FOLLOW-UP ON THE NEWS: World scouting's decision on Ukraine's representative is postponed (05/15/05)

FOLLOW-UP ON THE NEWS: World scouting's decision on Ukraine's representative is postponed

by Zenon Zawada
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - The World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM) announced in a letter dated May 2005 that it had postponed its decision on which scouting organization will represent Ukraine, said Serhii Letenko, Plast's spokesman in Ukraine. A decision is now expected in September.

Eduardo Missoni, secretary general of WSOM, wrote to the organization's international commissioners:

"As at 30 April 2005, the deadline for National Scout Organizations to oppose this application, eight NSOs had done so. This is marginally above the 5 percent limit required by the WOSM Constitution for the application to be referred to the next World Scout Conference for a final decision.

"The World Scout Committee, at its meeting in Rome, Italy, on 17-19 April 2005, had already considered the question of SPOK's application to membership as the NSO of Ukraine. In view of questions that have been raised during the past month concerning the validity of the application from SPOK, the World Scout Committee decided that it would not, in any case, immediately declare SPOK as a WOSM member-organization, until it had carried out an independent investigation under the responsibility of the secretary general to establish the actual situation of SPOK within Ukraine."

WOSM had been planning to recognize the Spilka Pionerskykh Orhanizatzii Kyieva (SPOK) as Ukraine's representative to the organization as of a May 1 deadline. If less than 5 percent of World Scout Conference members had opposed SPOK's membership, SPOK would have automatically become a WSOM member.

However, many of Ukraine's most important leaders wrote letters to the WOSM in support of Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization, including President Viktor Yushchenko, Patriarch Filaret of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate, and Cardinal Lubomyr Husar of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church.

Plast had opposed SPOK's membership, arguing that Plast is Ukraine's largest and most active scouting organization, with more than 10,000 members nationwide.

It also has a 84-year history in Ukraine and adheres to the scouting principles set forth by Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of scouting.

Plast's Chief Scout Lubomyr Romankiw, who said he received the WSOM's letter on May 5, told The Weekly that he expects an official visit to Ukraine from the WSOM to take place shortly.

According to Mr. Missoni's letter, a special mission will be sent to Ukraine to "thoroughly establish the facts of the case." Afterwards, he wrote, "A full report on the conclusions of this investigation will be made to the World Scout Conference in Tunisia in September 2005 to enable the conference to make a final decision on the application for admission of SPOK as a WOSM member-organization."

| Home Page |