ibtimes | In 2012, the EU parliament voiced concern about "rising nationalistic
sentiment in Ukraine, expressed in support of the Svoboda party".
"[Parliament]
recalls that racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic views go against the
EU's fundamental values and principles and therefore appeals to
pro-democratic parties in the Verkhovna Rada [Ukraine's legislature] not
to associate with, endorse, or form coalitions with this party."
In
2005 Tyahnybok signed an open letter to then Ukrainain president Viktor
Yushchenko urging him to ban all Jewish organisations, including the
Anti-Defamation League, which he claimed carried out "criminal
activities [of] organised Jewry", ultimately aimed at the genocide of
the Ukrainian people.
In December, US Republican senator John McCain flew to Kiev to meet
the three leaders of the opposition at a rally against then president
Victor Yanukovich. McCain sparked criticism when he shook hands with
Tyahnybok.
In a leaked phone conversation
with the US ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, US secretary of
state Victoria Nuland revealed her wish for Tyahnybok to remain "on the
outside" but to consult opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk "four times a
week".
Fifteen thousand Svoboda members held a torchlit ceremony
in the city of Lviv in January to honour Stepan Bandera, a Nazi
collaborator who led forces to ethnically cleanse western Ukraine of
Poles in 1943 and 1944. Over 90,000 Poles and many Jews were killed.
"Lviv
has become the epicentre of neo-fascist activity in Ukraine, with
elected Svoboda officials waging a campaign to rename its airport after
Bandera and successfully changing the name of Peace Street to the name
of the Nachtigall Battalion, an OUN-B wing that participated directly in
the Holocaust," AlterNet explained.
In Washington, the OUN-B reconstituted under the banner of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA) .
"By
the mid-1980s, the Reagan administration was honeycombed with UCCA
members. Reagan personally welcomed Stetsko, the Banderist leader who
oversaw the massacre of 7,000 Jews in Lviv, in the White House in 1983.
"'Your struggle is our struggle,' Reagan told the former Nazi collaborator. 'Your dream is our dream'," AterNet claimed.
In 2010, Viktor Yushchenko who was president of Ukraine at the time, awarded Bandera the title National Hero of Ukraine.
"When
the European parliament condemned Yushchenko's proclamation as an
affront to European values, the UCCA-affiliated Ukrainian World Congress
reacted with outrage, accusing the EU of another attempt to rewrite Ukrainian history during WWII," AlterNet continued.
"On its website, the UCCA dismissed historical accounts of Bandera's collaboration with the Nazis as Soviet propaganda."
