Dear Mr. Chairman, Dear Participants,
I am grateful for the invitation to take part in discussing the acute problem of genocide prevention. The events of the 20th Century have proven one incontestable truth: that any totalitarian regime will inevitably resort to repression, genocide, ethnic cleansing or unleashing conflicts between religious factions. Those phenomena happened in both Germany and Italy between the two World Wars; Chile and Cambodia, the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia have each had their own share of them.

Like few other nations, Ukrainians can understand the relevance of genocide prevention. Only in the Artificial Famine of 1932–1933, our people lost over seven million human lives. Concealing its heinous crimes, the Soviet totalitarian regime tabooed as much as a mention of those tragic events, which we must qualify as a deliberate act of genocide against the Ukrainian people. That nation-wide tragedy halted national rebirth, undermined demographic and intellectual resources, caused a deep psychological trauma. The mechanism of that genocidal Famine was economic-based: liquidation of private property on land, nationalisation of private belongings and means of production, forcible severance of market relations. The Ukrainian countryside had been turned into a horrible ghetto, with people virtually deprived of any civil rights. We can sense the negative consequences of the Artificial Famine even today. In order to ensure that democracy, national consensus and civil accord prevail, we need to comprehend the causes and mechanisms of that act of genocide, to condemn it as a crime against humanity, to pay homage to the innocent victims with dignity.

I would like to underscore that Ukrainian law properly discourages acts of genocide, particularly by imposing criminal responsibility for this kind of crime. By actively participating in the Anti-terrorist Coalition, my country helps prevent genocide internationally in many hot spots on the planet. The truth about the Ukrainian tragedy has been revealed to the international community.As a result, 36 United Nations member states became co-authors last year of the Joint Declaration on the 70th Anniversary of the Holodomor – the Great Famine of 1932–1933 in Ukraine. One-third of UN members whole-heartedly supported the Declaration.

We must learn a harsh lesson from those tragic events and discover yet another truth: when a country lacks civil society, when democratic principles are defied, then power can be seized by a totalitarian clique capable of doing anything to preserve itself, even of resorting to genocide against own people. That is why we will be persistent in securing further international recognition of the Artificial Famine as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people. Some of both the victims and the doers of the Famine are still alive and living in Ukraine. But we do not intend to get even with anybody, to hold any specific social or ethnic groups responsible.

First, we must all purify ourselves spiritually by comprehending our complicated history and accepting freedom in the light of Biblical tradition: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

As we live by Christian commandments we must strive at a catharsis, at an individual enlightenment, the breeding in each and every one of us of a sense of personal responsibility for the destiny of our own people as well as for the destiny of all mankind. In his time, the German philosopher Karl Jaspers touched upon these important issues as he was researching the measure of responsibility of totalitarian regimes. He defined four kinds of responsibility borne both by the high and mighty and by their subjects. Along with criminal, political and moral responsibility, there is the so-called metaphysical responsibility: for being inactive and complacent while lawlessness and tyranny run rampant.

I hope that the memory of all the innocent dead shall unite the living, and add us strength and will to develop democracy in our lands in the name of freedom of every human being. May the understanding of Ukraine's historical experience, tragic as it has been, serve as a danger road sign for other nations.