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28.7.2009. Resolution
of the World Council of Subcarpathian Ruthenians.
Preamble. As expected, with the replacement of the "Orange
regime", the solution of the Ruthenian issue has never evolved in a constructive direction.
The government, which replaced the "Orange
regime", for the first time in twenty years of existence of independent Ukraine, honestly
acknowledged on an official level the existence of the "Ruthenian issue". Ruthenians, of course, welcome the first timid step of the political circles,
aimed at resolving the long-overdue issue and acknowledging the need for
its solution ... in a civilized manner.
However,
the proposed political solution to the Ruthenian issue by the
Ukrainian authorities, referring to
the Constitution of Ukraine and its position on the unitary state
structure, straight out rejected the question of granting or
restoring the status of "autonomous territory of the Ruthenians to the south of the Carpathians" within the Ukrainian state.
Such an approach to the issue is untenable,
both in form and in content because the referendum on the conditions
of our region joining Ukraine took place on Dec. 31, 1991, while
the Constitution of Ukraine was adopted in the summer night of
1996. The text of the new Constitution did not take into account
the will of the people of the whole region, which led to incompleteness
of the legal process.
In addition, the resolution of the Constitutional
Court of Ukraine stressed out that all decisions made at the
referendum shall take effect upon publication of their results
and do not need any approval (including of the Supreme Council
of Ukraine), and may be repealed or amended only by a subsequent
referendum on the same issue.
1. Ruthenians, triggered by the survival instinct
of the nation, under the necessity
became political Ruthenians, as specified
by the UN. Until the political issues are resolved, no other
issues will be considered.
Ruthenians, triggered by the survival instinct
of the nation, cannot afford a criminal agreement with the aggressive
assimilation and forced Ukrainization of the Ruthenian people
in Ukraine.
Ruthenians know their rights, and no one behind
their backs - backs of the people, against their will, is entitled
to substitute the will of the people with any other decisions,
as stated in the referendum of Dec. 1, 1991. Back then 78% of
voters in Transcarpathian Ukraine/Subcarpathian Ruthenia expressed
their agreement to join Ukraine, but only on the condition of
restoration of the pre-Soviet status of autonomy.
None of the three "Coordinating
Councils", three "People’s Councils" or other organizations, sprouted by the authorities like weeds, have the mandate
of the people to change their will, expressed by them at the
referendum, or decide their political future.
However, the fact of ignoring the will of
our people by the official Kiev is a direct crime against the
people, a crime with no statute of limitations.
Approaches to solving "Ruthenian
issue", voiced by the Vice-Chairman of the Supreme Council on Foreign Relations L.
Kojar and Deputy Head of Presidential Administration A. Herman,
sound rather vague. They propose to provide the Ruthenians (?)
some undefined "right of self-identification" 20 years after the referendum (?), and vaguely promise to support a "culture, language and identity, while maintaining the policy of assimilation
and Ukrainization of the Ruthenians, actively pursued by Kiev
at the state level. This, in fact, is a very sophisticated, "humane" form of genocide of the Ruthenian people. Hypocritical promise not to lean against
the firing wall Ruthenian movement activists, and perhaps begin
to cancel criminal prosecution of the leading Ruthenian priest
Dimytry Sydor, initiated by the “Orange” authorities, and even
minimization of the brutal suppression of dissent in the national
consciousness (i.e., fundamental human rights) can not solve
the Ruthenian issue, or even be a precondition of such solution.
We, Ruthenians, led by common instinct for
survival of the nation, cannot afford the luxury of a criminal
agreement with the aggressive assimilation and forced Ukrainization
of our people. Ruthenians see the solution of the "Ruthenian issue" only in an impartial adherence to the will of the people, expressed by them
in the referendum of Dec. 1, 1991.
2. Following the results of the will of the
people, according to "people's right to self-determination", issued to them by the international community in the early twentieth century,
is the only way to solve the Ruthenian issue.
Proposal to the Ruthenians to adopt "cultural
autonomy" at first by some advisers from Kiev is strange and vague. Why Kiev, for 20 years
mocking the Ruthenians, subjecting them to ethnocide, discrimination
with clear signs of genocide, today decided to offer "cultural autonomy" to the Ruthenians-genocide survivors, and even then only in words?
This bait is likely to lead Ruthenian relationship
with a totalitarian Ukraine to even greater impasse. It is known
that the notion of "autonomous culture", given the modern media, is now untenable. We all wear American jeans, eat "Bush legs", and listen to American music. What national culture can counter this hurricane?
