UNITED PARTY FOR THE LIBERATION OF UKRAINE (UPLU). The constituent assembly was held in the spring of 1955 on the banks of the Prut River near the city of Kolomyia. The assembly adopted a charter, program, and name proposed by Bohdan TYMKIV and edited by Ivan STRUTYNSKY and Vasyl PLOSHCHAK. The organization intended to unite all strata of the population in the struggle for Ukraine’s independence, basing its efforts on the USSR Constitution, which granted each republic the right to secede from the union. It set the goal of contacting people in other republics who had similar intentions. Candidates for the UPLU were discussed at closed meetings and were then invited to join the organization. The oath was sealed with a signature in blood. They met in the village of P’iadyky and in the towns of Vyhoda, Dolyna, and Kolomyia. Strict secrecy was maintained, but the organization was betrayed by two of its members. Arrests began in December 1958.
The organization had up to fifty members. Twenty-eight people were prosecuted in the case. On March 10, 1959, the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast Court, in a closed session, sentenced Bohdan HERMANIUK, Yarema TKACHUK, Myroslav PLOSHCHAK, Bohdan TYMKIV, and Ivan STRUTYNSKY under Art. 54, p. 1a and p. 11 (“anti-Soviet nationalist activity”) to 10 years of imprisonment in strict-regime camps, Mykola YURCHYK and Ivan KONEVYCH to 7 years, and Vasyl PLOSHCHAK to 2 years.
Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group