EDMONTON, Canada – It’s the time of the year again when hundreds of Ukrainians flock back to their motherland to participate in the Ukrainian World Congress. The Ukrainian diaspora’s international coordinating body will reconvene in Kyiv on Nov. 24-27.
The congress brings together leaders of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, as well as 300 delegates from almost 30 countries, including Australia, Argentina, Portugal, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Kazakhstan, and Russia, to discuss diaspora’s role in strengthening Ukraine’s statehood.
The Ukrainian World Congress has been advocating for a better future on behalf of its homeland for the last 51 years. This non-partisan association was founded in 1967 in New York City as the World Congress of Free Ukrainians by the supporters of Andriy Melnyk, co-founder of the OUN (the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists), who had proposed founding such an institution ten years earlier. It changed to its current name in 1993. After ten years, the Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) was recognized by the United Nations Economic and Social Council as a non-governmental organization with special consultative status.
Today it has ties with 61 countries and represents a diaspora of 20 million Ukrainians.
Achievements and aspirations
For Eugene Czolij, the UWC’s current president, it is a bittersweet time, as he is ending his second term as president.
“It will be an opportunity to review and assess the past five years, the successes and the challenges, and it will provide delegates the opportunity to chart a course for the future of the organization,” Czolij told the Kyiv Post. “I’m confident the participants will encounter an organization that has grown in numbers, strengthened in influence, and heightened in capacity.”
Czolij, a Ukrainian-Canadian lawyer, was elected president of the Ukrainian World Congress for a five‑year term in 2008. Five years later, he was reelected for a second term as president of the UWC at the group’s 10th gathering, which was held in Lviv, the city of 720,000 people located 470 kilometers west of Kyiv, in late August 2013.
His presidency coincided with tumultuous times in Ukraine: former President Viktor Yanukovych’s U-turn from the European Union, the EuroMaidan Revolution that led to Yanukovych’s ouster, followed by Russia’s illegal invasion and occupation of Crimea and the Kremlin’s ongoing war in the eastern Donbas region.
At this time, Czolij says, there could be only two priorities for the UWC – the defense of the territorial integrity of Ukraine and the protection of the fundamental human rights of every Ukrainian.
“The challenges have been great, but as a result, the successes have also been rewarding,” Czolij says. “I believe that the main achievement of the UWC during my presidency was the contribution of the organization and its network to ensuring the signing and ratification of the European Union-Ukrainian Association Agreement, the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement, and the visa-free regime for Ukraine.”
Czolij also cites the issuing of a Tomos of Autocephaly for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as a very recent success for Ukraine to which the UWC made a contribution: “This is an issue that we have been promoting for many years, and it is one that will further entrench the independence of the Ukrainian state, free of any ties to its Soviet past.”
Among other successes, Czolij lists the opening of two UWC missions to help spread the organization’s values and beliefs.
In 2014, the UWC Mission to Ukraine started working in Kyiv to strengthen the UWC’s ties with the Ukrainian government and civil society, followed by the UWC Mission to International Organizations in Brussels, which opened its doors in 2017. The mission in Brussels coordinates with the European community and NATO in building support for Ukraine’s European and Euro-Atlantic aspirations.
The biggest hurdle in gaining allies for Ukraine and the Ukrainian people, Czolij said, is “the persistent and powerful disinformation campaign aimed at presenting Ukraine as a failed state.” It is critical for every Ukrainian in every country to be an active as opposed to a passive stakeholder, Czolij said.
“Every Ukrainian has the ability to share information about Ukraine with a local (government) representative who can, in turn, speak in defense of Ukraine in their respective halls of power,” he said.
“It is the responsibility of every Ukrainian to be an ambassador for Ukraine… and getting out the message in all spheres of life that Ukraine is a European country that has substantially reformed and has a great deal to offer as a partner within the international community, will be a tremendous accomplishment.”
The UWC’s new president will be elected on Nov. 27, the final day of the congress.
Patriots from afar
Australian-born Stefan Romaniw lives and works with Ukraine in his heart. Romaniw, whose Ukrainian father and German mother came to Australia in 1949, chaired a Commission on multiculturalism and preventing interdenominational conflict that reported to the Parliament of Victoria.
But since 2008, Romaniw has been the general secretary of the Ukrainian World Congress and also chaired the Commission on the Recognition of the Holodomor as Genocide Against the Ukrainian People.
He is delighted to participate in the upcoming congress.
“It is always exciting as it’s an opportunity to reflect, analyze and recalibrate directions as required,” he told the Kyiv Post. “It’s an opportunity for the Ukrainian diaspora to assess itself, feel good about what has been achieved over a five-year period, highlight the challenges and threats and take up new opportunities.”
It is also important to see how effective the diaspora has been in its relationship with Ukraine, Romaniw stressed.
Among other issues, the congress plans to reinforce its international setup and how communities operate, develop and face challenges: “There is not a one shoe fits all (policy) and therefore we are embarking on major change by regionalizing the UWC member countries,” Romaniw said in written comments to the Kyiv Post.
“This will give an opportunity for established communities to assist emerging ones, it will also bring out the great expertise, knowledge, new approaches to the new generations of Ukrainians from Ukraine.”
His American counterpart, Andrew Futey, agrees.
Futey, the president of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA), the largest such organization, representing over 1.5 million Ukrainian-Americans, believes that for the UWC to be successful each of the members needs to encourage “all generations and all immigrations to work together and with one unified voice.”
“The role and voice of the UWC is very important, especially in countries with large Ukrainian populations (such as) Russia and Kazakhstan, where it is very hard to be a Ukrainian,” Futey said.
“This is especially true when Ukrainian language schools and libraries are being shut down, and the community as a whole is under constant persecution.” With the emergence of mass labor migration from Ukraine, especially to Poland, he also stressed the need to actively support and help new diasporas throughout Eastern Europe.
The first day of the congress coincides with the 85th anniversary of the Holodomor – the artificial famine that killed at least 3.9 million people in Ukraine and in Russia’s southern region of Kuban.
For Romaniw, it is an important topic, as he has devoted a large part of his life to promoting knowledge of Ukrainian issues, and the Holodomor in particular.
“Currently we are getting to the end of the Light a Candle of Memory Campaign, a project initiated by the UWC and strongly supported by Ministry of Foreign Affairs and our embassies, the Ukrainian Institute of the National Memory and the Holodomor Museum,” Romaniw said.
Recently Romaniw’s commission announced the formation of a group called “The Children of Survivors.”
“They have a special connection to this issue, and our intention is to form such a group. The call out has gone to people to register,” Romaniw said.
“We aim to set up a fluid structure where internationally this group can communicate, take on the challenges and take over the baton and keep the flame burning. We – the children of the survivors – will not allow the world to forget the Holodomor.”
Romaniw also said the group was exploring the possibility of applying for NGO status at the UN.
To find out more about the 11th Ukrainian World Congress and its agenda, go here.
