UCC Calls Upon Rights Museum to Live Up to Asper Commitment

Winnipeg, April 11, 2013 - Ten years ago today, Dr. Israel Asper, made a commitment to the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) to feature the Holodomor and Canada's First National Internment Operations (WWI Internment) very clearly, distinctly and permanently in the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

The Ukrainian Canadian Congress agreed to become a founding member and support this museum based on the assurances received in the Asper Letter. As currently presented in the Museum design, these commitments are not being upheld. The key human rights stories that affected millions of Canadians of Central and Eastern European origin have either been ignored or minimalised. We call upon the Museum’s management and its Board of Trustees to honour and live up to the original commitments.

Specifically, the story of Canada's WWI internment operations will not be presented in a permanent exhibit. Instead, it will be referenced with a nondescript picture in the Museum. During Canada's WWI internment operations (1914-20), thousands of Ukrainians and other Eastern Europeans were interned as "enemy aliens" in 24 Canadian labour camps, tens of thousands more were disenfranchised, and Winnipeg was a "receiving station" for these "enemy aliens" during the First World War period. These operations set the precedent for other human rights abuses in Canada, including the Japanese internment during WWII and the Chinese head tax.

Even more disparaging, the subject of the Holodomor is relegated to a minor panel in a small obscure gallery near the Museum's public toilets. This is offensive, intolerable and jeopardizes the credibility of the Museum to provide a balanced and objective perspective of key Canadian and global human rights stories. The Holodomor is the lens through which the Museum can teach the crimes of Communism which were responsible for the subjugation, persecution and destruction of tens of millions of people. Moreover, millions of Canadians have a personal connection to these crimes of Communism, yet there is no mention of the crimes of Communism in the Museum.

The Holodomor further can teach and sensitize visitors about the use of food as a weapon to oppress and destroy a people. It can engage visitors to stand up and oppose similar human rights abuses taking place today in other parts of the world such as Somalia and Ethiopia.

It is not too late to correct these fundamental oversights and make the Museum the success we all want it to be. We are asking the Museum Board to live up to these commitments, and establish in the Museum the following:

º An exhibit to the WWI internment operations; and

º A gallery to the Holodomor which will serve as a lens to educate visitors about the crimes of Communism and the use of food as a weapon to destroy a people.