Nuremberg 2

The criminal case, which the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) opened in May 2009 over the 1932—1933 genocide in Ukraine, has ended up in a file of closed cases. The materials that the Prosecutor General’s Office had referred to the Kyiv Court of Appeals produced ample evidence to indict Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich, Postyshev, Kosior, Chubar, and Khataievich for organizing and perpetrating a crime of genocide in Ukraine, which resulted in the death of 3,941,000 people (as established by a forensic demographic examination). The case was closed due to the death of the perpetrators. Yet the criminals are facing another trial which is already in progress and will go on for more than one decade in the memory of Great Famine victims and their descendants – the Judgment of History.

Viktor Yushchenko called the verdict a landmark event that restores historical justice and gives a chance to build Ukraine on democratic principles.

“The Ukrainian court’s ruling shifts any Holodomor debates from the political to the legal field. From now on, only facts, rather than political or historical stereotypes and myths, can be the only argument in this debate,” the guarantor of the Constitution emphasized.

The president of Ukraine suggested establishing an international tribunal for communist crimes. He advanced this proposal to the leaders of other Eastern European states which has suffered from communist regimes, such as Russia, Poland, Georgia, the Baltic States, and others. “The ideology and practices of Stalinism must be condemned in the same way as the ideology and practices of Nazism were,” Yushchenko said. To this end, he proposes signing an international agreement on the principles of the tribunal’s formation, functioning, and statute. Therefore, the ruling of Kyiv Court of Appeals not only restores historical justice but also lays a reliable legal foundation for demanding that the world community recognize the 1932–33 Holodomor an act of genocide. As is known, this recognition is opposed by Russian officials and historians who are increasingly recognizing the very fact of famine (not only on the territory of Ukraine) but, at the same time, are desperately looking for arguments against recognizing it as genocide of the Ukrainian people.

Immediately after the Ukrainian court handed down this ruling, Moscow officials began to voice protest. State Duma Chairman Boris Gryzlov says it is a political decision. “Ukraine’s leadership is trying again to prove that Russia is taking a negative attitude to the Ukrainian people – this is the only pretext that I can see,” the Duma speaker said.

Konstantin Kosachov, chairman of the State Duma’s International Affairs Committee, chose to interpret this Ukrainian court ruling as part of Yushchenko’s election campaign. He still believes this ruling has no convincing evidence of genocide precisely against the Ukrainian people. As head of the Russian delegation at the PACE, Kosachov is going to deliver a report at the next session (January 25) on the mass-scale famine in the former USSR in the 1930s, which he says will be more interesting and significant event in this debate than “the marginal ruling of a Ukrainian court.”

Saken Aimurzaev, a journalist at Russia’s Moscow Echo radio, expressed a different viewpoint in his blog: “from this day on, all Ukrainian history manuals will have it written black in white: ‘On January 13, 2010, a Ukrainian court found Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich, Kosior, and the like, guilty of nothing but murder.’ And there will be no more live TV debates on the monster’s merits, no recognitions of the criminals’ managerial skills, and no murderers’ quotations on the subway walls.” Can anybody say it better?

Meanwhile, SBU Chairman Valentyn Nalyvaichenko has already said that the court ruling creates an opportunity for those who lived through and suffered from the Holodomor to claim for compensation in cash. He says it is a widespread world practice to pay compensations to the victims of crimes against humanity, which the 1932–33 Ukraine Holodomor in fact is, according to this court ruling. The SBU chairman says there are hundreds of thousands of people who lived through and suffered from the Holodomor and are now living in Ukraine, and they are fully eligible for compensations.

The head of the Political Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Goeran Lindblad, welcomed the ruling of the Ukrainian Court on condemnation of the Holodomor. “All decisions made by courts are important. It is very important that the Court of Ukraine has condemned the Holodomor,” UNIAN quotes Lindbad as saying. He noted that the Holodomor was deliberately orchestrated by the Communist regime. “There were other cases of famine in parts of the Soviet Union, which were sometimes artificially devised as well, but they cannot be compared with the Holodomor that killed so many people, during which people were forbidden from using the foods stolen from peasants or kulaks as they were called,” he said.

COMMENTARIES

Olha HERASYMIUK, member of Ukraine’s Parliamentary Delegation in the PACE:

“Lindblad’s standpoint is very important. In 2006, this man successfully defended the report on the need for international condemnation of the crimes committed by totalitarian regimes. It was a famous report, although we failed to include the Holodomor in it, as it had been blocked. Lindblad supports us in our attempts to demand that this crime be condemned, and obtain the passage of a resolution with terms as close as possible to our statements.

