China rebuffs Russia's moves in Georgia

Your own communist compatriots are realizing what stupid idiots Russia is, while refusing to support their communist allies. Now isn't this an embarrassing moment Lilyput Putin for you and your cronies?

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang was quoted by state news agency Xinhua as saying "the situation in the region ... should be resolved in dialogue."

Full story here.

Source: MSNBC

Russia faces diplomatic isolation on Georgia

Russia faced diplomatic isolation over its military action against Georgia on Thursday, with its Asian allies failing to offer support and France saying EU leaders were considering imposing sanctions.

Moscow accused the West of heightening tension by a naval build-up in the Black Sea, and said talk of punishing Russia for recognising the independence of two breakaway Georgian regions was the product of a "sick" and "confused" imagination.

The Group of Seven rich nations condemned Moscow's "continued occupation of Georgia" and a group of Asian allies led by China, meeting at a regional summit, failed to follow Russia's lead on independence for two breakaway regions of Georgia.

Click here for full story.

Source: International Herald Tribune

EU threatens sanctions against Russia

"We ... condemn the action of our fellow G8 member. Russia's recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia violates the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Georgia and is contrary to UN security council resolutions supported by Russia."

In his interview, Miliband rejected the notion that his visit to Ukraine had been provocative. He said he went there because it was important to say to a friendly country that "we support their democratic choices". The foreign secretary reiterated Britain's support for Ukraine's wish to be in Nato and rebuked Russia for treating its neighbours as if they were either "enemies or vassals".

Incredible actions being taken by UK and the other European nations. Time to isolate Russia and let it choke on its own fecus.

Complete story here.

Source: Gaurdian

The West pledges its support for Ukraine - up to a point

Mr Miliband offered strong words of support during his talks in Kiev, but did not stray beyond EU and Nato policy of offering Ukraine eventual membership of both organisations.

"My visit is designed to send a simple message," he told an audience of students and diplomats gathered at Kiev's oldest university. "We have not forgotten our commitments to you. Nor shall we do so." He went on: "The Russian President [Dimitri Medvedev] says he is not afraid of a new Cold War. We don't want one. He has a big responsibility not to start one."

Let us hope?

Click here for full story.

Source: The Independent

West tells Russia to keep out of Ukraine

Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine’s pro-west president, highlighted the potential for conflict by questioning the agreement under which Russia uses the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol, in Crimea, for its Black Sea fleet. He said Russia’s actions were “a threat to everyone, not just for one country”.

His remarks were echoed by Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgian president. In Thursday’s Financial Times, Mr ­Saakashvili writes: “This story is no longer about my small country, but the west’s ability to stand its ground to defend a principled approach to international security.”

Meanwhile, the US avoided a potential clash with Russia by diverting a navy ship carrying aid to the Georgian-controlled Batumi instead of the Moscow-controlled Georgian port of Poti.

Click here for full article.

Source: The Financial Times

Russia's Delusion

Not only is there great press coming out of the UK, but many great articles being published in US press also, here is a sample:

IN TIME WITH Russia's unilateral recognition of the independence of the two Georgian provinces it invaded this month, President Dmitry Medvedev issued a statement, penned an op-ed and granted an unusual flurry of interviews. His intent was to justify Moscow's latest provocation of the West, which has been united in condemnation -- as was demonstrated yesterday by a statement by the Group of Seven industrial nations. Instead Mr. Medvedev merely revealed the dangerously arrogant and reckless mood that seems to have overtaken the Kremlin in recent weeks.

Click here for full story.

Source: Washington Post

Standing up to the Russian bully

The invasion of Georgia is the first significant step towards restoring part of the old hegemony. Disagreement over the Sevastopol base could provide the pretext for the next; thus Mr Miliband's visit to Kiev yesterday.

His presence in the Ukrainian capital was symbolically important and his analysis of the situation forthright. When it came to sanctions, however, he had little to suggest beyond lessening energy dependency on Russia.

Once again, let us rehearse the minimal steps the West should take to counter Kremlin bullying: expulsion from the G8; freezing consultation within the EU Partnership and Cooperation Agreement and the Nato-Russia Council; an invitation to Georgia and Ukraine by the alliance to join its Membership Action Plan; and the blocking of Russia's WTO membership.

Click here for full article

Source: The Telegraph

Like any bully, Russia can be faced down. Let's do it sooner rather than later

Another great article can be found about KGB Liliput Putin and his cronies in The Daily Mail Online, regarding the many possibilities that can come out of the Georgian conflict.
Here is a preview:

Ukraine is a free country with a lively media where nobody lives in fear of the midnight knock on the door, forcible incarceration in psychiatric hospitals or the arbitrary confiscation of property. Such things are the hallmarks of the ex-KGB regime in Russia.

Source: The Daily Online

"International outlaw"

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner called Russia an "international outlaw" and said the real worry was not a new Cold War but a "hot" one, suggesting that another Russian objective might now be Ukraine's mainly Russian-speaking territory of Crimea.
Full story here.

Source; BBC

Russia Is Dangerous But Weak

The Soviet Union wasn't invincible. And here's a crazy thought: The same laws of social, economic and geopolitical gravity that applied in Brezhnev's U.S.S.R. apply equally in Mr. Putin's KGB state.
Here is an interesting retrospective on this in the Wall Street Journal.

New mouthpieces for tyrany

Just as they had their mouthpieces before the likes of Duranty, new one's seem to be splurting out even today. To read this garbage, click here.

Source: Times On-line

Putin wins gold medal for bullying

After dounanciations from US President George W Bush and Canada's Prime Minister Steven Harper, on Russia's invasion of Georgia, the Australians have joined in on the melee.
We are certainly getting great coverage around the globe and the real truth about Liliput Putin the bully. Only the Moskali and their press seem to be licking the behinds of their incompetent leaders. Being scared in being sent to the gulag.

It is enough to make even the cynical shake their heads in disbelief. Europe's approach is weak and will cause bigger problems. So Putin wins the gold medal in his favourite event - bullying his smaller neighbours.

Click here for full article.

Is Dima Medvedev a Liar, or Simply an Idiot?

I would certainly lean on the side of idiot. Likewise to all of the cronies involved in trying to make it seem as Russia being the good guys? Yes, the list is long, Liliput Putin, Lavrov, Ivanov,Rogozin, Nogovitsyn, Solovtsov, Konoshenkov, Borisovand of course, Idiotov, Srakov and all that crap!!!

There are only two explanations for Russian troops "digging in" and driving over police cars blockading the major commercial port and taking prisoners when the "president" of Russia told the world they wouldn't:
(a) the "president " was lying,
(b) the "president" isn't really in charge, he only thinks he is - in other words, he's one of the greatest morons of world history.

Way to go Kyiv !!!!

Kyiv is on the new Monopoly board. It is twice as gratifying for me since Montreal got the top spot on the board as well, push over Boardwalk!!!! Glad to see Moscow not picked to be on the board, but knowing Putin, and his cronies board game strategists, they will probably want to bomb all the cities picked and take Imperial rule of the game. NOT/NYET!!!!!
Here is the link to the results.

