Human Rights A Day

Canada urged to recognize Ukrainian famine of 1932-33 as genocide. In 1932, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin starved millions of Ukrainians to death in his quest to force his farm collectives scheme on peasants, halt Ukraine’s growing independence movement and crush the nationalist spirit of the region’s people. That year, the Soviets increased its quota of grain from the Ukraine by 44 per cent by posting Soviet soldiers and the dreaded NKVD secret police to protect silos from theft by people literally dying of starvation. Stalin’s brutal dictatorship also clamped severe travel restrictions on Ukrainian peasants to prevent them from searching elsewhere for food. Experts believe between 5 and 8 million Ukrainians died as a result. Ukrainians spent years clamoring for international recognition of the genocide. Finally, on June 19, 2003, the Senate of Canada unanimously endorsed Senator Raynell Andreychuk’s motion “to recognize the Ukrainian Famine/Genocide of 1932-33 and to condemn any attempt to deny or distort th