The Ukrainian Weekly, 2016
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INSIDE: l PHOTO FOLLOW-UP: Ukrainian Independence Day in Kyiv – page 4 l The Lemko Vatra, here in the United States and in Poland – page 8 l Ukrainian National Association scholarship winners – pages 14-15 THEPublished U by theKRAINIAN Ukrainian National Association Inc., a fraternal W non-profit associationEEKLY Vol. LXXXIV No. 36 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2016 $2.00 Leaders, protesters demand American Chamber of Commerce president release of Crimean Tatar activist sees its role as moving Ukraine forward by Mark Raczkiewycz KYIV – Andy Hunder is so busy these days that he has to cancel his attendance at ribbon-cutting ceremonies for new factories or offices that foreign companies are opening in Ukraine. On July 1, Mr. Hunder, the president of the country’s American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham), couldn’t attend a door-opening event for the network marketing company Amway in Lviv. His schedule was booked. The previous day he witnessed the launch of Uber taxi service in Kyiv. The following day, British-Dutch Unilever cre- ated 100 jobs by opening a tea-making factory in Hostomel, 30 kilometers northwest of Kyiv. Facebook/Ilmi Umerov And he recently learned that Leoni, a German cable and Crimean Tatar activist Ilmi Umerov. harnessing manufacturing firm, is opening a second plant in the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast town of Kolomyia, in addition to RFE/RL its plant in Lviv. Noting that American agricultural giant Bunge broke KYIV – Ukrainian leaders, Human Rights Watch Andy Hunder, president of the American Chamber of ground last month on a $280 million seaport facility in the and protesters in Kyiv called for the release of a Commerce in Ukraine. Crimean Tatar activist who was forced into a psy- Mykolayiv Oblast, Mr. Hunder said that economically things chiatric hospital in Russia-annexed Crimea. are picking up. Indeed, GDP last year plunged by 10 percent, and an addi- Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Pavlo “The macro is we’ve hit rock bottom, and the question is tional 7 percent in 2014. This year, Ukraine’s economy is slat- Klimkin compared Ilmi Umerov’s detention to the how quickly can we rebound. This year we’re looking at 1 to ed to reach only $87 billion with foreign direct investment Soviet-era practice of holding dissidents in psychi- 1.5 percent gross domestic product growth,” the native accounting for just 2.9 percent, according to Kyiv-based atric hospitals. “Punitive psychiatry is a return to Londoner of Ukrainian parents told The Ukrainian Weekly at the terrible times of the NKVD,” Mr. Klimkin wrote his office on August 31. “It’s minimal, but it’s the trend.” (Continued on page 10) on Twitter, referring to the secret police under Stalin. He and other supporters of Mr. Umerov started a Twitter hashtag #StopKillingIlmiUmerov. A group of Crimean Tatar activists and govern- ment officials on August 26 held a protest at Kyiv’s Philadelphia’s UUARC assists war-affected children Independence Square, the Maidan, carrying a ban- ner reading: “Free Ilmi Umerov.” And in a statement on August 26, Human Rights Watch urged the Russia-backed authorities in Crimea to drop the trumped-up charges against Umerov and provide him with necessary medical treatment. Mr. Umerov, the former deputy chairman of Crimean Tatars’ self-governing body, the Mejlis, was charged with separatism in May after he made public statements against Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in March 2014. Speaking to the AFP news agency by phone from inside the hospital on August 26, Mr. Umerov said: “Just the fact of my being here in a psychiatric hospi- tal is one long act of torture.” He added, “I feel... like a free man in a cage.” Mr. Umerov, 59, whose relatives and lawyers say he suffers from diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and heart problems, has been in a psychiatric hospital Vira Prinko against his will since August 18. Children from the Donetsk Oblast are seen in Kyiv after a two-week camping trip to the foothills of the Carpathian “His life remains in danger,” his lawyer Nikolai Mountains funded by the United Ukrainian American Relief Committee. Polozov told AFP, saying his client was suffering from spikes in blood pressure. by Mark Raczkiewicz that the UUARC has organized the the surrounding landscape. The Moscow-based Memorial Human Rights camping trip for war-traumatized chil- At a cost of $25,000, the UAARC sent Center has called the case against Umerov “illegal KYIV – Some 200 war-affected chil- dren from Ukraine’s east, marking the them on tours to Kyiv and Lviv as well and politically motivated.” dren living in the frontline cities of the organization’s response to the coun- as the Ivano-Frankivsk region, where With reporting by AFP. Donbas were treated to a two-week trau- try’s latest needs. they stayed at the Opillia campsite not Copyright 