Ukraine

John Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 20th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the situation in Ukraine.

I thank you, Mrs Gillan, and Mr Speaker for this opportunity to debate the situation in Ukraine. I also thank the Minister for Europe and the Americas for coming to respond to the debate, and my colleagues from the all-party parliamentary group.

Some people might ask, “Why should we be interested in what is happening in Ukraine?” Some might draw a comparison to what Chamberlain said about Czechoslovakia, that it is a “far away country” about which we know little. If they do, they make the same mistake Chamberlain made. Ukraine matters to us. It is a country in mainland Europe whose territory has been violated by an aggressive neighbour, and one that is on the frontline of what is becoming a new cold war.

I first visited Ukraine in 2008 with the all-party group, including, I think, the hon. Member for Keighley (John Grogan). At that time, Ukraine was under the leadership of President Yanukovych, a corrupt leader who was inclined toward Russia, but who nevertheless, at the time, was committed to Ukraine signing an association agreement with the European Union as an eastern partnership country. As is well known, in November 2013, President Yanukovych was instructed by Putin to reverse that position and drop the policy. Within a few weeks, Independence Square in Kiev was filled with thousands of protesters, the beginning of what was known as Euromaidan. Two months later, the shooting began. Over 100 people were killed, and they are known as the heavenly heroes.

The Revolution of Dignity led to the overthrow of Yanukovych and the installation of a new Government, but it also provided the pretext for Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its stepping up of support for separatist movements in Donbass. Doing so was a clear violation of the Budapest memorandum, signed by America, Russia and this country in December 1994, which guaranteed the territorial integrity of Ukraine in return for its agreement to give up its nuclear arsenal, at that time the third largest in the world. For that reason alone, I believe that we in the UK have a responsibility to Ukraine.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

What my right hon. Friend is saying makes perfect sense, particularly his description of the Russians’ involvement. Those of us who serve on the Council of Europe are determined that Russia’s bid to come back to the Council should be accompanied by concessions. The biggest concession I want to see is its removal from Donbass. Does he agree with that?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Gillan. I welcome this debate initiated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) on the situation in Ukraine, but I wish to go back in time a little and speak about the tragic legacy of the Ukrainian holodomor, from 1932 to 1933, which continues to have an enormous impact on the Ukrainian people today.

The holodomor was a forced famine orchestrated by Joseph Stalin’s communist regime and it resulted in the deaths of millions of Ukrainian people. It was a crime fuelled by a repugnant political ideology. Stalin wanted to starve the so-called rebellious Ukrainian peasantry into submission and force them into collective farms. Subsequently, the Ukrainian countryside, once home to the “black earth”—some of the most fertile land in the world—was reduced to a wasteland. The holodomor stole away between 7 million and 10 million people. Entire villages were wiped out, and in some regions the death rate reached one third of the population.

Inevitably, the events of the Ukrainian holodomor undermined national confidence. It continues to have an impact on the consciousness of current generations, as it will future generations. Indeed, the many descendants of Ukrainian people in this country are still very concerned about what happened. Last month, I held a Westminster Hall debate on the issue, in which I called for the Government to recognise the holodomor as a genocide. As the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) said so pertinently in that debate:

“No one can visit Ukraine today without seeing that it is still a live wound, a bruise and a source of pain.”—[Official Report, 7 November 2017; Vol. 630, c. 551WH.]

[John Howell]

My hon. Friend mentions the word “genocide”. Does she recognise that without Ukraine, we would not have the term “genocide” or, indeed, “crimes against humanity”? As Philippe Sands pointed out in his book, it was the invention of those at the time of the second world war that has prompted all our subsequent activity in this area.

[Mrs Latham]

Yes. I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, because I will come on to that. It seems ironic that that is where the term “genocide” came from, yet this country does not recognise it.

On 7 December it was the 85th anniversary of this atrocity. I was pleased to see that the UK was represented by the British embassy’s chargé d’affaires during the commemoration service held by President Poroshenko on 25 November. The Ukrainian people have suffered for so long. Following the 85th anniversary, now is an appropriate time to officially accept that the holodomor was a genocide. Acknowledging that would be in accordance with the Ukrainian people’s wishes.

In 2006, the Government of Ukraine passed a law recognising the disaster as genocide against the Ukrainian people and have sought for the international community to follow suit. Many countries have recognised this, including the US, Canada, Australia and many others. Since the formation of the convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide, which was adopted by the UN Assembly in 1948, it has been possible to designate events. This has strengthened the hand of the international community, if it wants to take action in those cases.

The Government’s current position is that international law cannot be applied retrospectively unless subject to a legal decision. I understand that the holocaust, although it took place before 1948, has an exclusive status, since it was the basis for the legal determination of genocide by the convention. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) said, it was actually the holodomor that started it. It should be noted that the holodomor was directly referred to by Raphael Lemkin, the author of the convention, as a classic example of genocide. We recognise the Jewish holocaust retrospectively, so why do we not recognise the holodomor, which started before the second world war, nearly two or three years before the holocaust?

If the Government maintain their position, I ask again: will they consider initiating an inquiry or judicial process to help ensure the Ukrainian holodomor is given its rightful status as a genocide? I understand that the 1994 killings in Rwanda and the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica were both recognised as genocides as a result of legal proceedings. It is only right that the UK accepts the definition of the Ukrainian holodomor as a genocide. It would be a mark of our respect and our friendship with the Ukrainian people today. We must expose violations of human rights, preserve historical records and help to restore the dignity of victims through the acknowledgment of their suffering.