The Ukrainian Weekly 2008, No.1
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www.ukrweekly.com ïêàëíéë êéÑàÇëü! CHRIST IS BORN! HE KRAINIAN EEKLY T PublishedU by the Ukrainian National Association Inc., a fraternal non-profitW association Vol. LXXVI No. 1 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, JANUARY 6, 2008 $1/$2 in Ukraine UPA photos, safely hidden Tymoshenko government’s first success: for decades, found in loft a revised version of the 2008 budget by Zenon Zawada would force the new government to work Kyiv Press Bureau with the 2007 budget. “If we don’t pass the law on the state KYIV – Within two weeks of coming budget by the fiscal year’s end, we will to power, the Yulia Tymoshenko govern- practically undermine the entire system of ment achieved its first success by passing social standards,” Mr. Yatsenyuk warned. a revised version of the 2008 state budget The coalition’s leaders rolled up their well before the New Year’s Eve deadline. sleeves, consulted, debated, made amend- Coalition leaders touted their plan as ments and held a deciding vote drawing more generous in social spending than support from all 227 deputies of the what was offered by the preceding gov- Democratic Forces Coalition, as well as ernment of Viktor Yanukovych, including eight votes from the Communist Party of higher pensions, wages and scholarships, Ukraine. and the return of lost savings. The victory drew raucous cheers from “I believe that we took one more step the coalition deputies and shouts of so that the people again began believing “Shame” directed toward Volodymyr in the state,” Ms. Tymoshenko said after Lytvyn, leader of the eponymous bloc the budget was passed at about 9 p.m. on which declined to support the document, December 28, 2007, three days ahead of despite affirming it in its first reading ear- deadline. lier that day. The budget plans revenues of $42.6 Afterwards, the Communist Party’s billion (U.S.) and $46.0 billion in expen- Among a group of UPA soldiers are Voskresintsi natives Stepan Hutsuliak and leadership threatened to evict those ditures, amounting to a total deficit of Vasyl Serbeniuk (seated from left). deputies who voted in favor. (Leonid $3.4 billion, or about 2.1 percent of the Grach, whose card cast a vote in favor, gross domestic product (GDP). by Larysa Marchuk “I know all this precisely because in offered the excuse that he was in After the Tymoshenko government 1937 I joined the OUN as a young Symferopol the entire week, including the Kyiv Press Bureau came to power on December 18, 2007, woman and had the nickname ‘Sosna’ day of the vote.) Verkhovna Rada Chair Speaker Arseniy VOSKRESINTSI, Ukraine – For more (Pine Tree),” Ms. Zhulynska said. She The opposition Party of the Regions of than 60 years, Paraska Hutsuliak hid 34 Yatsenyuk expressed concern that the photographs in the loft of her home in (Continued on page 9) budget wouldn’t be passed in time, which (Continued on page 15) this Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast town. A secret operative for the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), Ms. Hutsuliak toiled in Siberian Ukrainians celebrate lives of contemporary leaders labor camps, returned to her native vil- by Zenon Zawada lage and lived there until her death, Kyiv Press Bureau never telling anyone about the hidden pictures. KYIV – The year 2007 marked the The old house came into the owner- anniversaries of four contemporary ship of Andrii Myhaliuk and his family Ukrainian legends who fought the and, when fixing his roof, he came upon oppression of Soviet Communism and the paper bundle by chance. led Ukraine to independence. “The photographs were very well pre- First imprisoned for 18 months for served,” 34-year-old Mr. Myhaliuk said. writing “Lykho z Rozumu” (published in “Obviously, Paraska constantly moni- the West as “The Chornovil Papers”), a tored them, because the newspaper in portrait of persecuted Shestydesiatnyky which they were wrapped was from the (activists of the 1960s), the late 1970s.” Vyacheslav Chornovil joined the Noticing soldiers in the photos and not Ukrainian Helsinki Group and eventually knowing who they were, Mr. Myhaliuk led the Rukh movement that achieved set off on a fact-finding mission, taking Ukrainian independence. the pictures to the village’s oldest resi- Suffering seven years in a Siberian dent, 86-year-old Hanna Zhulynska. labor camp during the 1980s for writing She was very surprised to see insur- “Ethnocide of Ukrainians in the USSR” gents in the pictures and asked Mr. among other works, Stepan Khmara was Myhaliuk where he found them. Ms. arrested on November 17, 1990, igniting Zhulynska recognized fellow villager mass protests that fueled the Ukrainian Stepan Hutsuliak, the brother of Paraska. independence movement. In fact, several members of the Having spent more than half his adult Hutsuliak family served in the Ukrainian life, or 33 years, in Soviet prisons for his Press Office of Ukraine’s President Insurgent Army (UPA), including the activity as a rights advocate, Hero of A scene from the unveiling in August 2006 of the monument to Vyacheslav father, son Stepan and daughters Maria Ukraine Lev Lukianenko celebrated his Chornovil on Hrushevsky Street in Kyiv. and Paraska, she explained. 