Belgium recognizes the Holodomor of 1932-1933 as genocide of the Ukrainian people: Zelenskyy called the vote "historic"

The Belgian Chamber of Representatives has officially recognized the Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine as genocide of the Ukrainian people. The voting took place on Thursday, March 9, and the text received unanimous support - 117 in favor and 0 against, with the exception of representatives of the Workers' Party of Belgium who abstained.

7sur7 TV channel reported about it. Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it a historic decision and expressed gratitude to the country.

"Nicknamed "the breadbasket of Europe" for the fertility of its black soil, Ukraine lost four to eight million people during the great famine of 1932-1933 amid the collectivization of land organized by Stalin to suppress any nationalists and separatists in this country, then a Soviet republic," the Belgian media outlet said.

They reminded that Ukraine has been campaigning for the official recognition of the Holodomor as genocide for many years. Several parliaments of European countries have recognized these facts as genocide, as well as the European Parliament, voting on December 15, 2022.

The Ambassador of Ukraine to Belgium was present on the rostrums in the Chamber of Representatives during the vote. It is noted that the resolution was initiated by MP Georges Dallemagne (Les Engagés) in February last year, and he was joined by members of the DéFI Jeunes and N-VA political parties.

In January 2023, the majority of the "Vivaldi Coalition" presented its resolution calling on Belgium to make a political recognition of the Holodomor. The text emphasized the need to honor the memory of the victims of this famine, condemned the ongoing manipulation of historical memory by the Russian regime to ensure its own survival, and recalled the presence of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Ukraine on November 26 to commemorate the Holodomor.

"This text is intended to correct the silence, the oversight. It is the silence around these crimes that allows Putin to commit crimes today," said MP Dallemagne, emphasizing that the Russian war against Ukraine has given a special echo to this historical fact.

At the same time, the media reports that, as in other international issues, the Workers' Party of Belgium (PVDA) stood out among others. As part of its consideration of the resolution, the Committee on Foreign Relations requested the opinions of three expert historians and the ULB Center for International Law, which show that there is no historical or legal certainty regarding the qualification of genocide, even if we can talk about a crime against humanity.

"The Workers' Party of Belgium supports the idea of perpetuating the memory of the victims of this famine, but regrets that 'these opinions are being trampled on' and that, depending on current events, the concept of genocide is being distorted to establish continuity between Putin's war in Ukraine and the actions of the Soviet government," the publication says.

Nevertheless, the vote took place, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Belgium for its position.

"A historic vote in the Belgian House of Representatives: one more state recognized the Holodomor of 1932-1933 as genocide of the Ukrainian people. I'm thankful to Belgium for this important decision for every Ukrainian, for this deeply symbolic step today," he wrote on Twitter.

Recall, on November 28, 2006, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the law "On the Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine," which recognized the Holodomor as genocide of the Ukrainian people.

As OBOZREVATEL reported, the German Bundestag officially adopted a resolution recognizing the Holodomor as genocide of the Ukrainian people and a crime against humanity in November 2022. The document states that the famine of 1932-1933 was not the result of a crop failure but the responsibility of the political leadership of the USSR, led by Joseph Stalin.

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