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Who is Michael [AKA “Mykhailo”] Bociurkiw?

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ July 23, 2014Post a comment Email This Post Email This Post Print This Post Print This Post
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Dave Emory’s entire life­time of work is avail­able on a flash dri­ve that can be obtained here. (The flash dri­ve includes the anti-fas­cist books avail­able on this site.)

COMMENT: In the wake of the rhetorical/political firestorm over the down­ing of Malaysian Air­lines Flight MH17, we note that the OSCE (Orga­ni­za­tion for Secu­ri­ty and Coop­er­a­tion in Europe) is front and cen­ter in the “inves­ti­ga­tion” into the event.

We put the quo­ta­tion marks around inves­ti­ga­tion because the OSCE’s Spe­cial Mon­i­tor­ing Mis­sion is head­ed by one Michael [“Mykhai­lo”] Boci­urkiw. A Cana­di­an cit­i­zen of Ukrain­ian extrac­tion, he was an assis­tant edi­tor for the Ukrain­ian Week­ly.

Issues of the peri­od­i­cal avail­able online point to a “pro-OUN/B” bias.

A 1987 let­ter from the World Jew­ish Con­gress’ gen­er­al coun­sel notes an appar­ent anti-OSI bias on the part of arti­cles writ­ten by Boci­urkiw. Note that the Office of Spe­cial Inves­ti­ga­tions was the Jus­tice Depart­ment unit charged with inves­ti­gat­ing Nazi war crim­i­nals liv­ing the U.S.

The unit was for­mer­ly head­ed by John Lof­tus, who resigned his posi­tion as head of OSI as the Rea­gan admin­is­tra­tion was tak­ing office because many of the peo­ple he was inves­ti­a­gat­ing held staff posi­tions with Rea­gan.

We request the help of lis­ten­ers in locat­ing issues of the Ukrain­ian Week­ly referred to in the Rosen­baum let­ter.

Boci­urki­w’s posi­tion with the OSCE appar­ent­ly places yet anoth­er OUN/B advo­cate in the mix, charged with “inves­ti­gat­ing” actions tak­en by a gov­ern­ment inex­tri­ca­bly linked with OUN/B heirs such as Swo­bo­da, Pravy Sek­tor and the Ukrain­ian Nation­al Con­gress.

(We have cov­ered the ascen­sion of the OUN/B heirs in the Ukraine in a num­ber of pro­grams: FTR #‘s 777, 778, 779, 780, 781, 782, 783, 784, 794, 800.)

‘OSCE Describes Process for Iden­ti­fy­ing Bod­ies from MH17 Attack” by Simon San­tow; ABC  News; 7/21/2014.

The OSCE has told AM it has final­ly obtained bet­ter access on the ground near the site where MH17 was shot down in east­ern Ukraine. The spokesman for the Spe­cial Mon­i­tor­ing Mis­sion to Ukraine, Michael Boci­urkiw, says they have seen some remains and bod­ies stored in refrig­er­at­ed rail wag­ons in the town of Tores. He says after the ear­li­er chaos, there’s now greater co-oper­a­tion but there are still plen­ty of con­cerns about get­ting access for crash inves­ti­ga­tors and of secur­ing the perime­ter of the area 24 hours a day.

[Eli] Rosen­baum   Let­ter to Cana­di­an Jew­ish Con­gress  02-Feb-1987   World Jew­ish Con­gress Mon­i­tors Ukraini­ans

 

Feb­ru­ary 2, 1987

VIA AIR CANADA FOR DELIVERY 2/3/87

 

Ms. Janet Ben­don

Direc­tor of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions

Cana­di­an Jew­ish Con­gress

1590 Avenue Doc­teur Pen­field

Mon­tre­al, Que­bec H3G 1C5

CANADA

Re: Michael Boci­urkiw

Dear Janet:

Enclosed, in accor­dance with your request of this date, is a near­ly com­plete run of The Ukrain­ian Week­ly (Jer­sey City, N.J.) from Vol. LIII, No. 40 (Octo­ber 6, 1985) through Vol. LV, No. 4 (Jan­u­ary 25, 1987).  These 61 issues come from my per­son­al library, and I appre­ci­ate your assur­ance that they will be returned to me by couri­er at your ear­li­est oppor­tu­ni­ty.

