www.ukrweekly.com INSIDE:• Ukrainian Consulate opens in Michigan — page 4. • Pre-convention news about the UNA — pages 5-7. •A unique museum devoted to the pysanka — page 12. Published by the Ukrainian National Association Inc., a fraternal non-profit association Vol. LXX HE KRAINIANNo. 17 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, APRIL 28, 2002 EEKLY$1/$2 in Ukraine Poland’sT presidentU expresses ControversialW procurator general regret over 1947 Akcja Wisla resigns post to take Parliament seat by Jan Maksymiuk Ukrainian villages and the expulsion of by Roman Woronowycz nalists that he had submitted his resigna- RFE/RL Poland, Belarus and Ukraine Report populace. Operation Vistula should be con- Kyiv Press Bureau tion to President Leonid Kuchma on April demned.” 18. The resignation will become effective PRAGUE – Polish President Aleksander Prof. Eugeniusz Mironowicz from KYIV – Mykhailo Potebenko, the con- on April 30 if accepted by the president. Kwasniewski expressed regret over Bialystok University, a historian specializ- troversial procurator general of Ukraine, He said that the 12-day lapse between the Operation Vistula, or Akcja Wisla, a forced ing in the Polish Communist authorities’ announced on April 22 that he had ten- resignation and its effective date was done expulsion by the Communist authorities in policies vis-à-vis the country’s ethnic dered his resignation and would become a to allow a search for a successor to take 1947 of some 140,000 Ukrainians from minorities, presented the political back- member of Parliament representing the place. Among those considered as possi- their native areas in the southeastern part of ground to Akcja Wisla at the conference in Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU). ble successors is Assistant Procurator the country to Poland’s newly acquired Krasiczyn. Prof. Mironowicz argued that Mr. Potebenko won a seat in the General Oleksander Bahanets. northern and western territories, the so- the Polish authorities were determined to Verkhovna Rada from the CPU in by- Mr. Potebenko in many ways represent- called “Recovered Lands,” Polish media solve the problem of the Ukrainian minority party polling during the March 31 elec- ed a bygone era, in the manner by which reported on April 18. by resettlement immediately after the libera- tions, in which his party took 20 percent he kept tight rein over his agency and his In a letter to the National Remembrance tion of Poland from the Nazis. of the vote. Mr. Potebenko held the 20th uncompromising allegiance to his boss, position on the party’s slate. Institute (IPN) and participants in the IPN- In September 1944, the Polish President Kuchma. He had become partic- “The experience of a person with prac- organized conference on Akcja Wisla held Committee of National Liberation (an inter- ularly controversial in the last two years tical professional experience will allow in Krasiczyn near Przemysl (Peremyshl), im governing body) signed accords with the for his handling of the investigation into me to make a worthy contribution in the President Kwasniewski wrote: governments of the Soviet republics of the murder of Heorhii Gongadze, the development of legislation, which will “On behalf of the Polish Republic, I Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania on repatria- young journalist whose headless body was represent the interests of society and the would like to express regret to all those who tion and exchange of population. In theory, found outside Kyiv in November 2000. state,” said Mr. Potebenko during a press were wronged by [this operation]. ... The the repatriation process should have been Many had come to perceive Mr. conference. infamous Operation Vistula is a symbol of voluntary, but in practice forcible and vio- Potebenko as hampering the investigation Ukraine’s chief law enforcement offi- the abominable deeds perpetrated by the lent methods were applied to Ukrainians, into the journalist’s disappearance and cial since 1998 – the last two years of his Communist authorities against Polish citi- who were decidedly unenthusiastic about tenure being quite tumultuous – told jour- (Continued on page 3) zens of Ukrainian origin. ... resettling in the Ukrainian SSR, the scholar “It was believed for years that Operation noted. Vistula was the revenge for the slaughter of In 1944 the government tried to prompt Poles by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army Ukrainians to leave their villages in the (UPA) in the east in 1943-1944. Such rea- Bieszczady Mountains by increasing taxes soning is fallacious and ethically inadmissi- and quotas of compulsory supplies of agri- Program of the 35th Regular Convention ble. It [invokes] a principle of group cultural products to the state. This policy accountability, with which we cannot agree. proved to be only partly successful: in 1944 The slaughter of Poles cannot serve as an of the Ukrainian National Association excuse for the brutal pacification of (Continued on page 3) to be held in Chicago at the Chicago Marriott O’Hare Hotel Friday, May 24, through Tuesday, May 28, 2002 Odesa-Brody pipeline awaits oil