Bill Text: CA SCR89 | 2023-2024 | Regular Session | Chaptered
Bill Title: Holodomor Memorial Month.
Spectrum: Bipartisan Bill
Status: (Passed) 2024-02-28 - Chaptered by Secretary of State. Res. Chapter 10, Statutes of 2024. [SCR89 Detail]
Download: California-2023-SCR89-Chaptered.html
Senate Concurrent Resolution
No. 89
CHAPTER 10
Relative to Holodomor Memorial Month.
[
Filed with
Secretary of State
February 27, 2024.
]
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
SCR 89, Dodd.
Holodomor Memorial Month.
This measure would declare November 2023, and annually thereafter, as Holodomor Memorial Month, and November 25, 2023, and the fourth Saturday of November annually thereafter, as Holodomor Memorial Day.
Digest Key
Fiscal Committee: NOBill Text
WHEREAS, In 1932 and 1933, an estimated 3,500,000 to 7,000,000, inclusive, Ukrainian people perished in a premeditated famine orchestrated by Joseph Stalin and the Soviet government in an attempt to break Ukraine’s resistance to collectivization and communist occupation; and
WHEREAS, Most scholars estimate between 3,500,000 and 7,000,000 Ukrainian people died during this premeditated famine, although it is impossible to determine the precise number of victims; and
WHEREAS, The Soviet government deliberately confiscated grain harvests and starved millions of Ukrainian people through a policy of forced collectivization that sought to destroy the nationally conscious movement for independence; and
WHEREAS, Grain was fundamental to Ukraine, which was known as the “breadbasket of Europe” according to Professor Andrea Graziosi at the University of Naples. The Soviet government required villages to meet grain quotas or be “blacklisted,” leading to travel and supply blockades; and
WHEREAS, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and the Soviet government ordered the borders of Ukraine sealed to prevent anyone from escaping man-made starvation and to prevent international food aid that would provide relief to the starving Ukrainian people; and
WHEREAS, Numerous scholars worldwide have worked to uncover the scale of the famine, including Canadian wheat expert Andrew Cairns, who visited Ukraine in 1932, where Ukrainian people told him that there was no grain “because the government had collected so much grain and exported it to” other parts of the Soviet Union, England, and Italy while denying food aid to the people of Ukraine; and
WHEREAS, Nearly one-quarter of the rural population of Ukraine was eliminated due to forced starvation, while the entire nation suffered from the consequences of prolonged famine; and
WHEREAS, The Soviet government manipulated and censored foreign journalists, including New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty, who knowingly denied not only the scope and magnitude, but also the existence, of a deadly man-made famine in his reports from Ukraine; and
WHEREAS, Noted correspondents of the time were castigated by the Soviet Union for their accuracy and courage in depicting and reporting the famine in Ukraine, including Gareth Jones, William Henry Chamberlin, and Malcolm Muggeridge, who wrote, “[The farmers] will tell you that many have already died of famine and that many are dying every day; that thousands have been shot by the government and hundreds of thousands exiled”; and
WHEREAS, With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, archival documents became available that confirmed the deliberate and premeditated deadly nature of the famine and exposed the atrocities committed by the Soviet government against the Ukrainian people; and
WHEREAS, Raphael Lemkin, who devoted his life to the development of legal concepts and norms for containing mass atrocities and whose tireless advocacy swayed the United Nations in 1948 to adopt the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, authored the essay in 1953 titled “Soviet Genocide in the Ukraine,” which highlighted “the classic example of Soviet genocide,” characterizing it “not simply a case of mass murder[, but as] a case of genocide, of destruction, not of individuals only, but of a culture and a nation”; and
WHEREAS, Ukraine’s law N 376-V “About the 1932–1933 Holodomor in Ukraine” of November 28, 2006, gave official recognition to the Holodomor as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people; and
WHEREAS, In 2006, President George W. Bush signed H.R. 562 (Public Law 109-340) into law authorizing a Holodomor memorial in Washington, DC that was unveiled in November 2015; and
WHEREAS, In November 2022, President Joseph Biden made a statement to remember the Holodomor; and
WHEREAS, In 2018, the United States Senate signed Sen. Res. 435 recognizing the 85th anniversary of the Ukrainian famine, and in 2008, the United States House of Representatives passed H. Res. 1314 recognizing the 75th anniversary of the Ukrainian famine; now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Senate of the State of California, the Assembly thereof concurring, That the Legislature solemnly remembers the Holodomor of 1932 and 1933, and extends its deepest sympathies to the victims, survivors, and families of this tragedy; and be it further
Resolved, That the Legislature recognizes the Ukrainian famine of 1932–1933, known as the Holodomor, as a genocide of the Ukrainian people; and be it further
Resolved, That the Legislature condemns the systematic violations of human rights, including the freedom of self-determination and freedom of speech, of the Ukrainian people by the Soviet government; and be it further
Resolved, That the Legislature encourages dissemination of information regarding the Ukrainian famine, known as Holodomor, in order to expand the world’s knowledge of this man-made tragedy; and be it further
Resolved, That the Legislature proclaims the month of November 2023, and annually thereafter, as Holodomor Memorial Month, and November 25, 2023, and the fourth Saturday of November annually thereafter, as Holodomor Memorial Day; and be it further
Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution.