As I indi­cat­ed on the phone, Michael Boci­urkiw is a fre­quent con­trib­u­tor to the news­pa­per.  Indeed, one of his arti­cles appears on the front page of the old­est of the enclosed issues (Octo­ber 6, 1985), under the byline “Mykhai­lo” Boci­urkiw.  Vol. LIII, issue no. 50 (Decem­ber 15, 1985) reports that he has been named Assis­tant Edi­tor of the news­pa­per.  As you can see, I have made a prac­tice of not­ing on the front page of each issue those pages which con­tain arti­cles of inter­est (which, of course, would include all arti­cles, edi­to­ri­als, opin­ion pieces, adver­tise­ments, etc. regard­ing Nazi crimes and their per­pe­tra­tors).  Where more than one arti­cle of inter­est appears on a par­tic­u­lar page, I gen­er­al­ly have not­ed this fact through the use of par­en­thet­i­cals.  I am con­vinced, by the way, that many of the unby­lined “Nazi sto­ries” were penned by Mr. Boci­urkiw.  In any event, the anti-OSI, anti-Nazi pros­e­cu­tion bias in Boci­urki­w’s writ­ten out­put and in the news­pa­per gen­er­al­ly will be read­i­ly appar­ent as you read through the enclosed issues. . . .

 

Sin­cere­ly yours,

 

 

Eli M. Rosen­baum

Gen­er­al Coun­sel

 

 

 

Discussion

3 comments for “Who is Michael [AKA “Mykhailo”] Bociurkiw?”

  1. Dave, for archived issues of UKR­Week­ly in pdf try their web­site:

    http://www.ukrweekly.com/WebFileBrowser/browser3.php

    Posted by RichardFitzwell | July 25, 2014, 1:38 pm

  2. @Richard Fitzwell–

    Thanks for the heads up. I did some key word search­es on the Inter­net, but admit to being a lit­tle shy to vis­it their web­site direct­ly, know­ing their her­itage.

    They def­i­nite­ly appear to be “as adver­tised”!

    Sheesh!

    Best,

    Dave

    Posted by Dave Emory | July 25, 2014, 5:38 pm

  3. It’s worth not­ing that the Kiev gov­ern­ment hand­ed over offi­cial inves­tiga­tive respon­si­bil­i­ties to the Nether­lands:

    SkyNews.com.au
    Aus­tralian police check­ing MH17 site

    Updat­ed: 8:14 am, Fri­day, 25 July 2014

    Inde­pen­dent mon­i­tors help­ing Can­ber­ra nego­ti­ate with armed rebels over access to the MH17 crash site say Aus­tralians are already on the ground ‘suss­ing the secu­ri­ty sit­u­a­tion’.

    For­eign Min­is­ter Julie Bish­op hopes the fact the Nether­lands is now offi­cial­ly in charge of the inves­ti­ga­tion will allow the site near the Russ­ian bor­der to be secured with­in days.

    Aus­tralian offi­cials are rely­ing on the Organ­i­sa­tion for Secu­ri­ty and Co-oper­a­tion in Europe’s (OSCE) mon­i­tor­ing mis­sion in Ukraine to act as an inter­me­di­ary with rebels, who con­trol the region where Malaysia Air­lines flight MH17 was downed a week ago.

    OSCE spokesman Michael Boci­urkiw has con­firmed two Aus­tralian diplo­mats and one foren­sic expert vis­it­ed the site on Thurs­day with his team.

    It’s believed the foren­sic expert was from the Aus­tralian Fed­er­al Police.

    ...

    Boci­urkiw said the team, which includ­ed 12 OSCE mon­i­tors, also found more human remains on Thurs­day and anoth­er large piece of the fuse­lage.

