By Craig Murray
December 30, 202:
Information Clearing House
-- This is verbatim
from the official report of the
UN General Assembly plenary of 16 December 2021:
The Assembly next took up the report on
“Elimination of racism, racial discrimination,
xenophobia and related intolerance”, containing
two draft resolutions.
By a recorded vote of 130 in favour to
2 against (Ukraine, United States),
with 49 abstentions, the Assembly then adopted
draft resolution I, “Combating
glorification of Nazism, neo‑Nazism and other
practices that contribute to fuelling
contemporary forms of racism, racial
discrimination, xenophobia and related
intolerance”.
By its terms, the Assembly expressed deep
concern about the glorification of the Nazi
movement, neo‑Nazism and former members of the
Waffen SS organization, including by erecting
monuments and memorials, holding public
demonstrations in the name of the glorification
of the Nazi past, the Nazi movement and
neo‑Nazism, and declaring or attempting to
declare such members and those who fought
against the anti‑Hitler coalition, collaborated
with the Nazi movement and committed war crimes
and crimes against humanity “participants in
national liberation movements”.
Further, the Assembly urged States to
eliminate all forms of racial discrimination by
all appropriate means, including through
legislation, urging them to address new and
emerging threats posed by the rise in terrorist
attacks incited by racism, xenophobia and other
forms of intolerance, or in the name of religion
or belief. It would call on States to ensure
that education systems develop the necessary
content to provide accurate accounts of history,
as well as promote tolerance and other
international human rights principles. It
likewise would condemn without reservation any
denial of or attempt to deny the Holocaust, as
well as any manifestation of religious
intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence
against persons or communities on the basis of
ethnic origin or religious belief.
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In Ukraine, support for the Ukrainian nationalist
divisions who fought alongside the Nazis has become,
over the last eight years, the founding ideology of
the modern post 2013 Ukrainian state (which is very
different from the diverse Ukrainian state which
briefly existed 1991-2013). The full resolution on
nazism and racism passed by the General Assembly is
lengthy,
unnzaires but these provisions in particular
were voted against by the United States and by the
Ukraine:
6. Emphasizes the recommendation of the
Special Rapporteur that “any commemorative
celebration of the Nazi regime, its allies and
related organizations, whether official or
unofficial, should be prohibited by States”,
also emphasizes that such manifestations do
injustice to the memory of the countless victims
of the Second World War and negatively influence
children and young people, and stresses in this
regard that it is important that States take
measures, in accordance with international human
rights law, to counteract any celebration of the
Nazi SS organization and all its integral parts,
including the Waffen SS;
7. Expresses concern about recurring attempts
to desecrate or demolish monuments erected in
remembrance of those who fought against Nazism
during the Second World War, as well as to
unlawfully exhume or remove the remains of such
persons, and in this regard urges States to
fully comply with their relevant obligations,
inter alia, under article 34 of Additional
Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949;
…
10. Condemns without reservation any denial
or attempt to deny the Holocaust;
11. Welcomes the call of the Special
Rapporteur for the active preservation of those
Holocaust sites that served as Nazi death camps,
concentration and forced labour camps and
prisons, as well as his encouragement of States
to take measures, including legislative, law
enforcement and educational measures, to put an
end to all forms of Holocaust denial
As reported in the Times of Israel,
hundreds took part in a demonstration in Kiev in
May 2021, and others throughout Ukraine, in honour
of a specific division of the SS. That is but one
march and one division – glorification of its Nazi
past is a mainstream part of Ukrainian political
culture.
In 2018 a bipartisan letter
by 50 US Congressmen condemned multiple events
commemorating Nazi allies held in Ukraine with
official Ukrainian government backing.
There are no two ways about it. The Ukrainian
vote against the UN resolution against Nazism was
motivated by sympathy for the ideology of historic,
genocide active Nazis. It is as simple as that.
The United States claims that its vote against
was motivated by concern for freedom of speech. We
have the
Explanation of Vote that the United States gave
at the committee stage:
The United States Supreme Court has
consistently affirmed the constitutional right
to freedom of speech and the rights of peaceful
assembly and association, including by avowed
Nazis
That sounds good and noble. But consider this –
why does the United States Government believe that
avowed Nazis have freedom of speech, but that Julian
Assange does not? You can have freedom of speech to
advocate the murder of Jews and immigrants, but not
to reveal US war crimes?
Why was the United States government targeting
journalists in the invasion of Iraq? The United
States believes in freedom of speech when it serves
its imperial interests. It does not do so otherwise.
This is the very worst kind of high sounding
hypocrisy, in aid of defending the Nazis in Ukraine.
The second reason the United States gives is that
Russia is making the whole thing up:
a document most notable for its thinly veiled
attempts to legitimize Russian disinformation
campaigns denigrating neighboring nations and
promoting the distorted Soviet narrative of much
of contemporary European history, using the
cynical guise of halting Nazi glorification
The problem here is that it is very difficult to
portray the Times of Israel or 50 bipartisan US
congressmen as a Russian disinformation campaign.
There is no historical doubt whatsoever of Ukrainian
nationalist forces active support of Nazism and
participation in genocide, not just of Jews and Roma
but of Poles and religious minorities. There is no
doubt whatsoever of the modern glorification in
Ukraine of these evil people.
It is of course not just Ukraine. In Estonia,
Latvia and Lithuania the record of collaboration
with Nazis, of active participation in fighting for
Nazis, and in active participation in genocide is
extremely shaming. Throughout Eastern Europe there
is a failure in these “victim nations” to look
history squarely in the eye and to admit what
happened – a failure the United States in actually
promoting as “a campaign against Russian
disinformation”.
I recommend to you the website
www.defendinghistory.com, run by the admirable
David Katz, which is a large and valuable resource
on this website from a Lithuanian Jewish perspective
that cannot remotely be dismissed as Russian or left
wing propaganda. The front page currently features
the December 2021 naming of a square in the capital
after Lithuanian “freedom fighter” Juokas Luksa
“Daumantas”, a man who commenced the massacre of
Jews in Vilnius ahead of the arrival of German
forces.
![](https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot-1644.png)
These are precisely the kind of commemorations
the resolution is against. There has been a rash of
destruction of Soviet war memorials and even war
graves, and erection of commemorations, in various
form, of Nazis throughout the Baltic states. That is
what paras 6 and 7 of the resolution refer to, and
there is no doubt whatsoever of the truth of these
events. It is not “Russian disinformation”.
However the European Union, in support of its
Baltic states members and their desire
to forget or deny historical truth and to build
a new national myth expunging their active role in
the genocide of their Jewish and Roma populations,
would not support the UN Resolution on Nazism. The
EU countries abstained, as did the UK. The truth of
course is that NATO intends to use the descendants
of Eastern European racists against Russia much as
Hitler did, at least in a cold war context.
You won’t find that in the Explanation of Vote.
Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and
human rights activist. He was British Ambassador to
Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and
Rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to
2010.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk
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