Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 98 Part 3.djvu/1130

 98 STAT. 3502

CONCURRENT RESOLUTIONS—OCT. 4, 1984

disastrous famine or to alleviate the catastrophic conditions arising from it, but on the contrary used the famine as a means of reducing the Ukrainian population and destroying Ukrainian national, political, cultural, and religious rights; and Whereas Moscow targeted the Ukrainian people for destruction as a whole by directing special draconic decrees against Ukrainian peasants as "an enemy class", against the Ukrainian intelligentsia as "bourgeois Ukrainian nationalists", and against the Ukrainian Autocephalic Orthodox Church as "a remnant of the old prejudicial 'opiate of the people' "—committed on a gigantic and unprecedented scale the heinous crime of genocide, as defined by the United Nations Genocide Convention; and Whereas numerous appeals from prominent organizations and individuals throughout the world, such as the League of Nations, the International Red Cross, and several groups of parliamentarians from the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Belgium, and Holland who earnestly appealed to the Communist Government in Moscow for appropriate steps to help the millions of starving Ukrainians, went unheeded by the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; and Whereas intercessions have been made at various times by the United States during the course of its history on behalf of citizens of countries persecuted by their governments, indicating that it has been the traditional policy of the United States to take cognizance of such destruction of human beings as the famine holocaust in Ukraine in 1933; and Whereas on May 28, 1934, Congressman Hamilton Fish, of New York, introduced in the House of Representatives a resolution (H. Res. 399, 73d Cong., 2d sess.) urging the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to end its genocidal policy toward the Ukrainian people and to place no obstacles in the way of American citizens seeking to send aid to the famine-stricken regions of Ukraine: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), the Congress hereby condemns the systematic disregard for human life and for human and national rights and liberties that characterizes the policies of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, expresses sympathy for the millions of victims of such policies and urges the President to— (1) proclaim a day for mournful commemoration of the great famine in the Ukraine during the year 1933, which constituted a deliberate and imperialistic policy of Moscow to destroy the intellectual elite and large segments of the population of the Ukraine and thus enhance its totalitarian Communist rule over the conquered Ukrainian nation; (2) urge the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to remove current restrictions on the shipment of food parcels and other necessities to residents of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics by private individuals and charitable organizations; (3) issue a warning that continued subjugation of the Ukrainian nation as well as other non-Russian nations within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics constitutes a threat to world peace and normal relationships among the peoples of Europe and the world at large; and

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