LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (10/15/06)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

A response to Kuzio's blog

Dear Editor:

Taras Kuzio has a reputation of writing widely and frequently about events in and around Ukraine. But on the evidence of his comments about me ("Are Ukrainian politics to be taken that seriously?" October 1), his output comes at the expense of accuracy. Simply put, Mr. Kuzio gets almost all of his facts wrong in the course of a brief paragraph about me.

First, I was not on my way to Poland to an energy conference financed by Rynat Akhmetov. A search of the Internet will show there was no such conference in Poland at that time. I was on my way to meet the Speaker of the Polish Senate, the minister of defense and the secretary of state of the economy, to discuss a prospective energy diversification conference under the patronage of Presidents Viktor Yushchenko and Lech Kaczynski.

Second, I was not defending anyone before a Western journalist known for his professional reporting. I was discussing political events in Ukraine. My basic point was that President Yushchenko had steered the country toward economic growth, vigorous free media, a dynamic private sector and open political competition. I also said Mr. Akhmetov has an interest in integration into the West, as attested by his investment patterns and interest in launching an IPO of shares in his companies.

Third, Mr. Akhmetov is not financing our conference. The Warsaw energy conference will be funded by an array of corporations, including major investment banks, law firms and energy companies from Europe, Great Britain, Poland, the U.S. and Ukraine. We plan to invite Mr. Akhmetov's DTEK to be one among many corporate sponsors. Mr. Kuzio's insinuations on his website that The Orange Circle is funded by Mr. Akhmetov are equally unsubstantiated. Mr. Akhmetov's DTEK was one of a dozen corporate sponsors of an energy conference we co-organized in Houston in May. After the costs of the conference, including travel, meals, interpreters and the like, The Orange Circle received approximately $ 3,000 from DTEK, an amount that pales when compared to hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from corporate donors and from generous members of the Ukrainian diaspora.

Given all the facts Dr. Kuzio has gotten wrong, I suspect he may have overheard bits of conversation, or badly misinterpreted what was said at Baraban, a beer hall with a notoriously high decibel level.

But there's a more important point than accuracy. My conversation with Dr. Kuzio and the Western journalist was private. I am not sure Dr. Kuzio would want me to reveal any of the confidences he has uttered to me about politics and life over the course of many years of what I thought was friendship. He shouldn't worry. I respect his privacy. But he should learn to respect the private conversations of others.

Regrettably, Dr. Kuzio's recent blogging is neither news nor analysis, which happily remains the fare of the normally excellent The Ukrainian Weekly.

Given Dr. Kuzio's recent performances, I urge everyone to be wary of what they say to him at parties, family occasions or over a late-night Chernihivske in a Kyiv bar.

Adrian Karatnycky
New York

The letter-writer is founder and president of The Orange Circle Inc.

About supporting our own causes

Dear Editor:

I read with interest, and some consternation, Yaro Bihun's debut column "Where were you when ...?" (September 17).

It's hard to find fault with the idea of Ukrainian Americans or Canadians supporting other people's causes - and I daresay that over the years many have, if quietly and without fanfare.

However, neither can I find fault with those diligent and dedicated Ukrainian activists who, rather than marching in Selma, helping blacks register to vote or protesting the internment of Japanese Americans, chose to focus on "other" (i.e., Ukrainian) priorities.

Furthermore, I consider it utterly preposterous to suggest that the Ukrainian community "didn't seem to mind" Nelson Mandela's imprisonment or genocide in Darfur. So Ukrainian American protests at the Shevchenko monument don't end at the South African or Sudanese embassies. That's hardly an indication that the Ukrainian community approves of racism and genocide! (By the same token, South African and Sudanese protests rarely end at the Shevchenko monument.) If our community doesn't focus on Ukrainian causes, who will? And, are ours less worthy?

Nor do I agree that, just because Ukrainians were interned in Canada during World War I, Ukrainian Americans had a moral responsibility to "protest" the World War II internment of Japanese Americans. Such public "protesting" wasn't exactly commonplace before the 1960s. Besides, Canadian internment victims were too ashamed and intimidated to broadcast their experience, so it's unlikely many Ukrainian Americans knew of it. (It's only in recent decades that it's become widely known in Canada.) Even if American Ukrainians in the 1940s did know of it, between it and the devastation in Soviet Ukraine, they would hardly have been inclined to make a public spectacle of themselves, much less believe that doing so would "make a difference."

Instead, our community activists made a difference by quietly slogging away on Ukrainian priorities, refusing to squander our meager financial and precious human resources on the latest cause célèbre.

So here's a different message for them: Thank you!

Thank you for your vision, your conviction and your steadfastness. You have kept alive the memory of millions of Ukrainians whose genocide the world chose (and still prefers) to forget, so that humanity may, perhaps, one day learn from the past. During the 1960s and '70s, you were struggling to raise awareness of Soviet oppression with courage and perseverance, while the rest of the free world was "raising its consciousnesses" with flower power, drugs and rock 'n' roll. You have preserved our heritage and our history as a legacy for the 21st century sons and daughters of Ukraine.

I have no argument with individuals trying to be cosmopolitan and worldly, and helping other worthy causes. But I believe that if Ukrainian American and Canadian communities are to be of any practical use to other oppressed peoples, we need to offer more than bodies at rallies, sophisticated rhetoric and self-recriminations.

I can't help but wonder whether our community would have more to offer other causes if, rather than denigrating those who have dedicated themselves to building and strengthening our community's resources, more individuals rolled up their sleeves and gave them a hand.

Paulette MacQuarrie
Coquitlam, British Columbia

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