Protecting Russian intrerests $$$$$$$

And here we thought that they (Russia - Moskali) are protecting Russian interests. And we do not mean human interest do we $$$$$$$
Today's Russian leaders, despite the paranoia learned in KGB training, have far more profound relationships with Western institutions, not only the Group of Eight and the Council of Europe but also with the Western banks and companies that invest their money and manage their property. Time to put a kybosh on this wouldn't you say?
Read following article by Anne Applebaum in the Washington Post.

Also, the West needs to respond to Russia's aggression in a clear and determined manner. That doesn't mean with force as we are witnessing from Russia. But the West, particularly the U.S., should continue to mobilize the international community to condemn Russia's behavior.

Ukraine risks wrath of Russia as Yushchenko sides with the West

But who's side is Ukraine supposed to take?
Russia has never completely reconciled itself to Ukraine's independence which Moscow viewed as an affront to the vision nurtured by Vladimir Putin, of Russia restored to its former might. Ukraine humiliated Mr Putin in 2004 when millions joined in demonstrations that became known as the Orange Revolution to overturn the results of a presidential election rigged in favor of a pro-Moscow candidate.
Click here for full story.

Courtesy: The Independent

Looney ville aka: Moskovska propaganda

President Dmitry Medvedev said: "The world has seen that even today, there are political morons who are ready to kill innocent and defenseless people in order to satisfy their self-serving interests, while compensating for their own inability to resolve complicated issues by using the most terrible solution -- by exterminating an entire people.
"I think that there should be no mercy for that. We will do our best not to let this crime go unpunished."
Is he talking about himself in such a manner?

Also Sergei Lavrov accused Nato of being "unobjective and biased".
"It appears to me that Nato is trying to portray the aggressor as the victim, to whitewash a criminal regime and to save a failing regime," he said.
These cookoos are really off the wall. First they play the role of GOD, saying what is right and whom it is right to punish.
Click here for full story.
Meanwhile, we can base our own opinions of what is really going on in Georgia.
Finally, Russia’s accusations of Georgia committing “genocide” in South Ossetia to justify invasion? Turned out to be a big fat lie:
Thanks to Ukrainian Canadian Andrew and Paulette at Nash Holos

Source: BBC

Shoulder to shoulder against Russia

We cannot remain deaf to cries for help from countries threatened by Moscow.
To do so would be to repeat Chamberlain's mistake.
Read full story here.

Source: The Guardian

Boot Russia out of the G8

Looks like the only muscle on Liliput Putin can be seen below his neck. Having a brain would be to much to ask for!!!!
Canada, hardly a world power, should do three things immediately: Prohibit any more Russians or Russian entities from acquiring any more Canadian corporations or assets; oppose its WTO membership and join the movement to boot Russia out of the G8.
Click here for full story.

Source: National Post

Ukraine torments Russia with show of solidarity

Ukraine, which to the fury of Russia is looking towards Europe and membership of Nato, announced last week that it would require the Russian fleet to seek permission whenever ships entered its territorial waters.
Click here for full story.

Source: Times On-line

Your time is running out Liliput Putin

Just as we get the news that President Mikhail Saakashvili, signed a EU-brokered ceasefire deal, Russia and their tyrannical leadership starting with Liliput Putin, started entrenching themselves in Georgia territory, with the looks of continued occupation and further destruction of a small free democratic country.

These war mongers are shooting themselves in the foot. They think by containing free press in their own backward country, that they will be able to do the same in the west with their propaganda machine. You still might have your mouthpieces scattered around the like's of Duranty, who was one of the main culprits in denial of the Ukrainian Holodomor in Ukraine.
But, today people can see through this smoke screen you keep spewing. This is not the 1950's Lilyput Putin, you are certainly no Stalin, even though you deep down in your little mind you might think so ( and little we mean very literarily).
Today, we have the freedom of speech and the free use of the Internet. So, whatever you and your cronies might think you might be getting away with today, the whole free world sees what a bunch of stumbling, bumbling losers you are. Your time is running out.................
Slava Hrusiyi (Georgia)

Slava Ukraini (Ukraine)

"Cold-blooded killers" and "barbarians"

These were the exact words coming from President Mikhail Saakashvili, which were delivered at a new conference after signing of an EU-brokered ceasefire deal that was delivered to Georgia by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He could not have given a clearer description of the present Russian clan that is running the backward state.
To read more about this click here.

Ukraine snubs Moscow on port

The surprise decree by Ukraine’s pro-western president requires Russian naval vessels to request permission 10 days in advance before returning to the strategically important port, which Russia leases from Ukraine. Russia’s defense ministry quickly denounced it as “not serious”.
Being not serious is something Russia must know quite well. After watching former president Gorbachev on Lary King live, it certainly shows how desperate the present corrupt regime is. Having to resort to Gorby's take on what is happening in Geoergia is really resorting to desperate. measures. After the interview Larry King had Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili on and in 10 minute interview he laid out the true picture of what is happening in Georgia. How liliput Putin and his KGB henchmen are destroying and pillaging Georgia.
I think Russia needs to resurrect some of the older guards from their graves, maybe Stalin can come and explain to Larry how he starved 10 million Ukrainian during the Ukrainian Holodomor 1932-1933. What a farce from the Russians.

Liliput Putin and Fifi Lavrov

At some time it will be necessary to choose between supporting this virtual project and [a] real partnership on questions which actually require collective action," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Article from BBC On-line

I would definitely chose the VIRTUAL PROJECT!!!! Virtual is the wave of the future, meanwhile Russia still lives in the past and can't face the reality of the future passing them by. Say it ain't so Liliput Putin?

Canada's Harper Condemns Russian Military Offensive in Georgia

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper condemned Russia`s military offensive in Georgia and called on the country to return its troops to positions held before the conflict.

``In escalating the conflict through its attacks on Georgian towns and cities outside South Ossetia, Russia has ceased to act as a peacekeeper,`` Harper said in an e-mailed statement.

Russia sent tanks, troops and warplanes into Georgia on Aug. 8 in what it said was a response to a Georgian offensive on South Ossetia, which won de facto independence from Georgia after a war in the early 1990s. Russia had peacekeeping forces in the breakaway province.

Russian forces crossed into Georgia`s heartland for the first time yesterday and took several towns and a military base, drawing criticism from U.S. President George W. Bush.

``It is imperative that Russia respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia,`` Harper said.

Story courtesy: Bloomberg

US has only tough talk for Russia

With the world watching, George Bush made the first move to stop bloodshed and further escalation of Russian troops encroaching into Georgia.
He said, "Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people," "Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century."
Unfortunately Russia still has not awakened up to the realities of 21st century, Putin and his despots are still living in their glory days of Soviet Union, which in reality has collapsed, last time I checked the world map. Wake up and smell the coffee comrades!!!!
To read more click here Source; BBC

Also, even though there has been an announcement to a cease fire, it looks like Russia is still doing what it wants.
Attacks continuing despite Russia halt claim (Source: CNN)

URGENT: VOTE TO HELP GEORGIA
PLEASE SIGN THIS ON-LINE PETITION TO HELP STOP RUSSIAN MILITARY
AGGRESSION AGAINST INDEPENDENT GEORGIA!
http://www.petitiononline.com/557799/

Russia Georgia fighting...U.S., Ukraine warn Russia

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) Ukraine is telling Russia it could bar Russian Navy ships from returning to their base in the Crimea because of their deployment to Georgia's coast. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry says the deployment could draw Ukraine into the conflict which gives Kiev the right to bar the ships from coming back to their base.
Source: http://www.kxmc.com/News/263154.asp

Georgia declares state of war with Russia

"We are dealing with absolutely criminal and crazy acts of irresponsible and reckless decision makers, which is on the ground producing dramatic and tragic consequences," Saakashvili said Saturday afternoon. Click here for full article from CNN.
Doesn't all this sound familiar? I guess daddy Stalin must be looking on proudly onto his

protégé Putin and company of wild bandits and criminals. And what kind of implication will this have on Ukraine?

