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Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell
United States Senate, Washington, D.C.
July 29, 2003
Dear Colleague:
Yesterday, I introduced S. Res. 202, regarding the genocidal Ukraine
Famine of 1932-33. The resolution would commemorate the millions of
innocent victims of this Soviet-engineered famine and support the efforts of
the Ukrainian government and parliament to publicly acknowledge and call
greater international attention to one of the 20th century's most heinous
crimes. The report of the Congressionally-created Commission on the
Ukraine Famine concluded in 1988 that "Joseph Stalin and those around
him committed genocide against Ukrainians in 1932-33."
Seventy years ago, a man-made famine in Soviet-dominated Ukraine and
bordering ethnically-Ukrainian territory resulted in the deaths of millions
of Ukrainians - estimates range from between four and ten million. In his
seminal book on the Ukraine Famine, Harvest of Sorrow, renown British
historian Robert Conquest writes, "A quarter of the rural population, men,
women, and children, lay dead or dying, the rest in various stages of
debilitation with no strength to bury their families or neighbors." The
Stalinist regime -- and, for that matter, subsequent Soviet leaders --
engaged in a massive cover-up of denying the famine.
This famine was not the result of drought or some other natural
calamity, but of Soviet dictator Stalin's inhumane, coldly calculated policy
to suppress the Ukrainian people and destroy their human, cultural and
political rights. It was the result of purposeful starvation. Requisition
brigades, acting on Stalin's orders to fulfill impossibly high grain quotas,
took away the last scraps of food from starving families, including
children, often killing those who resisted. Millions of rural Ukrainians
slowly starved amid some of the world's most fertile farmland, while
stockpiles of expropriated grain rotted by the ton.
Please join me in remembering the innocent victims of the Ukraine
Famine. It is important that the world not forget this genocidal famine and
that we support Ukraine's independence and democratic development as
the best assurance that such atrocities become truly unimaginable.
If you are interested in becoming a cosponsor of the Ukraine Famine
resolution, please have your staff contact Orest Deychakiwsky
(orest.deychak@mail.house.gov) or Mike Peterson at the Helsinki Commission
at 5-1901.
Sincerely,
/S/
Ben Nighthorse Campbell, U.S.S.
Co-Chairman, U.S. Helsinki Commission
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