[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 162 (Thursday, November 14, 2013)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1667-E1668]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             HONORING THE VICTIMS OF KATYN MASSACRE OF 1940

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. MARCY KAPTUR

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, November 14, 2013

  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to submit a recent New York 
Times article titled, ``Ruling on Katyn Killings Highlights Russia-
Poland Rift,'' by Alan Cowell and Andrew Roth, regarding the Katyn 
Massacre of 1940. In so doing, we call continued attention to the 
atrocities committed in Stalinist-controlled Russia inside the Katyn 
Forest and surrounding areas, events which continue to deeply resonate 
within the world consciousness and haunt Polish-Russian relations. In 
1940, the Soviet secret police was directed by Joseph Stalin to 
systematically murder approximately 22,000 Polish military officers, 
prisoners, and intellectuals in and around the Katyn Forest. A U.S. 
House of Representatives Select Committee was tasked in 1951 with 
conducting an investigation into the Katyn killing and concluded that 
the Soviets were responsible for the mass murder. In 2010, after 
decades of denial and despite protests from its Communist members, the 
Russian Parliament approved a statement that ultimately acknowledged 
Stalin's responsibility in perpetrating these heinous crimes. Thus, in 
September 2012, I issued a formal announcement that the US National 
Archives and Records Administration, at my request, opened newly 
declassified compilations and Katyn documents held in storage by the 
government of the United States. Yet, this past October, while 
reaffirming in its ruling that Russia had failed to meet obligations to 
properly investigate the massacre, The European Court of Human Rights 
found it had no jurisdiction over the massacre and that it ultimately 
held no duty to investigate the events at Katyn. The Polish people and 
freedom-loving Americans deserve better. Humanity deserves better. As 
pointed out in the New York Times piece, in its ruling and in failing 
to demand a complete and thorough investigation into these events, the 
ECHR fails to fully condemn this genocide, setting a disturbing 
precedent for the future and provides no comfort to those families of 
the victims. As Pope Paul VI so eloquently stated, ``If you want peace, 
work for justice.'' Justice remains unserved. Thus, I call upon Russia 
to declassify, once and for all, its 2004 decision to close the 
investigation into the Katyn Massacre. Let the world of nations 
continue to work in conjunction with the Polish government and victims' 
families to uncover the truth of what happened in the Katyn Forest and 
nearby killing fields. The whole truth will enlighten future 
generations so that they learn from these heinous crimes, heal the 
fissures of tyranny and prevent atrocities of the future.

         [From the New York Times International, Oct. 22, 2013]

         Ruling on Katyn Killings Highlights Russia-Poland Rift

                    (By Alan Cowell and Andrew Roth)

       London.--In the long-simmering and emotional debate over a 
     notorious mass killing during World War II, the European 
     Court of Human Rights ruled Monday that Russia had failed to 
     comply with its obligations to adequately investigate the 
     massacre of more than 20,000 Polish prisoners of war by the 
     Soviet secret police in 1940.
       But the court said it had no jurisdiction over the massacre 
     itself or on the subsequent treatment of the relatives of the 
     dead, prompting an outcry in Poland and expressions of 
     satisfaction among officials in Moscow, underscoring the deep 
     and lingering divisions inspired by the mass killing in the 
     Katyn Forest near Smolensk.
       ``We are rather disappointed by this verdict,'' said 
     Poland's deputy foreign minister, Artur Nowak-Far, according 
     to Agence France-Presse. ``The ruling does not take into 
     account all the arguments of the Polish side that have here a 
     great moral and historic right.''
       Andrzej Melak, president of the Association of the Families 
     of Katyn Victims, called the judgment ``scandalous,'' adding 
     that it was ``inadmissible and incomprehensible.''
       ``The failure to condemn this genocide and the impunity of 
     its perpetrators led to it being repeated in Rwanda, the 
     Balkans and it will be repeated again,'' he said. ``Poles 
     will not accept a ruling like this.''

