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Thursday, January 22, 2009
UCCLA continues merciless campaign against veterans of Soviet secret police
The Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (UCCLA) is “ramping up” its campaign to get all KGB and other Soviet secret police veterans out of Canada.
The organization’s "No KGB In Canada!" campaign continues to target Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Immigration and Citizenship Minister Jason Kenney and Minister of Public Safety Peter Van Loan with postcards that read:
"Veterans of Soviet secret police formations like the NKVD, SMERSH and KGB should not be allowed to enter Canada nor to remain here. No exceptions. Denaturalize and deport them all, immediately."
UCCLA chairman Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk issued the following statement today about the campaign:
For years we have alerted the Government of Canada, the RCMP and others to the illegal presence in our country of veterans of the Soviet secret police. We don't know how many there are but some openly boasted about their participation in torture and mass murder.
While we have always championed the principle that any person found in Canada alleged to be a war criminal should be tried in a criminal court, politics is the art of the possible. Since the federal government insists upon using denaturalization and deportation for dealing with persons who should not be in Canada, we call upon Ottawa to apply its preferred standard in every case, without exceptions.
There should be no KGB men in Canada, not now, not ever. Indeed Canada should not be a haven for anyone who admits that they were involved in war crimes, regardless of their ethnic, racial or religious heritage, their ideological convictions, or the period or place where they committed or enabled such crimes against humanity. Justice cannot be selective.
One such former KGB agent in Canada is Mikhail Lennikov. The former KGB officer and his family face deportation from Canada within four months unless Minister Van Loan intervenes.
Lennikov has lived in Canada since 1997 and applied for permanent residency in 1998. According to Lennikov, he was recruited out of university to work as a Japanese translator for the KGB. He now fears he could be jailed and tortured if forced to return to Russia.
Was Lennikov himself another victim of Soviet tyranny, or a willing and active agent of the state who should now be treated criminal and an enabler of crimes against humanity?
Posted by Matthew Johnston
Posted by westernstandard on January 22, 2009 | Permalink
Comments
Standards of proof are standards of proof. Unless a case of criminal activity can be brought against any one of these "former agents," there are no grounds for removing them from the country.
Simply having served in the KGB is not a crime, any more than being a veteran of the CIA is. If these men are in Canada illegally, of course they should be removed, but their prior membership in the KGB is irrelevant.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2009-01-22 8:27:00 PM
Let's hope no one with intelligence listens to the UCCLA.
Posted by: Agha Ali Arkahn | 2009-01-22 8:28:11 PM
According to the CJC "balance of probabilities" is the accepted standard of proof' for 'denaturalization and deportation' of innocent men like Wasyl Odynsky. What's good for the "Joose" is good for the Gander, apparently. :)
Love the code speak:
"regardless of their ethnic, racial or religious heritage, their ideological convictions, or the period or place where they committed or enabled such crimes against humanity. Justice cannot be selective."
Stalin's Jews were disproportionately represented in "the NKVD, SMERSH and KGB". And of course the NKVD (Cheka) was the force behind the gulags and the mass murder of Ukrainians called the Holodomor. Robert Conquest suggests 11 million were brutally slaughtered.
Ethnic aggression is a bitch ain't it.
Posted by: DJ | 2009-01-23 12:58:20 AM
"Stalin's Jews?" Come on, DJ, pogroms are so last century. Today's anti-Semite requires a different toolkit, containing such up-to-date items as the explosives vest.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2009-01-23 7:07:20 AM
Good on the UCCLA for finally getting some traction on this. Self-professed members of the KGB, actually, are NOT allowed to enter Canada. If they are here, without special permission, that means they lied upon entry. They must be deported.
Posted by: TF | 2009-01-23 8:46:07 AM
The KGB, its many iterations, as well as its enablers are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of citizens within the former USSR's borders and beyond. I don't give a rat's ass whether Canada allows ex-CIA into the country or not, but KGB can go back to Russia.
Posted by: Canuck 25 | 2009-01-23 8:49:00 AM
Russia's leadership is all KGB. Deport them - they'll feel right at home.
Posted by: OTTAWA_QU | 2009-01-23 8:51:56 AM
I agree with Shane's first comments that former membership in the KGB alone is not enough.
Posted by: Alain | 2009-01-23 11:43:18 AM
No one who served in any Communist secret police force is eligible for entry into Canada. That's the law. These folks were all volunteers, who served the Soviet state and benefitted from doing so. They are not victims, they are enablers or, in some cases, perpetrators of crimes against humanity. They deserve no sympathy and certainly no home in Canada. Kudos to the Government of Canada for getting rid of them.
Posted by: LL | 2009-03-03 6:05:28 AM
Too bad we weren't so picky with all those Ukranians who joined the Waffen SS.
Posted by: dp | 2009-03-03 7:54:23 AM
Today's anti-Semite requires a different toolkit,containing such up-to-date items as the explosives vest.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2009-01-23 7:07:20 AM
Odd though how Justice Minister Irwin Cotler considered Hamas a terrorist organization, yet the Tamil Tigers who used even bloodier methods weren't.
Posted by: The Stig | 2009-03-03 8:52:51 AM
No one who served in any Communist secret police force is eligible for entry into Canada. That's the law. - Act and section, please.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2009-03-03 8:55:29 AM
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