Has the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) detained representatives of foreign intelligence services? Not that we have heard of. Earlier, when Valentyn Nalyvaichenko was in charge of the SBU, such information was made public. Today, we know for sure that the SBU detained a historian, and a Ukrainian at that. The SBU claims that he was detained for the divulgence of state secrets.
However, Ukrainska Pravda has already published the documents which had been confiscated from the historian Ruslan Zabily. None of them is marked “top secret,” because they were declassified by the SBU, following President Yushchenko’s Decree on the declassification of documents dated 1917 to 1991.
Following the SBU’s claims that Zabily allegedly possessed classified documents, it should likewise detain many other scholars, including the blogger from Ukrainska Pravda, who have used these documents.
The Security Service even launched criminal proceedings against Zabily. They declared that the detention of Zabily, whose laptop and digital data storage devices were confiscated, thus enabled them to stop his attempts to pass to third persons the documents that are state property and are protected by the laws of Ukraine.
However, one should keep in mind that only that information which is defined by the Law of Ukraine “On State Secrets,” is considered secret. Divulging such information involves criminal liability. The information classified as being a state secret is listed in a special document titled “Register of State Secrets.” There are no historical documents on this list.
Moreover, the law forbids concealing historical documents, especially those containing information on instances of violation of human rights and liberties, and unlawful actions by state bodies and their officials.
But this is not all. It is also known that the SBU searched the offices of the staff of the Lontsky Street Prison Museum in Lviv, where they confiscated two laptops, a hard disc, paper copies of historical documents, and also video-recorded evidence of dissidents, collected by researchers in 2009-10. The SBU officers did not produce any search warrants.
Meanwhile, no documents that contained “state secrets” were found. However, all the things that were confiscated were taken for an “additional examination” to the SBU headquarters. According to the explanation provided by secret service officials, all this was part of a criminal investigation of a premeditated attempt of divulging secret information by a SBU officer. The SBU explained that the National Memorial Lontsky Street Prison Museum is maintained and financed from the SBU budget, and its staff, including director Ruslan Zabily, receive salaries from the Security Service of Ukraine, therefore no search warrants were necessary.
In any case, there is one important question following from all this story: Can history be kept secret? It should not, at least in democracies. Historians must have the right to free access to historical documents, because without this we will never get to know the historical truth, or obtain proof of what we know. The previous regime, headed by President Viktor Yushchenko, with the assistance of the SBU head Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, did a lot to restore Ukraine’s historical knowledge. Top secret documents were declassified, historians got access to them, all eventually was made public.
Yet we should not forget that the same president appointed Valerii Khoroshkovsky first deputy head of the SBU, and the incumbent regime made the latter head of the secret services. Today, his actions are relentlessly rebuked by the opposition.
Zabily’s detention and the search at the Lontsky Street Prison Museum are yet another episode in a long series of previous statements and actions of the incumbent regime. One should add to the list the removal of the section on the Holodomor from president’s web site, Viktor Yanukovych’s public denial of the genocide against Ukrainian people, recurring anti-Ukrainian statements made by the Minister of Education and Science Dmytro Tabachnyk, the suspending of the declassification of SBU files, SBU officers trying to coerce university presidents, “preventive” conversations with journalists, etc.
The criminal prosecution of historians, censorship of history, and SBU’s abuse of power caused a protest action “Come And Surrender!”, which took place on September 15 just outside the SBU headquarters in Kyiv. The participants brought CDs with copies of materials from the SBU archive. Thus they emphasized the social importance of this data, the slogan being, “Zabily was bringing this data for me!”
The discs were used to form the sign “37?” in front of the SBU building. The protesters also carried slogans which read, “We are not letting the terror of 1937 happen again”: “Freedom for historians!”; “Stop the KGB!”; “Stop the KGB lawlessness”; “Cheka — back to the past!”; “Is this Volodymyrska Street or Lubianka?”.
Among the protesters there were former prisoners of conscience, authors, singers, renowned journalists, historians, and NGO activists. The writer Oksana Zabuzhko was also present. She addressed the SBU officers:
“The state whose ‘secrets’ Ruslan Zabily was carrying with him has been gone for 20 years now. Your boss, former chief customs officer, must have used methods that are typical of the customs control. The only difference was that instead of a list of contraband items, he gave his subordinates something like a Cheka officer’s manual dating back to 1934 or around that time.
“I am here first and foremost as a novelist (her Museum of Abandoned Secrets is about love and death against the background of UPA. — Author), whose characters struggle to unearth the secrets of the archives, in order to find out the truth. This is the truth about our history, this is the truth about everyone’s family, yours included.
“This novel features one document taken directly from the Lontsky Street Prison. The flyleaf carries an inscription made by a political prisoner on the wall of a jail in 1954.
“The reason why Ukraine, 20 years after the collapse of the USSR, and after the first wave of the destruction of KGB archives in 1990-91, has still been stuck in the mud is partially because we are still prisoners of those captive memories of the USSR and NKVD. Do not be NKVD officers. Be the officers of the Ukrainian State Security Service.”
