the ukrainian weekly 2011-24

8/6/2019 The Ukrainian Weekly 2011-24

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Published by the Ukrainian National Association Inc., a fraternal non-profit association

$1/$2 in UkraineVol. LXXIX No. 24 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, JUNE 12, 2011TheUkrainianWeekly

InsIde:

Chornobyls lessons are examined at U.N. conference page 3. UCCA tops off 70th anniversary celebrations with cruise page 4. Song celebrates 120 years of Ukrainians in Canada page 13.

With a little help from his friends,Ringo Starr performs in Kyiv

by Zenon Zawada

Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

KYIV Growing up in the 1960s inthe Ukrainian community in Hamtramck,Mich., Wally Palmar could have neverimagined that one day hed be playing onthe same stage as Ringo Starr, already arock legend. Nor could he have imaginedthat hed one day play a rock concert inan independent Ukraine.

If someone would have told me in1968 or 69 that youll be playing inUkraine with Ringo, I would have said,Yeah sure, Mr. Palmar told TheUkrainian Weekly in a May 11 phone

interview. I would have never thoughtthat this would happen.

On June 4, the things that once sound-ed like a silly fairy tale became reality.Mr. Palmar took the stage of KyivsUkrayina Palace concert hall and playedhis guitar alongside Mr. Starr, performingBeatles classics from his childhood suchas With a Little Help from My Friendsand Yellow Submarine.

Ringo Starr and His All-Starr band,which included six U.S. rock stars of past

decades, kicked off its first European tourin 13 years in Kyiv that evening.

(Continued on page 5)

by Mark Raczkiewycz


KYIV Ukraine and Poland will earn aprominent place in sports history next yearby becoming the first Eastern Europeancountries to host the European soccerchampionship.

And, like any gracious host, Ukraine iscleaning house and refurbishing its agedSoviet-era infrastructure for Euro-2012.

Billions of dollars of both public andprivate money are being pumped in tobuild new stadiums, airports and hotels, torefurbish roads, and to upgrade rail trans-portation links and training facilities.

All this to impress the more than700,000 expected visitors to Ukraine asthe country readies to host the worlds

third most viewed sporting event for threeweeks starting on June 8 of next year.

Among them will be tourists with

Ukrainian roots. The sporting eventappears to be an impetus for diasporaUkrainians to visit their historic homelandand give something back. Some will comeas devout soccer fans or as curious tour-ists. Others will arrive as volunteers andadvisors.

Our Euro-2012 local organizing com-mittee has been receiving requests for vol-unteering from diaspora Ukrainians sinceearly 2010, said Andriy Bantser, Ukrainevolunteer manager for UEFA, Europestop soccer governing body. They consid-er Euro-2012 as a chance to help their

Ukraine prepares for Euro-2012,hoping to impress 700,000 visitors


Appearing on June 3 at a press conference in Kyiv before their concert, are rockstars (seated, from left) Rick Derringer, Ringo Starr and Wally Palmar.

UCC launches 120th anniversaryof Ukrainian settlement in Canada

assembly (MLA) for St. Albert, Alberta.In attendance also were descendants ofIwan Pylypow, Nykola Tychkowsky and

Anton Paish the original immigrantsfrom Nebyliv, Halychyna (westernUkraine), then part of Austro-Hungary.

These were the first such settlers tothe unbroken lands of East-CentralAlberta, who endured untold hardshipsand seemingly insurmountable challeng-es to put down roots and build lives on

the untamed Canadian prairies.As part of the ceremony, the repli-

ca marker was pounded into its per-manent place by descendants, com-

munity and professional representatives.A solemn prayer service in memory ofall pioneer settlers of East-CentralAlberta was celebrated by clergy of theUkra in ian Cathol i c Church andUkrainian Orthodox Church of Canada.

The gathering, which was hosted byRadomir Bilash, chief historian of theUkrainian Cultural Heritage Village(UCHV), was the official launch of a fullyears celebrations marking the 120thanniversary of Ukrainian settlement inCanada, under the umbrella of theUkrainian Canadian Congress (UCC).

Events from banquets to festivals toacademic conferences will be held acrossthe country through May of 2012. (Thesewill be listed and archived at the UCCwebsite, www.ucc.ca, and will alsoinclude the incorporation of social mediato get the word out and keep the messagecurrent.)

In addition, the official 120th anniversa-ry logo was unveiled, as the culmination ofa nationwide call for proposals that saw

more than 30 different submissions madeby inspired artists, several of whom werefrom beyond the Ukrainian Canadian com-munity.

The winning submission is by Toronto-based artist Oleh Lesiuk. It will be avail-able for general use by the community asit organizes and realizes anniversaryevents and projects.

Lets mark this milestone with highlycharged enthusiasm and unbridled cre-ativity, declared Roman Brytan, chair ofthe National 120th AnniversaryCommemorative Committee. The senti-ments were echoed by Daria Luciw,national vice-president and Alberta pro-vincial president of the UkrainianCanadian Congress.

Driven by our official jubilee themeKanada-Ukraina 120: Groundbreakers Nation-Builders Trailblazers, continuedMr. Brytan, this is the year for highlight-ing our individual accomplishments, won-dering at our infinite community potentialand driving towards making thisUkrainian Canadian milestone one in

EDMONTON On a Victoria Day,enveloped by typically and historicallyunpredictable Alberta weather, a groupof determined, undeterred enthusiastsgathered to launch celebrations of the120th anniversary of Ukrainian settle-ment in Canada.

As the 2011 Summer Season officiallygot under way at the Ukrainian CulturalHeritage Village (UCHV), a provincialhistoric site 50 kilometers east ofEdmonton, a seemingly unremarkable,yet historically significant addition wasmade to the permanent interpretive dis-play of the village.

This cooperative project between theAlberta-Ukraine Genealogical Societyand the Alberta Land SurveyorsAssociation unveiled a replica home-stead marker, identical to those plantedby the very first Ukrainian settlers inAlberta, some 120 years ago.

Guests at the May 23 ceremony includ-ed Ken Allred, member of the legislative (Continued on page 13)

The officiallogo for the

120th anniversaryof Ukrainian settle-

ment in Canada,

which was unveiled by theUkrainian Canadian Congress.


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No. 24THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, JUNE 12, 20112

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The Ukrainian Weekly, June 12, 2011, No. 24, Vol. LXXIXCopyright 2011 The Ukrainian Weekly

Court rejects appeal by Tymoshenko

KYIV The Kyiv Court of Appeals hasrefused to satisfy an appeal filed by formerPrime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko againstthe opening of criminal cases against her,Ms. Tymoshenko wrote on Twitter on June8. They have just decided to reject [myappeal], and the decision was taken in afew minutes... They are working quickly,she said. Thus, the court upheld the legalityof a criminal case opened against Ms.Tymoshenko over the gas contracts signedwith Russia in 2009. On May 16 thePechersk District Court of Kyiv declaredlegal a resolution by the ProcuratorGenerals Office to open a criminal caseagainst the former prime minister in con-nection with the gas agreements that shesigned with Russia in 2009. Ms.Tymoshenko and her lawyer SerhiyVlasenko, one of the most eminent lawyersin the country, appealed against that deci-sion in the court of appeals. (Ukrinform)

Chornovils body is exhumed

KYIV The results of another forensicexamination of the body of Peoples Rukhof Ukraine leader Vyacheslav Chornovilwill help establish the cause of his death,Kyiv Prosecutor Anatoliy Melnyk said at abriefing on June 3. Modern medicine canestablish the nature of injuries and estab-lish the cause of death, the prosecutorsaid. He noted that the examination wouldlast from two to six months. Mr. Melnykalso said that the exhumation ofChornovils body had been conducted onJune 2 on the order of the investigator andafter the written permission of his rela-tives. The body has been transferred to anexpert agency for examination. The Kyivprosecutors office is conducting a pre-tri-al investigation into Chornovils death inMarch 1999. Another forensic examina-tion of Chornovils body was ordered aspart of this criminal case. Chornovil diedin a road accident near Kyiv on March 25,1999. The Rukh leader, who wanted to runfor president, died in the car accident, andthe investigation of its circumstances hasnot been completed thus far. Chornovilscolleagues believe his death was not acci-dental. (Ukrinform)

Tony Blair visits Kyiv

KYIV The subject of religious toler-ance is very urgent for Ukraine and theworld. This was emphasized by PresidentViktor Yanukovych of Ukraine at hismeeting on June 6 with former British

Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was inKyiv to present two programs of the TonyBlair Faith Foundation. I believe that themission with which you came is veryimportant for Ukraine, Mr. Yanukovychsaid. Mr. Blair, in turn, said he welcomesthe initiatives of the president of Ukraineon the issue of religious tolerance.According to him, most recently in theMiddle East, where he delivered publiclectures under the aegis of the VictorPinchuk Foundation, Globalization andFaith, this issue is very relevant.(Ukrinform)

Yanukovych on corruption

KYIV Corruption is destroyingUkraines international reputation,

President Viktor Yanukovych said at ameeting of the National Anti-CorruptionCommittee on June 8. Mr. Yanukovychsaid that on May 24 the Group of Statesagainst Corruption (GRECO) had paidattention to a number of problems due towhich Ukraine receives low marks forlegislative support in the fight againstcorruption and the inconsistency ofUkrainian legislation with European stan-dards. He said that Ukraine thus far hadnot implemented the anti-corruption rec-ommendations of the Organization forEconomic Cooperation and Development(OECD), which complicates theEuropean membership prospects ofUkraine, in particular, the introductionof a visa-free regime and the receipt of

serious foreign investment. The presidentdescribed corruption as a threat to thecountrys national security, because ithas become a way of the existence ofthe bureaucratic apparatus and a reasonfor a large-scale shadow economy. Mr.Yanukovych called on the authorities toreport to the public on how the investiga-tion of high-profile corruption casesinvolving large amounts of money is

ANALYSIS


by Farangis Najibullah

RFE/RL

The headlines were nothing short ofchilling.

