Ukraine wants 1932-33 famine declared a genocide

Sep. 20, 2006 7:17
Ukraine wants 1932-33 famine declared a genocide
Wednesday, September 20, 2006 · Last updated 3:31 a.m. PT

AP: Ukraine seeks U.N. resolution

By NICK WADHAMS
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

UNITED NATIONS – Ukraine is campaigning for a U.N. General Assembly resolution that would declare the 1932-33 famine that killed up to 10 million people a genocide, Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk said.

Ukraine has the support of several nations and Tarasyuk will use the two-week annual U.N. General Assembly event now under way to canvass dozens more, he said in an interview with The Associated Press Tuesday. The resolution would accuse Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s regime of deliberately instigating what Ukrainians call the Great Famine.

“We expect that the delegations here at the United Nations will deplore this artificially made famine as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people,” Tarasyuk told The Associated Press. “We would like that the international community pay tribute to those who perished.”

Stalin provoked the famine as part of his campaign to force Ukrainian peasants to give up their land and join collective farms. Cannibalism was widespread during the height of the disaster, which was enforced by the confiscation of all food by the Soviet secret police.

Ukraine has long sought international recognition of the famine as a genocide, but has been unable to overcome opposition from Russia and governments that do not want to upset Moscow. The famine was kept secret by the Soviet authorities, and it was only in 2003 that Ukraine declassified more than 1,000 files documenting it.

That same year, Ukraine’s U.N. Ambassador Valery Kuchinsky presented a statement signed by 30 countries that condemned the actions of Stalin’s regime but stopped short of calling the famine a genocide.

Ukraine will mark the 75th anniversary of the famine in 2008, and Tarasyuk said that would be an appropriate time for a General Assembly resolution calling it a genocide.

Earlier this year, Ukraine failed in its bid for the Commonwealth of Independent States, made up of 12 former Soviet republics, to consider recognizing the famine as a genocide.

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State Security Service Declassifies Documents About Famine of 1930s
translated by Maria Tsukanova , 31.08.2006, 13:47

The State Security Service of Ukraine [SBU] has made public the archival documents of the Chief political administration of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic concerning the famine of 1932-1933.

On August 18 Kyiv has seen the presentation of the electronic version of the respective documents, Interfax-Ukraine reports.

According to the employee of the SBU state archive Vasyl Danylenko, the electronic collection comprises 130 documents – about 3 thousand pages.

The head of the SBU’s archive Sergiy Bogunov marks that all documents concerning the famine of 1932-1933 are declassified and everybody can look through them.

On August 18, the materials were put on the site of the SBU sbu.gov.ua.

These documents have been taken off the security list for the past 10 years. The work has been carried out in the central and regional archives.

The archive includes the regulatory documents of the Chief political administration of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, the directions, instructions, circulars of the Unified state political administration, the eyewitness accounts and the criminal cases, including the documents signed by Yosyp Stalin and other high-ranking state-men and politicians of the Former Soviet Union.

The head of the State archival committee Hennadiy Boryak points out that it is an outstanding moment as such documents have been published neither in Ukraine nor in the countries of the Former Soviet Union.

As known, on November 26 Ukraine marks the Day of the victims of famine and repressions.

In XX century Ukraine suffered 3 famines: 1921-1923, 1932-1933 and 1946-1947. However, the second one was the most terrible.

According to the historians, the famine of 1932-1933 resulted from the administrative measures of the soviet power killed about 7-10 million people.

It means that at that time Ukraine registered a 10-25% decline in the population, losing 25 thousand people per day, 3 thousand per hour and 17 per minute.
The experts drew the conclusion that in 1931 the life span of a man run at 7,3 years, the life span of a woman – 10,9 years. According to the experts, Ukraine is still suffering from the consequences of the events of the 1930s.

http://www2.pravda.com.ua/en/news/2006/8/31/6242.htm

Oh BTW, the link to find the archives: www.sbu.gov.ua