2016, RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted with the ma-relief trip to the foothills of the One hundred children each came far from the district capital of Rohatyn. permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Carpathian Mountains in July-August by from the easternmost oblasts of The front line cities from which the 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington DC 20036; the Philadelphia-based United Ukrainian Luhansk and Donetsk to get a respite children hailed included Shchastia, www.rferl.org (see http://www.rferl.org/content/ American Relief Committee, one of from the everyday dangers of war. Tryokhizbenka and Krymske, all in the crimea-tatar-activist-umerov-hrw-release/ America’s oldest charitable institutions Children in those cities are exposed daily Luhansk Oblast, and Avdiyivka and vil- 27947920.html). that assists Ukrainians worldwide. to artillery and mortar shelling, sporad- lages and towns located in the This is the second consecutive year ic gunfire and deadly mines that litter Yasynuvatsky district of Donetsk Oblast. 2 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2016 No. 36 WINDOW ON EURASIA Disturbing new push in Putin’s Russia EU prepared to prolong sanctions also said. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by Reuters and TASS) BRUSSELS – European Union ambassa- to rehabilitate Stalin’s NKVD chief Beria dors appear set to prolong asset freezes OSCE calls for release of Umerov and visa bans against 146 individuals and head of the security services. Nor was he to by Paul Goble 37 entities that, according to the EU, are COPENHAGEN – The forced commit- blame for coming up with the idea of send- responsible for actions against Ukraine’s ment to a psychiatric clinic of Ilmi Umerov Even those Russians who deify Joseph ing Russians who had been taken prisoner territorial integrity. RFE/RL reported on represents a worrying new low in Russia’s Stalin typically blame some of the tragedies to the gulag on their liberation from their stigmatization of the Crimean Tatar com- August 31 that EU sources said the decision of his time on his comrades in arms and Nazi jailors. That too was an old Moscow munity and should be immediately to prolong the measures by six months will thus have been opposed to rehabilitating idea. reversed, said the chair of the OSCE be taken ahead of a September 15 deadline and celebrating the lives and careers of the Parliamentary Assembly’s human rights without much discussion. The targets of the most notorious of these, including longtime of the troika in 1937 or that he was behind committee, Ignacio Sanchez Amor (a mem- sanctions include companies in Crimea and secret police chief Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria. the• LeningradIt is not true affair that Beriaafter wasthe war.a member Even ber of Parliament from Spain) on August 27. But now that Russia has a KGB officer as Nikita Khrushchev’s pet historians couldn’t various battalions formed by the Russia- “Already facing charges for simply having its president – and one who often says posi- find evidence for this myth, the article says. backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, as the courage to speak his mind, Russian tive things about Stalin’s times – it perhaps well as Russian politicians like Deputy authorities are now using an old and partic- should not be surprising that some after losing faith in the Kremlin leader. Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin and Dmitry ularly worrying tactic to try and silence Russians are now seeking to rehabilitate • It is not true that Beria killed Stalin Kiselyov, a state media executive and pre- Umerov,” said Mr. Sanchez Amor. “This ugly and celebrate even those as horrific as foreign powers. senter whom many regard as the Kremlin’s allegation of mental instability is a transpar- Beria precisely to establish a kind of dynas- • It is not true that he was an agent of chief propagandist. The sanctions were ent attempt to punish Ilmi Umerov for tic succession from Feliks Dzerzhinsky to vegetables disappeared from Soviet shelves first introduced in March 2014 after speaking out in favor of Ukraine’s territorial the present day. in 1953• It is becausenot true of that Beria, potatoes, as some fruits writers and Russia’s seizure and illegal annexation of integrity. I call for the immediate reversal of There are now websites, articles and have claimed. Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. The EU’s eco- this decision and the release of Mr. Umerov.” even films devoted to this effort – see, for - nomic sanctions that target Russia’s energy, Mr. Umerov, deputy head of the Crimean example, the movie about Beria’s life on tations from western Ukraine, Moldova, military, and financial sectors are up for Tatar Mejlis, which was banned in April, is Youtube (youtube.com/watch?v=tm4W Belarus• It is notand true the that Baltic Beria countries initiated deporor the renewal on January 31.