Aspiring Miss Ukraine KilledUnder Sharia Laws In Crimea, warnedUkrainian online newspaper GazetaPo-Kievski.

Radical Islamists Murder Young GirlIn Cr imea , screamed Russ ia sSvobodnaya Pressa.

Muslim Girl, 19, Stoned To DeathAfter Taking Part In Beauty Contestwas the headline on Britains MailOnline, The Daily Mail website.

The circumstances around the death ofKateryna Korin, a 19-year-old Ukrainianstudent on the Crimean peninsula,appeared to point to a made-for-tabloidtragedy: a young beauty-pageant contes-

tant brutally killed by her admirer, a rad-ical Islamist who chose to stone her todeath under an unforgiving interpretationof Islamic law.

There was just one small problem:The reports werent true.

Law-enforcement officials in Crimeahave responded to the reports of Korinskilling by saying the tragedy was anabsolutely routine crime that involvedneither stoning, nor Sharia law, nor anyreligious motive.

The killing of the girl that took placein the Sovietskoye district of Crimeadoes not have any underlying reasonslike religious, national or interethnicmotives, Olha Kondrashova, a spokes-woman for the Crimean division of

Ukraines Internal Affairs Ministry, toldRFE/RLs Ukrainian Service. A youngman has been detained as a suspect, andan investigation is under way.

Horrendous crime

The suspect is believed to be BilyalGaziev, a 16-year-old native of the samenorthern Crimean district and a class-mate of the victims at a local college.He has been charged with premeditatedmurder, according to law-enforcementofficials quoted by Ukrainian media.

So how did a routine albeit tragic crime of passion turn into a frighteningstory about a Sharia-sanctioned stoning?

Some believe the suspects name andhis parents religious backgrounds have

played a role.Some activists describe it as a cam-

paign to incite religious hatred againstCrimean Tatars, a predominantly Muslimethnic group on the Crimean peninsula.Some Ukrainian websites, includingukra.news, point the finger at Russianmedia allegedly seeking to manipulatereligious sentiments to destabilizeCrimea.

Ms. Korin reportedly disappeared onMay 12 and her body was discovered aweek later, dumped in a nearby forest.Police believe she was strangled andthen struck in the head with a stone orother blunt object.

Eyewitnesses told reporters that Ms.Korin was last seen going into the forest

Reports of girl's stoning deathin Crimea turn out to be false

Photos accompanying the story Dr.Vasyl Truchly presents his collection ofliturgical works at UIMA by MariaKulczycky (May 8) should have beencredited to Selfreliance UkrainianAmerican Credit Union (not Walter Tun).

Addendum

with Mr. Gaziev, who, according toclassmates and relatives, was Ms.Korins friend and admirer.

Mr. Gaziev, an ethnic Russian, wasadopted from an orphanage by aCrimean-Tatar family, when he was 2months old. Quoting local religious lead-ers and neighbors, media reportsdescribe Mr. Gazievs parents as non-practicing Muslims who dont attendmosque.

Misinformation chain

Initial reports about the killingappeared on May 25 but stuck to thebasic facts that Ms. Korin had been slainin a forest.

But a day later, Russian-languagewebsites in Ukraine, including Novoross.info and Rusnovosti.ru, began giving thestory a more sensational and errone-

ous twist.Some of those reports claimed that

Mr. Gaziev was a follower of radicalWahhabi teachings and that he and twoother men stoned the victim to deathbecause she violated Sharia law by par-ticipating in a beauty contest.

Novoross.info quoted Yuri Pershikov,leader of a local Cossack youth organi-zation called Zvezda, as a source for thestory although it is unclear how hewould have specific knowledge aboutthe crime. Mr. Pershikov told the publi-cation that the young woman was killedby stoning, which he called a medievalbarbaric act.

Mr. Pershikov also claimed, accord-ing to novoross.info, that Russian chil-

dren are being murdered by Islamicextremists in the neighborhood of alocal madrasah, or religious school. Hesaid that he wouldnt rule out the sus-pect had ties with students at themadrasah.

Two killings did in fact take place inthe area in 2010, and the suspect wasreportedly an ethnic Tatar. But police saythe suspect suffered from mental illness.There was no evidence suggesting thatthe killings resulted from Islamicextremism.

Mr. Pershikov also criticized the factthat Mr. Gaziev, the ethnic Russian sus-pect, had been given up for adoption to aMuslim family, calling it a social exper-iment.

The story then spread to media inRussia and was picked up by internation-al outlets, including The Daily Maillending it a veneer of credibility. TheDaily Mail did not respond to requestsfor comment. By June 2 the originalstory had been replaced to suggest astalker might be responsible for the kill-ing but continued to incorrectly identifyMs. Korin as a glamorous Muslimbeauty queen.

Finally, the story then went full-circle,with Russian and Ukrainian news outletsciting The Daily Mail report.

Remarkably, nobody in this chain ofmisinformation checked the basic factsof the original report.

The Islam card?

Crimean Tatars say the whole affairhas provoked anti-Muslim sentimentand have called for an investigation.

It looks like an informational diver-sion, says Riefat Chubarov, a CrimeanTatar community leader. Taking intoaccount that in recent days this informa-tion was spread by many mass media



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3THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, JUNE 12, 2011No.24

NEWS ANALYSIS: Future uncertain for Ukrainian PMby Pavel Korduban

Eurasia Daily Monitor

On June 1 Ukrainian President ViktorYanukovych fired the vice prime ministerin charge of utilities and construction,Viktor Tikhonov, and his deputy, YuriiyKhyvrych. The two were dismissed not forthe governments failure to reform the utili-ty sector, which would have been morelogical, but were made scapegoats for highutility service prices, a natural decisionwhen energy prices are rising globally.

There are signs that Prime MinisterMykola Azarov may be the next official tobe dismissed. The popularity of the rulingParty of Regions (PRU) is falling ahead ofthe October 2012 parliamentary electionand Mr. Azarov makes the ideal scapegoatfor slow reform and economic hardships.

Mr. Azarov became prime minister inMarch 2010 after Mr. Yanukovychs victo-ry in the presidential election a month ear-lier. The rumors that Mr. Yanukovychthought about dismissing the prime minis-ter started to circulate around the turn of

the year when it became obvious that thePRU was rapidly losing popularity.

Many of those who voted for Mr.Yanukovych understood that he had prom-ised in the election campaign more than hecould deliver, like raising the status of theRussian language, and that economicreform advocated by his team wouldinvolve such unpopular steps as hiking theretirement age for women from 55 to 60and increasing utility service prices.

The PRUs popularity continues todecline, according to opinion polls. Forexample, polls by SOCIS showed that in

early May only 16 percent of Ukrainianswere ready to vote for the PRU, comparedto 26 percent last December. By contrast,the rating of the second most popular party,the opposition bloc of former PrimeMinister Yulia Tymoshenko, hardlychanged, hovering at around 11 to 12 per-cent.

In this situation, the dismissal of Mr.Azarov who is formally responsible for thegovernments unpopular economic policywould be a logical step closer to the elec-tions. This should be very easy forPresident Yanukovych as he, rather thanthe parliamentary majority, decides onprime ministerial appointments and dis-missals according to the 1996 Constitutionthat was restored last year. Mr. Azarovsdismissal would not transform him intoMr. Yanukovychs rival as Mr. Azarov isunpopular and has no presidential ambi-tions.

President Yanukovych started to public-ly show his disappointment with PrimeMinister Azarov this past winter, when helambasted him for slow deregulation and

tax reform and for dragging out the freetrade talks with the European Union(UNIAN, January 14; February 9). Later,Mr. Yanukovych publicly criticized Mr.Azarov for the countrys poor investmentimage, saying the government was notdoing enough to promote Ukraines imageinternationally (UNIAN, April 6).

Last week, Mr. Yanukovych raised hisvoice at Mr. Azarov, blaming him for thegovernments failure to introduce eco-nomically justified utility prices, which isa euphemism for low state-subsidized pric-es. Mr. Yanukovych told Mr. Azarov that

could be his last warning if the situationwere not changed by the end of July( Uk r a y i n s k a P r a v d a , M a y 2 6 ) .Consequently, Mr. Azarov may lose his jobthis summer.

Meanwhile, Mr. Yanukovych decided tofire the minister in charge of utilities andhis deputy. Following a Cabinet meetingon June 1, President Yanukovych dis-missed Messrs. Tikhonov and Khyvrychofficially for not doing enough to makeutility prices uniform across the country,which is hardly possible given that mostutilities are in private hands and conditionssuch as climate and infrastructure varyacross the country. Commenting on the dis-missals, Prime Minister Azarov said theywere obviously unavoidable, yet headded that the two men did their best.The president also fired Sevastopol StateAdministration Chair Valery Saratov,apparently for the same reason (UNIAN,June 1).

Ms. Tymoshenko predicted that Mr.Azarov would also be dismissed shortly asthe person on whom Mr. Yanukovych

would lay the blame for his own and thePRUs miscalculations (www.comments.ua, June 1). Mr. Azarov may be either pre-ceded or followed by Finance MinisterFedir Yaroshenko and Vice Prime Minister,Sergey Tigipko, a liberal former bankerwho has been in charge of the least populartax and pension reforms.

Mr. Yanukovych recently warned Mr.Yaroshenko, a protg of Mr. Azarov, thathe could be axed shortly (Kommersant-Ukraine, May 18). As for Mr. Tigipko, dur-ing a recent press conference he repeatedhis earlier threat that if Parliament fails to

pass his pension reform this summer, hewould resign (www.liga.net, June 1).Unlike Mr. Azarov, Mr. Tigipko is indepen-dent of Mr. Yanukovych and he has hisown party, Strong Ukraine, which like thePRU has been losing popularity. By quit-ting the unpopular government ahead ofthe elections, Mr. Tigipko possibly coulddo the party that he heads a favor.

