European Parliament on Holodomor

The Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita reports that signatures will be gathered from next week to a resolution stating that the terrible Famine in Ukraine of 1932-1933 was genocide.  In order that the declaration becomes an official European Parliament document, over the next three months the signatures must be obtained of no less than half the MEPs, i.e. 393 out of 785.

The declaration states that Holodomor of the Ukrainian nation was planned and carried out by the Stalin regime and was “one of the most brutal crimes of the twentieth century in Europe and should be acknowledged and named as genocide by the international community.”

The signatures are being collected by Polish MEPs at the initiative of Konrad Szymanski from the “Law and Justice” [PiS] party, which drew up the draft resolution. The resolution has already been signed by the leaders of the two largest factions in the European Parliament – Charles Ternock (UK) on behalf of the Social Democrats and Marek Sivec [Poland] from the Socialists.

The Polish proposal in the European Parliament is in response to President Yushchenko’s call, the latter having stressed the need to have the Famine of 1932-1933 recognized as genocide, the paper explained.

“Today’s Russia is carrying out a policy of anti-lobbying or hushing up criminal facts from Soviet history, including Holodomor. Russia has had a great deal of time to resolve this matter which is an open wound in its relations with Ukraine. Instead we see Moscow returning to a historical policy in which denial of memory and hushing up of important events dominate”, Konrad Szymanski stated. He added that the Polish delegation would make all effort to ensure that the European Members of Parliament understand the importance of this issue. Material has already been prepared in English, French and German.