LEMKIN: HOLODOMOR ‘CLASSIC’ GENOCIDE
Kyiv Post
Nov 19 2009
Ukraine
Today at 22:09 | Lubomyr Luciuk Rafael Lemkin who coined the term
‘genocide,’ called the Holodomor a classic case of Soviet genocide.
Only seven people came to bury him. He rests beneath a simple stone
in New York’s Mount Hebron cemetery, the sole clue to his historical
importance an inscription incised below his name – "Father Of The
Genocide Convention."
As a graduate student I was obliged to read his book,Axis Rule in
Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government, Proposals
for Redress, frankly more door-stopper than page-turner. Nowadays,
with advocates for "humanitarian intervention" shilling the notion of a
"duty to intervene" whenever and wherever necessary to "stop genocide,"
Dr. Raphael Lemkin’s name and words are better known. After all he
fathered the term "genocide" by combining the root words -geno(Greek
for family or race) and -cidium(Latin for killing) then doggedly
lobbied United Nation member states until they adopted a Convention
on Genocide, on Dec. 9, 1948, his crowning achievement.
Because of the horrors committed by Nazi Germany in World War II
what is often forgotten, however, is that Lemkin’s thinking about an
international law to punish perpetrators of what he originally labeled
the "Crime of Barbarity" came not in response to the Holocaust but
rather following the 1915 massacres of Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians
within the Ottoman Turkish empire.
Likewise overlooked were Lemkin’s views on Communist crimes against
humanity. In a 1953 lecture in New York City, for example, he
described the "destruction of the Ukrainian nation" as the "classic
example of Soviet genocide," adding insightfully:"the Ukrainian is
not and never has been a Russian. His culture, his temperament, his
language, his religion, are all different…to eliminate (Ukrainian)
nationalism…the Ukrainian peasantry was sacrificed…a famine was
necessary for the Soviet and so they got one to order…if the Soviet
program succeeds completely, if the intelligentsia, the priest, and
the peasant can be eliminated [then] Ukraine will be as dead as if
every Ukrainian were killed, for it will have lost that part of it
which has kept and developed its culture, its beliefs, its common
ideas, which have guided it and given it a soul, which, in short,
made it a nation…This is not simply a case of mass murder. It is
a case of genocide, of the destruction, not of individuals only,
but of a culture and a nation."
Yet Ukraine’s declaration that the Great Famine of 1932-1933 (known as
theHolodomor)was genocide has secured very little official recognition
from other nations. Canada is among those few. Most have succumbed
to an ongoingHolodomor-denial campaign orchestrated by the Russian
Federation’s barkers, who insist famine occurred throughout the
USSR in the 1930’s, did not target Ukrainians and so can’t be called
genocide. They ignore key evidence – the fact that all foodstuffs were
confiscated from Soviet Ukraine even as its borders were blockaded,
preventing relief supplies from getting in, or anyone from getting
out. And how the Kremlin’s men denied the existence of catastrophic
famine conditions as Ukrainian grain was exported to the West.
Millions could have been saved but were instead allowed to starve.
Most victims were Ukrainians who perished on Ukrainian lands. There’s
no denying that.
A thirst for Siberian oil and gas explains why Germany, France and
Italy have become Moscow’s handmaidens, refusing to acknowledge
theHolodomorand blocking Ukraine’s membership in the European Union,
kowtowing to Russia’s geopolitical claim of having some "right" to
interfere in the affairs of countries in its so-called "near abroad."
More puzzling was a 28 January 2009 pronouncement by Pinhas Avivi,
deputy director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry: "We regard
theHolodomoras a tragedy but in no case do we call it genocide…the
Holocaust is the only genocide to us." Yet if only theShoahis genocide
what happened to the Armenians, or to the Rwandans, not to mention
to those many millions of Ukrainians?
This year, Nov. 28 (fourth Saturday of November) is the date on which
theHolodomor’svictims will be hallowed. Thousands of postcards bearing
Lemkin’s image and citing his words have been mailed to ambassadors
worldwide with governments from Belgium to Botswana, from Brazil to
Bhutan, being asked to acknowledge what was arguably the greatest crime
against humanity to befoul 20thcentury European history. There is no
doubt that Lemkin knew the famine in Soviet Ukraine was genocidal. If
the world chooses to ignore what he said than what this good man
fathered – the word "genocide" – will lose all meaning, forever more.
Professor Lubomyr Luciuk teaches political geography at the Royal
Military College of Canada and edited Holodomor: Reflections on the
Great Famine of 1932-1933 in Soviet Ukraine(Kashtan Press, 2008).