Laurie Ferguson (Reid, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Urban Development and Consumer Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

to move—

That the House:

(1)

notes that 2007 marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Great Ukrainian Famine—Holodomor—of 1932-1933, caused by the deliberate actions of Stalin’s communist Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics;

(2)

recalls that an estimated 7 million Ukrainians starved to death as a result of Stalinist policies in 1932-1933 alone, and that millions more lost their lives in the purge that ensued for the remainder of the decade;

(3)

notes:

(a)

that this constitutes one of the most heinous acts of genocide in history;

(b)

that the Ukrainian Famine was one of the greatest losses of human life in one country in the twentieth century; and

(c)

that it remains insufficiently known and acknowledged by the world community and the United Nations as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian nation and its people, but has been recognised as such by the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament of Ukraine);

(4)

honours the memory of those who lost their lives;

(5)

joins the Ukrainian people throughout the world, and particularly in Australia, in commemorating these tragic events; and

(6)

submits that the Australian Government support a resolution to the General Assembly of the United Nations, which may be submitted by the Government of Ukraine, that the Holodomor in Ukraine in 1932-1933 be recognised as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian nation and its people.