UKRAINE’S FOREIGN MINISTRY AND CENTRAL ELECTION COMMISSION ASSURE COOPERATION ON VOTER PARTICIPATION ABROAD

    On July 9, 2004 the UWC President met with Konstantyn Hryschenko, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister and Yaroslav Davydovych, Deputy Chair of Ukraine’s Central Election Commission. Both Foreign Minister Hryschenko and Deputy Chair Davydovych assured the UWC President that painstaking yet flexible scrutiny will aim to ensure the largest voter participation possible including the opening of additional polling places in areas where a large concentration of voters is evident and inclusion in voter lists of those who alert the authorities of their relocation up to seven days prior to the election. Both, however, pointed to dismal voter participation abroad in prior elections.

In other matters before the foreign ministry, Mr. Hryschenko assured the UWC President that the Ukrainian Embassy in Budapest will defer to the community on the subject of the Shevchenko monument; that instructions will bе issued to all of Ukraine’s diplomatic missions regarding the seriousness of slave trafficking and the need tо cooperate with international and Diaspora structures in this matter.

APPEALS FOR ELECTION PARTICPATION BY UKRAINIAN CITIZENS ABROAD AND INTERNATIONAL OBSERVERS

    In the last two weeks the UWC has issued two Ukrainian language appeals in conjunction with the presidential elections in Ukraine scheduled for October 31, 2004. We include both for your detailed consideration. The thrust of the UWC’s efforts is to ensure the largest possible participation of voters abroad by expanding the existing lists of voters and creating additional geographically strategic polling places predicated on voter concentration throughout the world.

The UWC’s aim regarding international observers is largely coordinating efforts by the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA), Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) and other national central representations and providing credentials through the UWC if needed.

UWC PRESIDENT VISITS COMMUNITIES IN SWEDEN, ESTONIA, CZECH REPUBLIC, AUSTRIA AND GERMANY

    From June 28 to July 8, 2004 the UWC President visited Stockholm, Tallinn, Prague, Vienna and Berlin. Detailed reports are included. In summary, the communities in Sweden are still developing; in Estonia and the Czech Republic they have achieved a certain degree of sophistication with tremendous political potential in both cases and great numbers in the case of the latter; in Germany the community is in process of reorganization with the center in Berlin rather than Munich; and Austria appearing as a reluctant, albeit important component of the global Diaspora effort with some potential in peoples and important, particularly as the hub of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and a United Nations’ second tier office. 

    As reported in our July Newsletter, in 1997 the Sandаrmoch forests some 250 kilometers north of Petrozavodsk in Northwest Russia was identified as the “killing field” for 1,111 intellectuals from the Solovetsky Gulag, executed over several days in late October and early November 1937, including approximately 500 Ukrainians. The two most striking aspects of this revelation are that it took sixty years for the world to learn of this “killing field” and that the list of Ukrainian victims includes such monumental personages as Les Kurbas, Mykola Kulish, Mykola Zerov and others. An effort has been launched to erect a monument to the Ukrainian victims at the site. To that end, the UWC has formed a Sandаrmoch monument fund. All contributions should be directed to the UDC offices either in Toronto or New York and earmarked appropriately. 

UKRAINIAN FILM AND THE DIASPORA

    Over the last decade the Diaspora has been actively involved in collaborative efforts with the film industry in Ukraine producing both documentary and feature films. Our nation central representation in the United States, the UCCA has been most prominent in this regard, initially with “Atentat” a depiction of Stepan Bandera and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in 1997 and “Neskorenyj” the biographical story of General Roman Shukhevych and the Ukrainian Partisan Army (UPA) in 2000. A representative of the Diaspora from Australia, Yuri Borec has financed single-handedly the most recent joint effort entitled “Zalizna Sotnia,” a feature film about the struggle of the UPA in the Zakerzon territory of Poland. This film premiered in Kolomyja in July 2004 and is available currently for special screening throughout the world. Interested parties may contact the director directly at Oles@ln.ua. The next scheduled joint effort is a feature film depicting the life of His Beatitude Metropolitan Andrei Sheptycky. This ambitious project is to be financed jointly once again by the UCCA and Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture and Arts. However, to date, funding has been inadequate and as a result the film may suffer. The UCCA is looking to the global Diaspora for assistance. Those interested may contact the UCCA at UCCA@ucca.org.

UWC REPRЕSENTATION REGISTERED WITH UKRAINE’S JUSTICE MINISTRY