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Ukraine marks 73rd anniversary of forced Soviet-era famine that killed 10 million
bostonherald ^ | Saturday, November 25, 2006

Posted on 11/25/2006 12:18:24 PM PST by Grzegorz 246

KIEV, Ukraine - Ukraine held solemn commemorations Saturday to mark the 73rd anniversary of a man-made Soviet-era famine that killed one-third of the country's population, a tragedy that Ukraine's president wants recognized as an act of genocide.

At the height of the 1932-33 famine, 33,000 people died of hunger every day, devastating entire villages. Cases of cannibalism were widespread as desperation deepened.

Black ribbons were hung Saturday on the blue and yellow national flag, and in cities across the country, officials laid flowers at monuments to the estimated 10 million victims.

President Viktor Yushchenko and Parliament Speaker Oleksandr Moroz unveiled the cornerstone of a planned memorial complex in the capital. Later Saturday, officials planned a procession and the lighting of thousands of candles on a centuries-old Kiev square.

"I would like for us never to tolerate the shame of having to hold discussions about what to call this," Yushchenko said at the ceremony. "This is one of the most horrible pages of our history, and for a long time now, it has had only one name."

Soviet dictator Josef Stalin provoked the famine in a campaign to force peasants to give up their private farms and join collectives. Authorities collectivized agriculture throughout the Soviet Union, but farmers in Ukraine - known as the breadbasket of the U.S.S.R. - fiercely resisted and bore the brunt of the man-made disaster.

Yushchenko has asked parliament to recognize the famine as genocide, but some lawmakers have resisted, and Moscow has warned Kiev against using that term.

Russia argues that the orchestrated famine did not specifically target Ukrainians but also other peoples in the Soviet agricultural belt, including Russians and Kazakhs, and this month said the issue should not be "politicized." But historians say that the overwhelming majority of victims were Ukrainians, and the famine coincided with Stalin's effort to quash growing Ukrainian nationalism.

"Practically every family who lived in Ukraine at that time suffered deaths," opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko said.

During the Soviet era, the mass starvation was a closely guarded state secret, but information trickled out over the years and Ukraine has since declassified thousands of files. Ten nations, including the United States, have recognized the famine as an act of genocide, defined as the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group. Genocide is a crime under international law.

Moroz said he supports recognizing the mass starvation as genocide, and predicted that the president's bill, which has run into some trouble among lawmakers loyal to Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, would come before parliament next week. Some lawmakers from Yanukovych's Russia-leaning Party of Regions have suggested calling the famine a tragedy instead of genocide, but party member Taras Chornovil predicted the president's version would ultimately pass.

Under Stalin, each village was ordered to provide the state with a quota of grain, but the demands typically exceeded crop yields. As village after village failed to meet the requirements, they were put on a blacklist. The government seized all food and residents were prohibited from leaving - effectively condemning them to starvation. Those who resisted were shot or sent to Siberia.

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TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: commies; democide; genocide; reds; ukraine
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1 posted on 11/25/2006 12:18:26 PM PST by Grzegorz 246
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To: quesney; Brad's Gramma; OriginalChristian; Huber; Think free or die; 4Freedom; norton; ...
Eastern European ping list
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FRmail me to be added or removed from this Eastern European ping list
2 posted on 11/25/2006 12:20:38 PM PST by Grzegorz 246
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To: Grzegorz 246

I appreciate your ping list. I did not know about this success of liberalism.

3 posted on 11/25/2006 12:22:30 PM PST by Loud Mime (Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire)
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To: Grzegorz 246
73 Years of SHAME for the New York Times for being pride as a peacock that their lying scum correspondent Duranty covered this crime against humanity up.
4 posted on 11/25/2006 12:23:44 PM PST by AmericaUnited
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To: Grzegorz 246

Kruschev was in charge of this famine. Very effective. Later made Premier of USSR.

5 posted on 11/25/2006 12:24:01 PM PST by TexanToTheCore (This space for hire...)
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To: Grzegorz 246
The History Channel® had a documentary on Stalin recently called Joseph Stalin: Man of Steel. While the show depicted Stalin as the mass urderer that he was, there was one "talking head" liberal who tried to excuse the famines by saying "Stalin did what he had to do in order to move the Soviet Union into the modern industrial age."

