INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL FOR COMMUNIST CRIMES

Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko believes that the decision made by the Kyiv Court of Appeals in the case involving the 1932-1933 Holodomor in Ukraine will be a precedent for changing the approaches to the definition of genocide in international law.

The President is therefore on January 14, 2010, called for the creation of an international tribunal for Communist crimes.

Yushchenko made a proposal to the leaders of the countries of Eastern Europe which have been subjugated Communist regimes (Russia, Poland, Georgia, the Baltic states and others) to sign an international agreement on the creation of such a tribunal outlining the principles of its creation and activities, and charter.

Yushchenko recalled that the Kyiv Court of Appeals on Jan. 13 ruled in the criminal case investigated by the Ukrainian Security Service involving the 1932-1933 Holodomor in Ukraine, which is believed to have killed millions of Ukrainian peasants.

“The decision made by the Ukrainian court takes the debate on the Holodomor from a political to a legal realm. Now the only argument in this debate can be facts, not political or historical stereotypes and myths,” the President said.