Diarmuid Wilson (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I would like to join the Leas-Chathaoirleach in passing my sympathies to Bridget on the death of her brother. May he rest in peace. On 26 November, which is just a little over a week away, the people of Ukraine and Ukrainians throughout the world commemorate 90 years since the beginning of the Holodomor of 1932 and 1933. This was a man-made famine which was enforced by the deliberate policies of the totalitarian Stalinist regime and took away millions of innocent lives. For decades this appalling act of inhumanity and immense national tragedy had been kept secret by the Soviet Union, vehemently denied and largely unknown to the world. To date, the research of archives and other documents collected by historians produced the figure of over 6 million Ukrainians who within two years were starved to death by the policies of Stalin's regime which sought submission to Soviet rule and ultimate resolution of the so-called Ukrainian issue.

Ukrainians identify this thoroughly planned and pedantically executed artificial famine as Holodomor, which means inflicting death by starvation in Ukrainian. Deprivation of food was used as a weapon to ethnically cleanse the Ukrainian territories. Not only grain, but all food supplies were taken away from villages by force. People trying to hide even small amounts of food were shot dead or deported and peasants attempting to move to cities and other places in search of food were barred from leaving their villages. At the height of Holodomor, Ukrainians died at a rate of 25,000 per day. Nearly a quarter of rural Ukrainians perished and more than 3 million children born in 1932 and 1933 died of starvation. In the same two years, the Soviet Union sold 1.7 million tonnes of grain on western markets, something we are familiar with here because of what happened during our Famine.

I have put forward a motion, along with the deputy convenor of the Ukrainian friendship group, Senator Craughwell, which will be circulated to all Members of the Oireachtas today. I ask Members to put their names to it so we can commemorate this atrocity in one week's time.