UKRAINE: THE HOLODOMOR AND THE POLITICS OF

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KYIV 004414

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/30/2016
TAGS: PGOV PHUM UP
SUBJECT: UKRAINE: THE HOLODOMOR AND THE POLITICS OF
REMEMBRANCE: THE LEGACY OF STALIN'S 1932-33 FAMINE

Classified By: Ambassador for reasons 1.4(b,d)


1. (SBU) Summary. In the aftermath of moving commemorations
November 25 of the 73rd anniversary of the holodomor ("Great
Famine"),Stalin's man-made famine 1932-33 that led to the
death of an estimated 5-10 million Ukrainians in Ukraine and
the Russian Kuban region, the Rada passed in a single reading
November 28 a bill submitted by President Yushchenko
recognizing the holodomor as an act of genocide against the
Ukrainian people. The law adds momentum behind Yushchenko's
efforts to use the holodomor to forge a strong sense of
Ukrainian national identity and consciousness. A public
opinion poll in early November showed that 65 percent of
Ukrainians supported the "holodomor as genocide"
interpretation, although other earlier polls showed
significant regional differences. Passage came after hours
of heated political debate over the endorsement of "genocide"
and whether/how to include references to non-Ukrainians.


2. (C) Comment: Politically significant was the decision of
the Socialist Party, led by Rada Speaker Moroz, to break
ranks for the first time with anti-crisis coalition partners
Regions and the Communists in voting with Tymoshenko Bloc
(BYuT) and Our Ukraine (OU) MPs to secure passage of the
bill. With the Communists out in front against the bill,
both Yushchenko and Moroz took advantage of uncharacteristic
uncertainty on the part of Yanukovych and Regions on how to
handle the issue politically to seize the moral high ground
and show national leadership. Presidential Secretariat
deputy Head Vasyunyk told Ambassador Nov. 29 that many
Regions MPs who lost relatives in the holodomor were angry
that Regions' leaders had enforced party discipline against
voting in support of the measure. End Summary and Comment.

Remembering a National Tragedy for the Ukrainian people
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3. (U) The 73rd anniversary of Stalin's man-made famine,
known in Ukrainian as the Holodomor (Holod-hunger, mor - the
root of verbs connected to death, torture, suffering),that
killed an estimated 5-10 million Ukrainians in the winter of
1932-1933, was observed in ceremonies throughout the country
at 1600 on November 25. President Yushchenko led a solemn
procession from St. Sofia's Square to the Holodomor Monument
on St. Michael's Square about a half kilometer away;
thousands of votive candles were at both locations, burning
throughout the night. Religious officials, along with
members of the Rada, the diplomatic corps including
Ambassador, and the Cabinet of Ministers, were in attendance.


4. (U) Upon arrival at the memorial Yushchenko, his wife, and
Rada Speaker Oleksandr Moroz led the laying of wreaths and
lighting of candles at the base of Memorial during the
nationally televised ceremony; PM Yanukovych was notably
absent. A representative of each oblast then placed a candle
at the base of the Memorial, emphasizing that the entire
country had suffered from the lasting effects of the famine,
which was centered in what is now eastern and central
Ukraine. A new holodomor monument was dedicated in a
separate ceremony in Kharkiv; Kharkiv oblast alone lost two
million in 1932-33, a third of its population.


5. (U) In an impassioned ten-minute nationally televised
speech, Yushchenko, whose family hails from Sumy province,
noted that his grandfather died together with his family in
the Holodomor that, at its height, claimed 25,000 victims a
day. Yushchenko stated: "Those who deny the famine today
hate Ukraine deeply ... What they deny is not history -- they
deny Ukrainian statehood." He then "demanded" that the Rada
recognize the Holodomor as genocide.

