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E. Morgan Williams, Senior Advisor, U.S.Ukraine Foundation (USUF)
Washington, D.C., Friday, January 9, 2004
WASHINGTON, D.C.......U.S. Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO)
has again written his colleagues in the U.S. Senate to inform them about the
resolution he introduced, S. Res. 202, "Expressing the sense of the Senate
regarding the genocidal Ukraine famine of 1932-33" on Monday, July 28, 2003.
A bipartisan group of 26 Senators have now signed on as co-sponsors of
the resolution. The resolution has not yet been considered by the full U.S.
Senate as it has to first pass the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
chaired by Sen. Lugar (R-IN). There are indications that the resolution is
being held up because it is the first time that the Senate is declaring the
famine as a genocide.
There has for several years been a real hesitancy on the part of the U.S.
government to declare certain events as genocides. Efforts in the past
by Armenian/Americans to have the tragedy imposed on their country in
1915 by the Ottoman Empire in Turkey declared a genocide by the U.S.
Senate have failed.
The U.S. Ukraine Foundation (USUF) believes it is very important for the
U.S. Senate to remain steadfast it its declaration that the Ukrainian
tragedy was a genocide and is in full support of Senator Campbell's
continuing efforts in 2004. USUF has been informing friends of Ukraine
throughout the U.S. about the efforts to pass such a resolution in the
U.S. Senate.
Please take a look at Senator Campbell's latest "Dear Colleague" letter
below and see if your Senators have agreed to co-sponsor the resolution
or not.
Additonal Senator's are needed as co-sponsors. If your Senators are
have not yet signed onto the resolution please contact them and urge them
to sign on. Please contact USUF's Marko Serbinsky at
mserbinsky@usukraine.org if you need additional information on this
matter.
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The following is a copy of the letter sent on January 8, 2004, from U.S.
Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO), Co-Chairman of the Helsinki
Commission, to each of his Senate colleagues:
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U.S. Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO)
U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C., January 8, 2004
"Joseph Stalin and those around him committed genocide against Ukrainians in
1932-33." -- Conclusion of the U.S. Commission on the Ukraine Famine
Dear Colleague:
Last year, I introduced S. Res. 202, a resolution commemorating the
millions of innocent victims of this Soviet-engineered famine. I urge you
to join the bipartisan group of 26 Senate colleagues cosponsoring this
resolution: George V. Voinovich, Mike DeWine, Richard J. Durbin, Frank
Lautenberg, George Allen, Norm Coleman, Barbara A. Mikulski, Saxby
Chambliss, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Arlen Specter, Russell D. Feingold, Dianne
Feinstein, Jon S. Corzine, Paul S. Sarbanes, Rick Santorum, Barbara Boxer,
John Kerry, Carl Levin, Wayne Allard, Charles Schumer, Joseph Lieberman,
Mark Dayton, Hillary Clinton, Debbie Stabenow, Mary Landrieu, and Edward
M. Kennedy.
Seven decades ago, a Famine in Soviet-dominated Ukraine and
bordering ethnically-Ukrainian territory resulted in the deaths of millions
of Ukrainians. In his seminal book on the Ukraine Famine, Harvest of
Sorrow, renown British historian Robert Conquest writes, "A quarter of the
rural population, men, women, and children, lay dead or dying, the rest in
various stages of debilitation with no strength to bury their families or
neighbors."
In 1988 - a few years prior to the fall of the Soviet empire - the
Congressionally-created Ukraine Famine Commission following a four-year
long inquiry concluded that "Joseph Stalin and those around him committed
genocide against Ukrainians in 1932-33." Archival evidence since the Soviet
Union disintegrated has only reinforced and documented the genocidal nature
of the Famine.
The Ukraine Famine was not the result of drought or some other
natural disaster, but of Soviet dictator Stalin's inhumane, coldly
calculated policy to suppress the Ukrainian people and destroy their human,
cultural and political rights. It was the result of deliberate starvation.
Requisition brigades, acting on Stalin's orders to fulfill impossibly high
grain quotas, took away the last scraps of food from starving families,
including children, often killing those who resisted. Millions of rural
Ukrainians slowly starved amid some of the world's most fertile farmland,
while stockpiles of grain rotted by the ton. Meanwhile, the Soviet
Government was exporting grain to the West, rejecting international offers
to assist the starving population, and preventing starving Ukrainians from
leaving the affected areas in search of food. The Stalinist regime - and,
for that matter, subsequent Soviet leaders and their apologists in the
West - engaged in a massive coverup of denying the Famine.
Please join me in remembering the innocent victims of this tragedy.
It is important that the world not forget this genocidal famine and that we
support Ukraine's independence and democratic development as the best
assurance that atrocities such as the Famine become truly unthinkable. If
you are interested in becoming a cosponsor of the Ukraine Famine resolution,
please have your staff contact Orest Deychakiwsky
(orest.deychak@mail.house.gov) at the Helsinki Commission at 5-1901.
Sincerely,
/s/
Ben Nighthorse Campbell,
U.S.S.
Co-Chairman of the Helsinki Commission
[Thanks to Orest Deychakiwsky for distributing Sen. Campbell's letter.]
[To read a copy of S. Res. 202 regarding the genocidal famine in Ukraine
click on: http://www.artukraine.com/famineart/senate_resol.htm.]
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