    Parts of the wreck­age that the team inspect­ed on Wednes­day had ‘almost machine-gun types of holes’, he said.

    Malaysia Air­lines flight MH17 was shot down with 298 peo­ple, includ­ing Aus­tralians, on board a week ago over rebel-held ter­ri­to­ry in east­ern Ukraine in as yet unex­plained cir­cum­stances.

    Dutch author­i­ties say they can only be sure that 200 corpses have been recov­ered and no recov­ery efforts appear to be under­way for more bod­ies or remains.

    ...

    Some 50 fed­er­al police offi­cers are in Lon­don await­ing approval for an inter­na­tion­al team to work at the crash site under the aegis of the UN.

    Dutch For­eign Min­is­ter Frans Tim­mer­mans signed a mem­o­ran­dum of under­stand­ing with his Ukrain­ian coun­ter­part Pavlo Klimkin on Thurs­day which offi­cial­ly put the Nether­lands in charge of the inves­ti­ga­tion.

    Ms Bish­op thinks that’s the key to get­ting Russ­ian-backed rebels to allow the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty in.

    ‘I am very opti­mistic after today’s meet­ings that we will have in place the legal and oper­a­tional frame­work that will enable our mis­sion to be car­ried out as soon as pos­si­ble,’ she told reporters in Kiev.

    ‘We’re not talk­ing about weeks we are talk­ing about days. Now that Ukraine has trans­ferred legal respon­si­bil­i­ty to the Nether­lands we feel that we’ll get more progress with the sep­a­ratists.’

    ...

    Thurs­day’s MH17 nego­ti­a­tions were con­duct­ed on a day of polit­i­cal upheaval in Ukraine.

    Prime Min­is­ter Arseniy Yat­senyuk resigned in a shock move after the col­lapse of the rul­ing par­lia­men­tary coali­tion paved the way for new leg­isla­tive elec­tions.

    The Ukrain­ian pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko signed a ‘mem­o­ran­dum of under­stand­ing’ which will push for inter­na­tion­al police to secure the site.

    He said ear­li­er that the sign­ing was a ‘human­i­ta­t­ian ges­ture’ and would help find those respon­si­ble for the dis­as­ter.

    So the Dutch are now offi­cial­ly going to be in charge of inves­ti­gat­ing the site with a larg­er Aus­tralian force poten­tial­ly on the way there. Hope­ful­ly hav­ing an inter­na­tion­al team in the that area will some­how ease ten­sions. Although it’s also worth not­ing that the Aus­tralian fed­er­al police might be armed:

    Bloomberg
    Aus­tralian Armed Police Risk Ten­sion With Ukraine Rebels
    By Leon Man­gasar­i­an Jul 25, 2014 7:35 PM CT

    Aus­tralian Prime Min­is­ter Tony Abbott’s plan to deploy armed police offi­cers to the site of the Malaysian Air crash risks increas­ing ten­sion in the Ukrain­ian ter­ri­to­ry held by Russ­ian-backed rebels, accord­ing to polit­i­cal ana­lysts based in Berlin and Brus­sels.

    Abbott said yes­ter­day he was dis­patch­ing 100 Aus­tralian Fed­er­al Police, some of them armed, and mem­bers of Australia’s mil­i­tary, to help recov­er bod­ies and evi­dence from Flight MH17 which crashed on July 17 near Donet­sk in the east of the coun­try killing 298 pas­sen­gers and crew. Abbott said Aus­tralia wants to bring home its dead.

    “They must be nuts,” Joerg For­brig, senior pro­gram offi­cer for cen­tral and east­ern Europe at the Berlin bureau of the Ger­man Mar­shall Fund of the U.S., said in a phone inter­view. “It’s a very dan­ger­ous pro­pos­al and will be seen as a provo­ca­tion by the sep­a­ratists and the Rus­sians.”

    ...

    Unarmed Dutch

    ...

