As Congress debates President Joe Biden’s request of $64 billion for Ukraine, following the $113 billion that has already been sent, the eastern European nation is acting in violation of international human rights law, and a bilateral agreement with the United States, by desecrating a Jewish cemetery — and is refusing to respond to congressional inquiry about it.
Ukraine has vacuumed up billions of U.S. tax dollars, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently traveled to Washington to request more. But his country is undermining a 1994 agreement with the United States, and is violating the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, by digging up a Jewish cemetery in Uman, Ukraine, to build condos.
A project that began in the summer of 2016 in the Ukrainian city of Uman, a well-known site of Jewish pilgrimage as the burial place of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, as well as a mass grave of victims of the Haidamacks massacre, has seen human remains being dug up as early as summer of 2022, according to a report in Ukrainian media. The site sees tens of thousands of Jewish visitors from around the world on Rosh Hashana alone, and thousands more throughout the year, even during wartime.
Ukraine and the United States signed a bilateral agreement in 1994, agreeing to “take appropriate steps to preserve the cultural heritage of all national, religious, or ethnic groups … who reside or resided in its territory and were such victims of the Second World War.” It specifies that “cultural heritage” includes “cemeteries, and memorials to the dead, as well as related archival materials.” It goes on to state that in cases where “groups are unable, on their own, to ensure adequate protection and preservation within its territory… shall invite the cooperation of other Party and its national where assistance is required for this purpose.”
In October, 2021, a letter was sent to Zelensky personally by Reps. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) and Jerry Nadler (D-NY), expressing “concern” about “desecration” of the Jewish cemetery, “in violation of existing cultural heritage protection agreements,” emphasizing that “[the] cemetery and other important historical and culturally significant sites are provided with legal protection under the 1994 bilateral agreement between the United States and Ukraine on Protecting and Preserving Cultural Heritage.”
Later that same month, another letter addressed to Zelensky personally was sent by Reps. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Susan Wild (D-PA), Mike Quigley (D-IL), Doug Lamborn (R-CO), and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), raising alarm about the cemetery’s “destruction” and “desecration,” again reiterating that the action is in “violation of the 1994 bilateral agreement between the U.S. and Ukraine on ‘Protecting and Preserving Cultural Heritage,’” and President Obama’s “Protect Cemeteries Act of 2014,” ensuring that the “International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 accounts for the desecration of cemeteries as ‘an assault on the fundamental right to freedom of religious,’ … ‘especially egregious when… tolerated by the local or national governments in the countries in which such offenses occur.’”
The letter pressed Zelenskyy to “use all possible measures to prevent the cemetery’s destruction,” calling it “an important matter of religious freedom as well as a violation of internationally recognized human and cultural rights.”
The next year, in September, 2022, a letter signed by 23 members of Congress was sent to Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba to raise the issue of “several illegal construction projects … continuing unabated within the protected zones of the burial place of Tzadik Nachman of Breslov … despite stop work orders…” The letter stated the lawmakers “look forward to hearing from you on steps to stop the illegal construction in Uman.”
The same month, Ukrainian media reported “construction workers came across human remains … in the spring, when they began to dig a foundation pit” — on the site of the cemetery, just next to the tomb of Nachman.
Despite the three letters from Congress objecting to the project — and amid the approval of billions of U.S. dollars to the Eastern European nation— construction had not been abated, nor slowed down.
According to local press reports in March, 2023, illegal construction took place on the protected area of the cemetery, and a Ukrainian court ordered whatever was built to be demolished.
The court stated the project was “in violation of the law,” “spontaneously built within the protection zone of the monument ‘Grave of Tzadik Nachman 1811’,” ordering the structure to be demolished at the developer’s expense. The report says:
It should be noted that the building was built in violation of current legislation without the appropriate permission of the cultural heritage protection authority in the protection zone of the monument of local importance, the Tomb of Tzadik Nahman, located on the territory of the Ancient Jewish Cemetery within the Historical and Cultural Center of the city of Uman.
According to photos obtained by Breitbart of the site taken on January 2, 2024 — first reported by independent news site Paradox Politics — the structure is still intact and work is in progress.
The desecration of the cemetery in Uman violates the United Nations Charter of Human Rights, which protects the right to worship freely, and the preservation of mass graves has been specifically stated as a priority of the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Breitbart reached out to the Ukrainian Embassy for comment eight months ago and still hasn’t heard back.
Emma-Jo Morris is the Politics Editor at Breitbart News. Email her at ejmorris@breitbart.com or follow her on Twitter.
Zelensky has found the ‘pot of gold’ and wants it constantly refilled, with no compliance on his end. He’ll continue to ask, and receive (unless Congress gets tough instead of ‘letters’), desecrate what he wants…and the Ukrainian people continue to suffer. But wait, doesn’t his wife leave the country to ‘shop’? No suffering there.