beginning 9 a.m. 1. Opening of Convention by Roman Woronowycz in the direction of Gdansk,” the report 2. Report of Credentials Committee Kyiv Press Bureau states, according to an Ukrtransnafta press 3. Acceptance of Convention Program release. KYIV – Oil should enter the Odesa- 4. Approval of Minutes of the 34th Convention The report, announced during a meeting 5. Election Brody pipeline – the controversial and long- of the working committee on the Euro- awaited shipping route from Central Asia to a) Convention chairperson, two vice-chairpersons Asiatic Oil Transport Corridor project, b) 14-member Election Committee the energy-hungry West – in a matter of which consists of representatives of weeks, announced Ukrtransnafta on April c) five-member Committee on Petitions Ukraine, the United States, Poland and the d) six-member Secretaries Committee 13. However, it will be several years before European Bank for Reconstruction and the “black gold” will flow regularly through 6. Appointment of Press Committee, Resolutions Committee Development, said the oil would initially and two sergeants-at-arms the transport tube. find a market in Germany, Poland, the Ever since plans were first announced for 7. Reports of UNA Officers – Executive Committee: Czech Republic and Slovakia. – President Ulana M. Diachuk the Odesa-Brody pipeline, which is sched- The report recommends continuing the uled to connect to the Polish port town of – First Vice-President Stefko Kuropas construction of the transport line to the town – Second Vice-President Anya Dydyk-Petrenko Gdansk when finished, there have been of Plotsk in Poland, where it would be – Director for Canada the Rev. Myron Stasiw questions about whether the pipeline is hooked to an existing line to carry the oil to – National Secretary Martha Lysko more economically viable than routes Gdansk and concludes that the extension of – Treasurer Stefan Kaczaraj through Turkey and southern Europe or the the transport line through Poland to Gdansk 8. Reports of UNA Auditing Committee members: sea lanes of the Dardanelles and the and the implementation of another planned – William Pastuszek Bosphorus Sea into the Mediterranean. project, the Druzhba-Adria line, would – Stefan Hawrysz Now a study recently completed by the guarantee its viability. – Alexander Serafyn U.S. company Halliburton, Kellogg, Brown If combined, the two routes would allow – Yaroslav Zaviysky & Root in conjunction with Cambridge for much of the oil shipped out of the devel- – Myron Groch Energy Research Associates, which was oping Caspian Sea region, which may con- 9. Reports of UNA Advisors: commissioned by the U.S. Trade and tain the second largest oil reserves in the – Taras Szmagala Jr. Development Agency, reports that there world, to bypass the high-risk and heavily – Alex Chudolij would be a demand in the European market traveled Bosphorus-Dardanelles shipping – Tekla Moroz for Caspian oil flowing through Ukraine. route by giving oil transporters the option of – Halyna Kolessa “The substantive opportunities of the moving oil over land through Ukraine. – Nick Diakiwsky Euro-Asian oil transport corridor are tied to the extension of the Odesa-Brody pipeline (Continued on page 23) (Continued on page 23) 2 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, APRIL 28, 2002 No. 17 ANALYSIS NEWSBRIEFS Russian Ambassador to Ukraine NEWSBRIEFS Zvarych reinstated as winner Hrach registered as Crimean deputy Chernomyrdin, and corruption KYIV – The Supreme Court ruled on SYMFEROPOL – The Crimean April 18 that Roman Zvarych of the Our Election Commission on April 19 regis- by Roman Kupchinsky mafioso of the country,’ according to the Ukraine bloc is the winner of the parlia- tered Leonid Hrach as a national deputy RFE/RL Crime and Corruption Watch former presidential security council secre- mentary vote in District 90 (Ivano- of the Crimean Supreme Council, tary Yuriy Skokov. Mr. Skokov told the Frankivsk Oblast), as was reported by the UNIAN reported. Mr. Hrach, who was In 1995 the co-chairman of the Gore- weekly Obschaya Gazeta that Mr. constituency’s Election Commission fol- also elected to the Verkhovna Rada in Chernomyrdin Commission, U.S. Vice- Chernomyrdin had become a billionaire lowing the vote count. With this ruling, Kyiv, announced that he will give up his President Al Gore, was given a report pre- from the privatization of Gazprom. the court overruled the subsequent deci- mandate in Kyiv and join the pared by the Central Intelligence Agency “How Gazprom was privatized is still a sion of the Central Election Commission autonomous legislature. “The leader who (CIA) which claimed that Mr. mystery, according to Former Minister (CEC) that invalidated the vote in could squeeze me out of Crimea has not Chernomyrdin, the vice-president’s partner Boris Fedorov. While Gazprom’s market District 90. Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast yet matured,” Mr. Hrach noted. He added within the commission, was a highly cor- value was estimated to be $120 billion, the Chairman Mykola Shkribliak, who ran in that he has a “100 percent” chance to be rupt official in the Yeltsin government.