[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 152 (Thursday, November 12, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2328-E2329]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       COMMEMORATING THE 65TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE UKRAINIAN FAMINE

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. MAURICE D. HINCHEY

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, November 12, 1998

  Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, this fall marks the 65th anniversary of the 
Ukrainian famine, or more precisely, of the world's recognition of the 
famine that had been developing in Ukraine for two years. We have seen 
many horrors in this century of civilization. The Holocaust in Germany 
and central Europe in World War II was the most shocking and has 
justifiably attracted the most recognition. But it was by no means the 
only incident of diabolic mass slaughter. We have seen the slaughter of 
Armenians in the early years of the century, the massacre of Cambodians 
by their own

[[Page E2329]]

leaders, and most recently the horrors in Rwanda and Bosnia.
  We should not allow the abundance of horrors to dull our senses or to 
allow us to forget any of these terrible incidents. We must remember 
that the instruments and techniques we have developed in this century 
can be used against any people in any country, no matter how advanced 
or supposedly civilized.
  As a Ukrainian-American I wish to call the attention of the House and 
the American people to the crimes against my family's people. Ukraine 
is the most fertile farmland of Europe, long called the breadbasket of 
the continent. Yet millions of Ukrainians--perhaps as many as 10 
million, we will never have an exact figure--starved to death in the 
midst of plenty in the early 1930's. They starved because Stalin 
decided that traditional farming in the Ukraine would stop, and with 
the power of the Soviet state, he was able to make it stop. If people 
did not conform to his will, he would see to it that they had no food 
to eat, no seeds to plant. The wheat that was harvested was sold at 
cheap prices on world markets. Protests around the world did not stop 
the famine; instead, the market found ways to profit from it and 
conduct business as usual.
  In this respect and others, the Ukrainian famine resembled the great 
Irish famine of the nineteenth century, when the British government 
allowed people to starve by the millions rather than interfere with 
grain markets. I am an Irish-American too, and many of us in this 
chamber are descended from the people who fled that famine.
  The Ukrainian famine did not end until Stalin had gotten his way and 
subjugated the Ukrainian people. They still suffer today from the 
consequences of his actions: they have never been able to fully rebuild 
the agricultural economy that had once made Ukraine the envy of the 
region. I believe they will rebuild it, hopefully with our help.
  But let us learn from the horrors they endured. Let us commit 
ourselves to the principle that people should always come first, that 
no one should be allowed to starve. Let us apply that lesson at home, 
and pledge that no one should go hungry in our prosperous country 
because of the strictures of ideology or because of the discipline of 
the market. Let us commit ourselves to opposing oppression around the 
world, when oppression leads to genocide and death, whether the tools 
of that oppression are overly violent, or whether they are the subtler 
but no less cruel tools of deliberate starvation, deliberate hunger, 
deliberate poverty. Let us remember that all people are our brothers 
and sisters.

                          ____________________