Foreign Affairs minister praises her grandfather a Ukrainian Nazi collaborator

At a recent news conference Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland announced that Canada would extend its training mission to the Ukraine.

The announcement was no surprise as Canada has long been a supporter of the U.S.-led NATO campaign supporting the Ukraine in reaction to the annexation of the Crimea and Russian support for the rebel enclaves in eastern Ukraine. Freeland herself is a major critic of Russia. Canada has imposed sanctions on Russia. As retaliation, Russia placed a travel ban on some Canadians including Freeland. Nevertheless, Trudeau made her Foreign Affairs Minister. Russia suggested that they might remove the travel ban if Canada removed the sanctions but that idea was rejected. At the news conference, Freeland faced questions about her Ukrainian grandfather Michael Chomiak and his ties to the Nazis.

Some of the articles making the allegations appeared on pro-Russian websites. Freeland suggested that the articles on her grandfather were part of a disinformation campaign on the part of the Russians. She told reporters: “American officials have publicly said, and even Angela Merkel has publicly said, that there were efforts on the Russian side to destabilize Western democracies, and I think it shouldn’t come as a surprise if these same efforts were used against Canada."

According to the Globe and Mail: "An official in Ms. Freeland’s office denied that the minister’s grandfather was a Nazi collaborator. Ms. Freeland has written that her maternal grandparents fled Ukraine in 1939, describing them as 'political exiles with a responsibility to keep alive the idea of an independent Ukraine.'” Paul Grod, president of the Canadian Ukrainian Congress said: “It is the continued Russian modus operandi that they have. Fake news, disinformation and targeting different individuals. It is just so outlandish when you hear some of these allegations – whether they are directed at minister Freeland or others.”

What is outlandish is that the minister manages to avoid the fact that her grandfather Michael Chomiak was actually a Nazi collaborator and although she has known this for some time has never come to grips with the facts or condemned his actions. Kirill Kalinin, a spokesperson for the Russian embassy in Ottawa noted that Freeland did not directly respond to allegations about Chomiak: “The question was asked but the answer about her grandfather never followed. She avoided giving a direct answer as to what her grandfather was doing in Cracow during WWII. While we cannot deny or confirm particular news stories, it’s our principled position that Nazism and Nazi collaborators, their hateful ideology, that took tens of millions lives, must be unanimously condemned.”

There is no need to read Russian propaganda sites to find information on Chomiak. The Ukraine Archival Records held by the the Province of Alberta has an entire file on Chomiak. Information includes his own details on editing the newspaper Krakiviski Visti in Cracow Poland and later in Vienna when he had to move with his Nazi colleagues as the Russians were advancing into Poland. The Krakiviski Visti was seized by the Nazis from its Jewish owner and operated as a propaganda outlet.

The Los Angeles Holocaust Museum said about the Krakiviski Visti and another similar newspaper: “The editorial boards carried out a policy of soliciting Ukrainian support for the German causes. It was typical, within these publications, to not to give any accounts of the German genocidal policy, and largely, the editions resorted to silencing the mass killing of Jews in Galicia. Ukrainian newspapers presented the Jewish Question in light of the official Nazi propaganda, corollary to the Jewish world conspiracy.”

Freeland has known for over two decades that her maternal grandfather Chomiak had been chief editor of a Nazi newspaper in occupied Poland. The Globe and Mail claims: "Ms. Freeland, who has paid tribute to her maternal grandparents in articles and books, helped edit a scholarly article in the Journal of Ukrainian Studies in 1996 that revealed her grandfather, Michael Chomiak, was a Nazi propagandist for Krakivski Visti (Krakow News)."