The Ukrainian media have been full ofrumors on who might replace PrimeMinister Azarov. The former State PropertyFund chief and current economy ministerin Ms. Tymoshenkos shadow government,Oleksander Bondar, suggested this couldbe Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a former VerkhovnaRada chariman and former foreign affairsminister. This way Mr. Yanukovych couldremove a competitor by taking him onboard, Mr. Bondar explained (UkrayinskaPravda, May 26). Mr. Yatsenyuk, who likeMs. Tymoshenko is in opposition to Mr.Yanukovych, has been the countrys thirdmost popular politician according to recentopinion polls. Among other candidatesmost often named by local commentators

are First Deputy Prime Minister AndriyKliuyev, a businessman from Mr.Yanukovychs native Donetsk Region, andJustice Minister Oleksander Lavrynovych,who is one of the authors of the controver-sial constitutional, judicial and electoralreforms aimed at cementing Mr.Yanukovychs rule (www.comments.ua,March 18; www.lb.ua, May 30).

The article above is reprinted fromEurasia Daily Monitor with permissionfro m it s pu bl is he r, the Ja mest ow nFoundation, www.jamestown.org.

Chornobyls lessons are focus of conference at U.N. headquarters

FOR THE RECORD: Statements at Chornobyl conference at U.N.

UNITED NATIONS UkrainianWorld Congress President Eugene Czolijand Ukrainian Congress Committee ofAmerica President Tamara Olexy, partici-pa ted in the 20th In te rna t iona lConference on Health and Environment,Chornobyl Lessons for NuclearSecurity, 25 Years Later. The confer-ence, hosted by Ukraines PermanentMission to the United Nations and WorldInformation Transfer, was held on April26 at the U.N. headquarters in New YorkCity.

The proceedings were opened by Dr.Christine Durbak, founder of WorldInformation Transfer . Asha-RoseMtengeti Migiro, deputy secretary-gener-al of the U.N. read a statement fromSecretary General Ban Ki Moon. SeveralAmbassadors from U.N. member-states,including France, Hungary, Germany,Japan, and Poland also expressed theirsolidarity by providing remarks duringthe conference.

In his statement, Mr. Czolij recalled

Following are excerpts of statementsdelivered at the 20th International Conferenceon Health and Environment, Chornobyl Lessons for Nuclear Security, 25 YearsLater. The conference was held on April

26 at the United Nations Headquarters.

Eugene Czolij, president of theUkrainian World Congress:

In the early hours of April 26, 1986, oneof four nuclear reactors at the Chornobylpower plant in Ukraine exploded. And thus,25 years ago a disaster that occurred in apreviously unheard of city became a globalissue.

Soviet authorities issued a short state-ment about the accident only two days later,after radiation levels set off alarms at anuclear power plant in Sweden. Even then,the Kremlin in Moscow did not give any

details concerning this disaster and attempt-ed to conceal its magnitude, which createdgeneral apprehension and uncertainty in theworld.

Chornobyls destructive power, whichswiftly transcended European borders,made the international community realizethat immediate access to honest, accurateand consistent information is a global right,and its timely dissemination an obligation

to which nations are now held responsiblein the all-important arena of public opin-ion

Ironically, Chornobyl put Ukraine backon the global map and mass media started

to refer to that part of the world by its right-ful name Ukraine. At that time I was 27and, for the first time in my life, I recallhearing on nightly news and reading inmainstream newspapers an almost forgottenword Ukrainians. Until then, generally,Ukrainians were wrongfully considered tobe part of the Russian nation.

Chornobyls disaster ultimately result-ed from the reckless dominance over

During the lighting of the memorial candle (from left) are: Tsuneo Nishida,permanent representative of Japan to the U.N.; Eugene Czolij, president of theUkrainian World Congress; and Yuriy Sergeyev, permanent representative of

Ukraine to the U.N.

Ukraine by the Soviet totalitarian regimecentered in Moscow and its wanton disre-gard of safety measures in dealing withnuclear energy. Chornobyl exposed themenace of any totalitarian empire that

inevitably exploits uncontrollably thehuman and natural resources of a subju-gated nation. In the case of Chornobyl,such exploitation eventually endangeredthe entire planet. That is why today, fortu-nately for our generation, the inviolabilityof borders and the respect of human rightsare by and large no longer considered as


the tragic events of 1986 and stated thatthe Chornobyl disaster was ultimately aresult of the reckless dominance overUkraine by the Soviet totalitarian regimeand its wanton disregard for nuclear ener-gy safety standards. He reminded theconference of the Kremlins outrageousattempts to conceal the magnitude of theglobal catastrophe, and hailed the cour-age of the hundreds of firefighters andemergency workers who risked their livestrying to wrest control of the strickenreactor and who, in many cases, subse-quently lost their lives from exposure toradiation.

Ms. Olexy highlighted the UkrainianAmerican communitys work in aidingthe victims of the Chornobyl tragedy both morally by exposing the truth aboutthe disaster through various programsand publications, as well as monetarilythough fund-raising and humanitarian aidprojects. An abstract of the UCCAPresidents speech can be found onUCCAs website at: www.ucca.org.


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New York City branch marks 70th anniversary of UCCANEW YORK The executive board of

the UCCAs New York City branch onSaturday, May 21, hosted a celebratorycruise in commemoration of the 70thanniversary of the Ukrainian CongressCommittee of America. Guests wereinvited to board the Jewel, a chartered

yacht, for a luncheon and three-hourafternoon cruise around Manhattan.UCCA New York Branch President

Ivanka Zajac opened the official programby welcoming all those on board andt h e n i n t r o d u c e d B i s h o p P a u lChomnytysky of the Ukrainian CatholicEparchy of Stamford, Conn., who led theguests in prayer. The prayer was fol-lowed by a melodious duet of KhrystosVoskres performed by UCCA boardmembers Andrij and Yarko Dobriansky.

Guests then helped themselves to anItalian buffet accompanied by the melo-dies of Ukrainian folk songs, while theyacht continued its leisurely sail alongthe East River to the Statue of Liberty.

Following the luncheon, Ms. Zajacinvited the guests to enjoy a commemo-

rative program marking the UCCAs 70years of service to the Ukrainian

Among them were the following repre-sentatives: Bohdan Harhaj, InternationalConference in Support of Ukraine;

Kvi tka Semanyshyn, ProvidenceAssociation of Ukrainian Catholics inAmerica; Walter Drobenko, chair of theboard, Ukrainian National Federal CreditUnion; Stepan Kaczurak, president ofBranch 2 of the Organization for Defenseof Four Freedoms for Ukraine; NataliaKaczurak, president of the New YorkBranch of the Womens Association forDefense of Four Freedoms for Ukraine;Z e n o n H a l k o w y c z , p r e s i d e n t ,Organization in Defense of LemkoWestern Ukraine; Marta Kokolska, Giftof Life; Slawko Melnyk, UkrainianAmerican Youth Association; Maya Lew,president, Brooklyn Ukrainian Group;Jaroslaw Kiciuk, president, UCCAYonkers, N.Y.; and Eugene Luciw, vice-

president, UCCA Philadelphia.He then introduced the first guestspeaker, Ukraines Consul General inNew York, Serhii Pohoreltsev, whowarmly greeted the guests and under-scored the fact that Ukraine is aware ofthe UCCAs many years of hard workrepresent ing the interests of theUkrainian community and Ukraine. Hewished the organization many happyyears.

Dr. Askold Lozynskyj, former presi-dent of the UCCA and the UkrainianWorld Congress, noted that the UCCAs70th anniversary coincides with the 20thanniversary of Ukraines renewed inde-pendence. He briefly outlined hisIndependence Diaries, which outlinedthe UCCAs effort to have the United

States recognize Ukraines independence.His remarks touched upon the UCCAs

response to former President GeorgeH.W. Bushs Chicken Kiev speech, theUCCAs appeals to the U.S. governmentfollowing Ukraines declaration of inde-pendence and its work in reaching out tofriends on Capitol Hill to pass a concur-rent resolution expressing the sense ofCongress that the president should recog-nize Ukraines independence and under-take steps toward the establishment offull diplomatic relations.

He also noted the UCCAs attempt tosway public opinion through public ral-lies for international recognition in vari-ous cities.

In closing, to coincide with the conge-

nial mood of the luncheon, Dr.Lozynskyj read a series of humorousobservations about Ukrainian communitylife by renowned Ukrainian artist and sat-irist Edward Kozak, known as EKO.

The final speech was delivered by theUCCAs current president, Tamara Olexy.In marking this special day, Ms. Olexyreflected on the founders of the UCCA,

Cruise participants sing Mnohaya Lita for the Ukrainian Congress Comittee of America on its 70th anniversary.

Stefan Slutsky

American community before officiallypassing over the duties to the afternoonsmaster of ceremonies, Adrian Dlaboha,

external affairs chair of the UCCA NewYork.

Following a moment of silence inmemory of UCCA members who hadpassed away, Mr. Dlaboha acknowledged

the community leaders among the guestsand thanked them for their attendance.



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Zawada leaves The Weekly

PARSIPPANY, N.J. ZenonZawada of The Ukrainian WeeklysKyiv Press Bureau, informed TheWeekly on Friday, May 21, that he had

accepted a job as political analyst atthe Phoenix Capital investment bank,which was founded in 2008 in Kyiv.His last day on the editorial staff ofThe Weekly was Friday, June 3.

Mr. Zawada, 34, served as the Kyivbureau editor of The Weekly during theperiod beginning February 2005 andending in December 2007, and again inSeptember 2008 through early June ofthis year. He wrote hundreds of articleshighlighting events in Ukraine, offer-

ing insight into issues and trends thatare often overlooked by the main-stream, English-language media.