Waiting for handouts (cultural autonomy) from Kiev is in fact
absurd. After all, the results of the referendum on Dec. 1, 1991,
that revealed the political will of the region, have not yet
been implemented. Therefore, it is not Kiev that "gives" something to the Ruthenians, but Ruthenians in their referendum on Dec. 1, 1991
agreed to give Ukraine a chance to create a new democratic state.
Nevertheless, it did not work out once again with Ukrainians:
the totalitarian non-democratic Ukraine with Nazi ideology of
integral nationalism replaced the Bolshevik Soviet Union. After
all, Kiev must be aware that after the collapse of the USSR,
the territory of the Ruthenians to the south of the Carpathians
automatically regained its pre-Soviet status, as when being a
part of Hungary since 1918 and as part of Czechoslovakia since
1919. Like the Baltic region and Galicia, Subcarpathian Ruthenia
was reunited with the USSR only by Stalin. However, according
to the ill-fated treaty of June 29, 1945 between the USSR and
Czechoslovakia on Transcarpathian Ukraine joining the Soviet
Union, according to the Constitution of the Czechoslovak Republic,
Subcarpathian Ruthenia ceased to exist. Ruthenians in 1991 had
the opportunity and the right to declare independence of Subcarpathian Ruthenia - Transcarpathian Ukraine. After all, the Carpathians were
not created by Ruthenians, but by God, who erected a natural
border between the different ethnic groups. However, unfortunately,
Ruthenians dared to connect
their political future with the new Ukraine.
In fact, Ruthenians agreed to a compromise
with regard to the new Ukrainian state, giving up its independence,
agreeing to the autonomous status within Ukraine. Trusting Galician-Ukrainian
nationalists and their promises, Ruthenians were cynically deceived
instead and their territories were re-annexed by the totalitarian
Ukraine.
There is only one consolation in this comedy
of Ukrainian cynicism: Ruthenian people, having received the
right to self-determination 90 years ago under international
treaty, any time can legally review their hasty decision, made
in a referendum on Dec. 1, 1991...
3. The position of the Ruthenians in relation
to the possible escalation of harassment and persecution of Ruthenian
leaders by the new Ukrainian authorities
We already understood that the expectation
of fundamental change of position of Ukraine on the "Ruthenian issue" would be naïve, at the very least.
Moreover, as for the Ruthenian movement, the position remains
the same - achieving clearly defined political goal - the implementation
of the will of the people, expressed by them at the referendum
on Dec. 1, 1991. Either everything else is a demonstration of
helplessness, or the machinations of the regime, aimed at discrediting
the Ruthenian movement, its marginalization.
Previous approaches of "People's
Councils" to address the "Ruthenian issue" by "drafting letters and appeals" for 18 years were absurd - a blind alley and trick.
Based on this "experience",
strategic goal of the Ruthenians could no more be considered
as recognition of Ruthenians as a distinct people by Ukraine,
because its tactic is officially aimed at the complete assimilation
of the Ruthenians. It is already clear that the fact of acceptance
of the Ruthenian national minority by Ukraine will not fundamentally
change anything. Therefore, the cooperation of "People's Councils" with the Ukrainian authorities in this process is even more criminal. In addition,
the position of individual leaders-quislings is either unwise
and prudent, or criminal and treacherous.
4. On new trends in the Ruthenian movement
Politics of the Soym of SR, European Congress
and the World Council of SR is a legitimate struggle for the
historical and legal truth, for the realization of the legitimate
right of the Ruthenian nation to be owners of their homes, their
national territory (without mentors from the other side of the
Carpathian pass), for the right to build a political future for
the people - "the image of a democratic Europe".
It is for this reason Ukrainian regime saw
a “threat to totalitarian Ukraine” not in acts of “People’s Councils”
with their perpetual appeals to the deaf and dumb Ukrainian authorities,
but in the policies of the Soym of SR, ECSR and WCSR, and even
resorted to fabricated criminal prosecutions of the Ruthenian
leaders lately.
These organizations got rid of the "tutelage
of Magochi, abandoned meaningless "appeals of the People's Councils", and begun to talk publicly about what had long been felt and spoken in the
quiet by thousands of Ruthenians: it is pointless to expect from
Ukraine some progress on the Ruthenian issue! Ruthenians must
continue to guide the process within the international legal
course, and firmly and confidently pursue the goal
of re-establishing the pre-Soviet status of
independent Republic of Subcarpathian Ruthenia and becoming part
of European countries and peoples. In the Ruthenian movement
there are no opponents to the Soym of SR, ECSR and WCSR, and
not for the reason that they are special, but because their work
is evidently intended for the benefit of the Ruthenian nation.
