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Why
Ukraine
did not get the recognition of
Holodomor
1932-1933 as genocide?
At
the beginning of September the Parliament of Poland adopted almost unanimously
(only one deputy abstained) the resolution that demands from the Polish
government to get compensations from Germany
for the damage caused by Nazi occupation, especially, as it states, for
“genocide of Polish peoples” during the WWII. German officials replied
anonymously to European mass media that such claims of
Poland
would
strike
bilateral relations. At the same time, some authors of Polish press advised to
resign the demands to Germany,
but turn them to Russia.
A month ago the issue of excuses and compensation from
Russia
was actively discussed in European and American mass media by governmental
officials from Baltic countries. Libya
has been demanding compensations from
Italy
for the fascist occupation and terror of Mussolini regime. South African country
Namibia
claims for official excuse from Germany
for the brutal suppression of rebellion of gerero peoples (term “genocide” is
used) at the beginning of the 20th century… And this is not the full
list of all events for August-September 2004 connected with claims to recognize
a historical blame and compensations, which are often risen in international
relations.
In
the international law only the definition of the genocide is neatly written out,
while no legal mechanism to recognize a certain historical event as a “genocide”
on the international level is given. Meantime, there are evident attempts of
some countries like Israel
to get the exclusive right to recognize the events of own national history as a
genocide and win the status of “victim state” (term of Norman Finkelstein).
Boris Klyuchnikov, a director of UNESCO education department, in the interview
to “New Stateman” explained the situation in such manner: “It is necessary to
mention that in 2002, despite the participation of the EU countries in
anti-terrorist campaign, American mass media persistently accused Europeans
against a background of the conflict between
Israel
and Palestine.
A complex of guiltiness, which is similar to German one, had been inculcating
for the whole Europe.
Nowadays there are attempts to accuse already all Europeans in holocaust. It is
a common knowledge that those, who feels as a guilty, resisted badly and is
already sentenced. Americans always accuse European government in lack of
serious attitude to war on terrorism. Europe
is beaten from all sides: Bush republicans blame Europeans in feebleness; Gore
liberals reiterating that the EU is not democratic, not tolerant, unable to
accept multiculturalism, and is a nest of racism and anti-Semitism”.
Some
countries offer a hidden but firm resistance to those states, which try to win
the international recognition of tragedies of own national history as a genocide
(for example, the failure of Ukraine in 2003 on the UNO General Assembly to
recognize the Holodomor famine of 1932-1933 as an act of genocide was caused by
opposition of Russia, Britain and USA).
Experienced
and qualified Ukrainian journalists demonstrated a terrible ignorance even in
scanty information accounts concerning the deal of recognition of Holodomor as
genocide (like adoption of resolutions in the parliaments of different states or
events during UNO General Assembly in 2003). For example, they interpreted the
resolution of the Congress of USA as “recognition of Holodomor as genocide”,
while indeed there was a definition “the artificial famine as terror act”. The
declaration of 30 countries in UNO plus
Italy
as a head of the EU (again without genocide recognition) was presented by press
and TV as “the resolution of UNO General Assembly”… So, let us make the first
conclusion. Mass media in Ukraine,
especially those which belongs to oligarchs, were not interested in coverage of
the event, thus they did not helped it to become an object of discussion in the
society. Why? This is the question to mass media owners and
managers.
The
second point is that the government of
Ukraine
also wasn’t interested in wide elucidation of this topic in mass media. Why?
This question also needs answer.
Together
with thanks for efforts of Ukrainian Diaspora of North America we can express
astonishment. In practice, their campaign reduced to inefficient idea – demand
from Pulitzer Committee in USA
to take back the prize from the deceased Walter Duranti, a journalist who wrote
cheerful reportages for “New York Times” about
USSR
and Stalin, denying the famine, which he has seen. Initiators of this campaign
told about Duranti’s alcoholism and other perversions in order to get precious
signatures. But the Committee refused to satisfy the demand exactly before the
Sorrow Day.
Thanks
to such activity the public could imagine that Duranti was the main guilty of
concealing the tragedy, and what is more, the main reason of refusal to
recognize Holodomor as genocide.
Meanwhile,
Duranti wasn’t a ordinary correspondent. During 20 years he was a chief of the
Moscow
office of the most readable American newspaper. It is also known that Duranti
met Hoovers’
successor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, on the eve of the presidency. Of course,
Duranti wasn’t just a data carrier about
USSR.
Journalists were often used by the governments in international relations;
therefore it is possible to assert that Duranti was a signaller between Stalin
and Roosevelt. In other words he was the instrument of unofficial secret
diplomacy.
But
the main question is next – was Duranti the only informational channel
concerning events in USSR
and Ukraine?