Holodomor as genocide: Socialists join BYuT, OU
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6. (SBU) In the run-up to the November 25 commemoration,
Yushchenko had submitted a bill recognizing the Holodomor as
an act of genocide against the Ukrainian nation and
prohibiting public denial of the famine. Political
maneuvering prevented the bill's consideration prior to the
commemoration, but it dominated proceedings when the Rada
resumed November 28, supported by Rada Speaker Moroz. The
key drama concerned the position of PM Yanukovych's Party of
Regions, since it was a given that the Communists would
oppose the bill. Regions first tabled a competing bill
defining the holodomor as a crime by a totalitarian regime
against humanity" and the "Ukrainian people's national
tragedy" but not genocide. They then advocated adopting
Yushchenko's bill as a declaration rather than a law, and
finally proposed genocide be defined as a crime by Stalin's
regime against Ukrainian and other Soviet peoples.


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7. (SBU) A Moroz-brokered compromise changed "Ukrainian
nation" to "Ukrainian people" (narod),a reference to the
constitution's inclusive non-ethnic based definition of the
Ukrainian people/narod as citizens of Ukraine of all
nationalities. However, the basic definition of the
holodomor as genocide remained. The compromise also dropped
the proposed prohibition against holodomor denial, and Moroz
ensured passage of the bill in a single reading, an unusual
but allowable parliamentary maneuver. Regions nevertheless
abstained, with the exception of two MPs -- Taras Chornovil
and Anna Herman -- who broke party ranks to vote in favor of
the resolution, citing family members who had died in central
Ukraine during the holodomor. They joined with the
Socialists, BYuT, and OU MPs present to secure a 233 vote
majority.


8. (C) Presidential Deputy Chief of Staff Ivan Vasyunyk,
Yushchenko's floor manager for the bill, told Ambassador
November 29 that the holodomor bill revealed tensions inside
Regions' faction. Vasyunyk spent all day November 28 at the
Rada and had spoken to a number of Regions managers about the
bill. Most Regions MPs had wanted to vote for the
President's bill - as many as 150 of the 186-strong faction,
he claimed. However, the faction had enforced party
discipline, with the two exceptions noted above. The mood in
Regions' caucus was very tense after the vote, claimed
Vasyunyk, as many MPs, including dozens who had lost
relatives in the holodomor, were angry they had been forced
to abstain against their beliefs.

National Identity and Politics, historical controversy
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9. (C) Interestingly enough, the holodomor has the potential
to be a unifying issue across Ukraine's recent "blue-orange"
geographic political division, since the majority of deaths
occurred in the east and center of the country, particularly
in Kharkiv province (note: much of the "orange" west was
under Polish rule in the interwar era). However, the cause
of the holodomor as genocide has traditionally been nurtured
more strongly in nationalist western Ukraine. Since becoming
President in January 2005, Yushchenko has consistently
championed the cause of fully acknowledging the impact of the
holodomor as genocide as part of the ongoing formation of a
stronger Ukrainian national identity. (Note: Some
sociologists consider Ukraine to be a post-genocidal society
as a result of the loss of such a significant percentage of
its population over twelve years from 1932-44, spanning the
holodomor, the great purges, and WWII.) Vasyunyk remarked to
Ambassador that unifying Ukrainians was the President's --
and Moroz's - goal in sponsoring the bill.


10. (SBU) An early November poll showed 65 percent of
Ukrainians agree that the holodomor represented genocide
indicate that Yushchenko's effort to publicize the tragedy
has had an impact. An earlier poll of 2000 Ukrainians
conducted in September showed that 69 percent of respondents
believed the famine was caused by the government's actions,
with 84 percent of those believing that it was caused
intentionally. Passage of the bill vindicates Yushchenko's
efforts and bolsters his status as a leader.


11. (C) The most interesting development in the November 28
vote was the active role of Rada Speaker Moroz in ensuring
passage of a text ultimately opposed by coalition leader
Regions. His Socialist Party's traditional base includes
rural areas like Poltava heavily affected by the holodomor,
and the party's ratings have plummeted in the wake of his
July decision to abandon OU and BYuT to join with Regions and
the Communists instead. Moroz may well have decided that
supporting the "holodomor as genocide" bill could help
salvage credibility with his disaffected electorate. The
same day he also dedicated a Rada plaque in memory of slain
journalist Heorhiy Gongadze on the sixth anniversary of
Moroz' dramatic playing of recorded conversations implicating
then President Kuchma in Gongadze's disappearance (septel),a
move many journalists dismissed as a PR stunt by Moroz.