And if some helpless public figures with their "People's
Councils" are trying at all costs to stay afloat without having an intellectual, conceptual
or institutional framework, they are likely to be bogus intelligence
agents who are planning to interfere with the coordinated work
of the Ruthenians.
Bear in mind that the younger generation of
the Ruthenians (as proven by high activity of the Ruthenians
on the Internet), is ready to deal with the problems more decisively
and more efficiently, remain more focused and pragmatic.
So, the future success is based on firm steps of the Ruthenian
political nation and its representatives - Ruthenians.
Accordingly, the World Council of Subcarpathian
Ruthenians made the following resolution:
1. To consider the position of the official authorities of Ukraine
in relation to the "Ruthenian
issue" uncooperative, as it does not meet European democratic spirit;
2. To state the fact that after the resolution
of the Soym of SR in 2002, on the codification of the Ruthenian
language, European and World Congresses of SR "adopted the codification of the Ruthenian language on European and international
level."
The fact that until today the Ukrainian authorities
resolutely refuse even includes the Ruthenian language in the
list of languages that fall under the protection of the European
Charter of regional languages, is an international crime. To
all above could be added crimes, organized by representatives
of special services, namely, the recent spy scandal, announced
in July 17, 2010.
3. Consider intolerable living conditions
for inhabitants of Transcarpathia in their native land and pushing
them abroad, continuing at the state level, as well as the persecution
of the Ruthenian movement activists and sympathizers, to be a
crime against the people.
4. In order to facilitate the crossing of
the new European borders (that separated Historic Ruthenian lands
after 1945), to consider getting a second Hungarian citizenship
by the Ruthenians in search of work to support their families,
one of the possibilities of survival in undemocratic Ukraine,
which is bearing a threat of ethnocide to each Ruthenian family,
as well as open forced assimilation and discrimination. All this
is also officially recorded in Europe, in the world and the UN.
5. To express understanding "to
the argumentation" of the position of the Hungarian authorities on the Treaty of Trianon, 1920,
which though diminished the territory of historical Hungary,
but also defined and reinforced by international treaties the
border of the Republic of Subcarpathian Ruthenia with Hungary,
which exists to this day.
6. Given that political opponents of the Ruthenians
have established three "Coordinating Councils" and three "People's Councils" that focus their activities only on always poorly organized ["?ervená Rouge"], and still did not make any resolutions to protect the interests of the Ruthenian
nation, we decided to expand Political Council of the World Council
of Subcarpathian Ruthenians from among the leaders and activists
of the Ruthenian organizations, who lost belief in their dubious "only culturological" activities.
7. To create the Expert Council by the World
Congress of the Subcarpathian Ruthenians from among the lawyers,
historians, linguists, political scientists, economists, environmentalists,
representatives from all countries where Subcarpathian Ruthenians
live, for a comprehensive study of current issues of the Ruthenian
political nation.
8. To publish in the press the resolution
of the WCSR.
Chairman of the World Council of Subcarpathian
Ruthenians: B. Dzhugan
Honorary Co-Chair, Prime Minister of SR: P. Getsko, Deputy Chairman
of the WCSR, Co-Chair of the European Congress of SR: V. Mikulin
Co-Chair of the European Congress of SR, Chairman of the Soym
of SR: Archpriest Dimytry Sydor.
Public Commissioner for Human Rights of the European Congress
of SR: A. Onisko,
Commissioners, Council members;
Germany and Austria: Y. Levchak, E. Reyfengerst, Alina Pfeiffer,
R. Gaynish, V. Kashkarova, Andreas Ludwig, Richard Rayfengerst;
Transcarpathia-Subcarpathian Ruthenia: I. Petrovtsi, B. Lakatos,
V. Patrus, M. Chori,
L. Letsovich, V. Tsubera;
Baltic: Anatoly Matiko, I. Balaban;
Russia: J. Glivka and representatives of Moscow, St. Petersburg
and Altai Ruthenian town associations;
Czech Republic: M. Tyasko, A. Gegalchy, S. Baburnich, V. Tomishinets,
A. Moshkola;
Slovakia: I. Turyanitsa;
Hungary: T. Popovic;
Romania: M. Lauruk.
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