To: letters@latimes.com
Subject: Letter to the Editor
L.A. Media Miss the Mark on Holodomor Genocide Coverage
Two women, both in their 80s and both survivors of the events, were there. So were four priests, dressed in religious vestments, representing the various Ukrainian parishes of Los Angeles. Two ambassadors, one the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States the other the Ukrainian Ambassador to the Vatican, were present. The Consul General of Ukraine in San Francisco was also there. In addition to these dignitaries, a small crowd came to huddle around the monument in the Los Angeles County Mall previously erected to honor those who perished. They all came to mark the solemn occasion – the 75th anniversary of the Holodomor genocide initiated by Moscow that killed 10 million Ukrainians through starvation in 1933.
What was most significant, however, was who was not there, namely, the media.
The event was purposefully held on Tuesday May 6th, 2008 at 3:30 in the afternoon - a time that was convenient and close-by for those who were invited. Not even the Los Angeles Times, who were personally contacted no less than six times, could be bothered to come even though the event took place one block from their building.
This would not be so significant were it not for the fact that 75 years ago, according to survivors, the biggest fear of those who perished in the Holodomor was that the world would never know how and why they died or care about them. Back then, on orders from Moscow, government troops came to villages requisitioning grains to meet the Kremlin’s quotas and, at gunpoint, took away grain even when peasants did not have enough grain to feed themselves. Those peasants who had no grain were deprived of any other food stocks they had, including cattle. While these requisitions proceeded in the Ukrainian countryside, the entire country was sealed off. Nobody was allowed to leave or enter. Meanwhile, Moscow exported over 1.5 million tons of grain abroad to sell at reduced prices. The result was mass starvation.
Stalin and the Kremlin leadership did a good job of covering up the evidence. Thanks to their denials and the misinformation of journalists like New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty, (a Pulitzer prize winner who falsified the true situation in Ukraine writing instead that there was an abundant harvest), the Ukrainian genocide is not widely known even today. Judging by the actions of the media in Los Angeles, this is not going to change any time soon.
So the question arises, what were the media covering on that day?
The big story for the media that day was taking place next door to the Holodomor remembrance. At the county courthouse, Britney Spears was applying for custody of her children. Two television network vans were there to broadcast the news live around the world. A score or reporters jostled with each other to be the first to report the court decision. The thought that the remembrance event was no more than 50 feet away and might be worthy of even a quick visit did not cross anyone’s mind.
One can always argue that television and radio can only cover so much. Their capacity to cover news is restricted by the medium. The print media, on the other hand, have more space to devote to news events. The Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 edition of the Los Angeles Times, therefore, merits special attention. So what did the Times consider newsworthy on Tuesday, May 7th, 2008?
The lead story was the race between Obama and Clinton for the leadership of the democratic party. Fair enough. Indeed there were some important stories worthy of the attention of the Times on that day. The aftermath of the Myanmar cyclone, U.S. border patrol apprehensions of illegal immigrants, the police busting a college drug scene, Cuban aid, a Chilean volcano and Palestinian clashes with police in the West Bank were just some of these. But let us consider what other stories appeared that day that the Times considered as more significant and worthy of coverage than the 75th Holodomor genocide anniversary.
A long lead story involved bicyclists in New York. There was the story of China lending Japan two pandas. A story about rules that limit home sizes and hotel conversions made it into the paper that day. A Villa Park eyesore being torn down was important. The O.C. emergency center needing repairs and there being no proof that a Taser at the O.C. jail killed a cat were also included.
These were the stories that the Los Angeles Times, self-styled “leading source for local, state, national, world, entertainment, and sports news” led by David D. Hiller, publisher and chief executive officer, Russ Stanton, editor, Megan Garvey Assignment editor and the others at the Los Angeles Times considered worthy of attention on Tuesday, May 6th, 2008. Let them stand by this legacy.
It was the philosopher George Santayana who said those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Let us hope that the news black out of the Holodomor genocide remembrance in Los Angeles on May 6th, 2008 was not a symptom of a society that has not yet learned Santayana’s lesson.
Andy J. Semotiuk
Andy J. Semotiuk is an attorney practicing in Los Angeles. A former United Nations correspondent stationed in New York, Mr. Semotiuk wrote articles for Southam News Services and other newspapers in the United States and Canada. Mr. Semotiuk is a member of the Los Angeles Press Club and of the law firm of Manning and Marder in Los Angeles.
UKRAINE- HOLODOMOR: “THE CASE FOR SEVEN TO TEN MILLION”
By Askold S. Lozynskyj
President, Ukrainian World Congress (UWC)
Toronto, Ontario, Canada; New York, New York
Monday, April 21, 2008
On 7 November 2003, twenty five member countries [1] (subsequently, fourteen
more member countries signed directly or sent letters of support) issued a
Statement to the 58th Session of the United Nations’ General Assembly, which
was transmitted to the Secretary General of the United Nations by the
Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the UN. The Statement read in part:
In the former Soviet Union millions of men, women and children fell
victims to the cruel actions and policies of the totalitarian regime.
