For immediate release (Ottawa)
14 November 2008
Canada should immediately denaturalize and deport any resident who was
once a member of any Soviet secret police organization, the Ukrainian Canadian Civil
Liberties Association (UCCLA) said Nov. 14.
Responding to an article in the Nov. 12 Vancouver Province
(www.canada.com/story.html?id=dc14dabd-680c-4878-a133-0cf3997abddf),
the UCCLA is calling on federal Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan
to immediately send any former Soviet secret police veterans found in Canada back
to their home states.
"Canada should not be a haven for former members of any communist
state's secret police forces, regardless of whatever duties they may
claim they performed," said the UCCLA's chairman, Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk.
"Simple membership in the NVKD, SMERSH or KGB should be sufficient
grounds for excluding such a person from Canada, whether they made
application for admission as an immigrant or refugee."
Residents of Canada who served in the NKVD, SMERSH and KGB enabled the
Soviet regime to indulge in the mass imprisonment, murder and
enslavement of millions of innocent men, women and children. These
secret police forces spied upon, exiled, tortured, murdered and
oppressed their fellow citizens, not only in times of war but also
during times of peace. Any person who was a member of these
formations, or affiliated ones, simply by assisting in their
functioning, made it possible for such war crimes and crimes against
humanity to be perpetrated.
Regardless of an individual's ethnic, religious or racial heritage or
the period or place during which they served or what they claim to
have done, they should not be in Canada, nor should they be allowed to
establish roots here, individually or as members of a family.
"Anyone who served in such a secret police body would have known of
its actions, past and present, and should not have allowed
himself/herself to be used for the criminal purposes carried out by an
authoritarian state," said Dr. Luciuk.
The UCCLA has called upon the government to take immediate steps to deport
any veterans of the NKVD, SMERSH and KGB who are in Canada and to make it
clear to Canada's immigration officials that such persons should always be
excluded from admission into Canada, with no right of appeal. The
UCCLA also invites the relevant authorities to investigate who the
immigration consultants or lawyers were who allegedly advised ex-KGB veterans that
former membership in such an organization
would not affect their chances of entry into Canada.