“This man represents that kind of Europeans who did not remain muted in the 1930s, knowing the truth. He also represents those Europeans who still today, in a very complicated period of geopolitical re-division of the world, continue to speak out for condemnation of the crimes supported by totalitarian regimes. Thus, it is very important that he has welcomed the decision. I hope that his voice as the head of the PACE Political Affairs Committee will indisputably boost our strength and power in reaching our goal.

“I must note that the report is being drafted by the Political Affairs Committee. Therefore the committee will support the report and the corresponding resolution. But the head of the committee does not have the right to affect the flow of events. Lindblad expressed his personal position as an author of the report and as a champion of this movement, emphasizing the need to condemn totalitarian regimes. He insists that all crimes of the totalitarian communist regime, with no exception, must be revealed and condemned. Consequently, he has welcomed the ruling of the Ukrainian Court as someone who would have wished, by was unable, to speak out against the Holodomor at the time.”

Igor CHUBAIS, Doctor of Philosophical Sciences; director, Center of Russian Studies, Russian University of the Friendship of Peoples:

“In this sad situation, when we say that the Holodomor was extermination of the peasantry, I can only support this decision of Ukraine. There were more peasants wiped out in the USSR than Jews during the Holocaust. Nevertheless, the entire world has recognized the Jewish catastrophe, while the extermination of peasants in this country is not considered a problem at all. Besides, Moscow is still trying to make us think that Russia is Stalin. But Stalin was a murderer of Russia itself.

“In this situation, I think Ukraine has made a right and well-grounded decision. I will only be glad if this line continues after the elections in Ukraine and if the one who will be at the head of this country takes the same position about the Holodomor. We must clear up and impartially assess things in history – otherwise we will be making the same mistakes and follow wrong guidelines.

“It is difficult for me to say how Russia will react, but the opinions that I can hear here are bereft of logic. One of them is that if Ukraine does not demand money, it is quite good. In other words, the whole problem is being reduced to material instruments. Some of the Russian observers are taking a dim view of Ukraine’s determination to investigate the Holodomor circumstances – ‘the whole Soviet Union, not only they, suffered.’ In my opinion, it is nonsense pure and simple. Yes, not only Ukraine but also the Caucasus, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia suffered. But in this case there must be an international court to pass judgments and give assessments.

“When our government says Putin is a controversial figure, I do not think this is a right answer. For all the well-known figures were and are controversial – Putin, Stalin, Yeltsin, etc. But Stalin committed a crime against the people and must be held responsible for this – both for the Holodomor and mass-scale shootings of officers and intellectuals. I personally welcome what is going on in Ukraine in this field.”

Ihor YUKHNOVSKY, chairman, Ukrainian Institute of National Memory:

“I consider this ruling one of the most significant events in the entire history of independent Ukraine. It was legally confirmed for the first time that we are a political nation whose court has found concrete persons guilty of committing homicide by famine in 1932–33. However,

I personally believe that most of the blame for this tragedy falls on Lenin and Trotsky – they are the real murderers. I am very pleased that this ruling was handed down, and I am very proud that our judicial system has passed a fair judgment. I told the Russian mass media twice that I approve this step as a fair one.”

Volodymyr VASYLENKO, Doctor of Law, Professor:

“This event is, without exaggeration, of historical importance. Having heard the case based on a Holodomor lawsuit filed by the SBU, the court unequivocally ruled that a crime of genocide was committed against the Ukrainian ethnic group on the territory of Soviet Ukraine in the second half of 1932 and the first half of 1933. The Stalinist communist regime deliberately exterminated millions of Ukrainian peasants who formed a major part of the Ukrainian nation.

“The court ruling is a result of studying unique materials that consist of 330 volumes of archival documents and evidence. The ruling emphasizes that the case was opened and investigated in full conformity with the Ukrainian law.

“James Mace once noted that Ukraine is a post-genocidal society, which is a result of genocide against the Ukrainian nation. This ruling is important, because it is not only a point of departure in condemning the crimes of the Stalin-led communist totalitarian regime: it should also prompt us to systemically study the disastrous consequences of this process and draw up and implement comprehensive measures aimed at reviving the Ukrainian nation, revitalizing our society, and promoting democratic development of independent Ukraine.”