UKRAINIAN CANADIANS CALL FOR RESPECT FOR UKRAINE’S NATIONAL DIGNITY
On September 22, 2010 Ukrainian Canadians gathered at a Vigil before the Ukrainian Embassy in Ottawa to defend Ruslan Zabily and to express their concern over the policies of the administration of Ukraine’s President, Victor Yanukovych.
Organized by the Canadian Conference in Support of Ukraine (CCSU) and supported by the Ukrainian Canadian Students’ Union (UCSU), the participants displayed signs calling for the removal of the Minister of Education, Tabachnyk, and the head of the Institute of National Memory, Soldatenko, and the head of the SBU, Khoroshkovsky. Other signs called for the government to stop falsifying Ukrainian history and tell the truth about Soviet Russian crimes in Ukraine, for the President to acknowledge that the Holodomor of 1932-33 was an act of genocide, and for the government to keep Russian oppression out of Ukraine. There also were signs of support for OUN/UPA as freedom fighters, support for human and national rights, and support for Ruslan Zabily, as well as poster-size portraits of Ruslan Zabily. Ruslan Zabily is a historian and director of the National Memorial “Prison at Lonsky” Museum in Lviv that has been the object of repressive actions by the SBU in recent weeks.
Official representatives included: Oksana Prociuk-Ciz, League of Ukrainian Canadian Women (LUCW) National Executive; Orest Steciw, League of Ukrainian Canadians (LUC) National Board; Zenon Ciz, National Vice-President, UCSU; Mykola Koshyk, National President, Society of Veterans of UPA; Andrea Kardasz, Ukrainian Youth Association of Canada (CYM) National Executive and President, CYM Etobicoke; Borys Potapenko, CCSU; Maria Kret, President, LUCW Etobicoke; Ivanna Baran, President, CYM Ottawa; Adriana Willson-Buyniak, President, LUCW Ottawa; Adriana Sirskyj, President, USC University of Ottawa; Petro Kardasz, President, LUC Etobicoke; Stefania Stadnyk, CYM Montreal; Borys Mykhaylets, President, LUC Toronto.
During the Vigil, the Charge d’affaires of the Embassy, Mr. Ihor Kyzym, was presented with the official Statement of the CCSU. Mr. Kyzym invited a few participants into the Embassy where a frank and fruitful discussion ensued. Participants from the Vigil included primarily members of Ukrainian student clubs in Ottawa and the metro Toronto area: Andrea Kardasz, Zenon Ciz, Adriana Sirskyj, Katrusia Dodds, Stefania Stadnyk, Luba Kostiw, and Ivanna Baran. Also participating were Borys Potapenko and Orest Steciw. The participants from the Vigil stressed the importance of restoring Ukraine’s national history and identity and, in this regard, called for the replacement of Tabachnyk and Soldatenko. The nearly hour-long discussion concluded with mutual assurances that all efforts will be directed toward safeguarding Ukraine’s nation-statehood and advancing vital national interests.
The CCSU statement that was given to Mr. Kyzym and forwarded to the Canadian government was read out at the Vigil by Zenon Ciz. It states in part:
“The case of Ruslan Zabily has drawn international attention, including a petition signed by leading academics and researchers from around the world. In Ukraine, academics from leading institutions of higher learning issued their own petition in defence of Zabily and the National Memorial. Civic activists have held demonstrations throughout Ukraine, including at the SBU headquarters in Kyiv, where Mr. Zabily was detained and interrogated for over 14 hours. The protesters defiantly distributed CDs containing the same files of alleged “state secrets” that were confiscated from Zabily.
International indignation is sourced in the SBU’s decision to criminalize actions that make public declassified 70-year-old archival documents about human rights violations by the government of a state that ceased to exist nearly 20 years ago. The USSR broke up and Ukraine declared its independence in 1991.
