UN Affirms that Famine is War Crime ahead of Holodomor Commemoration

As Ukrainians prepare to commemorate the 85th anniversary of Russia’s mass murder by starvation of 7-10 million Ukrainian men, women and children, the United Nations has made a significant admission about using food as a weapon.

The UN issued a statement on Monday, October 23, in which it said famine can constitute a war crime or crime against humanity. An independent UN human rights expert noted that more civilians die from hunger and disease related to conflicts than in direct combat.

“If the famine comes from deliberate action of the state or other players using food as a weapon of war, it is an international crime,” the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Hilal Elver was quoted as telling journalists in New York.

“It is crucial that the international community understands that it is an international crime to intentionally block access to food, food aid, and to destroy production of food.”

So what is holding back the United Nations from taking the leap from stating that famine is a war crime to declaring that the Ukrainian Holodomor is a crime of genocide? Fear of Russia?

Ukraine, the United States, former captive nations and others for a total of 15 countries have recognized the Ukrainian famine killings as genocide.

Eight and a half decades ago, the Holodomor against the Ukrainian nation was precipitated by an intentional, deliberate deprivation of food by Russia. Moscow was fulfilling its plan to eradicate the Ukrainian nation from the face of the earth. It wasn’t merely Josef Stalin or Soviet Russia or Communist Russia. It was singular Russia, regardless of its socio-political mantra, which for more than 1,000 bloody years has tried to subjugate or eradicate the Ukrainian nation.

Indeed, the famine murders in Ukraine of 1932-33 were the fulfillment of the imperial spirit and mission of Russia. Stalin and the Communist Party of the USSR were merely the perpetrators. They were crimes against humanity and an act of genocide.

Noted Holodomor researcher Robert Conquest, author of The Harvest of Sorrow, emphatically stated that the famine was a deliberate act of mass murder, if not genocide.

More notably, Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term genocide, declared the Holodomor qualifies as such a heinous crime:

“What I want to speak about is perhaps the classic example of Soviet genocide, its longest and broadest experiment in Russification – the destruction of the Ukrainian nation,” Lemkin wrote.

“This is not simply a case of mass murder. It is a case of genocide, of destruction, not of individuals only, but of a culture and a nation. Soviet national unity is being created, not by any union of ideas and of cultures, but by the complete destruction of all cultures and of all ideas save one – the Soviet.”

The Ukrainian diaspora, especially in the United States and Canada, has been informing its mainstream communities about the famine murders since news first emanated from the Russian prison of nations. One of the first articles with photographs on famine murders appeared in the Chicago American and The Daily Express report in the 1930s. Ukrainians in the free world have also been coaxing their elected officials to recognize the Holodomor as a Russian act of genocide against the Ukrainian nation. Their efforts have been successful.

Congressional Ukrainian Caucus Co-Chairs, Congressmen Sander Levin (D-MI), Andy Harris (R-MD), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), introduced on Tuesday, November 7, a resolution commemorating the 85th anniversary of what they called the Holodomor Famine-Genocide and denouncing this crime against humanity.

They said in a statement that the resolution honors the men, women and children who perished at the will of the Kremlin, which, the lawmakers said, “perpetrated a premeditated famine in the winter of 1932-1933 in Ukraine in a concerted effort to break the nation's resistance to communist occupation.”

“We must solemnly remember the millions of Ukrainians who lost their lives in the Holodomor Famine-Genocide and shine a spotlight on the truth. This monument represents our hopes, our shared values, and the humanity that binds us,” they said.

Referring to the Holodomor as a “Famine-Genocide,” the congressmen expressed hope that their resolution would serve as “a reminder of repressive Soviet policies against the people of Ukraine.”

They also noted congressional support for “the continuing efforts of the people of Ukraine to work toward ensuring democratic principles, a free-market economy, and full respect for human rights, in order to enable Ukraine to achieve its potential as an important strategic partner of the United States in that region of the world, and to reflect the will of its people.”

The New Jersey Senate and Assembly also issued a resolution introduced by Senator Tony M. Bucco and Assemblyman Tony R. Bucco and Michael Patrick Carroll recognizing November 2017 as Ukrainian Genocide Remembrance Month.

Most recently, Anne Applebaum gave renewed impetus to the Holodomor awareness campaign. With her book “Red Famine – Stalin’s War on Ukraine” and speaking tour, Applebaum brought the story of the Ukrainian famine to the man and women in the street across the US. Fortunately, the media that covered her presentations noted that Russia’s crime was a genocide, using that designation interchangeably with famine and Holodomor.

As Applebaum spoke, she reflected on the long-lasting ramifications of the Holodomor, saying that the genocide continues to shape the thinking of Ukrainians and Russians to this day, and offered examples of how contemporary political problems in Ukraine can be traced directly to both the loss of the patriotic post-revolutionary elite and the men and women who died as a result of the genocide.

Indeed, today Russia behaves toward Ukraine as it has always done. If Ukrainians can’t be cajoled or charmed into submission then they must be annihilated, which is the goal of the Russo-Ukraine War of 2014-17.

In New York City, the Ukrainian American community will hold its annual Holodomor Commemoration at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Saturday, November 18, at 2 pm. The observance will begin at 11:30 am with a March of Remembrance from St. George Ukrainian Catholic Church, 30 E 7th St in New York City.