80th birthday on August 24, a date per- Paraska was the only Hutsuliak to sur- haps fated to be Ukrainian Independence – Ukrainian National Self-Defense whether at ceremonious evenings in the vive the war, Ms. Zhulynska added. The Day. (UNA-UNSO), a nationalist political nation’s capital or, in Mr. Lukianenko’s NKVD first arrested her in 1939, but Spending 22 years in Soviet prisons, party that combated authoritarianism case, on the parliamentary campaign trail Paraska fled, hid and served in the where the beatings permanently dam- after independence. in rural Ukraine. underground resistance during the war, aged his legs, the late Anatolii Lupynis The birthdays of these four men were she said. formed the Ukrainian National Assembly commemorated in different ways, (Continued on page 8) 2 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, JANUARY 6, 2008 No. 1 ANALYSIS NEWSBRIEFSNEWSBRIEFS A bittersweet homecoming Putin: Russia becoming stronger ($42.6 billion U.S.) and expenditures at 235.43 billion hrv ($46.6 billion U.S.). The for Crimea’s Tatars MOSCOW – President Vladimir Putin document comprises the budget itself and said in his annual New Year’s address to the over 100 amendments regarding taxation by Volodymyr Prytula of Crimean Tatars on the peninsula. nation on December 31, 2007, that it was and social legislation. The government the support, trust and efforts of ordinary RFE/RL On the contrary, authorities adopted explained that the budget deficit of nearly legislation tightening rules for returnees Russians that made possible “everything 105 billion hrv made the amendments nec- SYMFEROPOL, Ukraine – In the seeking to obtain a passport and housing that we have done together with you during essary. (RFE/RL Newsline) main mosque of Crimea’s capital, in Crimea. Those who were able to find the past eight years” of his two-term presi- Symferopol, relatives pray for the soul of housing were rarely granted residence dency, kremlin.ru reported. He stressed that OU-PSD: budget fulfills promises Idriz Efendi. They say Efendi, an ethnic “we have not only restored the territorial permits, which in turn prevented them KYIV – As Verkhovna Rada Chairman Tatar, died poor but happy to have spent integrity of Russia, but once again we are from finding work. Like Mr. Efendi, who Arseniy Yatsenyuk explained before the the last years of his life in his ancestral able to feel we are a united people. And all attempted to return home in the 1960s, voting, the law on the national budget homeland, Crimea. these years we worked together to preserve large numbers of Crimean Tatars were passed on December 28, 2007, was pro- His father, Jelal Efendi, was not so for- our country, to transform it into a modern, eventually deported back to Central Asia. posed with changes made by the tunate. Soviet authorities did not permit free and strong state able to provide its citi- Mr. Chubarov says the decree only Parliament’s Budgetary Committee. him to resettle in Crimea – now part of zens with a comfortable life.” Mr. Putin strengthened their determination to return According OU-PSD faction chair Ukraine – after he was deported to remote argued that “we have seen how, from year to their native country. Viacheslav Kyrylenko, the coalition has ful- Uzbekistan. to year, Russia has been gaining in strength. “They understood that the problem of filled its promise to voters. Due to the The Efendis’ story is all too common. ... How our economy has been growing. their return depended on the mass charac- adopted budget, irrespective of whom the In May 1944 Soviet authorities rounded ter of the Crimean Tatar national move- How new opportunities have been opening people voted for, they will have enhanced up Crimea’s 190,000 Tatars and loaded ment and the unity of their movement,” up for the people.” He noted that “we have them onto freight trains bound for Central pensions, salaries, scholarships, military he says. “I think that was the main result not managed to do everything. But I am maintenances and other payments. He said Asia, mainly for Uzbekistan. of that decree for Crimean Tatars.” quite certain that the road the people have This collective punishment was the coalition has made many concessions to It wasn’t until perestroika in the late chosen for Russia is the right road and that the opposition and stressed that social guar- ordered by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, 1980s that Crimea opened its door wide it will lead us to success. We have every- who accused the entire Crimean Tatar antees were secured.