It is inadmissible that what constitutes the history of our homeland should be determined by the Security Service and politicians, and not historians and researchers. The goal of the regime is to reinstate a historical record that will facilitate re-russification leading to Russia regaining de facto control over Ukrainian society. In fact, the newly appointed head of the National Memory Institute, charged with unearthing, figuratively and literally, the truth about Soviet repressions, is a former Communist Party historian, Soldatenko.
The regime increasingly mimics tactics used by the Kremlin under Putin in Russia. The targets of this new policy have been journalists, academics, students and even clergy. As a consequence, the Human Rights Section of the Interior Ministry has been closed. The President has abolished the National Commission on Freedom of Speech and Information Development. Reporters without Borders and the European Federation of Journalists incessantly report on abuses.”
The statement also made reference to a letter from President Yanukovych to the Ukrainian Diaspora and sent to the Ukrainian Congress Committee just days before his arrival in New York “in the hope of undermining public expressions of opposition to President Yanukovych’s policies during his visit to the United Nations in New York City.”
The Vigil organizers conclude their statement with calling “on President Yanukovych to match his recent words with deeds. He needs to compel his administration to cease and desist in its campaign against academics, researchers, journalists and civic activists. He also needs to replace the Minister of Education, Tabachnyk, the head of the National Memory Institute, Soldatenko, and put in place at the Ministry and the Institute academics, archivists and researchers dedicated to the unfettered pursuit of restoring Ukraine’s history and national memory. We further call on the President to replace the head of the SBU, Khoroshkovsky, and to restore the Human Rights Section of the Interior Ministry and the National Commission on Freedom of Speech and Information Development.
Finally, we call on the Canadian government to serve notice upon the Ukrainian government that abuse of democracy and human rights will not be tolerated. We ask our fellow Canadians to continue to speak out on the case of Mr. Zabily and the National Memorial ‘Prison at Lonsky’ Museum.”
Speakers at the Vigil included Anna Nazarowicz from the LUCW who read out a petition in defence of Ruslan Zabily signed by well over a hundred Ukrainian academics in Ukraine. The petition also makes reference to how the Yanukovych regime is humiliating Ukraine in the eyes of the world: “We deplore the use of command-administrative methods with respect to the study of Ukrainian history for the purpose of placing it under government control. We maintain that the political persecution to which Dr. Ruslan Zabily is being subjected will spark an international outcry, which will damage Ukraine’s reputation and the authority of its ruling structures.”
Orest Steciw read the statement from the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) signed by its Chairman, Stefan Romaniw: “The OUN opposes actions of Ukrainian government that violate human rights, undermine vital national interests, and have initiated a total assault on the Ukrainian national revival and its activists. The OUN calls on the international news media to focus on the violation of human rights in Ukraine. We also call the governments of the world who understand and value the call for “Freedom for Nations – Freedom for Individuals” to voice their protest to the President and Foreign Minister of Ukraine about the violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
Petro Kardasz from the LUC spoke about actions by President Yanukovych that undermine the good name and stature of Ukraine, as well as respect for Ukraine as an independent state: “that Yanukovych is copying Putin’s policies in Russia, an economic basket case and a political dictatorship… that corruption has intensified under Yanukovych’s watch… that there has been a retreat from minimal standards of democratic governance… and that he is turning Ukraine into an oriental despotism that exists in Russia”. He also noted that “this humiliation of Ukraine is seen by not only some in the Diaspora but that these views are widely held throughout Canada, the U.S. and Europe.”
The vigil was held in solidarity with similar protests on the same day in New York City at the Ukrainian Mission to the United Nations, in Chicago and elsewhere to bring international attention during President Yanukovych’s visit to the UN. It also was a further public action of support for the national democratic forces in Ukraine, similar to rallies and demonstrations held throughout the Diaspora in recent months, including in the U.S., Australia, England, and Germany and in many other countries in Europe.
The CCSU statement concludes with the words: “Only through concerted action on the part of governments and NGOs alike can Mr. Zabily and all others seeking to defend and advance academic freedom, democracy and civil society in Ukraine know that the world is watching and is standing with them.“
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