I think all the world leaders should condemn this action taken up by Russia to bully it way into the world arena.

Solzhenitsyn's tarnished legacy

And what a tarnished legacy it was. It was startling to see Solzhenitsyn, the chronicler of the gulag, chatting with Putin, a career KGB officer. A month later, in an interview with the German magazine Spiegel, Solzhenitsyn explained that Putin "was not a KGB investigator, nor was he the head of a camp in the gulag," but rather an officer in foreign intelligence, an honorable career in many countries. But what about Putin' s dad, who fought on the side of the Nazi's. Good thing younger Putin did not want to kiss Solzhenitsyn on his belly, who knows what would have come out of that, purrrrrrrrr!!!! :-))) Not sure how kissing children's bellies ranked in Nazi guidebook? How would elder Putin look upon all this? And who has been kissing your cute belly, oh Mr. former Mr. President?
Never mind that, whatever division he worked in, Putin served in the same institution that hounded dissidents and sent people to the gulag; or that, after his ascent to power, he moved to restore the KGB and its predecessors to a place of honor in Russian history and society.
Click here for full article.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

With the death of Russia's Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the world has lost one of the great figures of the past century. In Germany, though, editorialist's criticize the role the Nobel Prize winner played in his later life in pushing Moscow away from the West. (Click here to view article.)

I also found this quite relevent in one of my favorite blogging sites, Cyber Cossack.

To end this piece here is Roman Sebyn's take on Solzhenitsyn denial of Ukrainian Holodomor.

Rest in piece black bird.....

Auschwitz survivor to be honoured

For most people, luck is just an idea. The hope that things might go their way and the fear that something bad could happen to them with no rhyme or reason.

Stefan Petelycky wears a symbol of his luck on his arm, a tattoo emblazoned with the numbers 154922. The number was branded on him when he was taken to Auschwitz when he was only 20 years old.

“I’m lucky, I think God needs me,” Petelycky said

To read full story click here.

SBU publicizes list of Soviet officials who engineered Holodomor Genocide

SBU publicizes list of Soviet high-ranking officials who engineered
Holodomor and repression in Ukraine
The Security Service of Ukraine has released on its website the first
list of high-ranking Soviet state and party officials and NKVD
henchmen who perpetrated and executed the man-made famine and
repression in 1932-1933 in Ukraine. The list also includes documents
signed by Holodomor perpetrators that served as organizational and
legal base for repression, SBU July 23 press service report says.
The documents taken from SBU archives convincingly prove that the
Famine of 1932-1933 was engineered by the criminal totalitarian
Communist regime. Now these hitherto classified documents have been
made available to the Ukrainian public.
Visitors to the SBU site can now not only acquaint themselves with
the list of Soviet officials but also read the documents signed by
them, protocols of Politburo sessions, secret instructions to party
members, the text of the infamous law imposing cruel punishment for
the theft of grain by famine-stricken peasants and death statistics
by law-enforcement bodies.
The publication is the start of a new project by the SBU to present
to the public classified documents from Soviet archives. The SBU
urges the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, the State Committee
on Archives, experts in regional state archives, Holodomor
researchers to join the project with the purpose of evaluating the
role of organizers and executors of the Famine and repression to
bring them to account.

Comment by ZIK
SBU says it has made public all available archive materials about the
Famine in 1932-1933. For the first time, SBU opened its archives in
2006, notably, the Soviet documents on Holodomor. These documents
have been included in "Declassified Memory. 1932-1933 Holodomor in
Ukraine as represented by NKVD documents,"
Kyiv, 2007. Its electronic version is available on the SBU site.
http://ssu.gov.ua/sbu/control/uk/publish/article?art_id=80420&cat_id=39574

In the light of historical truth

The Holodomor in Ukraine of 1932-33 is still an open wound in our national consciousness. Those years, which were the most terrible in all of Ukraine’s history, demand from each one of us not only liberation from the stereoptypes of the past but also the truth that comes from scholarly knowledge.
Of course, documented facts that expose a terrible tragedy like the Holodomor do not ease the pangs of conscience that are experienced by normal individuals once they become aware of what Stalin’s band of murderers did to Ukraine. However, it is the sacred duty of each one of us to feel (at least partially) the pain of that time.
Click here for full story fron Den news.

Vlad and the spinmeister: The ABC’s of Holodomor denial

This year Ukraine commemorates the 75th anniversary of the 193233 Holodomor, during which at least 5 million Ukrainians are estimated to have died as a result of forced starvation and collectivization under Stalin. Kyiv’s efforts to gain worldwide recognition of the tragedy as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people have been fiercely opposed by Russia, who has recently succeeded in using its political influence to prevent such recognition. Most recently, the United Nations General Assembly refused to discuss the Holodomor’s commemoration in the current session’s discussions at a plenary session on July 11. The decision came after one Member State, Russia, opposed a proposal by Ukraine. Meanwhile, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe passed a resolution on July 3 to acknowledge the Ukrainian Famine, despite objections from Russia and Kazakhstan. The resolution fell short of calling it an act of genocide. Speaker of the Russian Federation Council, Sergey Mironov, called the resolution “complete nonsense.”
Click here for full article from Kyiv Post about - Vlad and the spinmeister: The ABC's of Holodomor denial.

The famine in Ukraine through the eyes of foreign diplomats

In 1933 Mendel Khataevich, a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Ukraine (Bolshevik) 'I wonder which bolshivik party he represented?', declared that “a bitter struggle is being waged between the peasants and our government. It is a life-and-death struggle. This year was a decisive test of our strength and endurance. We needed a famine to show them who is boss here. It claimed millions of lives, but the collective farm system has been established, we have won the war.”
Click here to view full story.

U.N. denies Ukraine's genocide claim

NEW YORK, July 12 (UPI) -- The United Nations General Assembly has decided not to put genocide claims by Ukraine onto its current session agenda, Russian officials said Saturday.

Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin lobbied the General Assembly against opening discussions on Ukraine's claim that the catastrophic 1932-33 famine, which historians blame on Josef Stalin's failed efforts at collectivization, amounted to genocide.

The U.N.'s Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe went so far as to adopt a resolution condemning the famine, but fell short of recognizing it as an act of genocide, Churkin said.

"We believe it would be a disservice to the memories of hundreds of thousands of people who died of hunger in other countries and regions of the former Soviet Union to raise this issue at the U.N., in relation to only one of the regions that suffered," he told the Russian news service RIA Novosti.

Churkin said it wasn't only Ukraine that starved in what he called "a tragic page in the shared history of the peoples of the Soviet Union," but also Belarus, the Volga area, the Black Sea area, the Don area and the North Caucasus.

