[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 152 (Friday, November 22, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2133-E2134]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               THE UKRAINIAN FAMINE AND HUNGER IN AFRICA

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BOB SCHAFFER

                              of colorado

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, November 22, 2002

  Mr. SCHAFFER. Mr. Speaker, as Co-Chair of the Congressional Ukrainian 
Caucus, I rise today to commemorate those innocent victims murdered by 
the Soviet regime during the Ukrainian Famine. Mr. Speaker, I also call 
the attention of the House to the famine presently being waged against 
the people of Zambia, Zimbabwe and South-central Africa.
  This year, on November 23, the world observes the 69th anniversary of 
Ukraine's Great Famine--an unspeakable event. By presidential decree, 
every fourth Saturday in November is a national day of remembrance for 
famine and genocide victims throughout Ukraine. History has not 
witnessed a greater moral injustice. This was genocide unlike any other 
example in the history of human civilization.
  At the time of the Great Ukrainian Famine, playwright George Bernard 
Shaw and his friend, Lady Astor, had a rare visit with Josef Stalin. 
``When are you going to stop killing people?'' Lady Astor brazenly 
asked of Comrade Stalin. His terse reply: ``When it is no longer 
necessary.''
  Stalin's favorite killing tool was mass starvation, a tactic he used 
ruthlessly against his own people. ``The collectivization program in 
Ukraine resulted in a famine which cost not less than 3,000,000 lives 
in 1932. It was a Stalin-made famine,'' reported Time Magazine in its 
January 1, 1940, issue. We know now, the more realistic estimate is 
more than twice that originally reported by Time.
  The Ukrainian Famine of 1921-1923 was a human tragedy perpetrated by 
the Soviet regime in an attempt to destroy Ukraine and its culture and 
leave behind an amorphous mass of people that could be restructured and 
redefined to serve the Soviet Union. It began as a process of 
assimilation, but soon turned to the collectivization and then 
subjugation of Ukrainian peasants, their lands, and their livelihoods. 
Most paid the ultimate price for their heritage, culture and 
orientation toward independence.
  Bolshevik partisans confiscated grain from Ukrainian peasants and 
subsequently exported the stolen food to foreign nations and other 
regions of the Soviet empire. Those who protested were imprisoned, 
deported, or often killed on the spot. This grain, belonging to 
Ukraine, would have saved thousands of Ukrainian lives. Instead, it was 
callously shipped off for purposes of generating state profit, 
sometimes left to rot on the docks, or shipped to meet the needs of 
Russia's population. Once the famine ended, Ukraine's population was 
further decimated by a series of epidemics.
  The Commission on the Ukraine Famine, appointed by Congress in 1986, 
researched and documented this terrible event. The commission confirmed 
these horrible events and verified the cruelty with which the atrocity 
was executed. The deliberate mass starvation did indeed constitute an 
act of genocide against Ukrainians. The commission's findings are 
recorded in the Congressional Record for posterity, as is the graphic 
and sobering testimony of genocide survivors.
  Mr. Speaker, Members of the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus have, in 
prior years, risen here on the House floor in observance of the 
Ukrainian Famine and in solidarity with the survivors of this terrible 
tragedy. We have taken great efforts to ensure this House never 
forgets. In fact, we honor the lives of the victims by rededicating 
ourselves to summoning the strength and courage of our own nation and 
the conscientious voices of its leaders in the Congress to stand in 
firm contradiction to any new tyrant who would contemplate such 
devastation through intentional famine.
  Today's observance compels me to also speak out against one such 
example of starvation currently taking place in south-central Africa. 
Mr. Speaker, America must be unambiguous in its opposition to the 
deliberate famine presently being orchestrated there by an alliance of 
clearly defined conspirators.
  As in Ukraine seventy 70 years ago. Southern Africa's famine has less 
to do with drought and everything to do with pure politics. Today, 
nearly 13 million people in Southern Africa face a similar starvation.
  ``We're staring catastrophe in the face--unless we get food aid fast 
to millions of people whose lives are in the balance because they are 
starving,'' said James Morris, the UN's special envoy to the region.
  Officials blame environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth and 
Greenpeace that have pressured African countries like Zambia to halt 
shipments of food aid from the United States and other nations willing 
and able to relieve the famine and save precious lives. The groups 
oppose so-called genetically modified (GM) foods. Extremist groups have 
put their ideology--opposing the importation of all such hybrid 
agricultural products--ahead of the lives of starving people.
  ``It's very disturbing to me that some groups have chosen a famine to 
make a political point,'' says Andrew Natsios, administrator of the 
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). ``The lives of 13 
million people are at risk.''
  Natsios said the U.S. is ready to supply more than 75 percent of all 
the food coming into starving Southern Africa. ``If they don't get food 
from us they're not going to get it,'' he said.
  This year, for example, Zimbabwe has refused to accept U.S. corn, 
convinced by radical groups that GM gain might somehow ``contaminate'' 
native crops. Some of this life-saving corn was grown in my own state 
of Colorado. Adding more disinformation, Friends of the Earth claims 
``the U.S. is disposing of its rejected food on Africa,'' in a news 
release last month.
  Just as in Stalin's days, truth has seldom been an ally of the Left. 
Natsios, who says the U.S. has been supplying GM foods to the region 
for the past seven years, also says it is the same food sold and 
consumed in the United States. ``I've never seen, in my 30 years of 
public service, such disinformation and intellectual dishonesty,'' he 
said.
  As for problems with modified crops--there are none. Concerned about 
the lives of millions of people desperately in need, the World Health 
Organization (WHO) released a report at the end of the summer assuring 
GM foods are perfectly safe. ``Southern African countries should 
consider accepting GM food aid in the face of the humanitarian crisis 
facing the region,'' urged WHO Director General Gro Harlem Brundtland.

[[Page E2134]]

  Like the notorious 1932-1933 mass starvation in Ukraine, famine is 
not always borne of a natural disaster. However, famine can become an 
effective ideological weapon.
  Stalin himself would have been proud of the sordid partnership forged 
by radical environmentalists and African tyrants. What are a few 
million lives worth to this axis of hunger when there are political 
statements to be made?
  Mr. Speaker, I urge the House to speak in strenuous objection to this 
African tragedy unfolding before our very eyes. The extreme human price 
paid for the lessons of the Great Ukrainian Famine should not be 
dismissed now to the complacency of an overwhelmed world. To permit 
this new festering scourge is to insult the memory of those poor 
Ukrainians who have perished while trivializing the dignity of their 
survivors whose lives command us to respond with immediate courage.

                          ____________________