European Parliament resolution of 15 December 2022 on 90 years after the Holodomor: recognising the mass killing through starvation as genocide (2022/3001(RSP))
Date: 2022-12-15
Institutions: European Parliament
Subjects: Russia, USSR, Ukraine, crime against humanity, hunger








C_2023177EN.01011201.xml










17.5.2023   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 177/112






P9_TA(2022)0449
90 years after Holodomor: Recognising the mass killing through starvation as genocide
European Parliament resolution of 15 December 2022 on 90 years after the Holodomor: recognising the mass killing through starvation as genocide (2022/3001(RSP))
(2023/C 177/14)

The European Parliament,






—


having regard to its previous resolutions on Ukraine and Russia, in particular its resolution of 23 October 2008 on the commemoration of the Holodomor, the Ukraine artificial famine (1932-1933) (1),










—


having regard to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms,










—


having regard to the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other UN human rights treaties and instruments,










—


having regard to the joint statements on the anniversaries of the Holodomor adopted at the plenary sessions of the UN General Assembly,










—


having regard to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,










—


having regard to the 2003 Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada resolution declaring the deliberate famine as an act of genocide, to the Ukrainian Law of 28 November 2006 on the ‘Holodomor in Ukraine of 1932-1933’ and to the appeal by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on 16 November 2022 to the parliaments of the world on the recognition of the Holodomor of 1932-1933 as genocide of the Ukrainian people,










—


having regard to Rule 132(2) and (4) of its Rules of Procedure,










A.


whereas the UN Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide criminalises a number of acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group: killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group;










B.


whereas the Holodomor famine of 1932-1933, which caused the deaths of millions of Ukrainians, was cynically planned and cruelly implemented by the Soviet regime in order to force through the Soviet Union’s policy of collectivisation of agriculture and to suppress the Ukrainian people and their national identity; whereas similar cruel methods were used by the Soviet regime in other parts of the Soviet Union, particularly in Kazakhstan, Belarus, the North Caucasus and elsewhere; whereas the suppression of Ukrainian identity was also conducted through a reign of terror against the bearers of Ukrainian cultural identity;










C.


whereas evidence shows that the Soviet regime deliberately confiscated grain harvests and sealed the borders to prevent Ukrainians from escaping from starvation; whereas in 1932 and 1933 the Soviet Union exported grain from the territory of Ukraine while people there were starving; whereas the killing of predominantly rural Ukrainians was often accompanied by agitprop scapegoating peasants and depicting them as culprits for the famine;










D.


whereas the ongoing Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, the destruction of its energy and agricultural infrastructure, the blocking of the export of Ukrainian grain and theft of millions of tons of grain by Russia has renewed fears of large-scale, artificial famine, especially in the Global South, which depends on affordable Ukrainian grain;










E.


whereas Soviet crimes have not received a clear legal and moral evaluation by the international community; whereas the whitewashing and glorification of the totalitarian Soviet regime and the revival of Stalin’s cult in Russia, has culminated in today’s Russia being a state sponsor of terrorism and a state using terrorist means, and in a repetition of horrific crimes against the Ukrainian people in our time, such as the ongoing ‘Kholodomor’, Russia’s attempt to freeze the Ukrainian people to death through the targeted destruction of Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure during winter;










F.


whereas by December 2022 the parliaments or other representative state-level institutions of over 20 countries had recognised the Holodomor as genocide or as a crime against the Ukrainian people and against humanity;










G.


whereas 2022 and 2023 mark the 90th anniversary of the Holodomor;












1.


Recognises the Holodomor, the artificial famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine caused by a deliberate policy of the Soviet regime, as a genocide against the Ukrainian people, as it was committed with the intent to destroy a group of people by deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction;












2.


Commemorates all the victims of the Holodomor and expresses its solidarity with the Ukrainian people who suffered in this tragedy, in particular with the remaining survivors of the Holodomor and their families; pays its respects to those who died as a consequence of these crimes committed by the totalitarian Soviet regime;












3.


Strongly condemns these genocidal acts of the totalitarian Soviet regime, which resulted in the death of millions of Ukrainians and significantly harmed the foundations of Ukrainian society;












4.


Calls on all countries, in particular the Russian Federation and the other countries which emerged following the break-up of the Soviet Union, to open up their archives on the artificial famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine;












5.


Calls on all the countries and international organisations which have not yet recognised the Holodomor as a genocide to do so; calls on the Russian Federation, as the primary successor of the Soviet Union, to officially recognise the Holodomor and to apologise for those crimes;












6.


Calls on EU Member States and third countries to promote awareness about these events and other crimes committed by the Soviet regime by incorporating historical knowledge about them into educational and research programmes, in order to prevent similar tragedies in the future;












7.


Deplores the fact that the 90th anniversary of the Holodomor is taking place while Russia is continuing its war of aggression against Ukraine, violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of that country and seeking to liquidate Ukraine as a nation state and destroy the identity and culture of its people; condemns, moreover, the fact that Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has created a global food crisis, with Russia destroying and looting Ukraine’s grain stores and continuing to make it difficult for Ukraine to export grain to the most deprived countries;












8.


Condemns the current Russian regime’s manipulation of historical memory for the purpose of regime survival; in this regard, reiterates its condemnation of the forced closure by the Russian authorities of the human and civil rights organisations International Memorial Society and the Memorial Human Rights Centre, an act that underscored the revisionist ideology of the current Russian regime; calls on the EU and its Member States, public and private institutions and all civil society to actively denounce and refute all attempts at distorting historical facts or manipulating public opinion in Europe through false historical narratives that are fabricated and disseminated to support the ideology and survival of criminal regimes; calls on all EU institutions and the Member States to support academia and civil society in the documentation of, research into and education on political repression and totalitarian crimes in the Soviet Union;












9.


Condemns, in the strongest terms, all forms of totalitarianism; regrets that the crimes of the Soviet totalitarian regime have not been evaluated so far from a legal perspective, their perpetrators have not been brought to justice and the crimes have never been clearly condemned by the international community; calls for a comprehensive, historical and legal assessment of the Soviet regime and a transparent public debate about its crimes, which is of utmost importance for building a common European history and remembrance and thus also strengthening the resilience of our societies to modern threats to democracy; reiterates that the assessment of the Soviet regime and a transparent public debate about its crimes is most important for Russia itself, in order to raise public awareness, build resilience against disinformation and distorted historical narratives and prevent the repetition of similar crimes;












10.


Instructs the responsible services of the European Parliament to immediately translate this resolution into Russian and Ukrainian;












11.


Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Verkhovna Rada, the President and Government of Ukraine, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the Council, the Commission, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, the President, Government and Parliament of the Russian Federation, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Secretary-General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the Secretary-General of the Council of Europe.






(1)  OJ C 15 E, 21.1.2010, p. 78.