12. (C) Regions, which has generally won most political
skirmishes since last summer, clearly showed ambivalence in
the days leading up to the vote, unsure how to position
themselves on an issue of less importance to their overall
eastern and southern base (the September poll indicated that
only 33 percent of eastern and 45 percent of southern
respondents thought the famine was caused by intentional
governmental action) and which clearly irritates Moscow.
Regions deputy leader Volodymyr Makeyenko, one of ten
Regions' whips, told us November 30 that Regions initially
planned to have 30 MPs vote for the final version, to show
partial support, but party leaders later reversed that,
ordering no support. While Makeyenko personally favored the

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measure, he feared loss of his Budget Committee Chairmanship
had he bucked party discipline, predicting that Chornovil and
Herman would eventually be punished for not hewing to the
party line.


13. (SBU) Regions' decision also gave an opening to Our
Ukraine's Yuri Pavlenko, whose fate as Youth Minister had
been dangling for over a month as part of the ongoing
Yushchenko-Yanukovych dance, to finally cut ties with the
Yanukovych-led cabinet. In announcing his renewed
determination to resign, Pavlenko said that he could not
remain in a government with those who failed to support the
genocide motion. The Rada granted his wish, firing him from
his position November 29 with 241 votes in favor.


14. (C) Comment: Although the 1932-33 famine is considered
perhaps the most heinous of the many crimes by a totalitarian
Soviet regime against its own people, international
historiographical disagreement continues over whether
Ukrainians were specifically targeted during a famine which
killed millions across the Soviet Union. According to
documents from the time, Stalin issued specific orders for
the confiscation in Ukrainian-populated regions of all
foodstuffs, not just grain, significantly not just in the
Ukrainian SSR but also in Ukrainian populated districts in
Russia's Kuban region. Russian historians in particular
maintain that famine deaths in Ukraine were merely part of a
wider famine sparked by Stalin to break rural resistance to
collectivization. In the aftermath of the mass deaths,
Soviet authorities moved quickly to resettle ethnic Russians
in newly formed collective farms across the depopulated
Ukrainian areas.


15. (U) Note: Ukrainian media reported that three activists
from Russian nationalist groups the National Bolshevik Front
(NBF) and the Eurasian Youth Union (EYU) marked the Rada's
passage of the bill by throwing firecrackers at the Ukrainian
Embassy in Moscow November 29. NBF and EYU representatives
told the press that the action was in protest of a bill which
was offensive to the eternal friendship of the Great Russian
and "Little Russian" peoples. The latter term, Malorossiya,
was used in the 18th-20th centuries instead of Ukraine by
Russians seeking to deny the existence of an independent
Ukrainian identity.

U.S. role in promoting holodomor awareness
--------------


16. (SBU) Note: The U.S. Congress has played a role over the
past twenty years in promoting awareness of the holodomor. A
Congressional Commission on the Ukraine famine, authorized in
1985 and headed by historian James Mace, conducted
groundbreaking archival and oral history research, leading to
a final report conclusion in 1988 that: "Joseph Stalin and
those around him committed genocide against the Ukrainians in
1932-33." Mace's research formed the basis for Robert
Conquest's seminal 1986 book "Harvest of Sorrow," and Mace
remains a hero today for many Ukrainians. In 1993, on the
60th anniversary of the holodomor, the Congressional
Commission handed over to the newly independent Ukrainian
government 4 volumes of findings, 10 volumes of archival
materials, and 200 cassettes of oral history recordings of
holodomor survivor testimony. In 1998, the US Congress
endorsed a joint resolution commemorating the 65th
anniversary of the holodomor.


17. (SBU) During President Yushchenko's triumphant April 2005
appearance before a Joint Session of Congress, he said in
gratitude: "It was from this hall that the world came to know
the truth of the holodomor, a genocide famine masterminded to
annihilate millions of Ukrainians." On October 13, President
Bush signed into law HR 652, a Congressional bill authorizing
construction on federal land in Washington, D.C. of a
memorial "to honor the victims of the famine and genocide
that occurred in Ukraine in 1932 and 1933."


18. (U) Visit Embassy Kyiv's classified website:
www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/kiev.
Taylor