Source:UPI

Ukraine to investigate whether devastating 1932-33 Soviet-era famine was genocide

The probe is likely to anger neighboring Russia, which insists the famine was not genocide because Russians and other ethnic groups also suffered.

Verstyuk said the investigation is not aimed at extracting any compensation from Russia, the Soviet Union's legal successor.

"We are not putting forward any material or moral claims. What matters for us is to condemn Stalin's regime and those who surrounded him," Verstyuk said.

Estimates of the number of people who perished differ wildly. Yushchenko estimates up to 10 million Ukrainians died, while Stanislav Kulchitsky, a Ukrainian historian, believes 3.5 million perished.

Click here to view full article published in Kyiv Post

Annals of Neo-Soviet "Education" -- Denying Holodomor

A May 15th story in the Moscow Times about the repugnant parade of Soviet military hardware through Red Square a few days earlier stated:

After the parade, Medvedev hosted a champagne reception at the Kremlin for veterans. Medvedev has also sent out congratulatory telegrams to the leaders of other former Soviet republics. In his note to Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko, Medvedev warned him against any attempt to justify the Nazi crimes and "question the liberating mission of the Soviet Army," the Kremlin said. Many in Ukraine sided with Nazi Germany during the war, and who fought against the Soviets have been recognized and praised Ukrainian veteransunder Yushchenko. Putin, for his part, sent out congratulations to the prime ministers of the same countries, and in his telegram to Tbilisi he wished peace and well-being to the Georgian people. Relations with Georgia recently sank to a new low after Moscow increased the number of peacekeepers in Georgia's breakaway republic of Abkhazia, sparking fears of an armed conflict.

Click here for full article from Publius Pundit.

Ukraine is Russia’s best hope for geopolitical and cultural survival

Ukraine is a threat, however, not to the safety of Russia, but to Vladimir Putin's authoritarian state model, which is absolutely hostile to the West. It is essential for the Kremlin masters that the experience of their former neighbors who have chosen their own directions and models will never seem appealing to Russian citizens. They fear Ukraine, and its success, because it could offer an alternative to their path for Russia.
Click here to view full story from Kyiv Post website.

The truth about the Ukrainian genocide

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Great Famine in Ukraine, during which up to 10-million Ukrainians perished. The United States and others have recognized that it amounted to genocide. The Russian Duma, however, maintains the famine was only an unfortunate result of Soviet collectivization.

What actually happened in Ukraine in 1932-33? And did it really amount to genocide?

Full article from the National Post can be viewed here.

Britain and Russia: All is still not well

The conclusion to be drawn from these latest comments is that Britain believes that the Russian security service the FSB was operating largely independently, but in a permissive environment in which the Kremlin signalled that action against critics was allowed.

The Russian parliament even passed a law making it legal to carry out assassinations abroad.

You can read the full story here.

OSCE passes resolution on 1932-33 famine in Ukraine

ASTANA, July 3 (RIA Novosti) -- The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly adopted a resolution on Thursday condemning the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine but falling short of recognizing it as an act of genocide.
Members of parliament from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's 56 member states are currently meeting in Kazakhstan's capital, Astana, for their annual session.
At its spring session in April, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) endorsed a move by a number of Ukrainian politicians that the famine or the Holodomor be considered an act of genocide against Ukrainians by the Soviet authorities.
Russia's delegation, however, objected to the use of such language.
In late 2006 Ukraine's parliament recognized the Stalin-era famine as an act of genocide, but Moscow has consistently rejected Ukraine's interpretation of the Holodomor.
Estimates vary widely as to the number of deaths in Ukraine in the early 1930s caused by the forced collectivization, along with the devastating purges of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, religious leaders and politicians under Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Some sources cite figures of over 7 million. ASTANA, July 3 (RIA Novosti) -- The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly adopted a resolution on Thursday condemning the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine but falling short of recognizing it as an act of genocide.
Members of parliament from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's 56 member states are currently meeting in Kazakhstan's capital, Astana, for their annual session.
At its spring session in April, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) endorsed a move by a number of Ukrainian politicians that the famine or the Holodomor be considered an act of genocide against Ukrainians by the Soviet authorities.
Russia's delegation, however, objected to the use of such language.
In late 2006 Ukraine's parliament recognized the Stalin-era famine as an act of genocide, but Moscow has consistently rejected Ukraine's interpretation of the Holodomor.
Estimates vary widely as to the number of deaths in Ukraine in the early 1930s caused by the forced collectivization, along with the devastating purges of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, religious leaders and politicians under Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Some sources cite figures of over 7 million.

Why the Kremlin Is So Scared of Ukraine

Ukraine's success will mark the political death of Putinism -- the squalid and bankrupt philosophy of "KGB capitalists." If Ukraine succeeds in its European choice, if it is able to make it work, it can settle the question that has bedeviled Russian culture for centuries -- Russia or the West? So the best way to help Russia today is to support Ukraine's claim that it belongs to Europe and its institutions. This will influence the Kremlin's political mentality more than anything else.
Read full story from Moscow Times here.

Ukraine to erect statue of wartime nationalist leader

LVIV, July 1 (RIA Novosti) - A statue of Ukraine's wartime nationalist leader Stepan Bandera will be erected in Lutsk in western Ukraine, the city council said Tuesday.

The city's mayor, Bohdan Shyba, has instructed the local land department to allocate a plot for the monument by July 10.

Bandera was one of the leaders of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) which fought with the Soviet Army during the World War II. Following the invasion of German troops in the summer of 1941, Bandera called on Ukrainians "to help the German army in the fight against Moscow and Bolshevism."

Russia and Ukraine have been involved in a series of disputes concerning their common history.

Ukraine has decided to celebrate next year the 350th anniversary of the 1659 Battle of Konotop, in which the Ukrainian army of Ivan Vyhovsky and his Polish allies defeated Russian forces.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said certain political forces in Ukraine were trying to "find in the ... Russian-Ukrainian common history events and characters memorable only for the fact that they were acting against Moscow, Russia and Russians."

The historical sparring has developed into an unofficial war of monuments. In October 2007, the western Ukrainian city of Lvov inaugurated a statue of Stepan Bandera and adopted a resolution establishing the "Award of Stepan Bandera," while a sculpture of Catherine the Great was erected in the Crimean port of Sevastopol as part of its 225th anniversary celebrations this June.

Putin's New Evil Empire

Few things make the bien pensants more uneasy than talk of right and
wrong. They flinched when Ronald Reagan called the Soviet bloc,
rightly, the "evil empire". Sometimes that fastidiousness was simply
based on wilful ignorance. Reports of Stalin's terror, the Gulag,
persecution of dissidents or the bullying of the captive nations were
dismissed as tendentious or inaccurate. More often it was based on a
feeling that the West's own shortcomings were so appalling that we
were in no position to judge anyone else. Amid the ruins of communism
in Czechoslovakia in late 1989, I sat through an excruciating dinner
with my then foreign editor where I explained that the Czechs wanted
to become a "normal country". He couldn't share my enthusiasm. "What's
`normal' about Britain?", he asked scornfully — a country where
mounted police charged striking miners, where a quarter of the
population lived in poverty, and where you could be locked up for a
decade just for having an Irish surname.
Click here for full article by EDWARD LUCAS
From the new Standpoint magazine, which has
just launched. www.standpointmag.co.uk is the website.

