NEWSLETTER

UKRAINIAN WORLD CONGRESS

UWC DELEGATION MEETS WITH UKRAINIAN CANADIAN ORTHODOX HIERARCHY

On Wednesday, March 29, 2006, a delegation of the Ukrainian World Congress, headed by UWC General Secretary Victor Pedenko and including second vice-president, Maria Szkambara, treasurer Olya Danylak and Ukrainian Canadian Congress President  Orysia Sushko met with His Eminence Metropolitan John and His Grace Archbishop Yurij of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Canada. The purpose of the meeting, held at Archbishop Yurij’s residence in Toronto, was to formally and in person greet Metropolitan John on his election as the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Canada and establish a line of communication for cooperation between that Church and the UWC. We extend our sincere gratitude and best wishes to both hierarchs.  

UWC URGES FRANCE TO REMEMBER FAMINE VICTIMS

      We should like to make several additional points, which may facilitate a response.  The Famine of 1932-22 was initially covered up by the Soviet communist regime and its propagandists. However, even before the demise of the USSR and more so since due to additional available evidence it has now become a matter of undisputed historical record. We know of no reputable historian, excepting perhaps Prof. Lacroix-Riz who denies its occurrence or how it was instrumented. In fact, former Communists have come forward to acknowledge its occurrence, instrumentation and the intent of its perpetrators.  France witnessed the publication in 2003 of a book, authored by former French Communists, entitled “The Black Book of Communism” in which a chapter is devoted to this tragedy. Allow us to quote directly from this publication:

     “Five years before the Great Terror that was to strike the intelligentsia, industrial administrators, and the Party itself, the Great Famine of 1932-33 appeared as the decisive episode in the creation of a system of repression that was to consume class after class and social group after social group. Through the violence, torture and killing of entire populations, the great famine was a huge step backward both politically and socially. Tyrants and local despots proliferated, ready to take any step necessary to force peasants to abandon their goods and their last provisions, and barbarism took over. Extortion became an everyday practice, children were abandoned, cannibalism reappeared, epidemics and banditry were rampant, new death camps were set up, and peasants were forced to face a new form of slavery, the iron rule of the Party-state…. Should one see this famine as”genocide of the Ukrainian people,” as a number of Ukrainian historians and researchers do today? It is undeniable that the Ukrainian peasants were the principal victims in the famine of 1932-33, and that this “assault” was preceded in 1929 by several offensives against the Ukrainian intelligentsia, who were accused of “nationalist deviations… ”

    Mr. President, your public position on this issue is of great importance to your French constituents, among them representatives of the French-Ukrainian community. Perhaps more significantly, Communist crimes, and in particular the Great Famine have been deplored by numerous countries throughout the world and most recently their representatives, including the French, at the January session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. 

OUR GRATITUDE FOR ELECTION SUPPORT

During the recent elections in Ukraine the UWC defrayed some of the costs for international observers from our communities within the Russian Federation and Poland. The UWC received generous financial support specifically for this purpose: 10,000 $Can from the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and 1,000 $US from the United Ukrainian American Relief Committee. A heartfelt thank you goes out to both these UWC member-organizations.

IN MEMORIAM

The Reverend Petro Ovad from Bosnia passed away on Easter Sunday, April 23, 2006. Father Ovad was the quintessential Ukrainian pastor who looked after the spiritual and physical well being of his flock. He was also our main contact in Bosnia. Father Ovad was born in Bosnia, studied in Croatia and served as a priest and church builder in all three regions of the former Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia. Equally important to the Ukrainian communities in the Balkans, Father Ovad was a community political and cultural activist, educator and surrogate parent to many children both from the aforesaid three regions and from the Chornobyl zone. Our heartfelt condolences go out to his wife and children, extended family, his parishioners and the Ukrainian communities in Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia. May he rest in peace! Certainly, he will be remembered by many.