In January through May of 2008 heserved as chief editor of the Kyiv Post.

It was a great honor to serve theUkrainian American community andits efforts in preserving an indepen-dent, democratic and UkrainianUkraine, he said.

Ive left The Weekly before, onlyto return, so I dont consider thisgood-bye. I hope to continue servingthe Ukrainian American community inany helpful way I can, Mr. Zawadaadded.

The Weeklys editor-in-chief, RomaHadzewycz, commented: Mr. Zawadahas contributed mightily to The

Ukrainian Weekly, helping its readersunderstand the developments on theground in Ukraine. His regular newsreports, features and columns will bemissed.

Zenon Zawada in Kyiv.

Volodymyr Musyak

motherland Their intercultural experi-ence is invaluable for organizers, so dias-pora Ukrainians have high chances ofbecoming volunteers at the very heart ofEuro.

Although UEFA starts accepting onlineapplications worldwide from candidates

for volunteer positions on June 14, generalpublic tickets have already been allocated.Officials said theyve received more than83,000 ticket requests from the UnitedStates and more than 57,000 from Canada

countries with sizable Ukrainian popula-tions.

UEFA would not disclose how manywere won during the ticket lottery held inApril.

Nevertheless, those who did apply butdidnt win the ticket lottery still have aninterest in coming to Ukraine next year,said Stefan Romaniw, general secretary ofthe Ukrainian World Congress.

Meanwhile, host city Kyiv has alreadyrecruited three diaspora volunteers to helptranslate its Euro-2012 portal into the threeofficial UEFA languages of English,German and French.

My motivations for assisting the KyivHost City translating initiatives were toshow how SUM Druzhynnyky [youngadult members] are assisting in theUkrainian diaspora and also to keep meinvolved in Euro-2012 happenings since Iplan to attend next year, said YuliaDoboszczak, a student at Marist College inNew York and a member of the UkrainianAmerican Youth Association (known byits Ukrainian acronym as SUM).

German-born Ukrainian MichaelHamalij, 44, an advisor to Kyivs Euro2012 department said that, in addition toDoboszczak, a German and a French-Canadian all university students ofUkrainian extraction, translate remotely

from their home countries.He also said Kyivs Euro-2012 depart-

ment will need on-the-ground diasporavolunteers during the tournament. Werecalling everyone to help us, we dont haveenough help, we need one or two people tohelp directly in the 2012 department, saidMr. Hamalij, who also heads the SportsCommission of the Ukrainian WorldCongress People with Ukrainian heritage

(Continued from page 1)

Ukraine prepares... who have the desire can fulfill that role,he added.Maksym Vasylchenko, a member of

Russias 3.5 million-strong Ukrainiandiaspora, said hell visit Ukraine duringthe tournament even if he doesnt securetickets in the upcoming July re-sale plat-form launch, during which ticket holderswill be able to sell their tickets at a nomi-nal price.

Id still like to visit all the host cities[Kyiv, Donetsk, Kharkiv and Lviv], espe-cially Kyiv, said Mr. Vasylchenko, 36, aMuscovite who was born and raised inVinnytsia. Ill definitely root forUkraine.

More importantly, the significance ofthe tournament raising the profile ofUkraine is not lost on the Ukrainiandiaspora.

This is a big chance to present Ukraineto the world, to improve the infrastructureand, for those Ukrainians whove nevertravelled abroad, to speak with foreigners,said Mr. Vasylchenko, a sales director.

But many more will come just to beinvolved in the festive soccer atmosphere.

The diaspora will come just to be partof the hype, said Mr. Romaniw, aUkrainian Australian. Its a good way of

getting closer to Ukraine, and the closerthat hype gets, people will want to comeand help out more.

Mr. Romaniw said hes negotiating withTernopil Oblast authorities to hold a soccertournament for diaspora teams on the eveof Euro-2012 as part of the hype.

Given the apolitical nature of Euro-2012, some diaspora members feel thiswill be the perfect time to build bridgesbetween Ukrainians at home with thoseabroad.

I believe a better bridge will be built, given the interaction that will takeplace The bridge will be built withoutany political undertone or demonstration,said Anatoliy Murha, president of theDetroit-based Ukrainian BanduristChorus, who has traveled to Ukraine

numerous times.So, while the world will discover

Ukraine next year, the country will alsobecome less of a mystery to diasporaUkrainians.

Mr. Murha said in an e-mail message:Many of my friends from across NorthAmerica who havent visited Ukraine areasking me if they should go I have oneword: Go!

Mr. Palmar visited his parents home-land six years ago, but this was his firsttime performing there.

Admittedly, it wasnt the most impres-sive welcome. A little less than half theseats were empty when the show began,largely because of ticket prices that ranged

between $62.50 and $625 far out ofreach for the average Ukrainian.

In contrast, more than 350,000Ukrainians greeted Beatles legend PaulMcCartney when he gave a free outdoorconcert on Kyivs Independence Square inJune 2008.

An additional problem was that Mr.Starrs show was lodged between a tributeconcert performed by a slew of topUkrainian rock stars to honor deceasedrock legend Serhii Kuzminskyi the nightbefore, and a show by techno legendMoby six days later. Both venues drewrock fans who might have saved theirmoney to see the All-Starr band.

Many in the audience had gray hairs ontheir head, having listened to forbidden

Beatles recordings that somehow got pastthe Iron Curtain.The All-Starr band immediately

impressed the crowd by coming out onstage wearing black Ukrainian embroi-dered shirts. Mr. Starr was wearing a blackT-shirt, but launched the shows secondhalf by walking onto the stage wearing hisown black vyshyvanka (embroideredshirt), to the audiences delight.

Wally got them for the band tonight,Mr. Starr remarked. Indeed, about a monthbefore the Kyiv show, Mr. Palmar said hewas in contact with Yevshan based inMontreal, to acquire embroidered shirtsfor the band.

The All-Starr band was formed by Mr.Starr in 1989, recruiting rock stars fromthe past to play their classic hits.Alongside Mr. Palmar this year was RickDerringer (known for Hang on Sloopy),Edgar Winters (Free Ride), Gary Wright(Dream Weaver) master drummer GreggBissonnette and Richard Page (KyrieEleison).

For those too young to know, Mr.Palmar was the lead vocalist and guitaristof The Romantics, a band that reached itspeak popularity in the early to mid-1980swith hits such as What I Like About You(1980) and Talking in Your Sleep(1983).

Yet, to the Ukrainians of Detroit, hewas known as Volodymyr Palamarchuk,the Plast scout who graduated fromImmaculate Conception UkrainianCatholic High School in 1971 and served

as the church deacon.When it came time for the All-Starr


With a little help... Band to perform Mr. Palmars hits, hegreeted the crowd in impeccableUkrainian for a guy whos been on tourfor most of his adult life saying,Diakuyu, Edgar; diakuyu, Ringo;diakuyu, Kyiv i Ukrayina! (He thankedEdgar Winters, who performed the songbefore him.)

They played Talking in Your Sleepand then later What I Like About You,which was one of the few songs that night

that brought at least a portion of the audi-ence to their feet. (Ukrainian concertgoersarent as active as their Western counter-parts, often sitting through the mostdanceable tunes.)

During the chorus of What I LikeAbout You, Mr. Palmar led the crowd inchanting, Hey! as if a throwback toUkrainian Kozak folk songs.

The songs that did bring absolutelyeveryone to their feet, whipping the audi-ence into childlike delight, were theBeatles classics, Yellow Submarine inthe middle of the show, then With a LittleHelp From My Friends, which concludedthe evening.

Throughout the show, Mr. Palmar, 57,played his guitar passionately, grooving up

and down the stage and appearing to behaving the time of his life. The same couldbe said for the energetic Ringo Starr, whoplayed his drums and roamed the stage atthe ripe age of 70 years old.

As part of Soviet tradition, fansapproached the stage with flower bouquetsto give to Mr. Starr, one of which waswrapped in a Ukrainian embroideredcloth. The pile of bouquets accumulatingon stage prompted the Beatles drummer to

joke, Anyone want to buy some flow-ers?

At the press conference the day beforea Kyiv reporter asked Mr. Starr about hisbrief impression of Ukraine. We sawvery many beautiful women, heremarked, repeating a common observa-tion made by foreigners. Its probablytime to say hello to my wife.

Mr. Palmar was asked, Please tell uswhere your parents are from.

In Ukrainian and American? heresponded, drawing applause from theKyiv press corps. That prompted Mr. Starrto withdraw some cash from his pocketand, extending it to Mr. Palmar, to joking-ly, Here is your money!

Theyre from outside of Lviv, a smallvillage near the border of Poland, he con-tinued. Somewhere in that direction. Itscalled Uvyn. Theres a lot of village there.Not everyone knows that. I was there fiveyears ago for the first time, and for thefirst time here in Ukraine too.

Mr. Palmars Ukrainian ski l lsimpressed even the Russian-language tab-

loid Segodnya, which complimented hisfluency albeit with a Lviv accent.

Beatles legend Ringo Starr holds bouquets of flowers, one wrapped in Ukrainianembroidery, that he received during his June 4 concert in Kyiv.

Zenon Zawada


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In 1891, two 33-year-old immigrants from western Ukraine, Ivan Pylypiw andWasyl Eleniak, immigrated to western Canada. Their arrival on September 7, 1891,via steamship at the port of Montreal, laid the groundwork for the arrival of tens ofthousands of other immigrants lured by the promise of land and a better life. These

Ukrainian pioneers overcame countless hardships as homesteaders in the westernprovinces of Canada and became the builders of that region of the vast country.In all, about 170,000 immigrants arrived in Canada from Ukrainian lands before

1914. Thousands of them were unjustly interned in 1914-1920 at the time of WorldWar I and tens of thousands were required to register as enemy aliens. Their loy-alties were suspect simply because of where theyd come from territories undercontrol of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In succeeding decades, there were otherwaves of Ukrainian immigration. Nearly 70,000 came during the period betweenthe two world wars; and over 35,000 more arrived after World War II. These threegreat waves of immigration were the roots of todays Ukrainian Canadian commu-nity. And that community continues to grow: since 1991 over 20,000 moreUkrainians have arrived in Canada, which today is home to 1.2 million Ukrainians,according to the Ukrainian Canadian Congress.