The Great Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine (Holodomor), which took
from 7 million to 10 million innocent lives and became a national
tragedy for the Ukrainian people. In this regard we note activities in
observance of the seventieth anniversary of this Famine, in particular
organized by the Government of Ukraine.
On 10 November 2003, the Ukrainian World Congress (hereinafter UWC)
issued a Statement In Support of Remembering the Victims of the Great Famine
1932-33 in Ukraine. The Statement, distributed in the United Nations, read
in part:
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the enforced famine of 1932-33,
engineered by the Soviet regime in which 7-10 million Ukrainians
perished.
On 29 January 2008, the United Nations’ Committee on Non-Governmental
Organizations, holding its 2008 Regular Session from 21-30 January 2008,
considered the UWC’s 2003-2006 quadrennial report and submitted the
following questions for further clarification:
1) What is the position of your organization on the joint statement
about the “Holodomor” made during the 58th of the United Nations
General Assembly?
2) What are the sources of the numbers of the deaths from the “Great
Famine” in your statement?
On 30 January 2008, the UWC responded:
Thank you for your consideration of our quadrennial report and,
particularly, your interest in the Great Famine-”Holodomor.”
The position of the UWC on the joint statement about the “Holodomor”
made during the 58th Session of the United Nations General Assembly is
that it is an important acknowledgment by almost forty countries in the
world community of the existence of this great tragedy.
Furthermore, we feel that it was an important initial step in
recognizing this event as Genocide within the meaning of the Genocide
Convention of 1948. The UWC assisted Ukraine’s Permanent Mission to
the UN with the Statement by offering suggestions. The final text,
naturally, was authored by the Mission.
The seven to ten million assessment stated in our Statement of November
10, 2003 comes from various sources such as: Robert Conquest’s book
“Harvest of Sorrow,” the Final Congressional Report of the U. S.
Commission on the Ukraine Famine and the findings of an International
Commission of eminent international jurists convened by the Ukrainian
World Congress which rendered its final report in 1990.
The number seven - ten million ascribes seven million to the territory
of the former Ukrainian SSR and three million to other areas of the
USSR including Kuban, the North Caucuses in Russia and Kazakhstan.
The regions outside the Ukrainian SSR where the famine was most
severe in many instances were populated heavily by Ukrainians.
The International Commission report includes statistics from two
censuses taken in the USSR along ethnic lines pre and post the famine
of 1932-22 which support the aforesaid number.
Should you require any further clarification, substantiated by
documentation, we would be willing to supply same upon request. We
appreciate your interest.
On 5 February 2008 the UWC received a notification from the UN
Non-Governmental Organizations Section/DESA:
This is to inform you that the Committee on Non-Governmental
Organizations at its 2008 Regular Session from 21-30 January, decided
to defer the consideration of the quadrennial report of your
organization, “Ukrainian World Congress”, on its activities for the
period 2003-2006.
The committee will continue its review of the report during its 2008
Resumed session scheduled for 29 May- 6 June 2008 and an invitation
from our office will follow.
The number of victims has been the subject of much debate and some
estimation. There are at least two significant declarations against
interest. Winston Churchill in his memoirs published in 1959 refers to a
conversation with Marshal Stalin in August 1942 about the stresses of the
war as compared with carrying through the policy of the collective farms.
In the course of the conversation, according to Churchill, Stalin talks
about the collectivization effort and holds up two hands with the words
“Ten millions, it was fearful.” [2] William Strang, a diplomat at the
British Embassy, Moscow, wrote about a conversation with the notorious
Soviet apologist and Great Famine denier, Walter Duranty, The New York
Times reporter at that time in the USSR, in September 1933 after Mr.
Duranty returned from Ukraine and the North Caucasus:
Mr. Duranty thinks it quite possible that as many as 10 million people may
have died directly or indirectly from lack of food in the Soviet Union
during the past year. [3]
Dr. W. Horsley Gantt, chief of the medical division of the American Relief
Administration, Leningrad Unit (1922-23), a collaborator in Pavlov’s
Laboratories (1925-29) and a member of the school of medicine at John
Hopkins University returned to the USSR in 1933 to continue his work with
Pavlov.
