“Putin follows the cruel and criminal tradition,” say the promoters of the initiative
The Bundestag, the German federal Parliament, is going to approve a resolution that describes the famine caused by Soviet leader Josef Stalin in the early 1930s as a genocide against the Ukrainian people. More than four million people then died of starvation as a result of the Holomodor, as the so-called Ukrainian Holocaust is also known.
German media revealed this Friday that the parliamentary resolution is based on a joint proposal drafted by the ruling tripartite of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals, as well as by the conservative opposition of Bavarian Christian Democrats and Social Christians.
The text, which is expected to be approved next week, has been drawn up to coincide with the day in memory of that catastrophe, which in Ukraine is always celebrated on the last Saturday of November.
The Holomodor is aligned “on the list of crimes of contempt for human dignity of totalitarian systems, as a consequence of which millions of human lives were extinguished in Europe in the first half of the twentieth century,” the draft resolution states.
This crime “is part of our history as Europeans and Europeans,” adds the document, which highlights that this “crime against humanity” is little known in Germany and the European Union. The deputies of the German lower house demand in the resolution that the federal government disclose knowledge about the Holomodor and contribute to the memory of its victims.
“More than ever we are facing Russia’s offensive war against Ukraine against international law these days, which at the same time is an attack on our peace order and European values. The aspirations of great power and repression must have no place in Europe”, highlights the draft of the resolution, which also implies a condemnation of the aggressive policy of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Putin follows the cruel and criminal tradition of Stalin,” says the green Robin Wegener, promoter of the initiative and president of the German-Ukrainian parliamentary commission. «Ukraine is once again devastated by Russian terror. Again they seek to destroy the vital bases of Ukraine through violence and terror and subdue the entire country,” Wegener said.
warning sign
The qualification of the Holomodor as genocide is a “sign of warning”, added the green deputy, while his colleague from the Christian-Democratic opposition, Knut Abraham, stressed that “this recognition is even more important given the fact that Ukraine is once again the target of a Russian aggression.
The famine of 1932 and 1933 that caused the so-called Ukrainian Holocaust was the consequence of the forced collectivization of agriculture and the massive confiscation of food by the Stalin regime, mainly in the Ukraine.
In those regions where the peasants did not comply with the regulations for the delivery of cereals to the central government, all the food in their homes was requisitioned and the affected areas were isolated militarily, which caused millions of deaths.
Ukraine has spent years demanding the recognition of the Holomodor as genocide in parliamentary resolutions of other countries. Moscow categorically rejects this initiative on the grounds that the great famine in the Soviet Union in the early 1930s also affected Russians, Kazakhs, Volga Germans and members of other ethnic groups. It is estimated that more than seven million Soviet citizens perished as a result of Stalin’s policies, more than half in the Ukraine.
The Bundestag resolution goes further by stating that Stalinism took advantage of those years to persecute intellectuals in Ukraine “with the aim of exterminating the bearers of their cultural identity” and stressing that “the authoritarian government in Russia under Vladimir Putin pursues a ideologized historical policy that prevents addressing Stalinist crimes, including the Holomodor.
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