Ukrainian Canadians have a lot to be proud of. From its humble roots, their com-munity has developed into a powerful force on the Canadian landscape and individu-al Ukrainian Canadians have made their mark in diverse fields. Among the greatnumber of notables are: the first Ukrainian member of Parliament MichaelLuchkovich, Sen. Paul Yuzyk, Governor General Ray Hnatyshyn, Supreme CourtJustice John Sopinka, artist William Kurelek, businessmen Erast Huculak and James

Temerty, not to mention many sports stars, performers, scholars, scientists and others.Ukrainian Canadians kicked off the yearlong celebration of their 120 years of set-

tlement in and contributions to Canada with a special program on May 23 at theUkrainian Cultural Heritage Village (UCHV), where a replica homestead markerwas installed to honor the descendants of the first settlers in the region fromNebyliv. The setting was perfect since the UCHV, located outside of Edmonton, isan outdoor museum that depicts settlements of east-central Alberta from the periodof 1891-1930. The site encompasses thematic zones such as a farmstead, a ruralcommunity and a town. Among the restored buildings is the house of the aforemen-tioned Ivan Pylypiw; the village also presents authentic artifacts from the era and re-enactors who play period roles. Radomir Bilash, senior historian at the village, in arecent videoclip by Alberta PrimeTime (http://www.albertaprimetime.com/Stories.aspx?pd=2434) speaks of the UCHVs significance: It tells their history toother Canadians, other north Americans.

During this 120th anniversary year, Ukrainian Canadians will be telling theirstory. Speaking at the UCHV, Roman Brytan, chair of the National 120thAnniversary Commemorative Committee, rightfully underscored, This is the yearfor highlighting our individual accomplishments, wondering at our infinite commu-

nity potential and driving towards making this Ukrainian Canadian milestone one inwhich all Canadians can take pride and claim as part of our shared, national history.As our neighbors to the north begin their jubilee year, we extend a hearty Mnohaya

Lita to our fellow Ukrainians, a vibrant part of the cultural mosaic that is Canada.

A 120th anniversary

The UkrainianWeekly

Last year, on June 14, 2010, Mikhail Zurabov, Russiasambassador to Ukraine, said in an interview in Izvestiya vUkraine that Russians and Ukrainians are not simply frater-nal peoples [they] are a single people. With their ownnuances, with their own special features but a single people.

This came after Ukraines President Viktor Yanukovychstated that the Holodomor was a common tragedy of Russia and Ukraine.

I have spent a great deal of time on the demographic problems of Russia and well

know that the policy which was conducted in those years of course cannot be calledhumane, Mr. Zurabov said.A June 14, 2010, commentary, Crimea as a Trojan Horse by Alexander

Mashchenko in the newspaper Krymskoye Vremya, observed that both Russian patri-ots and Ukrainian patriots were wrong about Nikita Khrushchevs decision to trans-fer Crimea from the Russian RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954 because each refus-es to recognize some key facts of history and life. The latter do not see that Crimea ispart of Ukraine in the same way that some of its other oblasts are, and the formerrefuse to recognize that Khrushchevs gift of Crimea to Ukraine was in fact a Trojanhorse against the Ukrainians.

It is no secret for anyone, Mr. Mashchenko continued, that Ukrainian indepen-dence was the result of a palace coup inside the Soviet political elite and that the con-temporary Ukrainian state was created not as a result of an internal spiritual move-ment, but as a result of a historical accident.

Ukraine would be left to a fate of fragmentation between east and west or continuedinstability generated by tensions between Russia and Ukraine, according to IgorRadziyevskys article in the May 27, 2010, issue of Ukrayinska Pravda. The crisis willreach its apogee during the 2012 parliamentary elections because the opposition will notaccept the official result and will accuse the powers that be of massive falsifications. This

will lead to a paralysis of the country and Kyiv would be compelled to use force, he argued.To avoid this scenario, Mr. Radziyevsky suggested a division of Ukraine along

national lines, the borders of which would be the two-color map of the electoral divi-sion of Ukraine in the presidential elections of 2010.

But even if Ukraine doesnt collapse, Mr. Mashchenko argued, Having givenCrimea, Khrushchev tied Ukraine to Russia forever or in any case as long as ourpeninsula will remain a part of Ukraine.

Source: Russians. Ukrainians a single people, says Russian ambassador toUkraine, by Paul Goble (Windows on Eurasia), The Ukrainian Weekly, June 20, 2010.

June

142010

Turning the pages back...

by Yulia Tymoshenko

I almost never watch political talk shows.I dont watch them so as not to get mynerves riled up yet again watching how the

propaganda machine works for the purelystraight-up guys.

But last month I broke this tradition dueto a coincidence of events. I was bedriddenwith a high temperature and by chancepressed the button for the First NationalTV network that broadcasts the ShusterLive program, where they discussed themasterfully merged themes: the fightagainst global terrorism, the triumphantmurder of Osama Bin Laden and the ter-rorism in Lviv on May 9.

After watching this product, the firstthing that came to my mind was, Bravo!The budgets that are spent on the propa-ganda machine arent being thrown to thewind. The provocations are working, giv-ing the pre-programmed result.

Not a word was said about the real prob-lems of the people about the social-eco-nomic breakdown, about the nationalhumiliation, about corruption and the waragainst the middle class. About how formerInternal Affairs Minister Yurii Lutsenkoisnt being persecuted anymore, but simplykilled.

We passed over in silence an unprece-dented scam last week: the passage of twobills writing off 26 billion hrv ($3.25 bil-lion) in debt that private-oligarchic energycompanies owed to the state budget andNaftohaz Ukrainy.

People paid them painstakingly for ser-vices, yet these funds didnt get to the state,instead landing in the bottomless pocketsof the owners of oblast energy companies

(oblenergos). And that started last week, onan entirely legal basis, because I dontdoubt that President Viktor Yanukovychwill sign these bills.

On the other hand, the Party of Regionsand police representatives, who appearedto outnumber all the others in the studio,explained that Ukraine has its own collec-tive Bin Laden Halychyna.

The law on the red flag and events ener-gized by it turned out to be a high-techway to distract the peoples attention froman intolerable life resulting from of theintolerable reforms of Mr. Yanukovych.

Why was the provocation organizedprecisely on May 9 in Lviv?

The level of support for PresidentYanukovych is falling steeply, though notonly in Lviv, Chernivtsi and Poltava, but inhis native regions, which paved the roadfor him into big-time politics Donetsk,Luhansk and Crimea.

The quintessence of peoples attitudestowards Mr. Yanukovych in the eastbecame a mini-video of public opinionpolls in Yenakiyevo, which gathered a fullhouse of hits on YouTube. The same one,where an elderly woman briefly, but mean-ingfully, tells the camera everything thatshe thinks about her president and hisnearest prospects. (I wont quote her out ofconcern for decency.)

Ukrainians began to actively rallyaround their common plight, quicklyunderstanding the real enemies, and beganto sober up from the shock technologies ofthe 2004 presidential campaign in which

they successfully divided Ukraine into twoparts, drudging up from the genetic depths

everything that mentally divides us asUkrainians.

The psychosis of hate and conflictbetween easterners and westerners wasincited with special madness and made itpossible for the presidential candidates tohide their true essences kleptomania, aspiritual and intellectual void, indifferenceto the state of the country given to them, aswell as their subordinate people.

In contrast to Mr. Yanukovychs ideolo-gy, which divides the country, his socio-eco-nomic policies became a strong consolidatorbetween east and west. Remember howentrepreneurs from Donetsk, Luhansk, Lvivand Kyiv united the east and west at theNovember tax maidan in defense of socialrights.

Glory to Ukraine! Halychany greetedfellow protesters in the morning. Glory tothe Heroes! responded Luhanchany.

The miner from Donetsk and the minerfrom Chervonohrad in the Lviv Oblast

began to slowly understand that they havethe same problems, almost the same wages,the same difficulties. And, in the search foran enemy, they began to look in one and thesame direction, toward the common prob-lem: Yanukovych.

Pensioners from the east and the west

noticed that their pensions had decreased byhalf, but prices for food and services haddoubled. Ideologically driven citizens fromvarious poles of Ukraine came to the con-clusion that the new government is indiffer-ent to the Ukrainian and the Russian lan-guages, because the opening of billion-dol-lar accounts in Cyprus is done in English.

Such solidarity became a dangerous chal-lenge to the government. One way outremained: renew the division shape publicviews so that one miner will be RussianOrthodox, another will be UkrainianCatholic; one will be Russian-speaking;another will be Ukrainian-speaking, onewill be Soviet, another will beBanderite. Ours are here, and theirs areover there.

Having organized the May 9 provoca-tions, the government said, Forget aboutyour petty, worthless problems. Forgetabout patriotism, justice, prices, pensionsand utility bills. The final battle between usand them is on. And if not us, then thedreadful, regretless Banderites will abuseyour wives and children. And judging fromevents, the provocation worked.

In what specifically does their successlie, as a result of the May 9 provocations?

Firstly, they managed to move the frontlines from the people versus the oligarchicgovernment conflict to the people of thewest versus the people of the east conflict

in their old formats of hostility. But the gov-ernment kleptomaniacs and Ukrainophobesgained the ability to hypocritically riseabove the clashes, which they themselvesprovoked and reconcile the people, teach-ing them patience and tolerance.

