KIEV, May 17 (RIA Novosti) - Ukrainian President
Viktor Yushchenko called for communist statues to be removed
and Soviet street names to be changed, in a speech on the
country's Remembrance Day for the Victims of Political
Repression.
The president attended a memorial service at the Bykivnia
mass grave on the outskirts of Kiev, where up to 150,000 people
executed in the Stalinist purges were buried.
"Ukraine must once and for all cleanse itself of the
symbols of the regime that massacred millions of innocent
people. There can be no justification for this - it is not a
part of our history, as some cynical people would say, it is a
part of the communist system, and symbols of murder," he said.
He said Ukraine must continue work to rename all towns and
villages that still carry communist names, as well as removing
statues and monuments, and called on parliament to consider
changing the status of nationalists who fought for Ukrainian
independence during the Soviet era.
In a veiled rebuke against Russia, which has refused to
recognize Ukraine's Stalin-era famine as genocide, Yushchenko
said: "Those who deny Holodomor and political repressions,
those who justify Stalin, are raising their hand against our
sanctity and our people."
The president laid flowers at the memorial to political
prisoners, and joined a mourning procession to the Memorial
Cross, led by Ukrainian church leaders. At the close of the
service, a minute's silence was held.
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