The importance of heroes for our national heritage

Article 6 of the Law of Ukraine on Government Awards — “The Title of Hero of Ukraine” — states: “The title of Hero of Ukraine shall be bestowed on citizens of Ukraine for a heroic exploit or an outstanding career achievement.” Such individuals are awarded the Gold Star and the Order of the State, respectively. The latter decoration was instituted in 1998 in independent Ukraine, although I think its roots lie in the Soviet era. Between 1998 and Oct. 14, 2007, when Roman Shukhevych was honored, about 200 of these decorations were awarded, including more than 20 Gold Stars.

Medvedev Hits Out at Ukraine

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev condemned on Sunday
what he described as attempts to rewrite wartime history --- an attack
the Kremlin said was aimed at Ukraine and the three Baltic states.

I think the Soviet propaganda machine did a good job re-writing history themselves and now
comes the time where all their lies are being exposed. Like little children they are crying about the Holodomor which the Soviets who also lied for many years about ever happening are now saying that not only Ukrainians suffered during this tragic time.

Just like they seem to think Kyiv Rus is part of their Soviet history, when anyone with any historical knowledge can conclude Moscovy only came to any existence in 16th-17 century.

The Ukrainian 'genocide by starvation'

Memory is bound up with politics. Ukraine's President, Viktor Yushchenko, seeks support from Western nations in having the Holodomor declared an act of genocide. Russia opposes fiercely what it sees as a politicised and nationalistic campaign. There must be a historical reckoning for one of the great humanitarian catastrophes of the last century. But the manner of that commemoration risks inflaming relations between Ukraine and Russia, and exacerbating the Kremlin's distrust of the West.
Click here to view full story by Times On-line UK.

The main point

Something else frightens Russia even more: the revelation of the true nature of the Holodomor may have a disastrous effect on its imperialist historical memory. Therefore, those who seek to protect it will turn a deaf ear to any kinds of arguments advanced by the Ukrainian side. However, we must continue to persuade our fellow countrymen and the rest of the world that the Holodomor was the result of terror by famine — in other words, an act of genocide. This is our duty to all those who died in the throes of starvation, to their unborn children and grandchildren, and to ourselves.

Click here for full story from The Day, with historian Stanislav Kulchytsky and his Russian counterpart Viktor Kondrashin on the Holodomor.

Gareth Jones back in Ukraine

First British journalist Gareth Jones, to call the Ukrainian famine a planned act of terror and genocide. Interview with his niece Margaret Siriol Colley

Kyiv Chicken Festival

As a follow up to my previous posting, I made a very BIG error as to how the story line should be titled. Here is how is should have read as follows: "Beauty queen, Serhiy Ivanov :-)) warns Kyiv of holding its annual Kyiv Chicken Festival."
This is due to the fact that there has been a reduction of eggs in and around Kyiv. Where have all the chickies gone????
My deepest apologiesfor this BIG goof up.

Ukraine's largest chicken producers Nasha Ryabab holding about 45% of the market and under the control of Ihor Kolomoysky's Pryvat group have decide to enlist Tartak, Haytana and other musicians to pump their product. While I can't remember the exact date of the festival... I really don't think it will be as well attended as the many different festivals.
Hat tip to uaMuzic and not ruMuzic ~~~~ just having a little fun Vasyl! :-)))

P.S. Here is another great track with Tartak & Huliaygorod -
Oy uchora v Kumi (Kofein RMX)

POMAH

Ivanov Warns Kiev Over NATO! Hooohoooohooohooo...

Now, I would not call this friendly relations between so called brotherly countries. When things don't go Russia's way, they like to resort to threats. With Putin, it was a given, but reigning beauty queen Sergei Ivanov, has kept up with his compatriots wishes. So do we (Ukraine) join NATO, or do give in to the threats being issued whenever it does not satisfy Russia' needs, at the same time to to keep Ukraine subservient and tolling the line of the Kremlin? What will be the next threat, starving out the KULAKS as in 1932-1933 Holodomor? Makes you wonder?

Lithuanian ban on Soviet symbols

Lithuania's parliament has passed the toughest restrictions anywhere in the former Soviet Union on the public display of Soviet and Nazi symbols.
Click here for full story. Way to go Lithuania!!!! And of course while Soviet propagandists were writing and still keep writing their version of history, they cry foul on the hard truth.
Moscow's official interpretation of history is that Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were liberated from Nazi Germany by, then voluntarily joined, the Soviet Union. Gag me with a spoon...........

Nash Holos: Nash Holos Ukrainian Language School Final Exam

Nash Holos: Nash Holos Ukrainian Language School Final Exam

50 multiple choice questions based on the lessons in the CDs, so if you've been paying attention throughout the year, there is no reason you wouldn't ace the exam! (Although, if you haven't but are the type that likes a challenge, you should take it anyway.)

The study of genocide

ROMAN SERBYN

Département d'histoire, Université du Québec à Montréal
June 14, 2008

The Toronto District School Board curriculum on genocide is objectionable not by what it includes in the course of study but by what it leaves out (High-School Course On Genocide Draws Protests - Toronto edition, June 13). Forced starvation has been a weapon in the genocidal extermination of peoples since time immemorial. It was used in time of war to bring impregnable cities to their knees, and in time of peace to destroy undesirable minorities. To leave the Holodomor, the Ukrainian famine of 1932-33, out of the curriculum makes no pedagogical sense.

The UN Convention on Genocide describes various mechanisms of genocide. One of them is "forcibly transferring children of the group to another group." For decades, Canada perpetuated this slow genocidal destruction against our "first nations." Surely, this aspect of our history must also be included in any meaningful teaching about genocide.

More about this exclusion can be seen here.

No future for Soviet symbols in Ukraine

It’s high time to speak out loud about those directly responsible for repressions and tortures. It’s time for their public verdict. All over the territory of Ukraine one can still see thousands of monuments and other symbols, dedicated to apologists of communism, in particular to those who organised repressions. I have entrusted certain organs with the preparation of a bill which must commence real processes of liquidating symbols of totalitarianism and communist regime in Ukraine. I will also take care of parliament’s adoption of my bills about the juridical status of Ukrainians who fought for independence of Ukraine in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and about criminal responsibility for rejecting Ukrainian famine and holocaust. Click here for full article.

Message to Moscow

A complete 360 degrees from last weeks article published by The Globe and Mail, which was written by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Here is something more to the truth and fair assessment of imperialistic Russia. Click here to read the article by JAMES MARSON

Russia And Ukraine Clash Over 350-Year-Old Battle

A 350-year-old cavalry battle has become the latest irritant between Russia and its neighbour Ukraine after Russia's foreign ministry on Tuesday accused Kyiv of using the clash to foment anti-Russian feeling.

Oh, what else is new today in Russia. It is hard for the moskalyi to accept the fact that Ukraine does have it's own history and as well won it's share of battles, Konotop being one of them. We can name other's, but this will come in future postings. For now feel free to read the following article on Russia's dismay.