The article by Freeland's uncle John-Paul Himka, a professor emeritus at the University of Alberta, noted the newspaper was set up in 1940 by a German intelligence officer who confiscated the offices and presses from a Jewish publisher later murdered at a concentration camp. Himka gave credit to Freeland for "pointing out problems and clarifications." He notes that some passages in the paper suggested approval of Nazi actions. He also noted that a daughter of Chomiak had claimed that he had also helped out the resistance but that he could never verify this. Professor Himka said: “Yeah he was the editor of a legal newspaper in Nazi-occupied Poland. He never signed anything in the paper. He never made policy or that kind of thing. It wouldn’t be his call [The newspaper] also performed a function for Ukrainian culture and kept Ukrainian intelligentsia alive during the war by paying them for articles, not just anti-Semitic articles but articles about Ukrainian culture. It was a bit of a mixed bag.”

Freeland goes much further and tries to classify Russian accounts of Chomiak's work as meant to destabilize democracy in the west. When Freeland's office was asked to refute the allegations the response was: "People should be questioning where this information comes from, and the motivations behind it.” The truth does not matter, that is why it is OK to call the reports fake news even though the basic facts seem correct as confirmed by numerous other sources.

Peter Kent, Conservative foreign affairs critic said that the Russians were digging up details from the past to smear Freeland: “It is unacceptable. It seems they are trying smear a minister with historical detail that has probably been misrepresented. It is unfair and it is typical of what we have seen in other countries and it has nothing to do with her ability to represent Canada.” Freeland has written that her maternal grandparents as political exiles with a responsibility to keep alive the idea of an Independent Ukraine.

Of course Freeland cannot be held responsible for the actions of her grandfather but she can be held accountable for misrepresenting facts about him and praising him while not acknowledging his support for the Nazis. She even suggests that the whole idea that Chomiak was a Nazi collaborator was a Russian fabrication.

On Black Ribbon Day a day of remembrance for the victims of Stalinism and Nazism, Freeland tweeted her admiration for her grandparents as detailed in this blog. On a day to remember victims of Nazism our Foreign Minister chooses to praise her grandfather who was a Nazi collaborator.

A Russian view: No Winners at NATO summit

This is from Moscownewsweekly.
Notice that the issue of more troops for Afghanistan does not even register on the Russian radar. The response to the expansion of NATO is rather muted. Although Georgia's and Ukraine's bid to join has been delayed it is still to go ahead eventually. Notice how Russia will use the recent Kosovo unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo to lever recognition of Abkazia and South Ossetia. This seems to be off the radar in the U.S. for the mainstream press.
It will be interesting to see what will happen at the meeting between Bush and Putin on Sunday. Will Bush look into Putin's soul again?


No Winners at NATO Summit

The NATO summit in the Romanian capital Bucharest failed to fulfill the hopes of former Soviet republics Georgia and Ukraine to get into the alliance's Membership Action Plan. Despite pressure from the U.S. president and support from the United Kingdom and Canada, both Germany and France opposed the expansion plans, citing the possible aggravation of relations with Russia, which are already strained due to U.S. plans to deploy a missile defense system in Czech Republic and Poland.





President George W. Bush "departed from the summit agenda" by presenting U.S. arguments for the bloc's expansion into the territory of the former Soviet Union. He said that the countries that had chosen the path of democracy must be given NATO protection through formal membership if these countries want it.

However, Germany and France argued that polls in Ukraine had shown that the support of NATO membership in the country was below 30 percent, and that Georgia had not solved its territorial disputes with the self-proclaimed states of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

"We are convinced that it is too early to grant both states the action plan status," German chancellor Angela Merkel said.

"I would be happy to be proved wrong, but I do not expect MAP for Georgia and Ukraine," The Associated Press news agency quoted NATO spokesman James Appathurai as saying on Wednesday night.

Georgia did not hide its disappointment over the development.

"A ‘no' for Georgia will show those people in the Kremlin who think that by a policy of blackmail, by arrogance and aggression" they can influence NATO's decisions, Georgia's Foreign Minister David Bakradze told The Associated Press.

In Russia, the news was received with muted enthusiasm. In fact, the lower house of the Duma invited Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to a session and asked him to explain what they called the "foreign policy of retreat."

Lavrov said he did not agree with the opinion that Russia continues to retreat in its foreign policy. "It is impossible not to see Russia's growing influence in the World," Lavrov said. "We have understood, probably before many others have, what our real interests are based on our real opportunities in the modern world."

