Bulgarian parliament recognizes Holodomor as genocide of Ukrainian people
The Bulgarian People’s Assembly (the country's Parliament) has recognised the 1932-1933 Holodomor as genocide against the Ukrainian people and categorically blamed its perpetrators.
Source: Bulgarian National Radio; European Pravda
Details: Every last Saturday of November will be honoured as the Day of Commemoration and Remembrance of the Great Famine victims in Ukraine, the decision of parliament members says.
The Bulgarian parliament considers any denial, justification and trivialising of this genocide an act of dishonouring the memory of the millions of people who died in the Holodomor, reads the document.
The decision was taken by 134 votes in favour to 26 votes against, as members of the pro-Russian nationalist party Възраждане (Revival) stood against the decision of the Bulgarian parliament; the Bulgarian Socialist Party did not participate in the vote.
Stoyan Mikhalev, the member of Democratic Bulgaria party and the initiator of the decision, reprimanded the socialists for not apologising for the condescending attitude towards Ukrainians during the years they were in power and for not condemning this crime against humanity. He told how small Ukrainian children went to the field to look for stalks of wheat, and the Soviet authorities shot them just because they were hungry.
"At least out of human wisdom, they should come out and say: 'I'm sorry,'" Mikhalev said in an address to the Bulgarian Socialist Party. He concluded that the comparison between Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany was quite appropriate.
"There was mass extermination," said Atanas Atanasov, leader of the Democratic Party. He criticised Възраждане, which declared that they would "naturally" not support the declaration. "The only thing that comes to my mind is that you naturally justify those who carried out extermination," Atanasov said.
Background:
In November and early December, the parliaments of a number of European states adopted resolutions regarding the Holodomor, recognising it as genocide or a crime against the Ukrainian people. On 15 December, the European Parliament recognised the Holodomor as genocide.
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