The Konotop battle was with a few exceptions an abandoned topic in Russian Imperial and in Soviet historiography. This attitude towards this event is explained by the fact that it dispelled some Russian propaganda positions about the unity of East Slavs, in particular the ones about "eternal friendship of Russian and Ukrainian peoples" and about "natural desire of Ukrainians for union with Russia". For all the skill and the bravery of the Cossacks — especially those defending Konotop — it still remains a bitter victory. A victory that did not have any significant impact on the course of Ukrainian history, where fratricidal war of the Ruin and personal ambitions of treacherous hetmans prevailed. As such, the Konotop battle remains a classic example of the battle won and a war lost.

Soviet Union helped Nazi Germany instigate the horrors of the holocaust

Many historians acknowledge the sacrifices the Soviet Union made to defeat Nazi Germany in the Second World War. However, a film released in Latvia is suggesting that the Soviet Union helped Nazi Germany instigate the horrors of the holocaust. The move has been condemned by many as an attempt to rewrite history.

President visited Solovetsky Monastery

In Russia President Viktor Yushchenko visited GULAG Museum situated on the territory of Solovetsky Monastery (Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russian Federation). President's press office reports.

Staying at Bolshoy Solovetsky Island President put flowers near the Monument to GULAG victims and near the statue of the last Koshovyi Otaman of the Zaporozhian Host Petro Kalnyshevsky.

Then President Yushchenko took a tour of the monastery and took part in a liturgy commemorating establishers of it.

Ex-KGB Thugs Ruining Russian Legacy

Here is an excerpt I found in th St.Petersburg Times, about the lovely situation that is bearing fruit in the former Soviet Union. Or at least calling the Soviet Union's collapse the "biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the century," by some long forgotten president. I wonder whom the author of this article was referring to?
"The former KGB thugs who now control the country are stomping Russia’s last historical chance into the dirt. They are doing everything to show the world that Russia is led not by civilized, respected leaders, but by a street gang from Lubyanskaya Ploshchad."
Click here to view the article.

Another Good way of de-russifying Ukraine

Here is the lastest from InfoUkes bulletin. Once again Ukrainian publishers have beaten the Russian in translating and releasing a foreign bestseller– this time it’s “The Children of Hurin,” the latest novel by iconic writer J.R.R. Tolkien
Kateryna Onyschuk from Lviv who translated the novel said that while working on Tolkien’s book she dreamt of elves and gnomes, helping her come up with the best translations.
http://www.kyivpost.com/guide/general/29052/

Way to go Kateryna!!!
2:0 for the good guys/gals..... Kateryna's I mean!

President`s wife sues member of parliament

Kateryna Yushchenko, wife of President of Ukraine Victor Yushchenko, will sue member of parliament Leonid Hrach (the Communist Party faction) for his slanderous statements about the President’s family.

Click here to view article.

Also very interesting article here, time to turn the the table around, I would say!!!!

Marsha Singh - British Labour MP Tables Motion to Recognize Holodomor as Genocide

*MP calls for genocide ruling*

Telegraph & Argus
By Anika Bourley

http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/newsindex/
display.var.2322162.0.mp_calls_for_genocide_ruling.php

A Bradford MP is calling for the Ukrainian famine of 1933
to be officially recognised as an act of genocide.

Marsha Singh, the Labour MP for Bradford West, has tabled
an early day motion in the House of Commons and is hoping
to get the backing of fellow MPs.

There is no international consensus among scholars or
politicians on whether the Soviet policies that caused the
famine fall under the legal definition of genocide.

Mr Singh said: "The Holodomor was an appalling act of
inhumanity and immense tragedy which lead to the death
by starvation of seven million Ukrainians.

"I have asked for the Government to officially recognise
it as an act of genocide.

Chernihiv pays tribute to James Mace

I can keep publishing the many articles that James Mace had written in his living days, and I can keep re-reading them, each time a different perspective comes to light. How much we miss you dear James. It is if you are still with us, guiding us all through these trying times. Ukraine still has so much to do to recognize and bring the world to recognize the tragedy of the Holodomor.
I post this article in your memory. My mom was born in Chernihiv and survived the Holodomor, a child, four years old who was one of the lucky ones to come out of this alive. I remember her talking about this horrific happening and for me it was not conceivable that such a thing could really happen. And here you come into the region of my mother's birth and people honor your memory and we honor the memory of the 10 million who died.

I was chosen by your dead - Legacy of the Famine: Ukraine as a postgenocidal society

As we are on the topic of Holodomor, I certainly would like to add one of the best articles I ever came across on this topic. This would be by the late Jame Mace. Here is a little caption.

"Ukrainian history of the period, along with documents,
speeches, and editorials carried literally every day by the
official press of Soviet Ukraine, the main features of the Soviet
official policy toward Ukraine became completely clear to me.
At this point a digression is in order. Why should I, a born and
bred American, take up such a topic? What did I need it for? I
have been asked this question very often and I have often
been tempted to ask in turn: Why should millions of Russians,
Jews, Armenians, and Ukrainians travel across the ocean to
that faraway godforsaken country, my America? I did it
because Ukrainian Americans required such research, and
fate decreed that the victims chose me. Just as one cannot
study the Holocaust without becoming half Jewish in spirit, one
cannot study the Famine and not become at least half
Ukrainian. I have spent too many years for Ukraine not to have
become the greater part of my life. After all, Martin Luther said,
"Here I stand, I can do no other."

Click here for full article.

Mace died in Kyiv at age 52. He is survived by his wife, Natalia Dziubenko-Mace, one son from a previous marriage, William, and two adult stepchildren.

The Order of Yaroslav Mudry, 2nd Class was awarded posthumously to Mace by President Viktor Yushchenko, in 2005. A monument in his memory will be established in Kiev in 2008.

World forgets, Canada remembers

'If we keep demanding that Germany and Japan atone for their wartime crimes, is it not time for our governments to finally recognize and atone their alliances with the biggest mass murderer in history, Stalin? His crimes exceeded those of Adolf Hitler by a factor of at least four times.'

It is certainly refreshing to see Canada's media outlet, Toronto Sun and in particular, Eric Margolis exposing the truth about soviet propaganda and the Holodomor issue.

Click here to read Eric's full article.

Also few outstanding pieces by Eric Margolis:

• Time to hear an apology for the Great Terror in the Soviet Union

• Famine of 1932-33 - RememberinUkraine's Unknown Holocaust

• Seven million died in the 'forgotten' holocaust

Ukraine must pursue perpetrators of Holodomor

by:Lubomyr Luciuk

Only as the Soviet Empire exfoliated could the truth about the Holodomor be addressed openly. By 1991, however, many survivors had died. And, to this very day, some in post-Soviet Ukraine defend the Soviet past, so obfuscating their own complicity in the many crimes of Communism.

Nevertheless, efforts have been made to recover Ukraine's true historical memory. The fourth Saturday of every November is now a national day of mourning in Ukraine. And President Viktor Yushchenko's government has sought international support for the recognition of the Holodomor as genocide, a campaign furthered during his recent Canadian visit when our Parliament passed a bill doing just that.