Russia, which is strongly opposed to NATO expansion eastwards, said that it could satisfy Abkhazian and South Ossetian requests for recognition after many Western states recognized the independence of Serbia's breakaway province of Kosovo.

Duma members called upon the minister to increase cooperation with the military in preparing a potential response to NATO expansion, but Lavrov said any reciprocal measures would be more in the economic sphere.

He said that Russia must concentrate on its economic might and thus ensure its defense capability. "We will react pragmatically, not like small boys in school ... who run out of classroom and cry in the corner," the minister said.

However, President Bush still has a chance to makes his case and attempt tot change Russia's attitude to NATO expansion during his upcoming visit to Russia on Sunday.

The U.S. president will hold talks with outgoing President Vladimir Putin in the latter's summer residence in the resort town of Sochi. The talks are expected to focus on missile defense, but the two leaders will certainly touch upon other subjects. Also on Sunday, Bush is expected to hold a brief meeting with president-elect Dmitry Medvedev.

By Kirill Bessonov

NATO to beef up forces in Afghanistan

This is from the Voice of America. Wow! In this long report on the meeting Voice of America fails to mention Harper and only notes in passing the Canadian troops in the South. Bush of course gets mentioned lots as well as Georgia and the Ukraine. Bush wants to get NATO involved in the new Cold War with Russia. What is Harper's position on Georgia and the Ukraine joining NATO? Someone should ask.

NATO to Beef Up Forces in Afghanistan; No Accord on Members
By Paula Wolfson
Bucharest
02 April 2008



NATO leaders have devised a plan to bolster alliance forces in parts of Afghanistan where the threat of combat is high. VOA's Paula Wolfson reports it was one of the first signs of consensus to emerge from the NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania.


US President George Bush and NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, meet during the NATO Summit in Bucharest, Romania, 2 Apr 2008
The plan to send extra troops to Afghanistan focuses on the troubled south of the country.

France says it will send an extra battalion - roughly 700 to 800 troops - to eastern Afghanistan to free American Marines who will be redeployed along with Canadian forces in the south.

NATO Spokesman James Appathurai predicts more NATO members will step up their commitments of troops, military training, and aid during the summit. He says at a working dinner opening the Bucharest summit, leaders of the 26 NATO countries showed they are unified on Afghanistan.

"...a clear unity within the alliance that this is a mission that must succeed, that will succeed," said James Appathurai.



But Appathurai makes clear there is likely to be no meeting of the minds at the summit on Ukraine and Georgia's request for a NATO Membership Action Plan - or MAP. It is a move that is vehemently opposed by Russia, and NATO members France and Germany have expressed reservations.

"I would be happy to be wrong, but I do not expect MAP for Georgia and Ukraine," he said.

Apparthurai indicates, however, there will not be outright rejection and the request will, in essence, be put on hold.

"The general sense was that Membership Action Plan for Georgia and Ukraine is a matter not of whether, but of when," said Appathurai.

The NATO spokesman says at the dinner, leaders expressed general support for all three of the countries that are scheduled to receive an invitation to join the trans-Atlantic alliance. He says Albania, Croatia and Macedonia have all shown they are ready to become full members of NATO. But he predicts action on Macedonia will be delayed because of a long-standing dispute with Greece over its name.

For the Bush administration the early results of the summit are mixed. President Bush has urged the alliance to put Georgia and Ukraine on the path to membership, while calling on NATO members to increase support for Afghanistan.

One other issue of major importance to the White House is the U.S. plan to put a missile defense system in Europe. NATO is likely to issue some sort of statement of support during the summit - a move that is not likely to sit well with Russian President Vladimir Putin who considers the plan a security threat.

Mr. Putin will join the NATO leaders on Friday for a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council. On Sunday, President Bush will meet with the Russian leader at his vacation home in the Russian resort town of Sochi. Russian president-elect Dmitry Medvedev will also attend the talks.