Speech by Xhabir Deralla, CIVIL – Center for Freedom
On the occasion of the Holodomor Memorial Day (November 26)
At The Assembly of the Republic of North Macedonia, November 24, 2022
Dear Excellences, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a deeply human duty to raise one’s voice against an evil regime that has killed millions of people – by starvation!
90 years ago, Stalin, the dictator of what was then called The Soviet Union, ordered the systematic and mass starvation of an entire nation. Starvation to death. The Ukrainian nation was then faced with a choice – to succumb or be destroyed.
In only two years, 1932-1933, the monstrous Operation Holodomor (in Ukrainian: Голодомор) recorded „a remarkable success”. The Terror-Famine killed more than 4 million people. On average, that is 5.5 thousand souls per day. Yet, the hunger-terror was not enough for the bloodthirsty Stalinist regime. Intellectuals, writers, teachers, Orthodox priests, community leaders were arrested and persecuted, deported to labor camps, displaced throughout Eastern Europe, and many were tortured and killed.
The regime did its “best” to break the spirit and destroy the idea of freedom in the hearts of the people – in a cold and systematically brutal way.
Imagine, every day, before your eyes, a small town in your country disappears. How lives are fading and children disappear from kindergartens and schools, women giving birth from maternity hospitals, men and women from the streets, from their workplaces, from homes.
Imagine. In one of the largest granaries in the world – in order to exterminate the nation – exactly the food was forbidden. An entire nation that – then and now known for its abundance of food – was subjected to terror and starving to death. Hunger was a weapon in the hands of a genocidal regime that took food from the hands of children, from the shelves of people’s homes. They surrounded the villages with army and police, so that there is no movement, to prevent solidarity. Cities ran out of food. The system was killing – millions of people – by starvation.
Reason: Because they are Ukrainians.
Ninety years later, the current dictator of the same country, which today is called Russia, embarked on a war of conquest, with the same goal: To subjugate Ukraine or destroy it.
November 24 marks 9 months since the beginning of the full-scale military aggression against Ukraine. Faced with the heroic resistance of brave Ukrainian men and women, the Russian soldatesque compensates for daily humiliating defeats on the battlefield with heinous war crimes. Putin is consistently following in the footsteps of his teacher Stalin and, together with his henchmen and accomplices in crimes against humanity, is carrying out a new genocide against the Ukrainian nation.
Civilians, including thousands of children, women, unarmed men and elderlies, are subjected to continuous and indiscriminate bombardment. The military and mercenary paramilitaries, armed to the teeth, frustrated by their own incompetence and cowardice, from the first hours of the invasion have been killing civilians, raping women and children, subjecting them to brutal torture, looting their homes, destroying infrastructure and stealing Ukrainian grain that feeds not only Ukraine, but the whole world.
Ninety years ago, Stalinism launched a bloody and insidious campaign against the freedom and lives of millions of people in Ukraine. Today, Putin’s ruscism is trying to complete the bloody mission of a brutal regime that the world wanted to believe was consigned to the dark chapters of history.
The genocide carried out 90 years ago by the Stalinist regime through the Terror-Famine went with impunity. Precisely because the world closes its eyes to the evil that lives in the Kremlin, a new genocide is taking place. Now, at this moment. Apart from the brutal firepower of rocket systems and artillery aimed at civilians, hunger is once again a weapon used by the ruscist regime. Why? The reason remained the same even after 90 years:
Because they are Ukrainians.
On the eve of March 8, 2022, Women’s Day, less than two weeks after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion against Ukraine (let’s not forget, the war began in February 2014), six-year-old Tanyichka’s life ended in Mariupol. She died in the wreckage of her home that came under the relentless fire of the Russian artillery. She died of dehydration, next to the dead body of her mother, who was the first to give in to injuries from the collapse of their home.
Little Tanya is one of the countless civilian victims of Putin’s genocidal war. A continuation of Stalins bloody mission, commenced in 1932, with the Holodomor.
The genocidal war waged by Russia, the negation of the Ukrainian nation, language and identity, the annexation of parts of the territory of the sovereign state of Ukraine and the systematic reign of terror against the civilian population, leads to a complete collapse of the international order. Wars of territorial conquest, and weaponization of energy and food are now a reality for the world.
If Putin and his partners succeed, even partially, in their criminal intentions and if they escape responsibility for genocide, the second one for Ukraine in the last 90 years – the world as we know it will sink into oblivion.
We stand before the new dark reality – daily eruptions conflicts, new atrocious wars and waves of terrorist attacks, nuclear threats, cyberwars, famine, insecurity and brutal violence all over the world.
new hot spots of war and waves of terrorist attacks, nuclear threats, cyber wars, hunger, insecurity and brutal violence all over the world.
Therefore, the fate of Ukraine is also the fate of the world.
The world, however, has a chance for a different future, but only if it recognizes and condemns the crimes and genocide of the past and present – without fear and without prejudice.
Allow me, from this place, to appeal to the parliamentarians of my country, the Republic of North Macedonia, to declare the Holodomor a genocide and continue the upright support of the Ukrainian struggle for freedom. So that it never happens again.
I want to express my deepest respect and gratitude to all Ukrainian men and women who chose freedom instead of subjugation, at the cost of immense sacrifices. Both 90 years ago and today.
Все буде Україна! Слава Україні!
Everything will be Ukraine! Glory to Ukraine!
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