Following the conference on the Holodomor at Columbia University and the opening of a special exhibit at the United Nations, the Ukrainian Mission asked this author to introduce the award-winning film Harvest of Despair at a special November 12 showing for ambassadors and staff of that world body. The Mission had faced no little criticism from Ukrainians for backing away from the resolution it had originally planned to introduce in the General Assembly, but in the face of opposition from three of the five permanent members of the Security Council — Russia, the United States, and Great Britain — to the word genocide, it was clear that the resolution would never go anywhere, and politics is, after the all, the art of the possible. By working out a statement that thirty UN member states could sign, the Mission had a major accomplishment to its credit, one that could be built upon.
“I have the luxury of being a totally private person,” I began, “which means I have the luxury of saying what I think without putting anyone else on record. I would like to remind you, however, that the history of this body is bound up with that of yet another self-described ‘totally private man,’ Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term genocide, drafted the basic instruments — General Assembly Resolution I:96 of 1946 and the International Convention of 1948 — and worked with the various delegations to secure their passage. Indeed, human rights, including the prevention of genocide, are at the heart of what the United Nations is all about.”
After citing the basic arguments and evidence, I continued, “There are some of us, myself included, who believe strongly that what happened to Ukraine in the 1930s must be recognized as genocide. Other member states disagreed, and, in the best spirit of this body, the Ukrainian Mission has settled on compromise language that thirty member-states have joined. Do not, however, think the issue will end here. The Third Committee has produced two reports on genocide, one in 1978 and a revised report in 1985. The second report drafted by Ben Whittaker was adopted primarily to include recognition of the Armenian Genocide, which had been left out of the earlier one due to the objections of Turkey. In view of all that has happened since 1985 in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, sooner or later the issue of another revision of this report will be taken up. And at that time, the Ukrainian delegation will be there to make its case.”
In the audience I could see Ambassador Valery Kuchinsky and his predecessor at the UN, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs Hennady Udovenko, nodding their agreement. The Ukrainian genocide had become an issue not only for Ukraine’s representatives abroad. Speaking later with Daniel Lubkivsky, Mission Second Secretary who has worked most closely on the Holodomor issue, he indicated that the Mission would prepare for anything that might come up in the Third Committee.
The next day at the Harriman Institute in Washington, I also had to turn to the issue of genocide. Prof. Oleksandr Potiekhin, Councilor to the Ukrainian Embassy to the United States, had mentioned earlier that when he brought up the issue of the Ukrainian genocide people would sometimes accused him of being nationalistic. I added that the very notion of genocide was itself nationalistic and can be compared to the German philosopher Herder, who saw mankind as divided into nations, all equal in rights and potential for achievement, and that it was through these individual nations and their cultures that the contributions to our common human civilization are made. Raphael Lemkin seemed to be extending precisely this idea when he wrote that if it were not for the existence of a group of people called the Jews, we would not have the Bible, Spinoza, or Einstein; if not for that of the Russians, we would not have a Tolstoy or a Dostoyevsky; and making genocide a crime was a way to protect the specific groups through which so many of the contributions to our common human civilization come. It is the world’s diversity that gives it its richness, not some bland uniformity that creates little if anything.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian-Americans continue to work for passage of Senate Resolution 202 that would put the United States Senate on record as recognizing the Holodomor as an act of genocide. Despite active lobbying by the Bush administration against the resolution, a twenty-fourth cosponsor has joined. She is Senator Hillary Rodman Clinton of New York.
On November 21, the scene moves on to Paris where a colloquium will be held at the Sorbonne as the first of a series of commemorative events organized by the Ukrainian community in France assisted by the Embassy of Ukraine. Ukrainians continue to tell the world about their tragedy in the hope of preventing others.
