Eduardo González
The Congress has approved a Non-Law Proposition in which the Government is urged to recognize the Holodomor (the “famine”) of the period 1932-1933 in Ukraine as “an act of genocide” and to promote “with determination” the economic, political, financial, humanitarian and military aid from the European Union and its member states to Ukraine against the “Russian authoritarian regime”
The Non-Law Proposal, presented on April 4 by the People’s Group and approved on May 14, with modifications, by the Foreign Affairs Commission, assures, in its explanatory statement, that “Stalin’s regime executed in 1932 -1933 one of his cruelest plans, the one that aimed to end the lives of millions of Ukrainians.”
Through the decree of forced collectivization of agriculture and the expropriation of land, it continues, “all the peasants’ crops were seized and, using what was known as the law of ears, they were deprived of freedom of movement and access to food, which ended with the massive death of millions of peasants and their families.” “This macabre program, perfectly designed and planned by Stalin’s regime, is known as Holodomor, a word derived from Ukrainian and which translates as ‘famine’ and ‘death’,” it adds.
In 2007, the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) of Ukraine approved the Law on the Holodomor in Ukraine of the years 1932-1933, “which includes in its preamble the concept of genocide according to international jurisprudence and declares the Holodomor as a genocide against the Ukrainian people,” recalls the text.
Later, at the end of 2022, in the midst of the war caused by the Russian Federation “and the cruel and unjustified invasion of Ukrainian territorial integrity that has its precedent in the illegal annexation of Crimea and the invasion of the Donetsk and Lugask regions In 2014,” the Ukrainian Parliament called on the international community “to recognize the Holodomor as a crime of genocide against the Ukrainian people,” the motion continues.
That call “had an almost immediate response from the Irish Senate and the German Bundestag and today there are numerous Parliaments of United Nations member states that recognize the Holodomor as a crime of genocide against the Ukrainian people,” among them, Estonia, Australia, Canada, Hungary, Lithuania, Georgia, Poland, Peru, Paraguay, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, Latvia, United States, Portugal and Czech Republic.
“Considering that the Holodomor refers to the acts that caused the planned death of millions of innocent Ukrainians, that Spain is committed to the defense and promotion of Human Rights, which also represents one of the axes of our foreign policy, it is our moral duty respond positively to this call from the Verkhovna Rada that will contribute to strengthening and honoring the Ukrainian people,” it warns.
For this reason, the Non-Law Proposition approved by Congress urges the Government to “recognize the Holodomor 1932-1933 as an act of genocide, inhumanly and cruelly perpetrated by the Soviet regime against the people of Ukraine, to the extent that it was committed with the intention of annihilating a human group by imposing living conditions aimed at causing their physical destruction” and to “publicly show solidarity with and honor the memory of the victims of the Holodomor 1932-1933 in Ukraine.”
It also urges the Government to “ask Member States of the (European) Union and third countries to promote awareness about these types of events and other crimes committed by authoritarian regimes by incorporating historical data on these issues in programs educational and research, in order to avoid similar tragedies in the future.”
The motion also calls for continuing to “promote, with determination, within the framework of the European Union and its Member States, economic, political, financial, humanitarian and military aid in Ukraine to defend its democracy and territorial integrity against the authoritarian Russian regime.” ” and urges “to continue supporting the Peace Conference for Ukraine to be held in June in Switzerland” and to “promote Ukraine’s position to achieve a just and lasting peace based on respect for international law.”
Finally, it urges the Government to “reiterate the need for an immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of all Russian military forces from Ukrainian territory within its internationally recognized borders”, and to request “the definitive cessation of the illegal and unjustified aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine.