Second, they were able to replace patrio-tism, national consciousness and national

Victory Day 2011

On May 9, VictoryDay, the psychosisof hate and conictbetween Ukraines

easterners andwesterners wasincited with specialmadness.


COMMENTARY

Yulia Tymoshenko is a former primeminister of Ukraine and a leader of theopposition. The commentary above waspublished in Ukrainian in UkrayinskaPravda on May 16. The translation pub-lished here was prepared by Zenon Zawada.


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Instead of simply honoring all whobelieved they were defending their nation,last months Victory Day celebrations inKyiv prompted the usual debates. ShouldUkraine honor only veterans of the RedArmy, or include the Ukrainian InsurgentArmy too? What about the 14th WaffenGrenadier SS Division Galizien? This,one might think, is an easy target. Indeed,in October 1945 the International MilitaryTribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg indicted theSchutzstaffeln along with five other orga-nizations and 24 individuals for conspira-cy, crimes against peace, war crimes andcrimes against humanity. It declared theSS a criminal organization. The IMTCharter provided that national authorities

could bring individuals to trial for mem-bership in such organizations (Article 10).Towards the end of May, publication

was announced in Britain of GeraldSteinachers Nazis on the Run: HowHitlers Henchmen Fled Just ice(Guardian, May 25; Daily Telegraph May26). Mr. Steinacher reportedly claims thatat the end of World War II, the VaticanRe f u g e e Co m m i s s i o n a n d t h eInternational Committee of the Red Crosshelped thousands of Nazi war criminalsand collaborators, such as AdolfEichmann and Josef Mengele, escape toSpain, North and South America. Thebook claims that while the ICRC mistak-enly allowed some 8,000 Waffen SS mem-bers to enter Canada and Great Britain in1947, the Vaticans assistance was oftendeliberate.

Meanwhile in Munich, on May 12, pre-siding Judge Ralph Alt announced a guiltyverdict in the trial of John Demjanjuk, thealleged camp guard accused of being anaccessory to the murder of over 28,000Jews at the Sobibor death camp.

Then on May 26 Ratko Mladic, theSerbian ex-general indicted by theInternational Criminal Tribunal for theformer Yugoslavia for war crimes, geno-cide and crimes against humanity, includ-ing the 1995 massacre of some 8,000Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica, wasarrested.

By this time, we government employ-ees could almost expect a departmentalmemo cheerfully announcing, May iswar crimes month! Yet the press treat-ment of these cases, as well as the way theMunich court reached its verdict, arecause for grave concern.

Some critics of the Halychyna (Galicia)Division have characterized its membersas war criminals. After all, if Nurembergdeemed the SS a criminal organization,then individual members must also becriminals. That, however, does not follow.Likening the applicable rules to the law ofconspiracy, the prosecution pointed outthat an individual member of a criminalorganization could only be guilty if he had

joined it voluntarily, with knowledge of itscriminal aims. Unless he actually commit-ted war crimes or chose to remain in theorganization knowing that it was commit-

ting them, he could not be held liable.Mere membership did not make one a warcriminal, for guilt is personal, not collec-tive (Trial of the Major War Criminalsbefore the International Military Tribunal,1947, Vol. I, pp. 268-273).

Applying this principle to the UkrainianDivision, one cannot conclude that itsmembers were war criminals. True, theyhad enthusiastically volunteered. But the

evidence suggests that their motive wasnot to engage in criminal acts, but to fightthe Red Army. In fact, they had seen theRed Army invade their homeland in 1939in complicity with Hitler in an act ofaggressive war-making later condemnedat Nuremberg. In 1986, moreover,Canadas Deschenes Commission clearedthe division of war crimes.

It is disturbing that the reports about theSteinacher book refer to thousands ofwar criminals, even though very few ofthose individuals were ever tried for warcrimes. Furthermore, they indiscriminate-ly term them Nazis, though it is unlikelythat all of them were party members. Nordo they make any distinction between the

original SS, an elite paramilitary force,and the various SS combat units formedtowards the end of the war from non-Ger-mans and non-Aryans such as Ukrainians,Georgians and Croatians. Finally, thereports do not specify from what theseindividuals were fleeing from fair andimpartial American tribunals, or fromrepatriation to the Soviet authorities,which could summarily execute them orsend them to the Gulag.

Even in the case of Ratko Mladic, it isinappropriate to label him a criminal untiland unless he has been tried and convictedof war crimes or crimes against humanity.

In the case of John Demjanjuk, thecourt itself exhibited an equally slipperysense of legality. Judge Alt reportedlystated that Mr. Demjanjuk could simplyhave fled Sobibor, since the Germans didnot execute unarmed camp guards whodeserted (FAZ.net, May 12, 2011).Evidently, young Ivan should have justignored his experience in the Red Army(where stragglers, never mind deserters,were commonly shot) and, trusting themercy of the SS, headed for the hills.After all, on a previous occasion his dere-liction had merely earned him a beating.He should have known that staying at hispost was a war crime, while deserting washis international legal obligation. Suchpoor judgment!

But as the Associated Press observed,there was no proof that Mr. Demjanjukhad committed any criminal act. He wasfound guilty simply on the basis of his

presence at the camp quite an innovationin the annals of jurisprudence. Moreover,even the evidence of presence was dubi-ous an FBI report, recently discovered atthe National Archives, had characterizedthe Soviet-supplied Trawniki SS identitycard as unreliable.

The shift from individual to collectiveresponsibility, and from the presumptionof innocence to the presumption of guilt,along with Judge Alts notion that merepresence establishes criminal liability,bodes ill for the future of legality. Nordoes it lack consequences beyond thecourtroom. Could it not be our deteriorat-ing sense of legality that permits us todeploy drone technology for the extrajudi-cial execution of individuals abroad on

mere suspicion however well founded of terrorism?

Such matters can be debated. Whatseems clear is that the West, which rightlychides Ukraine for violating human rightsand the rule of law, is hardly setting agood example.

Alt shift deletes key right

Andrew Sorokowski can be reached [email protected].

Dear Editor:

I am deeply saddened by Luba Keskes

lawsuit against the producers of Holodomor: Ukraines Genocide (May22). Private alternative dispute resolu-tions (including mediation by communityleaders) should have been exhausted first.I fear the litigation will poison the wellfor community support for any futureHolodomor film projects. Who out therewill send another check after this? It isthe worst of all possible outcomes.

Those of your readers who mayremember my article The ABCs ofHolodomor Denial, published in TheWeekly on August 17, 2008, should notbe surprised. Leading experts loweredthe numbers of Holodomor victims, theRussians denied and denied, questionedand ridiculed everything and rallied theirfellow travelers all over the world. And,no major film was released. Althoughseveral projects were begun, they were alldisrupted, and nothing has come onto thebig (or small) screen with majorHollywood distribution anywhere.Vladimir Putins spinmeisters did their

job.I dont believe the collapse of all the

Holodomor film projects was simplyincompetence or bad alignment of thestars (in the sky). This spectacular publicblow-up finale of Holodomor: UkrainesGenocide just puts the whipped creamon Vlads cake.

Peter BorisowLos Angeles

Dear Editor:

Andrew Sorokowski is an insightfulcommentator, but his May 29 Who willbury us? will go down as one of themost significant pieces in The Weekly.

I read it the same week the UkrainianNational Womens League of Americaresolved to endow the Ukrainian CatholicUniversity in Lviv with a $100,000 con-tribution toward a program in womensstudies. Later that resolution was modi-fied by the Resolutions Committee to

merely form a UNWLA study group.To d a y a f t e r l i t u r g y , a f e l l o wSoiyuzianka told me indignantly thatwe cannot support UCU because UCUprovides fellowships to not only theOrthodox, but also to Jews and Muslims.Combined with other attacks on UCU, Icannot fail but see a concerted effort toundermine UCU, both here and inUkraine.

I became very, very upset. I am a his-torian currently immersed in the historyof the Ukrainian Catholic Church. Dr.Sorokowskis elegantly formulated argu-ment for the need for educated clergy andbelievers among those of Ukrainian heri-tage worldwide clanged a loud bell fromthe depths of my historical study.

All Ukrainian churchmen realized theneed for educated clergy, and most todayrealize the need for well-educated believ-ers. It was religious education that gaveus the Kozak renaissance and its declinethat contributed to the failure of Ukraineto prosper. And it was education that pre-served the Ukrainian Catholic Church ofthe Byzantine Rite, both in Ukraine andin America.

Holodomor film'sdamaging finale

Our prophylacticself-burials

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

We welcome your opinionThe Ukrainian Weekly welcomes letters

to the editor and commentaries on a vari-ety of topics of concern to the UkrainianAmerican and Ukrainian Canadian com-munities. Opinions expressed by colum-nists, commentators and letter-writers aretheir own and do not necessarily reflectthe opinions of either The Weekly edito-rial staff or its publisher, the UkrainianNational Association.

Letters should be typed and signed (anon-ymous letters are not published). Letters areaccepted also via e-mail at [email protected]. The daytime phone number andaddress of the letter-writer must be givenfor verification purposes. Please note that adaytime phone number is essential in orderfor editors to contact letter-writers regardingclarifications or questions.

Please note: THE LENGTH OF LETTERSCANNOT EXCEED 500 WORDS.

The first two Ukrainian Catholicbishops in the United States, SoterOrtynsky and Constantine Bohachevsky,realized the need for American-educatedCatholic clergy for the Ukrainians in theUnited States. Bishop Ortynsky unfortu-nately died before he had a chance tobuild up schools, let alone a seminary.

Metropolitan Bohachevsky eventuallysucceeded, but not before he livedthrough a Gethsemane of opposition,similar but more vicious than thatBishop Ortynsky had faced.

