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Trudeau Faces Furor Over Veteran’s Nazi Ties at Zelenskiy Speech
Nazi Veteran Lauded at Zelenskiy's Speech Embarrasses Trudeau
- Canadian PM says ‘it’s extremely upsetting that this happened’
- 98-year-old Ukrainian who fought in WWII got standing ovation
Updated on September 25, 2023 at 3:04 PM EDT
Canadian lawmakers are demanding that a parliamentary official resign after he invited a Ukrainian war veteran who fought in a Nazi unit to be a featured guest during President’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s speech last week.
The episode is deeply embarrassing to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, though his staff say the government had no knowledge about the invitation ahead of time, and neither did the Ukrainian delegation.
European country demands Canada apologize for applauding Ukrainian Nazi SS veteran
Belarus accused Canada of deliberate attempts to whitewash Nazism and rewrite history
Minsk has demanded an official apology from Ottawa, insisting that praising a Ukrainian man, who served in Adolf Hitler’s Waffen SS forces during World War II, as a “hero” was not an accident, but rather a “quintessence” of the long-standing policy of Canada.
“Belarus, which lost every third citizen in the Second World War, is outraged and deeply offended by the footage of honoring a veteran of the SS division ‘Galicia’ in the House of Commons of the Canadian Parliament,” the Foreign Ministry of Belarus said in a statement on Monday.
Yaroslav Hunka, 98, a former member of the SS 14th Galician Division, was given a standing ovation in the chamber during the visit of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky on Friday.
After the incident sparked outrage from Jewish organizations, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office has thrown Speaker Anthony Rota under the bus, saying they were unaware of Hunka’s past. Rota also claimed that he only “subsequently become aware of more information which causes me to regret my decision” to publicly call him “a Ukrainian and a Canadian hero.”
Minsk, however, believes that “such a cynical attitude to the memory of thousands of innocent victims of Nazism is not an accident, as the organizers of this show are now trying to portray it.”
“It is a kind of quintessence of the long-standing consistent policy of the authorities of Canada and a number of countries of the collective West to cover up and whitewash Nazi criminals and to deliberately condone attempts to rewrite history,” the foreign ministry said. It added that “all requests of Minsk to the Canadian authorities for assistance in the investigation of the criminal case on the fact of genocide of the population of Belarus during the Great Patriotic War and the post-war period remain unanswered.”
Belarus said it awaits an “official apology” from the leadership of Canada, and in the meantime demanded that “international and public organizations, associations and foundations commemorating the victims of the World War II give a proper legal and moral assessment of this incident.”
UN censures Canada over celebration of Ukrainian WW2 Nazi veteran
The international body, Dujarric confirmed during a daily briefing on Monday, opposes any moves celebrating anyone who had actively aided and abetted the Nazis.
- The incident took place last week, during a visit by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to Canada. The 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka had been invited to attend parliament as a “Ukrainian and Canadian hero,” despite widely available photographic evidence of his membership of the SS.
- Canadian House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota, who was responsible for inviting Hunka, has since apologized and expressed his “regret” over the decision.
The office of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau insisted that “no advance notice” had been provided to Zelensky’s delegation or to the Canadian leader about Hunka’s invitation. The incident still sparked outrage and sparked condemnation from several nation states and Jewish groups. . .
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