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.

'Enemy aliens' remembered

Quebec's ukrainian community honours the hundreds of people who were detained and forced to do hard time in harsh conditions in places like the Valcartier military base during the First World War. Click here to read complete article.

Ukraine goes home proud after reaching last eight

HAMBURG, Germany -- Debutants Ukraine bowed out of the World Cup proud of reaching the quarter-finals although their style has won them few admirers.
Coach Oleg Blokhin's side exited the tournament after a 3-0 defeat by Italy on Friday but they had already surpassed their aim of qualifying from Group H and return home satisfied.
Among the dark horses after an impressive qualifying campaign in which they became the first European team to clinch a place at the finals, Ukraine never really sparkled on the pitch but they nevertheless managed to grind out results.
"We are completely happy with our performance," said Blokhin. "We did very well for the first time.
"We made it to last 16, to the quarter finals. As a coach I'm really happy with their performance."
Click here to read complete story.

Story courtesy of:
http://worldcup.reuters.co.uk/ukraine/news/usnL0128453.html

Ukraine toasts its World Cup heroes

The victory over Switzerland was all the more sweet because it was largely unexpected from a team that is making its first-ever appearance at the World Cup.
"I don't think that anyone really believed in us," head coach Oleg Blokhin said in a post-match interview, according to the Interfax news agency. "Many had long ago written us off, thinking that debutants can't be competitive against experienced teams."

Now Ukraine will face Italy on Friday, while Gemany plays Argentina. If Ukraine and Germany meet, this will bring much inspiration to the Ukrainian side... especially if they recall that the last time Ukraine's Dynamo team played Germany was during WWII, when they won the game but lost their lives.

Recalling the Dynamo versus Germany: Soccer Match of Death would bring much attention to Ukraine's turbulent history, and hopefully undo many wrongs that have been put upon the Ukrainian nation.
Babi Yar “”Cossacks”

Good luck to Ukraine and see you in the finals!

hat-tip to CyberCossack http://www.cybercossack.com/

Shevchenko restores Ukraine’s equilibrium

When Shevchenko scored with a header in the first minute of the second half, it looked as though a rout of 2002 proportions, when the Germans put eight past them, might be on the cards for the outclassed Saudis. But they rolled up their sleeves, kept plugging away and even fashioned some half-chances of their own as the Ukrainians took their foot off the accelerator. Even so, Kalinichenko nearly added a fourth with an exquisite 66th-minute strike on to the top of the crossbar.
The good news for Ukraine was that Shevchenko, who played 85 minutes and eventually did lay on a fourth for man-of-the-match Kalinichenko, moved sweetly throughout and appears to be over his injury, as Ukraine football supremo Grygori Surkis said before the match that he was.
Click here to read full story.

UKRAINE: Coaches' Quotes

Oleg BLOKHIN (UKR) I’m extremely disappointed. We weren’t disciplined at all and the players failed to follow the instructions the coaching team gave them. We’ll have to analyse our mistakes very closely and lift the players for next game. We’ll also need to rebuild the defence completely. After all, though, this is our very first World Cup finals and we need to pick up some experience.
I’m not so much disappointed about the result as the attitude of the players. It’s embarrassing for all of us and I want to apologise to the Ukraine fans for the performance we put in. We can’t play like that again. We just crumbled.
Spain played a very complete game, they were solid and fully deserved to win. Xabi Alonso also had a terrific game. Sadly, we’ve been the worst European team in the competition so far.

Ukraine Out To Garner Respect In Its First Cup Appearance

Joanna Wypior - All Headline News Staff Reporter
Frankfurt, Germany (AHN) - Ukraine's Anatolii Tymoschuk reveals that his side will be able to garner well-deserved respect in his country's debut appearance at the World Cup tournament.
Ukraine face Spain, Tunisia, and Saudi Arabia in the first round of matches, and are already predicted to be come out of the group with a strong effort.
"During the last qualifiers, we can make the conclusion that some of our rivals didn't expect our kind of style and level of playing football," Tymoschuk tells Sky Sports. "They didn't appreciate us.
"Since we won the group stage for the 2006 World Cup, the situation has changed. I think that now, every rival appreciates us as a very strong team.
"We have won a very strong group with Greece, Turkey and Denmark, so we are ready to fight during the World Cup.
"We have to prove to everybody our level of playing football. We are ready to fight in every match with every rival.
"Some people tell us that we don't play extra attractive football. They are right, we don't express 'show' on the field, but we can fight and compensate for it by our character and we have to prove our level of playing."
Ukraine face Spain in their first match on Wednesday, June 14th at Zentralstadion in Germany.

World-Shevchenko scores on Ukraine return

LUXEMBOURG, June 8 (Reuters) - Ukraine captain Andriy Shevchenko gave his side a huge World Cup boost on Thursday, scoring as a second-half substitute in his first game for a month out with a knee injury.
Shevchenko, the 2004 European Player of the Year, featured for 30 minutes as Ukraine defeated Luxembourg 3-0 in their final warm-up.
The 29-year-old, one of the most feared strikers in world football, appeared to show no ill effects from the injury, sustained while playing for AC Milan, which has forced him to miss friendlies against Costa Rica, Italy and Libya.
He tapped in the easiest of chances from a deflected pass as Ukraine scored twice in the final seven minutes for a somewhat flattering victory against a team ranked 152nd in the world.
Shevchenko entered the fray just minutes after pony-tailed striker Andriy Voronin, also a substitute, had broken the deadlock after an insipid first half at the Stade Jose Barthel.
Voronin despatched a clinical right-foot shot past Jonathan Joubert to cheer a 100-strong band of Ukraine fans who had grown frustrated by their side's lacklustre opening 45 minutes.
Another substitute, Maxim Kalinichenko, added a third goal as Luxembourg tired. World Cup debutants Ukraine open their Group H campaign on June 14 against Spain in Leipzig. Ukraine, the first European side to secure qualification for Germany, are based in Potsdam, near Berlin, for the opening stage of the month-long tournament. Tunisia and Saudi Arabia make up Group H.

Ukraine's Century-Long Quest

Ukraine will finally get the chance to appear in a World Cup for the first time, in Germany, despite a proud footballing history that stretches back over a century.The first documented evidence of introduction to the game comes from the western Ukrainian city Lviv, where the first football match between the hosts and the visitors Krakow was held on July 14, 1894.It was a sudden-death match, held at a newly built 7,000-seat stadium in Stryisky Park, which ended in the sixth minute when Wlodzimierz Gatynsky of the host team netted the winning goal.By the beginning of the 20th century, football was rapidly becoming popular in most regions of Ukraine, which was then part of the Russian empire.Dozens of teams and leagues were established in almost every Ukrainian city due in large part to the influence of the British companies which were doing business in the region and are credited with popularising the game.The visit of Turkish side Fenerbahce to Odessa just before the outbreak of World War I opened the international football era at Ukraine. Click here to read full story.