THE UKRAINIAN PUBLIC GROUP TO PROMOTE THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE HELSINKI ACCORDS (UKRAINIAN HELSINKI GROUP, UHG) was a human rights organization founded on November 9, 1976, on the initiative of writer and philosopher Mykola RUDENKO, General Petro HRYHORENKO (a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group, which had been active since May 12, 1976), public figure Oksana MESHKO, science fiction writer Oles BERDNYK, and lawyer Levko LUKYANENKO (Chernihiv). Its other founding members were microbiologist Nina STROKATA-KARAVANSKA (Tarusa, Kaluga Oblast), engineer Myroslav MARYNOVYCH, historian Mykola MATUSEVYCH, teacher Oleksa TYKHY (Donetsk region), and lawyer Ivan KANDYBA (Pustomyty, Lviv region). They signed the Declaration of the Ukrainian Public Group to Promote the Implementation of the Helsinki Accords, establishing the organization, as well as Memorandum No. 1. Raisa RUDENKO served as the UHG’s secretary.
The states participating in the Helsinki Process, by signing the Final Act of the CSCE on August 1, 1975, committed to respecting human rights in accordance with theUN Universal Declaration of Human Rights of December 10, 1948. The Final Act of the CSCE stipulated that the exposure of facts concerning the persecution of people for their convictions would henceforth give rise to legally justified claims from other parties and would no longer be treated as interference in a country’s internal affairs. Ukrainian human rights defenders decided to use this opportunity to show the world that elementary human rights and the rights of the nation as a whole were being violated in Ukraine.
To ensure the implementation of the Helsinki Accords in Ukraine, the UHG aimed to inform the public about the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, promote broader contacts between peoples and the free exchange of information, and seek accreditation for foreign press correspondents in Ukraine. Realizing that the nominal statehood of the Ukrainian SSR was a complete myth, the Group, in the era of the collapse of the world’s colonial system, reminded the world of the existence of an enslaved Ukraine and raised the issue of its recognition by the world community. Above all, the UHG sought to have Ukraine represented by a separate delegation at future CSCE conferences.
The Group accepted written complaints about human rights violations in Ukraine and against Ukrainians outside its borders, forwarding this information to the mass media and the governments of the states participating in the Helsinki Process.
The authors of the Declaration stressed that the main motive for their activity would be not political, but humanitarian and legal. For example, in Memorandum No. 1, the USSR’s policy toward Ukraine was defined as genocide. The second memorandum addressed the formal, declarative nature of the USSR and the fact that Marxist ideology had lost its appeal. The third, using the fate of Yosyp TERELYA as an example, discussed the persecution of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church and believers in general. Between January and April 1977, the Group issued 10 memoranda on the persecution of citizens for dissent, including the case of Vira LISOVA, whose family was terrorized with searches; Nadiya SVITLYCHNA, who was denied a residence permit in Kyiv after her release from prison, was unable to find work, and was threatened with a new imprisonment for “parasitism”; and several documents in defense of UHG founding members Mykola RUDENKO and Oleksa TYKHY, who were arrested on February 5, 1977. Memorandum No. 5, titled “Ukraine in the Summer of 1977,” was addressed to the governments of the countries participating in the Belgrade CSCE Follow-up Meeting.
In support of the UHG, the Helsinki Guarantees for Ukraine Committee was created in Washington, D.C. on November 17, 1976, at the initiative of the Smoloskyp Information Service. From October 1978, the External Representation of the UHG (P. HRYHORENKO, Leonid PLYUSHCH, Nadiya SVITLYCHNA) operated in the United States, publishing the monthly bulletin “Visnyk represiy v Ukrayini” (Herald of Repression in Ukraine). UHG materials were published in Ukrainian and English by the V. Symonenko “Smoloskyp” Publishers. They were broadcast on Radio Liberty and other radio stations.
As early as December 1976, searches and interrogations of UHG members began.
On February 5, 1977, M. RUDENKO and O. TYKHY were imprisoned on charges of anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda (Article 62 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR). On April 23, 1977, M. MATUSEVYCH and M. MARYNOVYCH were arrested in Kyiv. On December 8, 1977, Petro VINS, who had been a member of the Group since February, was arrested in Kyiv. On December 12, 1977, L. LUKYANENKO was arrested in Chernihiv.
Between 1978 and 1980, almost all founding members of the Group were repressed, but new people stubbornly and devotedly came to take their places. Thus, Olha HEYKO-MATUSEVYCH (May 14, 1977), Vitaliy KALYNYCHENKO, and Vasyl STRILTSIV (October 1977) joined the Group. On May 22, 1978, Vyacheslav CHORNOVIL, who was in exile in Yakutia after his imprisonment, joined the Group. Vasyl SICHKO (February 26, 1978), Petro SICHKO (April 30, 1978), Yuriy LYTVYN (June 1978), Volodymyr MALYNKOVYCH (October 1978), Mykhailo MELNYK (November 1978), and Vasyl OVSIYENKO (November 18, 1978) also became members. In February 1979, an entire group of political prisoners and exiles declared themselves members of the UHG: Oksana POPOVYCH, Bohdan REBRYK, Fr. Vasyl ROMANYUK (later Patriarch Volodymyr), Iryna SENYK, Stefania SHABATURA, Danylo SHUMUK, and Yuriy SHUKHEVYCH-BEREZYNSKY (although contact was not established with him). In October 1979, Yosyf ZISELS, Zinoviy KRASIVSKY, Yaroslav LESIV, Petro ROZUMNY, and Ivan SOKULSKY became members, followed later by Mykola HORBAL (January 21, 1980), Mykhailo HORYN (November 1982), Valeriy MARCHENKO (October 1983), and Petro RUBAN (1985). Several individuals worked as undeclared members (Hanna MYKHAYLENKO, Stefania PETRASH, Mykhailo MASYUTKO, Oles SHEVCHENKO).