This is all good but also off-point. For Kyiv is ignoring a far more pressing duty. Just as Holodomor victims remain alive, so do some of the perpetrators. If Ukraine allows those real liars to pass away unpunished, then all of the above is nothing but an unforgivable hoax, a falsehood that could never be forgiven.

Click here for full story.

---

World forgets, Canada remembers

Canada's planned recognition of the 1932-1933 genocide, or Holdomor, in Ukraine is very significant, even if long overdue. It was also apropos for this week's visit of Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko, who remains that troubled nation's best hope for democracy and continued independence.

Ottawa's decision was motivated as much by ethnic politics as historic justice, but Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government deserves kudos for doing the right thing.

For eight decades, the greatest mass murder in modern history has been shamefully covered up or ignored. I was shocked to receive letters from young Ukrainian-Canadians saying they had known nothing about the Holdomor until reading about it in my columns. Hopefully, more now will know.

Click here for full story by Eric Margolis, Toronto Sun

Ukrainian famine not a genocide

Alexander Solzhenitsyn is back at it spreading misinformation, read his latest outburst on Ukrainian famine not a genocide, and becoming another mouth piece for Vladimir Putin and his cronies.

After being such an ardent fighter for telling the truth and exposing the atrocities inflicted by the Soviet Union, in such works as, "The Gulag Archipelago." he has changed directions quite drastically.

Being awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970, he has not received much acclaim since then.

The first sign of Solzhenitsyn turning to the dark side, speaking in terms of Star Wars, came after President Bush visited Ukraine and paid tribute to the victims of the Holodomor 1932-1933, he launched a memorably waspish attack on George Bush.

Solzhenitsyn's later statements have demonstrated an increasingly nationalist anti-western tone, and he appears to be a fan of President Vladimir Putin, who gave him a literary award last summer.

Funny how people can switch sides for the prizes they receive. I have a cracker jack surprise myself, which I would like topresent to this nobel literary laureate for his absconding from reality. To read more about the true facts of the Holodomor, please click here.

To finish off here is a self proclaimed quotation from the same man who seems to have changed his orientation and objective in life, go figure.........

"I have spent all my life under a Communist regime, and I will tell you that a society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed. But a society with no other scale but the legal one is not quite worthy of man either."
Alexander Solzhenitsyn -

Ottawa moves to recognize 1932-33 Ukrainian famine as genocide

OTTAWA — The Canadian government moved yesterday to become one of the first in the world to recognize the 1932-33 Ukrainian famine, the Holodomor, as a deliberate act of genocide.

On a day when Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government marked the visit of the leader of the Orange Revolution, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, with elaborate pomp, it also took a historic step to acknowledge the millions who died in one of the darkest chapters of Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union.

Click here for full story.

Remembering the Holodomor horror

Ukraine's quest to tell the world how its citizens suffered during Stalin's genocide comes to Ottawa. Catherine Lawson reports.

The Holodomor International Remembrance Flame (Montreal)

The Holodomor International Remembrance Flame is traveling around the world.
Its Canadian itinerary includes a stop in Montreal.

It was very sad and discouraging to see the few people turn out for the ceremony to commemorate the victims of the Holodomor (Great Famine 1932-1933), in Montreal. This must be the first time I really felt such discouragement and questioned the fact of who was organizing this event. Who ever was involved did a disservice to the the whole Montral Ukrainian community.

The ceremony took over 2 hours and people who were speaking (invited speakers), all kept repeating themselves. The people who were there all knew what was the story and history behind the Holodomor. The goal of such an event would be to reach out to the people who knew nothing of this tragic event and educate them on this. The saddest part was the media coverage which was not evident at the scene of the ceremony. The coverage of this event after the fact was not heard of in print media or radio and tv. :-(

There were two bright spots to this event, the young students who put on a mise a scene and explained the whole story of the Holodomeor better than any of the speakers who performed before them. Too bad more than half the people left before their presentation, something that should have been first on the menu.

Also, a bright spot in the ceremony was 87-year-old Holodomor survivor Stefan Horlatsch who travelled with the International Holodomor Remembrance Flame throughout Canada. After being received by Premiers of the western provinces and finally reaching the final destination in Ottawa in front of Prime Minister Harper and President Yushenko of Ukraine, who was out there to greet him in Montreal from an official capacity, nobody!!!! Very sad indeed........

More to follow!!!

Estonia tries Soviet war figure

An elderly Soviet war hero, Arnold Meri, has gone on trial in his native Estonia on a charge of genocide over deportations to Siberia in 1949. It is time for Ukraine and Ukrainian government to follow suit. There certainly are many NKVD and SMERSH members living on fat pensions in a country they pillaged and raped. Just go out on May day and they can be herded up and brought to justice.
Click here for full article on heroic steps taken on by Estonia. BRAVO!!!!

Canada to recognize Ukrainian famine as a genocide

Tuesday, May. 13 2008 6:27 PM ET

The Canadian Press

OTTAWA -- Canada is poised to formally recognize as a genocide the 1930s famine in Ukraine that claimed millions of lives.

A senior government official tells The Canadian Press that Conservative MPs are planning to support a private member's bill introduced by Manitoba Tory MP James Bezan.

It's a shift from last fall when a government official said they had no plans to recognize the deaths as a genocide.

Liberal and NDP members have pledged support for the bill, which would also set aside an annual memorial day in November.

More than a dozen countries, including the United States, already formally recognize the famine as a deliberate attempt by the Soviet regime of Josef Stalin to eliminate ethnic Ukrainians and end their aspirations for independence.

But some academics -- and many Russians -- disagree.

But what else is new with Russia which remains in a state of denial about the horrific crimes their predecessors inflicted on millions of people throughout Eastern Europe and Asia, click here to see why.

Passing the Holodomor Remembrance Flame - Stefan Horlatsch

Passing the Holodomor Remembrance Flame

May 3: 87-year-old Holodomor survivor Stefan Horlatsch holds the International Holodomor Remembrance Flame, as members of Edmonton's Ukrainian community commemorated the 75th anniversary of the famine-genocide of 1932-33, at the Alberta Legislature.

Ukraine’s International Remembrance Flame 2008

Canadian Tour - April 18 - May 3, May 22 – 26, 2008

Keep the Flame Alive

An International Remembrance Flame to raise awareness of the 75th anniversary of the Ukrainian genocide known as Holodomor, or extermination by famine, and to gain formal Canadian and international recognition of this atrocity arrives in (Winnipeg on Sunday, April 20.)

The Flame tour honors the estimated 10 million Ukrainian men, women and children who were subjected to starvation and death in 1932 -33 by the communist regime of Joseph Stalin as part of his effort to eradicate Ukraine as a country

The Flame, visiting 33 countries, arrived in Canada from Australia on April 18.

The Canadian journey of the Flame entitled Keep the Flame Alive is being organized by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress in cooperation with the Embassy of Ukraine. Events will honour the victims of this horrific tragedy while ensuring that the story of the Holodomor is passed along from generation to generation.

Keep the Flame Alive will also launch a national campaign urging the Canadian government to recognize the Holodomor as an act of genocide.

The Flame will be escorted throughout Canada by Holodomor survivor and Toronto resident, 87-year-old Stefan Horlatsch.

The International Holodomor Remembrance Flame will visit the following Canadian centres: Winnipeg, Yorkton, Regina, Saskatoon, North Battleford, Vegreville, Calgary, Red Deer, Edmonton, St. Catharines, Hamilton, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa.

