Oblast, the location of the first headquarters of the UPA and the area where the first detachments of the UPA were organized in the fall of 1942. (Some historians maintain that armed groups of the UPA were already organized by 1941.) There some 10,000 people gathered for the blessing of a monument called the "Kurhan Slavy" (Burial Mound of Glory) by Patriarch Filaret of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate.

Former Prime Minister and now National Deputy Viktor Yushchenko gave the keynote address. He noted that the UPA was perceived as posing such a serious threat to the Soviet Union that 146 undercover Soviet secret police groups operated clandestinely throughout western Ukraine in 1945-1946. Disguised as UPA soldiers they wrecked havoc on the local population by murdering, raping and pillaging local communities in order to destroy popular support and trust for the UPA freedom fighters.

He said that while he doesn't necessarily believe there is hope that still living Soviet army and UPA veterans could reconcile their differences, he expects that their grandchildren will not become enemies over what uniforms their grandfathers wore. He also said the historical evidence about the UPA as a national liberation force must become better known.

"The truth about the UPA must become known - not only for national reconciliation but for normal neighborly relations [between citizens]," said Mr. Yushchenko.

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