Nalyvaichenko: Security Service’s principle position concern

Ceremonial events to commemorate 1932-1933 Holodomor victims will be held on the national level in Ukraine on 28-29 November. The world community has already recognized Holodomor as an act of genocide against Ukrainian people. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has made a significant contribution revealing and condemning this crime. Our interview with the Head of the SBU Valentyn Nalyvaychenko is dedicated to the 76th anniversary of the tragedy. - Mr. Nalyvaychenko, the SBU is known to have conducted a large amount of work to study and declassify the SBU archives on an artificial famine organized by the Communist regime in Ukraine in 1932-1933. What is your personal position on this issue? V.N. – The Security Service’s principle position is that questions concerning renewal of historical truth, realization of causes and consequences of Genocide of the Ukrainian people by citizens are not and can not be a secret. The Ukrainian security service discloses all the archival materials at its disposal left from totalitarian times for the national and word community. Holodomor became a national disaster. Only during 1932-1933 about one-fifth of rural population of Ukraine died, which is nearly 10 millions Ukrainians. Our country still undergoes demographical, social economic, and historical and cultural aftermaths of the tragedy? - What was the main cause of Holodomor actually and what was the goal pursued by the Communist leaders? V.N. – In the beginning of 30th years the Ukrainian national consciousness assumed critical for the totalitarian Communist regime proportions, national intelligence had flowered. Ukraine was trying to pursue an autonomous policy; it became possible owing to Ukrainian national consciousness growing. Supporting element of the whole Ukraine – the peasantry – arranged for further development of the national consciousness. Those were the reasons for the terror by hunger with the aim to destruct the very Ukrainian national idea, having undermined its social base, demoralized the intelligence, and made peasants, who survived the Holodomor, obedient collective farmers. As the political power was concentrated in Moscow, it determined the fate of Ukrainians. That is why the 1932-1933 Holod became an answer of the Communist Moscow power to the cultural and political development of Ukraine of those days. - What exactly has the Security Service done to elucidate the events of those days and in what direction are you planning to work in the future? V.N. – Today we can state for certain that it is the first time since the Ukrainian independence when the country has made a frontal examination of Soviet state security service’s funds with the aim to reveal documents on the 1932-1933 Holodomor history. Topical exhibitions ‘Declassified Memory’ were arranged in all the regions of Ukraine, where visitors had an opportunity to have a look at documental materials proving all the criminality of the Communist regime’s activities. Documents, which were made public, are originals with signatures, with original stamps both of the Communist leaders, who gave instructions, and all GPU institutions (the then-punitive agency). The work of informational centers providing electronic copies of declassified materials of those days has been set in most regions of the country. The book entitled ‘1932-1933 Holodomor in Ukraine as reflected by GPU/NKVD documents” was published, fully based on archival documents. With the help of our materials a number of documental films about this severe tragedy have been shot. The same exhibitions were arranged not only in Ukraine, but beyond its boarders – in the United States of America, Germany, Poland, Belgium, Greece, Ireland, Baltic States. At present, a special operative investigatory group has been set in the SBU to conduct a large-scale work within the criminal case investigation regarding genocide, participants of Holodomor and repressions – party and Soviet leaders, state security agencies’ officers - have already been specified. First of all, I am referring to the party state leadership of the USSR and Ukrainian SSR – Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovych, Kosior, Postyshev, as well as OGPU-NKVD leaders – Yagoda, Redens, Balytskyi, and others. The work is been conducted every day, and the results of it are systematically been made public by our service. This process will continue until no ‘white page’, no unrevealed crime, no unpunished hangman is left in the history of our people. - Mr. Nalyvaychenko, despite the SBU’s significant achievements on the issue of 1932-1933 Holodomor as genocide of Ukrainian people, isn’t it only a domestic problem of Ukraine? What can you say about appraisal of this tragic page of our history by the world community? I can bindingly confirm that concerning throwing light on the Holodomor tragedy we have never confined ourselves only to interstate measures. As it has already been noted, exhibitions ‘’Declassified Memory were arranged beyond the Ukrainian boarders more than once; we extensively develop cooperation in this direction with the representatives of the Israeli Memorial Complex ‘Yad Vashem’, the Holocaust Museum in Washington , the Institute of National Remembrance in Poland, a number of others foreign historical research institutions. Electronic exhibition materials ‘Declassified Memory’ and collection of documents of the same name have been handed over to the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine and translated into the UN member-states languages with the aim to expand in parliaments, governmental institutions, amid public, in educational and scientific institutions of foreign countries. At the request of Ukrainian public organizations of Australia, Kazakhstan, Canada, Germany and the USA, in order to organize adequate measures abroad, they were sent electronic copies of the SBU archival documents on Holodomor and exhibitions ‘Declassified Memory’. The question of recognition of Holodomor as an act of genocide against the Ukrainians has long been beyond the boarders of our country. 1932-1933 Holodomor has already been recognized as genocide of Ukrainian people at national level by the parliaments of the USA, Canada, Australia, Estonia, Italy, Lithuania, Georgia, Poland, Hungary, Argentina, Spain, and other leading states. - What do think about commemoration of the Holodomor victims, is it a consolidating issue for Ukrainian people or it can be used for polarization of society yet again? V.N. – I am deeply convinced that everything concerning the revealing of perpetrators of Holodomor, is very important for the future formation of the Ukrainian state. As it is truth, that in every low-governed state, moreover European, which is Ukraine, crystallizes out the very national idea, around which a unification of people is taking place. - In the end of our conversation, what would you wish to Ukrainians ahead of the 76th anniversary of Holodomor? V.N. – Today we have to clearly understand – the main everlasting value for all of us is our state. As it is only the Ukrainian Independence and a democratic way we have chosen, that is a reliable guarantee of that it will never happen again. And we are obliged to remember this. To remember the horrific price the Ukrainian people had paid for the right to live. We have to do everything that the memory of those terrible events always to be alive for present and future generations. I am sure, our task is to inform every Ukrainian and the world community of the truth about our past, about everyone been killed guiltless for the sake of honorable commemoration of all those, who lost their lives for Ukraine!

- Posted by Polychevsky from Ukraine on Nov 26th, 2009