Ukraine’s Security Service did not find any signs of treason in the address of 148 Ukrainian MPs to Polish Sejm in which they asked to recognize the Volyn tragedy as genocide of Polish people. The SBU reported this at an inquiry made by Tyzhden.ua.
“We have established that the actions of Ukraine’s people deputies contained no form of treason or any direct intent aimed at harming the sovereignty, territorial integrity and immunity, state, economic, or information security of Ukraine, which are obligatory signs of the ‘crime of treason,’” SBU response reads. “Taking all this in account, the actions of Ukraine’s MPs in their address to the Sejm of Polish Republic do not contain any signs of crime stipulated by Article 111 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code, but are merely an expression of an opinion of a group of Ukrainian MPs regarding tragic historical events.”
Of course, the MPs have the right for an opinion, but as representatives of a state body they must account for their actions.
It will be reminded that on July 15 Iryna Farion, an MP from All-Ukrainian Union “Freedom,” asked the SBU to check whether there were signs of treason in the actions of 148 MPs.
Previously their actions were condemned by the first president of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk. “The address of 148 MPs to Polish Sejm with a request to recognize the events in Volyn as genocide is an unprecedented incident in the world’s history when politicians ask a legislative body of another state to accuse representatives of their nation of the gravest crime,” Kravchuk said at the meeting with students of Den’s Summer School of Journalism.
Den asked Leonid Kravchuk to comment on SBU’s decision.
Leonid KRAVCHUK, first president of Ukraine, head of the public committee “Reconciliation between peoples”:
“Ukraine’s Security Service is not the structure that should deal with assessment of the actions taken by the group of 148 MPs. Therefore Iryna Farion simply addressed a wrong structure. The SBU gave an official response regarding the said document within its authority. They have a list of actions that can be qualified as treason. Clearly, from the viewpoint of the Security Service, an MP who sent an address to another country’s parliament with a request to acknowledge the Volynian tragedy as genocide of Polish people cannot officially be called a traitor. And the SBU cannot give a broad assessment of the deputies’ actions, whether they abide by the law, etc. This is beyond their competence. Therefore I, for example, did not demand the Security Service of Ukraine to recognize 148 MPs as traitors, because I know that this structure cannot give a different kind of answer. But it does not mean at all that the SBU is taking an anti-Ukrainian stand.
“However, it is in the authority of the Verkhovna Rada and political parties to analyze this kind of actions taken by MPs. I mean that the Verkhovna Rada should consider this question in the context of which documents and powers the MPs from the list of 148 referred to when signing this address. Political parties, including the ruling one, should analyze the actions taken by their party fellows and members of factions. I think that the MPs’ address to Polish Sejm was a political one, therefore the decision on their responsibility must be political, too. And the Security Service does not produce political decisions.
“By calling it a national treason, I meant that the MPs violated concrete laws and broke the oath, because breaking the oath is treason. And for breaking oath the person accounts before himself/herself, the parliament, and the society. Incidentally, there is such stipulation: you won’t become an MP unless you take the oath. And if you break it, you must leave the office.”