Joining the Group was, in every case, a conscious act of courage and sacrifice, as an announced member remained at liberty for only a few weeks or months. Some worked as undeclared members, leaving a statement requesting they be considered members from the moment of their arrest. There were instances of writing a final statement in advance, as there was no certainty it could be delivered at a future trial.
Countering repression with legality and legalism, the Group submitted a petition to the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR on October 14, 1977, for its registration as a public organization and the granting of official status. After the arrest of M. RUDENKO, a new Chairman was not elected, but its informal leaders were O. BERDNYK (until his arrest on March 6, 1979) and O. MESHKO (arrested on October 13, 1980).
In the summer of 1978, the Group published the program document “Our Tasks,” in which it declared that it was proceeding from “the principles of the unity of universal human and national rights of Ukrainian citizens.” The defense of the national rights of Ukrainians and citizens of other nationalities, as well as religious rights, was made a top priority in its activities.
The Group defended the rights of Jews to emigrate; through P. HRYHORENKO, the rights of the Crimean Tatars; and through P. VINS and O. HEYKO, the rights of believers. General democratic tendencies were represented within it by L. PLYUSHCH and V. MALYNKOVYCH. Some of its documents also addressed social and economic rights.
The authorial collective, as the Group considered itself, proved to be extremely productive: in its first three years, working under conditions of constant risk, it created hundreds of highly skilled, meticulously verified, and well-edited human rights documents that would fill several volumes. These included dozens of memoranda and information bulletins about the violation of the rights of specific individuals.
The Group relied on a wide circle of people who helped collect, write, and store information, as well as transmit it abroad.
From 1979, the KGB waged a real war against the Group. Repressions against those associated with it took on a mafia-like character. A wave of criminal proceedings against human rights defenders swept through Ukraine, based on cynically fabricated charges: “parasitism” (P. VINS), “resisting the militsiya” (V. OVSIYENKO, Yu. LYTVYN), “hooliganism” (Vadym Smohytel, Vasyl DOLISHNIY), “attempted rape” (M. HORBAL, V. CHORNOVIL), “violation of passport regulations” (V. STRILTSIV), “illegal possession of a weapon” (P. ROZUMNY), and “manufacturing, possession, and sale of narcotics” (V. SICHKO, Ya. LESIV). Ukraine became a sort of KGB testing ground for the most brutal methods. Those associated with the Group were beaten by unknown assailants or the militsiya (P. VINS, Yu. LYTVYN, V. DOLISHNIY), women were threatened with rape (O. HEYKO), documents were planted (on M. HORYN), and wives (the same O. HEYKO-MATUSEVYCH, R. RUDENKO) and mothers (76-year-old O. MESHKO) were imprisoned for defending their relatives. No member of the Group was released from custody: shortly before their release, or even on the day of their release, a new case would be fabricated against the victim (V. OVSIYENKO, Yu. LYTVYN, M. HORBAL, V. and P. SICHKO, Ya. LESIV, I. SOKULSKY, O. HEYKO, V. BARLADIANU). It was only through such methods that the Group's activities were effectively suppressed in the early 1980s.
By March 1981, all members of the UHG were in prison or exile, yet the Group did not declare its dissolution. On the contrary, in 1982, an imprisoned Estonian, Mart NIKLUS, and a Lithuanian, Viktoras PETKUS, joined as external members.
Out of 41 members, 24 were convicted in connection with their membership in the Group. They served over 170 years in concentration camps, prisons, psychiatric hospitals, and exile. In total, the 39 members of the Group endured a terrible toll of more than 550 years of captivity. The Group paid with five lives: Mykhailo MELNYK committed suicide on the eve of his inevitable arrest on March 9, 1979. Four prisoners of the special-regime camp VS-389/36 (in the settlement of Kuchino, Chusovoy district, Perm Oblast) died in captivity: Oleksa TYKHY on May 5, 1984; Yuriy LYTVYN on September 4, 1984; Valeriy MARCHENKO on October 7, 1984; and Vasyl STUS on September 4, 1985.
On December 30, 1987, another 6 people joined the UHG—members of the editorial board of the journal “Ukrayinsky Visnyk” (Ukrainian Herald), which declared itself to be the Group’s official organ: Vasyl BARLADIANU, Bohdan HORYN, Mykola MURATOV, Stepan SAPELYAK, Pavlo SKOCHOK, and Vitaliy SHEVCHENKO.
On March 13, 1988, 19 members of the UHG who were at liberty or in exile announced the renewal of its activities. L. LUKYANENKO, who was still in exile, was recognized as Chairman.
On August 7, 1988, at a rally in Lviv, it was announced that the Ukrainian Helsinki Union was being formed on the basis of the UHG.
Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. Vasyl Ovsiyenko