    The Nether­lands is send­ing a sep­a­rate mis­sion of 40 unarmed mil­i­tary police to the site to help com­plete the foren­sic work and gath­er evi­dence, Rutte said this week. The U.K. has sent one foren­sics spe­cial­ist to Kiev and nine British sci­en­tists are work­ing in the Nether­lands to help iden­ti­fy bod­ies and secure evi­dence.

    The U.K. is ready to offer logis­ti­cal sup­port and is keep­ing in close con­tact with the Aus­tralians and Dutch over how it can assist, though it won’t be send­ing police or tech­ni­cians to Ukraine, the For­eign Office said.

    Ukraine Agrees

    “We believe a U.K. armed pres­ence in east­ern Ukraine would not be appro­pri­ate,” the For­eign Office said in an e‑mailed state­ment. “The U.K. stands ready to pro­vide con­struc­tive sup­port to the mis­sion.”

    The Nether­lands, Aus­tralia and Ukraine are con­sid­er­ing propos­ing a Unit­ed Nations res­o­lu­tion for an armed mis­sion to secure the crash site, Dutch news agency ANP report­ed yes­ter­day, cit­ing diplo­mat­ic offi­cials famil­iar with the mat­ter that it didn’t iden­ti­fy. Aus­tralia, a Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil mem­ber, will sub­mit the res­o­lu­tion if offi­cials at the site can’t per­form duties in the next few days, it report­ed.

    Aus­tralia ear­li­er dis­patched 90 police to help with the crash probe. The rein­force­ments will first fly to the Nether­lands. There were 194 Dutch nation­als and 27 Aus­tralians on MH17.

    Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko this week signed an accord under which the Nether­lands will lead the inter­na­tion­al probe into the crash. The For­eign Min­istry in Kiev said a sep­a­rate agree­ment was signed yes­ter­day for an “Aus­tralian mis­sion of civ­il police” to help pro­tect the mis­sion. There was no men­tion from either Poroshenko or the For­eign Min­istry on whether the Aus­tralians would be armed.
    Drunk Rebels

    Dmit­ry Gau, the spokesman for rebels, wouldn’t imme­di­ate­ly com­ment on the Aus­tralian plans to car­ry firearms, when con­tact­ed by Bloomberg News.

    Fredrik Erixon, direc­tor of the Euro­pean Cen­tre for Inter­na­tion­al Polit­i­cal Econ­o­my in Brus­sels, warned against send­ing armed teams into east­ern Ukraine to search for vic­tims.

    “There’s noth­ing nor­mal in east Ukraine right now,” Erixon said in a phone inter­view. “Small events can trig­ger very large reac­tions from the rebels and the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment.”

    Karl-Heinz Kamp, aca­d­e­m­ic direc­tor at the Ger­man government’s Fed­er­al Acad­e­my for Secu­ri­ty Pol­i­cy in Berlin, said the Aus­tralian mil­i­tary is expe­ri­enced and wouldn’t take risks, espe­cial­ly in a sit­u­a­tion “where some of the rebels are drunk.”

    “The only way the Aus­tralians are going to send armed offi­cers into rebel ter­ri­to­ry is if there’s some kind of back-room deal,” Kamp said by phone. “It’s total­ly far-fetched but if it’s true, maybe the Rus­sians are under such pres­sure to do some­thing they told the rebels ‘you have to accept this.’”

    As hint­ed at the end, it’s pos­si­ble there’s already a back­room deal in place with the the rebels to ensure that the sit­u­a­tion does­n’t get even more out of con­trol. But if that isn’t the case, then we’re look­ing at a sit­u­a­tion where an inter­na­tion­al force that the rebels will sure­ly view as being on the side of the Kiev gov­ern­ment is now oper­at­ing in the mid­dle of an area so dan­ger­ous that a civi­lan air­lin­er was just shot down. Could this be the start of an eas­ing of ten­sion? Prob­a­bly not, but let’s hope so.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | July 26, 2014, 5:23 pm

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