Some liberals will forever be in denial about the crimes of communism.

6 posted on 11/25/2006 12:29:41 PM PST by Sans-Culotte ("Thanks, Tom DeLay, for practically giving me your seat"-Nick Lampson)
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To: Loud Mime

The New York Times covered it up when it happened. Walter Durante won a Pulitzer for his lies about this horrific act of genocide, and that filthy, degenerate pinko rag still refuses to give the award back. It's still one of the most under-recognized crimes against humanity ever. Stalin may be dead, but the NYT should be sued into bankruptcy over this.

7 posted on 11/25/2006 12:30:40 PM PST by lesser_satan (EKTHELTHIOR!!!)
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To: AmericaUnited

Agitating against Duranty would make a fine guerilla-type campaign against the Left. Maybe someday we'll do it.

8 posted on 11/25/2006 12:33:58 PM PST by TimSkalaBim
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To: lesser_satan

Just for the record: The harvests were very good during those years, but people died in sight of mountains of grain kept outside in areas fenced off and guarded by soldiers.

And the New York Times should be put out of business for their complicity in this heinous crime.

9 posted on 11/25/2006 12:35:13 PM PST by TexanToTheCore (This space for hire...)
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To: Sans-Culotte

"Stalin did what he had to do in order to move the Soviet Union into the modern industrial age."


Wwong. USSR was not only a slow growth economy, they got no higher than 1/4 of the US personal gross product. Mostly it was about 1/8.

10 posted on 11/25/2006 12:37:53 PM PST by TexanToTheCore (This space for hire...)
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To: Grzegorz 246

democide alert

11 posted on 11/25/2006 12:41:39 PM PST by LiteKeeper (Beware the secularization of America; the Islamization of Eurabia)
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To: Sans-Culotte

Here is Stalin's obituary that was published in the NY Times. It was a fawning tribute to a madman...

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1221.html

12 posted on 11/25/2006 12:42:28 PM PST by jimbo123
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To: Grzegorz 246
God bless the Ukrainians.

But, as we speak, the New York Times is celebrating the memory of Walter Duranty...

13 posted on 11/25/2006 12:44:25 PM PST by okie01 (The Mainstream Media: IGNORANCE ON PARADE)
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Comment #14 Removed by Moderator
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To: Grzegorz 246

Someday a movie needs to be done about this and the Times part in the coverup.

15 posted on 11/25/2006 12:46:42 PM PST by mainepatsfan
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To: lesser_satan

Here's a good contrast in journalists:

Walter Duranty lied and lied and lied (and denied the Communist-made famine)
for Stalin and got a Pulitzer Prize.
http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=669

versus

Malcolm Muggeridge investigated and exposed the Communists' famine and
had slim-pickings as a journalist as a consequence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Muggeridge

Increasingly becoming disillusioned by communism, Malcolm decided to
investigate at first hand reports of the famine in Ukraine, travelling there
and to the Caucasus without permission of the Soviet authorities.
Reports he sent back to the Guardian in the diplomatic bag, thus evading
censorship, were not fully printed and were not published under Muggeridge's
name. At the same time, rival journalist Gareth Jones who had met
Muggeridge in Moscow went public with his own stories confirming
the extent of the famine.

Writing in the New York Times, Walter Duranty blatantly denied the
existence of any famine. To his credit, Gareth Jones wrote letters
to the Guardian in support of Muggeridge's articles about the famine.
Having come directly into conflict with the paper's editorial
policy, Muggeridge turned back to novel writing, starting Winter In
Moscow (1934), describing real conditions in the socialist utopia and
satirizing Western journalists uncritical of the Stalin regime.

He was to later call Duranty "the greatest liar I have met in journalism."

16 posted on 11/25/2006 12:47:32 PM PST by VOA
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To: Grzegorz 246
Yushchenko has asked parliament to recognize the famine as genocide...and Moscow has warned Kiev against

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