Just a quick examination of press materials of that time give us the evidence
that despite severe restrictions of the Soviet regime correspondents of German,
French, British, Austrian newspapers sent the messages about mass famine.
American journalists also wrote about it.
At
the same time there are enough arguments to say that American government
consciously didn’t want to recognize the fact of famine in
Ukraine,
carrying the idea to set the diplomatic relations with
USSR
in order to gain economic profits. There are documents that prove that. Just
look at president Hoover
some years before, when during the famine of 1921 in
USSR,
he, as a Trade minister of the US
and a head of American administration of food aid, was personally engaged in
increasing of provisions delivery to Russia.
When Hoover
was asked whether he help Bolsheviks, he answered: “Twenty millions are
starving. Whatever policy they have, we should feed these
people”.
According
to American press reviews, at the beginning of the 1930-s
Hoover
and his administration were jealously watching the Soviets trading with
Britain
and Germany…
The facts mentioned above validate the
official conclusion ¹
17
of the US Congress Commission concerning the Holodomor famine in
Ukraine,
announced in 1988: “American government had sufficient and proper information
about the famine, but did not take any necessary steps to alleviate the
situation. On the contrary, USA
administration gave a diplomatic recognition to the Soviet
Union
in November 1933”.
In
2003, Alexander Wershbow, an ambassador of Russia in USA tried to explain the
reasons of American decision to establish diplomatic relations with USSR in
1933. On 18, November, at the conference confined to “70 years of diplomatic
relations between USSR and Russia”, which was held in Moscow diplomatic academy,
he called the regime of those times “the revolutionary Soviet regime” and
explained that the establishment of diplomatic relations “became real only
because both states shared the opinion of increasing threat, which was presented at the beginning of the
30-s by fascism and militarism”.
It
seems, there is no need to refute this absolutely humiliating explanation of
well-known historical facts of the USA
policy in the 1930-s..
At
the same time, the statement of American ambassador in Russia is an another
evidence that nowadays position of the US, a detriment of Holodomor recognition
process, is an act on purpose to quit the responsibility of American policy in
the period of Holodomor including all consequences, especially compensations.
As
early as August 2003 some newspapers quoted from the words of Natalia Zarudna, a
deputy secretary of the Ministry of foreign affairs of
Ukraine,
that Russia,
USA
and Britain
have been opposing against the project of resolution concerning Holodomor
genocide recognition. By the way, inquiries corresponding to the problem were
sent by “Personal
plus” magazine to ambassadors of the USA
and Britain.
The first one didn’t replied at all, and the second one answered by telephone as
“no comments”.
The
speech of Leonid Kuchma at the UNO General Assembly, which was widely advertised
in advance, and in which it has been promised to call all the states of the
world to recognize Holodomor famine of 1932-1933 as genocide of Ukrainian
peoples and outrage on humanity, turned out to be a bolt from the blue. Only one
tenth of the speech was devoted to Holodomor: “And the last problem, to which I
would like to draw the attention of the Session participants. It will be 70
years since the totalitarian regime has organized the artificial famine in
Ukraine.
As a result of it, 7-10 millions of our countrymen perished. Unfortunately, in
1933, the world didn’t react to our tragedy. The international community
believed in a cynic propaganda of the Soviet
Union,
which had been selling bread abroad, while every minute in
Ukraine
17 persons were dieing from starvation. From this tribune I would like to call
you all to support in the UNO the initiative of
Ukraine
concerning commemoration of those who perished. We don’t want to put it across
the past. We just want our tragedy be known to many people of the world, so let
this knowledge help us to avoid similar catastrophes in the
future”.
As
we can see, L. Kuchma couldn’t bring himself to call one of the biggest
tragedies of humanity in the 20th century as “genocide”. He even
hadn’t his heart to call it “Holodomor”. Instead of it, the Soviet euphemism
“artificial famine” was used. This definition from the speech of the head of
Ukrainian state on 26, September in the UNO was similar to the term of the US
Congress resolution, which was already mentioned above (on 6, September this
project was presented by two congressmen – Henry Hide and Tom Lantos (famous
activist of so called Israeli lobby). There was no word “genocide” in the
document, but the same euphemism “artificial famine” was used. Is it a random
coincidence?
However,
there was a hope that the Upper House would support the project of the
resolution ¹
202
about Holodomor recognition as genocide. But the further story was look like a
bad detective novel…
Igor
Slisarenko – presenter of the “5 channel”
Reprint
from “Personal plus”
¹10, 2004
(with abridgements)
http://unaunso.org
http://una-unso.info
http://vinnica.una-unso.info
http://kharkov.una-unso.info