More information on Montreal event to follow....

Rice attacks ‘reprehensible’ Putin warnings

Rice attacks ‘reprehensible’ Putin warnings
By Daniel Dombey in Washington
February 13 2008 20:23

Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, on Wednesday highlighted the tense relations between Moscow and Washington when she hit out at Russia’s “reprehensible” rhetoric and said she would appoint a special energy co-ordinator for central Asia, a region dominated to date by Russian energy interests.
Appearing at the Senate’s foreign relations committee, Ms Rice responded fiercely to questions about recent Russian behaviour, including President Vladimir Putin’s suggestion this week that Ukraine could be targeted with nuclear missiles and his warning of a new arms race with the west.

“The unhelpful and, really, I will use a different word, reprehensible rhetoric that is coming out of Moscow is unacceptable,” Ms Rice said.
Relations between Moscow and Washington have hardened in the wake of disputes over Russia’s objections to proposed US missile defence bases in Poland and the Czech Republic, as well as US concerns about what it sees as Mr Putin’s use of intimidation at home and abroad.
But the US secretary of state emphasised that she believed the principal areas of difficulty related to the post-cold war map of Europe – on issues such as North Korea and Iran, the two countries co-operated much more closely.

“The Soviet Union . . . is gone forever, and I hope that Russia understands that,” she said. “We are absolutely devoted to the independence and sovereignty of Ukraine and of other states that were once a part of the Soviet Union.”
Ms Rice was prodded by Richard Lugar, the committee’s ranking Republican, to respond to Russian initiatives with countries such as Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Serbia and Bulgaria that seem to have cemented Moscow’s position as gas supplier to the rest of Europe.

“I do intend to appoint, and we are looking for, a special energy co-ordinator who could especially spend time on the central Asian and Caspian region,” she replied. “It is a really important part of diplomacy. In fact, I think I would go so far as to say that some of the politics of energy is warping diplomacy in certain parts of the world.”
Privately, many US officials complain that the European Union has not made a more effective attempt to build relations with the central Asian countries that provide Russia with an increasingly important part of its gas supply, or to forge a common policy on Russia.

In other comments, Ms Rice said that the US and Nato’s development and counter-insurgency effort in Afghanistan, which has been widely criticised in recent weeks, was “not as good as it needs to be”. She emphasised the US’s call for other Nato countries to step up, both in providing troops and forging a more coherent development strategy.
Joseph Biden, committee chairman, praised Ms Rice’s promise that an agreement to be negotiated with Iraq would contain no security guarantees. He had previously said that it could “bind” the next administration into a large troop presence in the country.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

Survivor of Spirit Lake internment camp

Mary Manko Haskett, the last known survivor of the Spirit Lake internment camp in Northern Quebec where so-called enemy aliens were detained during the First World War, died in Mississauga, Ont. on July 14. She would have been 99 on Aug. 10.
Click here to read full story from Montreal Gazette, Saturday, July 21, 2007.

"He was innocent but it took more than a decade to confirm."

The Hill Times ran Lubomyr Luciuk's op ed (below) on the Wasyl Odynsky case in today's (4 June) issue. May I suggest that you write in with your views? The more letters they get the more likely it is that MPs of all persuasions will appreciate our point of view.
Thanks.Letters to the Editor of The Hill Times should be sent to: news@hilltimes.com

He was always innocent. But it took more than a decade to get that confirmed. Last month Cabinet ruled that Wasyl Odynsky will not be denaturalized and deported despite his having been demonized as a “Nazi” and a “collaborator” for over ten years.

Wasyl was just a teenager when the Second World War began. Press-ganged into a guard unit at the Trawniki labour camp he tried to escape. Recaptured he was told that if he attempted desertion again his entire family would be punished severely. Later he was transported to Germany, a slave labourer.

At war’s end Wasyl found shelter in a Displaced Persons camp, unwilling, like most political refugees, to return to the Soviet-dominated end of Europe. Eventually he was selected for resettlement in Canada. He swears he was never asked about his wartime service. That rings true. In the course of research on post-war immigration I interviewed dozens of DPs. Most reported being vetted primarily to determine if they were healthy and had useful skills.

Certainly no one disputes that Mr Odynsky has lived an exemplary life in Canada, raising a family, being a faithful churchgoer and active member of his community. He has no criminal record here. And in a 2001 ruling, federal court Judge Andrew MacKay found that Mr Odynsky served involuntarily throughout the war, had never been a Nazi, and that there was no evidence of any wartime wrongdoing on his part. Yet Mr Justice MacKay did accept Ottawa’s assertion that all DPs were screened thoroughly. And so he found that Odynsky may have lied to secure Canadian citizenship. It bears noting that all relevant screening documents were long ago destroyed, so there is no actual proof of what Mr Odynsky was asked, or answered. Thus the case boiled down to Wasyl’s word against the government’s claim that their officials perfectly screened each of the many hundreds of thousands of DPs they dealt with in the chaos of post-war Europe. Given that Ottawa’s men can’t seem to do that in peacetime this boast strains credibility, but I don’t claim a federal judge’s acumen.

Why Cabinet has decided not to expel Odynsky is unknown. Perhaps they recognized the simple truth that stripping someone of Canadian citizenship should be a serious matter, to be contemplated only when there is credible evidence of criminal wrongdoing. There isn’t any in Odynsky’s file.

Unfounded allegations did expose Odynsky, his family, and even his community, to many indignities. Unfortunately, Ottawa is unlikely to offer Wasyl an apology, or compensation for what he endured, unless he and his buddies get their hands on an old school bus and blockade a railway line somewhere soon. Given that we are dealing with a law-abiding 83 year old, whose community never gets federal grants that can then be applied for the purpose of undermining the national economy, that too seems unlikely. All one can hope for is that Mr Harper’s government will recognize that the process of denaturalization and deportation is critically flawed and will do away with what is, after all, a Liberal legacy. Whether someone is guilty of being a war criminal should be determined in our criminal courts, nowhere else.

If, however, advocates of denaturalization and deportation get their way, and this illiberal method continues to be applied, at least it should be used without prejudice. There are self-confessed veterans of the notorious Soviet secret police, the NKVD, SMERSH and KGB, enjoying pensions here. Some arrived just after the war, just like Wasyl. Were they screened as carefully as he allegedly was? If so they must have lied about their wartime activities. Since, by their own published accounts, their service to Stalin included torturing and murdering, one must ask - what are they still doing here?

As I have never met a Canadian who wants this country to house any war criminals, particularly real ones, the RCMP should be investigating how Communist killers came to be living amongst us. I, for one, would be happy to see them all rounded up and expelled, whence they came. They were killers. Wasyl wasn’t. That’s why he can stay.


Professor Lubomyr Luciuk wrote Searching for Place: Ukrainian Displaced Persons, Canada, and the Migration of Memory (University of Toronto Press, 2001) and is co-author of Their Just War: Images of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Kashtan Press, 2007).

Some Canadians don't care about their own history

A very sad commentary by someone who knows very little about Ukrainian Internment. Here is a post by Paulette MacQuarrie and her comments to this story in the National Post.
Click here.