COMMENTARIES
Levko LUKIANENKO, dissident, public activist:
“This protest was caused by the outrageous SBU action against the historian Zabily. The SBU confiscated his laptop with the documents concerning repressive measures against the Ukrainian nation.
“This testifies to the fact that the SBU has assumed an anti-Ukrainian stand, i.e., the stand of the former butchers of Ukraine. I would like to ask Khoroshkovsky whether he is Ukrainian or not. A Ukrainian should be interested in the protection of the rights of the Ukrainian nation. Meanwhile, the attempt to ban information about our history is contrary to the interests of Ukraine. Besides, it contradicts President Yushchenko’s decree that unclassified the documents dated back to 1917-91. A nation which does not know its history cannot have a historic consciousness. A nation without historic consciousness cannot be consolidated.
“If Khoroshkovsky is Ukrainian, he should be interested in the consolidation of the Ukrainian nation. If not, he continues to serve the former ruler — Moscow. The attempt to hide the crimes of the Russian Empire in its communist period is a crime against the Ukrainian nation.
“Knowing our own history is the most important work for the state and for conscious Ukrainians. Article 11 of the Constitution of Ukraine demands that the state consolidates the Ukrainian nation, popularizes its history, customs, traditions, etc. First, the confiscation of Zabily’s documents violates this article and is thus unlawful. Therefore, Khoroshkovsky has to be removed from his post for abuse of power.
“Secondly, the entire world has a separation of business and power. Meanwhile, Khoroshkovsky is among Ukraine’s top ten wealthiest people. He is a businessman who owns much of the mass media. He cannot be the head of the SBU, it is against its general principles.
“All Ukrainians who want Ukraine to develop in a normal democratic way, must strive for the removal of such individuals from state positions.”
Sashko POLOZHYNSKY, musician:
“As a man who always emphasizes that the future of the Ukrainian nation and state depends on individual citizens, and promotes their participation in shaping of their future, I could not stay aside from this protest. In my opinion, it helps establish rule of law in Ukraine, and shape the requirements towards the state security services.
“I have read quite a lot about Stalinist repressions. I was always wondering, why all those people did not resist. Why did they allow people to imprison, torture, and humiliate themselves? And I arrived at a very simple conclusion: because everyone believed that they would have a better lot.
“I think this can happen to any Ukrainian citizen. That is why I don’t want to allow a situation which would put me in the shoes of those historians who are now arrested or being dogged by the SBU.”
Oleksandr ALFIOROV, historian:
“Who does the SBU conceal this information from, if the documents are already declassified? It is quite obvious that there should be a certain procedure for declassification, but the documents Zabily had on him are registered as declassified. They belong to the competence of the Trade State Archive, not the SBU. And what can the SBU hide in its archives, if those documents are already declassified?
“Unfortunately, this is the way historians are treated in this country — with corruption or threats: You have to write it this way, and not another. If we don’t support historians and texbook authors, what do we need them for? If we fight a lonely fight against the people who ban our history, we are not going to have any state.”
Vakhtang KIPIANI, journalist:
“In the 21st century, we are speaking about an opportunity of obtaining only little portions of the information which is one hundred years old. According to President Yushchenko’s decree, all the events between 1917 and 1991, which have something to do with the history of the liberation movement and the opposition, should be made public.
“If the SBU lag behind with the declassification of the documents, they have to say, ‘You know, we don’t have enough time, but it will be done by such and such a date!’ The historian Zabily could not, due to the character of his work, dispose of such documents which would indeed have anything to do with state secrets.
“If some documents are not declassified, it’s the problem of the Security Service, and not the historian who needs to cover all that information in order to tell the people that historical truth which can be divulged.”
Oles Donii, MP:
“The incumbent regime looks up to the Soviet state, with its totalitarianism and lawlessness. All this is being done with the view to destroy everything Ukrainian, the country’s culture and history. The blow dealt to Ukrainian historians had multiple goals: to intimidate the representatives of civic society, to block access to information concerning the crimes of the previous regime, and to show the population that a separate Ukrainian history does not exist.
“I came here to support not only Zabily and Ukrainian historians, but also Ukrainians’ right to their own history and freedom of the press.”
Volodymyr VIATROVYCH, historian:
“I want to draw the public’s attention and raise my own protest aginst the SBU actions, which now seems to be using 1937-style methods: intimidation, confiscation, provocation, and attempt to launch criminal proceedings against people who merely voice their opinions. We have come here to support Zabily. We protest against the SBU’s attempts to intimidate historians.
“This action was taking place not only in Kyiv, but also in Ternopil, Kherson, Cherkasy. Similar protest actions are being prepared in Ivano-Frankivsk, Lutsk, and Lviv. The Ukrainian diaspora members are also going to picket Ukrainian diplomatic missions in the next couple of days.
“The SBU is searching for third persons for whom this information was allegedly destined. What the SBU is doing now can’t have any rational explanation. Each next step is even more mistaken than the last. The Security Service is totally confused as to against whom and why criminal prosecution is launched, what kind of punishment should be imposed, and what they are looking for — state secrets or confidential information.
“The steps taken by the Security Service testify either to its total legal incompetence, or a barefaced desire to simply intimidate historians. As we can see, intimidation failed. Instead, it has consolidated our society.”