The Ukrainian intelligentsia in theUnited States opposed the establishmentof full-time parochial schools theyconsidered them a useless waste ofmoney that could rebuild Halychyna andsupport political actions in the UnitedStates. When Metropolitan Bohachevskywas in his 60s his young well-educatedAmerican-born priests worked hand inhand with the unexpected wave of high-ly educated Ukrainian Catholic migrs.Fortunately, he died before he saw hisChurch torn apart by a movement simi-

lar to the one that poisoned his firstyears in the United States.

Cardinal Josyf Slipyj, during the veryfirst years of his freedom, encounteredthe same opposition to his attempts toraise funds for the Ukrainian CatholicUniversity in Rome. Fortunately, thatopposition dissipated, but unfortunately,so did the university in Rome as an aca-demic institution and its largely fictivebranches in the United States.

Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, the productof both Metropolitan Bohachevskysseminary and Cardinal Slipyjs solici-tude, supported the efforts of theAmerican-born, Harvard-educatedUkrainian Catholic priest, the Rev.Borys Gudziak, to build an independent

Ukrainian Catholic University thatwould, in the apt words of Dr.Sorokowski, resist the twin temptationsto make an idol of tradition, or a fetishof modernity.

And now it is Rector Gudziaks turnto be accused of anti-patriotic wrongdo-ing by armchair critics. It is a pity thatthe Ukrainian National Womens Leagueof America, which for years avoidedbeing mired in the political squabbles ofour immigrant community and whichhas so generously for many decades cre-atively supported the needy both hereand abroad, has now became one of thelightning rods of attacks at this mostrecent attempt to build up an honest andopen Ukrainian Catholic university.

Why wait until death? We are doingan excellent job with our own prophy-lactic self-burials.

Martha Bohachevsky-ChomiakWashington


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Alexander Motyl speaks in Washington, as scholar and author

IN THE PRESS: Chornobyl, Regionnaires, gas disputes

by Yaro Bihun


WASHINGTON During his visit tothe nations capital on May 31, AlexanderMotyl had two public appearances, dem-onstrating two of the professional hats he

wears that of a scholar and writer.At noon, at the Woodrow WilsonInternational Center for Scholars, as aprofessor of political science at RutgersUniversity and a political analyst, heexamined and discussed Ukraine AfterOne Year of Yanukovych. A catastro-phe was one of his characterizations.

That evening during a session orga-nized by The Washington Group ofUkrainian American Professionals at theU.S.-Ukraine Foundation he presentedand discussed his fourth novel, The JewWho Was Ukrainian, which his publish-ing house, erven Barva Press,describes as a blackly comedic, anti-his-torical and absurdist novel about a tor-tured Jewish-Ukrainian man who strug-gles vainly to find meaning at the inter-

section of Hitlers Holocaust and StalinsGulag.

In his introductory remarks on the sub-ject of the admini stration of Ukrain esPresident Viktor Yanukovych, Prof.Motyl admitted that he would have pre-ferred the election of Yulia Tymoshenkoduring last years presidential election,but felt that Mr. Yanukovychs victorywouldnt be a catastrophe. He said hefelt that the situation in Ukraine couldntget any worse than how his predecessorViktor Yushchenko had left it.

I was dead wrong, he added.Yanukovych has turned out to be signifi-cantly worse than Yushchenko.

Politically there has been seriousbacktracking on democracy viola-

tions of the Constitution, the rule of law,freedom of assembly, media, speech, etc.Part of the Ukrainian population, he said,would accept some of this backtracking ifthere were reforms in other structuraland economic areas of governance.But there, too, the regime has been abust; its been a failure, he said.

President Yanukovych and his peopleseem to be convinced that a highly cen-tralized government is more efficient.After all of their changes, all of the powerof the state is in his hands, Prof. Motylsaid. This is hyper-centralization runamuck, placing all of the decision-mak-ing at the very top, which is greatly over-burdened and dysfunctional.

Aside from the fact that the govern-ment officials the new president appoint-ed are profoundly incompetent, he said,What makes it additionally dysfunction-al is the fact that Yanukovych the manwho has all this power first of all, isntquite sure what to do with it, and, second-

ly, is of somewhat limited intellectualcapacity.

The fact is that this is not Nobel Prizematerial, Prof. Motyl said.

And the Ukrainian people are realizingthis, as is seen from the 50 percent dropin the popularity of the ruling Party ofRegions, he said.

At the evening book presentation of hisThe Jew Who Was Ukrainian, Prof.Motyl briefly described and read excerptsfrom this, his latest novel, and discussedhow it came about. His earlier novelswere: Whiskey Priest, Who KilledAndrei Warhol, and Flippancy.

The Jew is not a history book, Prof.Motyl stressed, in response to one ques-tion, but it draws on the history of thosewho lived through Stalins and Hitlersatrocities of World War II in Ukraine andneighboring regions.

The hero is Volodymyr Frauenzimmer,whose mother was a Ukrainian Nazi con-centration camp guard who hated Jews.

His Jewish father was a Stalinist butcherwho hated Ukrainians. To cope with hisdreadful past, Volodymyr discovers theredeeming power of hatred, as Prof.Motyl described it. This includes a plan tokill off the half-Russian, half-German dic-tator of Russia, the fish-eyed Pitoon, forwhich he consorts with long-dead Jewish

and Ukrainian assassins and their victims,and other bizarre characters, includingLenin.

The style of the novel includes third-person narrative, monologues, play-likedialogues, as well as excerpts from maga-zine accounts.

The idea of a main character with astrong Jewish-Ukrainian identity maywell have come from the authors moth-ers best high-school friend Fanka, aJewish girl. As Prof. Motyl recalled herstory during his presentation, the twoteenagers were inseparable in the 1930s,when they were in the gymnasium (highschool) in Peremyshliany, a town south-east of Lviv. During World War II,Fankas father headed the Judenrat(Jewish Council) and did not survive theHolocaust; her brother survived in theRed Army. Fanka was in love with aUkrainian boy, Volodymyr Zaplatynsky,who was a leading member of theOrganization of Ukrainian Nationalists inthat region. Right after the war, he andsome of his colleagues committed suicide

when surrounded by the NKVD.After his death, Fanka, who had found

refuge in a Catholic monastery during thewar, converted to Catholicism, became anun and remained active in the clandes-tine Ukrainian Catholic Church in theCatacombs until independence, whenshe was brought to Lviv, elevated toMother Superior, retired and died someseven years ago.

Prof. Motyl presented his first twonovels Whiskey Priest and WhoKilled Andrei Warhol at the Embassyof Ukraine in 2008. He has also had pre-vious scholarly presentations at theWoodrow Wilson Center as well as inCongress.

Asked why he, a university professor

and author of a number of scholarlyworks, would want to write such books,Prof. Motyl explained that he lives lifewith my eyes open and enjoys writingfiction, finding it more challenging.

In addition to being a scholar and nov-elist, Prof. Motyl is also a recognized art-ist and poet.

25 years after Chernobyl, thenuclear debate at a dead end, bySbastien Miraglia, May 24 comment-ed for the Institute for Defense Studiesand Analyses, http://www.idsa.in:

The 25th anniversary of theChernobyl [sic] disaster and current con-cerns about the consequences of thenuclear accident in Fukushima act as acruel reminder that nuclear energy likeany other industrial activity presents anirreducible risk for the environment andhuman health. Yet, the full impact ofnuclear accidents on the environment andpublic health remains unknown. Despitecrucial differences in terms of accidentcauses, radioactivity releases and localdemographics, Japans emergency evacu-ation plans in Fukushima are virtuallyidentical to the contingency plans set byUkrainian authorities in 1986.

Since the mid-1980s public healthsurveys have attempted to determine the

growth of cancer and newborn malforma-tions in Europe after the Chernobyl disas-ter. But the lack of comparable studiesbefore the accident makes it impossibleto measure with certainty the actual num-ber of victims and isolate the effects ofthe fallout from other environmental fac-tors.

In the absence of reliable methods toquantify the impact of the Chernobyl

disaster on public health, supporters andopponents of nuclear energy have pro-posed different investigation methodsadapted to their respective beliefs andpolitical agendas.

For a quarter of a century, this battleof numbers and figures has contributed tothe spread confusion about the environ-mental and public health risks posed bynuclear energy. Such a confusion is notonly a major obstacle to a better debateabout the pros and cons of nuclear ener-gy, but it has also contributed to preventthe development of better contingencyplans after Chernobyl.

Regionnaires to Ukrainians: LetThem Eat Red Flags! by Alexander J.Motyl, on his blog Ukraines OrangeBlues on the www.worldaffairsjour-nal.org, May 12:

the Yanukovych regime stupidlyand purposely permitted red flags to be

included in the celebrations. For someUkrainians those primarily in the eastand south the red flag symbolizes bothvictory in the Great Fatherland War andSoviet rule. Theyre as proud of the for-mer as they are nostalgic for the latter.For other Ukrainians, the flag symbolizesStalinist totalitarianism, communist ter-ror, the Holodomor, the Gulag and theindignities of colonial rule.

large numbers of people sympa-thize with Stalinism and communism andbecause leading members of theYanukovych regime (such as the suprem-acist Educat ion Minister DmytroTabachnyk) have been actively promot-ing Stalinist agendas. That said, no redflag has ever been officially displayed onVictory Day celebrations in the past 19years of independent Ukraines existence:every president, from Leonid Kravchukto Leonid Kuchma to Viktor Yushchenko,understood that waving it would be need-l e s s l y p r o v o c a t i v e . W h e n t h eRegionnaire-dominated Parliamentrecently agreed to permit public displaysof the red flag this May 9, it knew fullwell that it was endorsing the functionalequivalent of showing off swastikas inIsrael.

What could Yanukovych have donedifferently? Well, for one thing, just as itwas perfectly possible to celebrate the

defeat of Nazi Germany without red flagsfor two decades, so too it must have beenpossible to do so today. After all, the vic-tory over Hitler was the selfless achieve-ment of common Ukrainians, who died inthe millions, and not of Stalin, who killedthem in the millions.

