June 5, 2020

June 9, 1945

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Seventy-five years ago, as The Ukrainian Weekly was going to press with its issue dated June 9, 1945, a press dispatch from San Francisco reported on the veto deadlock during negotiations that would eventually create the Security Council of what was to become the United Nations (then known as the United Nations Conference on International Organization). At the San Francisco Conference, the vast majority of the delegates supported the initiative of the United States for freedom of discussion. Opposing this was the Soviet delegation, representing the sentiments of its leader, Joseph Stalin, who supported a veto demand in the Security Council.

“Anyone can readily see,” the dispatch said of the Soviet delegation that claimed to represent Ukraine, “that if Stalin has his way in this respect, the Ukrainian people will be the chief sufferers as a result, as then they will be deprived of the only peaceable means left them of improving their lot under Soviet or any other foreign domination and of striving to win for themselves true national sovereignty in place of the fiction of one that they now possess.”

The report also underlined that, if the Soviet veto demand was approved, Ukrainians within the borders of the Soviet Union would be unable to air their grievances before the international organization, but at least their kinsmen and friends abroad would be able to do it for them. As an example, the article cited that fact that, during the second world war, petition after petition was filed with the League of Nations outlining the violations of Ukrainian rights under Polish rule.

Likening the League of Nations to a debate club, The Weekly noted that, for the most part, the League was prevented from any effective action in response to Soviet or Polish aggression against Ukraine, while the League provided a forum for some of these petitions to be formally discussed and for these issues to become more widely known. Ukraine, being subjugated to the Soviets during the San Francisco Conference and siding with Moscow’s demand for veto power, and as a newly admitted member of the United Nations, was not to blame for its actions, the report noted. “For those who profess to represent Ukraine there, namely the Soviet Ukrainian delegation, are in reality not her true representatives. As individuals they may be estimable men, but they are mere puppets of the Kremlin, handpicked and bound to do exactly as told – or else. …The traditional policy of Moscow has always been a complete and ruthless negation of Ukrainian national rights and sovereignty,” it added.

This Kremlin policy and Russia’s veto power at the U.N. Security Council can be seen in action today in international forums, including the U.N., the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, as well as the Normandy Four format. Russia continues to manipulate its occupied territories in the Donbas and uses its handpicked leaders as proxy negotiators to disrupt Ukraine’s path toward peace, while attempting to force Ukraine and the international community to recognize these territories and their leaders as legitimate.

Source: “The veto deadlock,” The Ukrainian Weekly, June 9, 1945.

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