[[Page E1668]]

       But in Moscow, Georgy Matyushkin, the deputy minister of 
     justice and its envoy to the European Court on Human Rights, 
     told the Interfax news agency that the ruling showed that 
     ``the court does not have the conventional duty to 
     investigate the events at Katyn'' and that it would thus be 
     ``illogical'' for it to address allegations of improper 
     treatment of the victims' relatives.
       ``The Russian authorities from the very beginning said that 
     these events are located outside of the frame of the 
     jurisdiction of the European court from the point of view of 
     the time frame,'' Mr. Matyushkin said. ``And this point of 
     view was accepted by the European court.''
       The Polish prisoners, including nearly 5,000 senior Polish 
     Army officers, disappeared in late 1939 and early 1940 during 
     a period of German-Soviet cooperation, when Soviet forces 
     occupied eastern Poland. In April and May 1940, they were 
     taken to the Katyn woods, near Smolensk, west of Moscow, 
     where they were executed and then buried in mass graves there 
     and in two other villages.
       After decades of denial, Russia admitted responsibility for 
     the massacre in 1990, and opened a criminal investigation. 
     The investigation was closed 14 years later, but much of its 
     findings were classified and no one was publicly held 
     responsible.
       Relatives of the victims complained to the court in 2007 
     that the Russian inquiry had been ineffective and that the 
     Russian authorities had displayed a dismissive attitude to 
     requests for information about the event. The case was 
     brought by 15 Polish citizens who are relatives of 12 victims 
     of the massacre--police and army officers, an army doctor and 
     a primary school headmaster--according to court filings.
       The court's highest panel, the Grand Chamber, ruled 
     unanimously that ``Russia had failed to comply with its 
     obligation'' under the European Convention on Human Rights to 
     ``furnish necessary facilities for examination of the case,'' 
     according to a statement from the court in Strasbourg, 
     France.
       But the ruling said the court had no jurisdiction to 
     examine complaints over the killings themselves because the 
     massacre took place a decade before the rights convention 
     became international law and 58 years before Russia acceded 
     to it, in 1998.
       That period was too long for a ``genuine connection'' to be 
     established between the killings and Russia's accession to 
     the convention, the ruling said. The court rejected an 
     application for awarding damages.
       The court also ruled that there had been no violation of 
     the convention's provision prohibiting inhuman or degrading 
     treatment as it relates to the suffering of families of 
     ``disappeared'' people. That part of the ruling overturned a 
     lower court's ruling in 2012, which found that that provision 
     had been violated in the cases of 10 of the 15 Polish family 
     members.
       In its ruling, the Grand Chamber said Russia had not 
     offered a ``substantive analysis'' for keeping the decision 
     to classify the decision to close its investigation. ``The 
     court was unable to accept that the submission of a copy of 
     the September 2004 decision could have affected Russia's 
     national security,'' the ruling said.
       Nikita V. Petrov, a historian for the Memorial human rights 
     group, which has sought to declassify the decision, called 
     the ruling a ``light reprimand'' that would do nothing to 
     further the investigation.
       ``It's like telling a criminal, `You haven't behaved 
     yourself very well,' '' he said. ``But it does not say that a 
     crime is still taking place, because the government is hiding 
     information about past criminal activities like the Katyn 
     case.''
       The massacre has continued to haunt Russian-Polish 
     relations.
       In April 2010, a plane carrying the Polish president and 95 
     other members of Poland's political and military elite to a 
     commemoration of the massacre crashed over Smolensk, killing 
     everyone on board, The crash led to mutual recriminations 
     over an event intended to help heal the wound.
       In November 2010, the Russian Parliament approved a 
     statement holding Stalin and `other Soviet leaders 
     responsible for the Katyn killings.
       Despite protests from Communist Parliament members, the 
     State Duma acknowledged that archival material ``not only 
     unveils the scale of his horrific tragedy but also provides 
     evidence that the Katyn crime was committed on direct orders 
     from Stalin and other Soviet leaders.''

                          ____________________