still want to be in the EU?

[stepanstas]

Donetsk court rules Bandera's Hero of Ukraine title illegal

A court in eastern Ukraine on Friday ruled that former President Viktor Yushchenko's decree to award onetime Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera the title of a national hero was illegal.

Yushchenko issued the award in January, but a few days later a Donetsk-based lawyer appealed the president's decree in the Donetsk District Administrative Court. Volodymyr Olentsevych argued that the Hero of Ukraine title can only be awarded to Ukrainian nationals, which Bandera wasn't.

President Viktor Yanukovych, who succeeded Yushchenko on February 25, has said the Bandera controversy will be settled before this year's Victory Day.

The sides have 10 days to appeal the ruling.

Bandera's Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists briefly allied with Nazi Germany during the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union. The Soviet authorities accused Bandera, who fought both the Nazis and the Soviets in his quest for an independent Ukraine, of numerous acts of murder and terrorism. He was assassinated by the KGB in Munich, Germany, on October 15, 1959.

Bandera is a controversial figure in Ukraine, with many in the more nationalist west of the country considering him a hero.



DONETSK, April 2 (RIA Novosti)

[stepanstas]

Wish him the best of luck.

Yushchenko appeals court’s decision stripping Bandera of hero title

KIEV, April 12 (Itar-Tass) - Ukraine’s ex-president Viktor Yushchenko has lodged an appeal against the decision of the Donetsk district administrative court that recognized as illegal Yushchenko’s decree that declared the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) during World War II, Stepan Bandera, as the Hero of Ukraine.
Yushchenko believes that the court’s decision “did not meet the requirements of the effective legislation and should be cancelled,” the press service of Our Ukraine led by the ex-president said on Monday.
On April 2, the Donetsk district administrative court cancelled Yushchenko’s decree of January 20, 2010.
Lawyer Vladimir Olentsevich initiated a court case to strip ultra-nationalist and Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera of the hero title.
The lawyer insisted that under the effective legislation the leader of the nationalist movement cannot be the country’s hero since he was never its citizen.
Bandera died in 1956 and Ukraine went independent only in 1991.
The court agreed with Olentsevich’s arguments and satisfied his claim.

[stepanstas]

Memorial To Ukrainian Insurgent Army Vandalized In Western Ukraine

STOROZHYNETS, Ukraine -- A small memorial to the World War II-era Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in the western town of Storozhynets has been vandalized, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reports.

Ukraine's Interior Ministry in Chernivtsy Oblast, where Storozhynets is located, said on April 30 it was likely the memorial was damaged on April 26. The Bloc of Bukovyna's National Forces -- an organization that unites the region's nationalist groups -- issued a statement demanding the authorities "find and severely punish the vandals."

The UPA was formed in 1943 and was the military wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists -- Bandera faction.

It is mostly revered in western Ukraine as a legendary military force that fought against Nazi Germany and Soviet forces for Ukrainian independence.

But the UPA is largely viewed in eastern Ukraine -- where most of the country's ethnic Russians live -- as a force that collaborated with the Germans during World War II and its members are considered traitors.

[dobko]

• The Shoah in Ukraine: History, Testimony, Memorialization by Ray Brandon (editor), Wendy Lower (editor)

• Alliance For Murder: The Nazi-Ukrainian Nationalist Partnership by B.F. Sabrin (Editor)

• The Holocaust of Volhynian Jews: 1941-44 and The Jews of Volhynia and their reaction on extermination by Shmuel Spector Yad Vashem

• Reconstruction of the nations, Timothy Snyder, Yale University Professor

• War Criminality: A Blank Spot in the Collective Memory of the Ukrainian Diaspora (and other works) , John Paul Himka, Professor University of Alberta

• Heroes and Villains: Creating National History in Contemporary Ukraine, David R. Marples, Distinguished University Professor, University of Alberta

• Norman Davies (different works) - fellowship of the British Academy and the Royal Historical Society

• Ukrainian Nationalism, John A. Armstrong, Professor Emerites of Political Science, University of Chicago, University of Frankfurt am Main, Certification of Russian Institute, Columbia University, Council on Foreign Relations USA.

• Harvest of despair. Life and death in Ukraine under the nazi rule . Karel C. Berkhoff. Associate Professor, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Amsterdam

All of them considers:
OUN UPA as Nazi collaborators
OUN UPA - mass murderers of innocent: Poles, Jews, Armenians, Ukrainians - who did not want to join OUN UPA or those Ukrainians who had hidden the victims or refused to cleanse so called "spoiled blood" (that meant in mixed families to kill Polish mother/father/spouse, sister etc)


The more I read the more I'm agreeing with Zbignew....

[Lvivske]

I suggest you read more Snyder, because you're clearly missing his points

[Ak-Murza]

Originally Posted by Lvivske

I suggest you read more Snyder, because you're clearly missing his points

I suggest you look up "ethnic cleansing",maybe then you'd understand,why bandera is just a criminal,not much more...

[dobko]

Snyder;

A Fascist Hero in Democratic Kiev | The New York Review of Books