Kyiv City Authorities CaptureDowntown, by Alexander Motyl, in

his blog Ukraines Orange Blues, onthe World Affairs journal website(www.worldaffairsjournal.org), May 6:

Despite their proclivity for pig-headedness, even the Regionnairesunderstand that a heavy-handed policepresence, although effective in stoppingprotest, might raise a few eyebrows andfurther tarnish their already dreadfulinternational image. So theyve donewhat all authoritarians always do:theyve decided to fill the space andthereby deny it to opponents.

The Regionnaires have gone aboutfilling Kyivs downtown in two ways with things and with sounds. First, thecity administration has left intact twolarge stages usually dismantled afterwinter holiday festivitieson both sidesof Independence Square. In effect, thestages deny regime opponents the spaceto hold rallies and protests.

Second, the authorities have taken to

pip ing in mus ic a l l a long theKhreschatyk on weekends, when itstransformed into a pedestrian zone. In ab i z a r r e l y Or we l l i a n m o v e , t h eRegionnaires have left in place the loud-speakers they set up a few weeks ago. Atfirst, Kyivites going out for a strollwould be inundated with the insistent

Alexander Motyl responds to questions about his latest novel, The Jew Who WasUkrainian, during the recent presentation of the book in Washington.

Yaro Bihun



9/28


CIUS publishes Festschift for Prof. Frank E. SysynEDMONTON, Alberta The Canadian Institute of

Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) recently published Volumes3334 (20082009) of the Journal of Ukrainian Studies.This 628-page quadruple issue, titled TentoriumHonorum, is a collection of 33 essays presented to Prof.Frank E. Sysyn on the occasion of his 60th birthday.

Prof. Sysyn is a distinguished scholar of Ukrainianand Polish history and has been a major figure in the

development of Ukrainian historical studies in theUnited States, Canada, Ukraine and Germany for morethan three decades. He is a professor in the Departmentof History and Classics at the University of Alberta and,since 1990, director of the Peter Jacyk Center forUkrainian Historical Research at CIUS and editor-in-chief of its Hrushevsky Translation Project.

Prof. Sysyn is the author of Between Poland and theUkraine: The Dilemma of Adam Kysil, 16001653(1985), Mykhailo Hrushevsky: Historian and NationalAwakener (2001), and studies on the Khmelnytskyuprising, Ukrainian historiography and early modernUkrainian political culture. He is also co-author, withSerhii Plokhy, of Religion and Nation in ModernUkraine (2003).

This special issue was guest-edited by Profs. OlgaAndriewsky, Zenon E. Kohut, Serhii Plokhy and LarryWolff. It includes essays written in honor of Prof. Sysyn

by his colleagues and former students from Canada(Prof. Olga Andriewsky, Jars Balan, John-Paul Himka,Bohdan Klid, Prof. Kohut, Paul R. Magocsi, DavidMarples, Victor Ostapchuk, Uliana Pasicznyk, FrancesSwyripa); Ukraine (Yaroslav Fedoruk, Andrii Grechylo,Yaroslav Hrytsak, Yaroslav Isaievych, VolodymyrKravchenko, Yurii Mytsyk, Oleksiy Tolochko, Natalia

Dr. Frank Sysyn.The cover of Tentorium Honorum. (Continued on page 10)


Statements at Chornobyl...

internal matters of any one country but as global issuesToday, as we recall these events, the international com-

munity must also remember that Ukraine did not create the

Chornobyl crisis it inherited the grim and lasting legacyof this nuclear disaster on the day of its independence.Dealing with Chornobyls aftermath surpasses the abili-

ties of any one country and requires support and coopera-tion of the entire international community.

Chornobyl prompted the Ukrainian diaspora a globalcommunity of over 20 million living in numerous countries

to search for ways to help.The Ukrainian diaspora immediately began organizing

aid for the disaster victims, primarily by providing for theirmedical treatment through the supply of medicines andequipment. It also kept the international communityinformed of the events surrounding the explosion as theyunfolded and later of Chornobyls after-effects.

In addition, efforts and resources were focused to createsuch charitable organizations as the well-known Childrenof Chornobyl Relief and Development Fund established inthe U.S. and the Children of Chornobyl Canadian Fund.

The human tragedy of Chornobyl can never be forgot-ten. It is part of our global consciousness. The sufferingfelt twenty-five years ago continues to affect countlesslives today.

Tamara Gallo Olexy, president of the UkrainianCongress Committee of America:

Upon hearing the news of the Chornobyl disaster, theUkrainian community in the West, particularly in theUnited States and Canada, were quick to respond and helptheir brethren in Ukraine, offering immediate medical andmonetary assistance to aid the victims. Unfortunately, intypical Soviet fashion, these offers were refused by Sovietauthorities, which stated that the disaster was an internalmatter and best handled by the government.

Despite this rebuff for immediate assistance, theUkrainian American community nevertheless selflesslydevoted much time and resources to aiding the victims ofthe Chornobyl disaster both morally, by exposing the

truth about the disaster through various programs and pub-lications, and monetarily, through fund-raising and humani-tarian aid projects.

Since the disaster, the UCCA and its member-organiza-tions have remained committed to this cause and, over thepast 25 years, have been at the forefront of informing thehighest levels in the U.S. government about the concerns ofthe Ukrainian people. We have also been successful in rais-ing hundreds of thousands of dollars of much neededhumanitarian assistance for the victims of Chornobyl.

We pledge our continued commitment to exposingthe truth about Chornobyl and the ongoing effects of thedisaster in the hopes of soliciting global assistance for thosewho continue to suffer from the aftereffects of this calamity.Additionally, we encourage the worldwide community tocondemn all acts of negligence towards humankind such asoccurred at Chornobyl in 1986. In this way we hope to doour part in ensuring that the victims of this tragedy are

never forgotten and that such callous acts of inhumanity arenever repeated again.

As we remember the events that took place inChornobyl, Ukraine, 25 years ago, let us also remembertoday in our thoughts and prayers those suffering as a resultof Japans recent Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plantdisaster. Such tragedies remind the world community thatwe must continue to commit ourselves to ensuring the safeuse of nuclear power now and in the future.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon(delivered by Deputy Secretary-General Asha-RoseMigiro of Tanzania):

Twenty-five years ago, the explosion at Chornobyl shat-tered a region and shook the world.

Last week in Kyiv, the Secretary-General joined in com-memorating the 25th anniversary of the Chornobyl catas-trophe. He used the occasion to reaffirm his support for all

of the affected countries and people. He also launched afive-point strategy for nuclear safety going forward in thefuture.

We live in a time when both the adverse effects of cli-mate change and the demand for nuclear energy are expect-ed to grow. As we meet, the tragedy at Fukushima isunfolding. Our global debate on nuclear safety is moreurgent and more significant than ever.

If we learn the lessons of the past to protect the future,Chornobyls greatest legacy can be that it served as a cata-lyst for a new international approach to nuclear safety.

Now that a quarter century has passed since Chornobyl,we are shifting our response from emergency relief to long-term recovery and development.

The United Nations system is joining forces to carry outour Action Plan on Chernobyl to the year 2016. U.N. agen-cies with expertise in food, atomic energy, development,the environment, population, children, health and otherconcerns are all engaged.

Information is key to progress. That is why experts fromacross the United Nations system are uniting to share scien-tific findings, best practices and other lessons learned. Andwe are working to raise awareness among the local popula-tions who need our help and support.

Through the International Chernobyl Research andInformation Network, we are bringing together leadingU.N. agencies and the three affected governments. The net-work is training teachers, medical professionals and mem-bers of the media. It is providing local residents with practi-

cal advice on health risks and healthy lifestyles.Information centers are being set up in rural areas to givepeople there access to the Internet. And the Network is sup-porting projects that improve living conditions and promoteself-reliance.

By translating science into practical advice, we can helppeople live safely, calm fears and reduce the stigma thatstill affects the region.

Ambassador Yuriy Sergeyev, PermanentRepresentative of Ukraine to the United Nations:

Having passed through the nuclear disaster, people ofUkraine like no other nation understand the recent Japanesetragedy. Ukraine seizes and shares the sorrow and expressesits sincere sympathy with the Japanese people for its losesduring the recent natural disaster which led to the accidentat the power plant and diffusion of radiation.

Chornobyl as well as Japans catastrophes have madeus reconsider the destructive power of an uncontrolledatom. Intense discussion both at national and interna-tional levels as well as in the framework of the U.N.were resumed with the aim of working out the decisionon the future of nuclear power plants and their safety forhuman beings activities.

One can admit that overcoming the nuclear disastersconsequences is the achievable task for neither one genera-

tion nor one state, especially when it comes to the aftermathof the Chornobyl disaster. A number of social and economicprojects are being implemented at the Chornobyl affectedterritories, as well as investments from private and statesectors are being attracted, including those from abroad.

Our particular gratitude goes to the Ukrainians abroad.Since the very tragic day of the Chornobyl disaster untilnow a huge amount of humanitarian aid, collected byUkrainian organizations has been sent to children hospitals,Chornobyl rehabilitation center, to the communities in theaffected areas. During last decades here, in the U.N., manyevents conferences, concerts, bazaars were organizedby Ukrainians to raise global awareness to the Chornobyldisaster consequences.

We highly appreciate the participation of states in theConference of Donors to the Chornobyl Fund on the com-pletion of Chornobyl projects including the Shelter proj-ect. We can not but mention the European Bank forReconstruction and Development and its significant role as

the Administrator of the Chornobyl Shelter Fund andNuclear Safety Account. We welcome the creation of theInternational Scientific Center on exploration of technologi-cal risks related to the use of nuclear energy under auspicesof the United Nations and the International Atomic EnergyAgency.

25 years after the disaster we celebrate our achievementsan

the ukrainian weekly 2011-24

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