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	ROUND-UP OF REACTIONS TO POLISH-UKRAINIAN 1943 COMMEMORATION
	Anna Kuzma, for Polish Radio, in Kyiv Polish Radio 1, Warsaw, Poland, in Polish, July 12, 2003 BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English on July 12, 2003   [Presenter] The echoes of yesterday's ceremonies organized on the 60th anniversary of the Volyn atrocity are not fading. According to Prof Wojciech Roszkowski, the word sorry was lacking. The Polish Academy of Sciences [PAN] historian feels that the cause for this is the social and historical situation reigning in Ukraine. Prof Roszkowski nonetheless stressed that he had expected, as he put it, something more during the commemorations in Pavlivka.   [Roszkowski] This is the result of a certain social atmosphere that reigns in Ukraine. On the one side, one could understand the Ukrainians who have been altogether mangled by history and have also borne enormous losses, above all on account of the communist system, and from Stalin in particular. But we had a completely different story here. Something else was at stake here. Polish Slavomir Janitsky, center, holds a Polish flag as he stands with Ukrainian mourners holding Ukrainian flags at a ceremony commemorating World War II massacres in the village of Pavlivka, about 30 km (18 miles) east of the Polish border, western Ukraine, Friday, July 11, 2003. Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma and his Polish counterpart Aleksander Kwasniewski joined thousands of mourners at religious ceremonies Friday to commemorate mutual wartime atrocities in which tens of thousands of Ukrainians and Poles were massacred (AP Photo/Sergei Grits) (Bild 1) (Click on image to enlarge it) I had expected something more, even taking into account the second cause, that is the political campaign, current political life in Ukraine, and the fact that Kuchma as if could not politically allow himself anything more. But, well, we should regret that such is the atmosphere in Ukraine and that the Ukrainians are unprepared for this reconciliation. It seems that this ceremony did rather show this up.   [Presenter] Andrzej Przewoznik, the secretary-general of the Council for the Protection of Memory, Struggle and Martyrdom, said that the issue of complete Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation was a matter of a long process that has already begun.   [Przewoznik] I do not hide that it was difficult to expect, although many people and very many circles were counting in these words - that there would be this word sorry, which would dot the i as regards Volyn - that these words would be said. Nonetheless, I feel, and I do so as a participant in the ceremony, that this is an historic and important event.   [Presenter] In turn, Prof Miroslav Popovych feels that President Leonid Kuchma said in Pavlivka everything that he was allowed to by the political situation in Ukraine. Prof Popovych told [public] Polish Radio that President Kuchma's speech should in minimum degree satisfy the expectations of observers.   [Popovych] Everything that is indispensable in this situation has been said. I think that this is the minimum of what they could do, but nonetheless we do have this step which was indispensable in this situation.   [Presenter] Prof Popovych noticed that in another internal situation in Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma could have said more in Pavlivka.   [Popovych] The maximum would be the following: we forgive and we ask for forgiveness, and that is that. There was much pressure from various sides, and I understand that this was also not straightforward in Poland. I think that this is a basis, the principle on which we can build and further develop our relations.   [Presenter] President Leonid Kuchma said during the commemorations of the Volyn tragedy that there was no moral justification for the murders of the civilian population. He honoured all the victims of Polish-Ukrainian conflicts, both Poles and Ukrainians. The Ukrainian leader added that the main burden for the bloody events in Ukraine rested on extremists from national liberation movements of both nations. It was not nations but hatred and intolerance that were the causes of the tragedy, Leonid Kuchma said. Commenting on yesterday's commemorations of the 60th anniversary of the tragedy in Volyn, the Ukrainian press stresses that the meeting in Pavlivka and the joint statement by the Presidents Aleksander Kwasniewski and Leonid Kuchma were a symbolic gesture of reconciliation. According to Ukrainian commentators, now the truth about the events in Volyn should be sought solely by historians.   [Reporter] The long and controversial history of the commemoration of the anniversary of the Volyn tragedy has come to its logical end, argues the Lviv paper Postup. The paper nonetheless notices that words of forgiveness were said in Pavlivka, but there was no apology. Postup expects the slowing down of the discussion in political circles. The Kiev daily Den, associated with the authorities, feels that after much speculation and emotions associated with the commemorations, the subject of the Volyn tragedy has been exhausted. The search for the historical truth is already another matter, in which politics cannot interfere, the paper notes. In its view, the Ukrainians should take a lesson from the recent events, learn from the Poles how to pay attention to their history and move-on. The necessity of forgiveness is written about in a special commentary Postup commentary by Ilko Lemko. How many times do you have to ask a brother for forgiveness? Seven? Or perhaps 77, as Christ taught, he asks. The publicist stresses that the ability to forgive, although difficult, is indispensable. Pain still nests in the hearts of many witnesses of the Volyn tragedy, but the hour of mutual repentance and forgiveness should come. And this not at the dry, official level, but in the hearts of ordinary people, appeals the Postup commentator. This was Anna Kuzma, for Polish Radio, in Kiev.

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