Mr. David Miliband
Foreign Secretary
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
King Charles Street
London SW1 2AH
England
milibandd@parliament.uk
Dear Mr. Miliband:
I have been informed that the British government has declined to
recognize the Holodomor -- the Ukrainian famine-genocide of 1932/33 --
as a genocide perpetrated by Josef Stalin and his Bolshevik henchmen
against the Ukrainian people.
At his website http://www.holodomor.org.uk/
Steve Komarnyckyj steve@writerandtranslator.co.uk
has reproduced two articles (dated 30Nov2006 and 01Dec2006) written by
"Research Analysts, Foreign & Commonwealth Office" advising the
British government not to recognize the Holodomor as a genocide. I am
appalled by the shallowness of their knowledge and their
argumentation, which repeatedly emphasizes that other areas of the
Soviet Union were also affected by the famine. They refuse to
recognize that the spectre of "losing Ukraine" was a major reason for
Stalin to deliberately impose the famine on Ukraine. Historical
documents repeatedly quote Stalin referring to Petliurists and
bourgeois nationalists as wreckers of his
industrialization/collectivization plans.
My critique of their analysis is archived on the Holodomor page of my
website at
http://www.telusplanet.net/public/mozuz/holodomor/holodomor.html
or specifically at
http://www.telusplanet.net/public/mozuz/holodomor/komarnyckyj20080412ePoshtaWZ.html
such that I will not repeat my comments here.
However, I will repeat my contention that all European governments,
who had diplomatic missions located within the Soviet Union, were
aware of the genocidal nature of the famine raging throughout Ukraine
in 1932/33. For example, in his report from Kharkiv, dated 31 May
1933, the Italian consul general prognosticated on the devastation of
the country: "The current disaster will bring about a preponderantly
Russian colonization of Ukraine. In a future time, perhaps very soon,
one will no longer be able to speak of a Ukraine, or of a Ukrainian
people, and thus not even of a Ukrainian problem, because Ukraine will
have become a de facto Russian region." (See article by Roman Serbyn
archived at
http://www.telusplanet.net/public/mozuz/holodomor/serbyn20071119Unian.html)
In 1933, the British government was complicit in denying the
Holodomor, even though it knew that the eyewitness testimony of Gareth
Jones and Malcolm Muggeridge was true. One would hope that in 2008 the
British government will finally set things right.
Respectfully yours
William Zuzak
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada
2008.05.07