Ukraine To Probe Whether 1932 Famine Was Genocide
Ukraine plans to open a formal investigation into a Soviet-era famine that killed millions of people to see if it can prove the famine was an act of genocide.
The 1932-33 famine was engineered by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin to force peasants to give up their private plots of land and join collective farms.
Ukraine, which has rich farmland, suffered the most of all Soviet regions and President Viktor Yushchenko has led efforts to win international recognition of the tragedy as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian nation.
In 2006, the Ukrainian parliament declared the famine a genocide. Vladislav Verstyuk, deputy head of the government's Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, said Thursday that prosecutors and the state security service will now seek to prove that in court.
Historians are divided on whether "death by hunger" _ or "Holodomor" as it is known here _ was an act of genocide.
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The 1932-33 famine was engineered by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin to force peasants to give up their private plots of land and join collective farms.
Ukraine, which has rich farmland, suffered the most of all Soviet regions and President Viktor Yushchenko has led efforts to win international recognition of the tragedy as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian nation.
In 2006, the Ukrainian parliament declared the famine a genocide. Vladislav Verstyuk, deputy head of the government's Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, said Thursday that prosecutors and the state security service will now seek to prove that in court.
Historians are divided on whether "death by hunger" _ or "Holodomor" as it is known here _ was an act of genocide.