In 1936 he published “A Medical Review of Soviet Russia: Results of
the First Five Year Plan” in the British Medical Journal. In a March 6,
1964 letter to Dana G. Dalrymple of the U.S. Agriculture Department, noting
that the Soviet government forbade news correspondents to travel from
Moscow or Leningrad to the outlying areas of the country, he wrote:
However, I as a scientist, was allowed in areas outside of the
cities, and I could talk with doctors who gave me first hand reports
of both the famine and the epidemics. These later were a complicating
picture of the famine. Your highest estimate of the famine deaths is
put at ten million, while I got the maximal figure of fifteen
million, received privately from Soviet authorities in Russia. Since
starvation was complicated by the epidemics, it is not possible to
separate which of these two causes was primary in casualties. [4]
Noted British historian Robert Conquest in his book The Harvest of Sorrow
[5] estimates the total number of victims from the 1932-33 famine at 7
million with 6 million Ukrainians. Additionally he estimates 4 million
deaths within the USSR from 1930-37 as a result of de-kulakization.”
Ukrainians were considered the main opponents to de-kulakization. Some 80%
of that 4 million were Ukrainians which would mean that in 1930-37 more than
9 million Ukrainians lost their lives from famine and de-kulakization. The
distinction between death from famine and death from de-kulakization, in our
view, is difficult to define.
In its report to the Congress of the United States adopted and submitted in
1988, the Congressional Commission on the Ukraine Famine sets the number
of Ukrainian victims as widely ranged but with a high end of over 8 million.
[6] James Mace, the Executive Director of the Congressional Commission,
had written earlier of a 7.5 million number: “Actually, the figure might
well be higher.
The figure of ten million total victims of the famine seems to have
circulated with the Soviet elite.” [7] “The extraordinary frequency with
which the ten million figure appears obliges us to take seriously the
possibility that it did in fact originate in Soviet official circles, even
if we cannot claim to know with certainty.” [8]
The International Commission of Inquiry into the 1932-33 Famine in Ukraine
in its 1990 report concluded that the number of victims in Ukraine was at
least 4.5 million with approximately three million outside Ukraine, thus at
least 7.5 million. [9] The Summary of the International Commission of
Inquiry into the 1932-33 Famine in Ukraine refers to two censuses in the
USSR, one in 1926 and the other in 1939. [10]
It is important to add that there had been a thorough and complete census
conducted in 1937 that evidenced such an egregious loss of life attendant
to the Famine, that Stalin had the results suppressed and the officials
responsible promptly arrested and executed. [11]
In any event, the 1926 census about which there is no dispute reveals that
in 1926 the total population of the USSR was 147 million with 31 million
Ukrainians and 116 million non-Ukrainians. The 1939 census, which was
sanctioned officially as accurate shows the total population of the USSR
at 170.5 million with 28 million Ukrainians and 142.5 million
non-Ukrainians.
This indicates that the Ukrainian population actually declined by some three
million during that period while the population of non-Ukrainians grew by
26.5 million or at 23% which if applied to Ukrainians would have meant that
in 1939 there should have been 38 million Ukrainians. Thus, it would appear
that the Ukrainian population declined by ten million.
Arguably, Stalin’s purges, commenced in late 1937, resulted in the deaths of
a disproportionate amount of Ukrainians particularly from labor camps. Thus,
the 1937 census (conducted in January 1937) statistics are very important.
The demise of the USSR and the opening of archives have shed light on the
results of the suppressed 1937 census. According to that census, the number
of Ukrainians within the USSR in 1937 was 26.4 million almost 5 million less
that in 1926. [12] That, in and of itself, is staggering. When combined with
what was the normal growth rate of non-Ukrainians in the USSR from 1926 to
1937 at 17%, Ukrainians should have numbered 36.5 million in 1937.
The conclusion is that between 1926 and 1937, the Ukrainian population
within the entire USSR declined by 10.1 million. However, in assessing the
number of actual victims an allowance should be made for children never
born to those victims.
Certitude as to the number of victims in any crime against humanity or
genocide is impossible due primarily to a perpetrator’s attempts to cover
up, dislocations etc. This is particularly true in the case of the former
USSR where purges of records and record keepers were the norm. The
passing of seventy-five years make this endeavor more problematic.
Nevertheless, a seven - ten million estimate appears to present an accurate
picture of the number of deaths suffered by the Ukrainian nation from the
Great Famine (Holodomor) of 1932-33.
Here is the schedule.
International Remembrance Flame in Canada 2008
April 18 National Launch prior to the opening of the exhibit
Holodomor: Genocide by Famine - Toronto, Ontario
April 20 Winnipeg, Manitoba
April 28 Yorkton, Saskatchewan
April 29 Regina, Saskatchewan
April 29 Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
April 30 North Battleford, Saskatchewan
April 30 Vegreville, Alberta
May 1 Edmonton, Alberta
May 2 Calgary, Alberta
May 3 Vancouver, British Columbia
May 22 Niagara, Ontario
May 23 Toronto, Ontario
May 24 Hamilton, Ontario
May 24 Montreal, Quebec
May 26 Ottawa, Ontario