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By the
Associated Press
Edited by Diana Johnson
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Villagers: Mass grave holds Stalin’s victims
BYKOVNIA, U.S.S.R, - Thou
sands of skulls and skeletons found
entwined with grass and bits of cloth
ing testify to the years of murder
concealed in a mass grave in a forest
outside this Ukrainian village.
The single bullet hole in each skull
offers the most chilling evidence that
these victims - up to 300,000 by one
unofficial estimate - were killed by
Josef Stalin’s secret police, not the
Nazis as the Soviet government
claims.
Stalin’s men shot people in the
back of the head. The Nazis usually
lined up their victims on the side of a
ravine and machine-gunned them,
* said Mikola G. Lysenko, a retired
economist who is crusading to end
what he considers a conspiracy of
lies.
After 50 years of silence, elderly
residents of this village near Kiev are
speaking up, blaming their govern
ment for the bodies buried in the
forest.
Petro Z. Kukovenko says he sum
moned the courage to speak after a
Soviet commission reburied the
bones and erected a memorial in May
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blaming the Nazis for the killing. On
the spot where Soviet government
trucks once dripped blood on the for
est floor, the monument carved the
official version in granite.
“When they put up this monu
ment, I became ashamed that they
were blaming this on the wrong
people, luucoveiuto, 74, said in an
interview.
“My father may be buried there ”
said Kukovenko’s wife, Halyna. ’
“My father was a collective
farmer, and they killed him for noth
ing,” she sobbed.
Western historians estimate 20
million Soviets were killed under
Stalin, particularly during the Great
Purge of the late 1930s.
But it was only in 1987 the Soviet
government, as part of the reforms
instituted under President Mikhail S.
Gorbachev, began to admit that
Stalin was responsible for even thou
sands of deaths.
The monument blaming the Nazis
for the victims at Bykovnia was built
in May, Lysenko said. In December,
he succeeded in forcing the govern
ment to form a fourth commission to
find the murderers.
The last three commissions all
blamed the German occupation
army.
Labor trounced in elections
JERUSALEM - The right wing scored a
decisive victory in Israel’s municipal elections
and Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said
Wednesday the voters had vindicated his re
fusal to deal with the PLO.
The elections Tuesday extended the power
of his Likud bloc on the local level and gave
major gains to Jewish and Moslem fundamen
talists.
Teddy Kollek, the moderate Labor Party’s
best-known mayor, won a sixth term in Jerusa
lem but lost control of the City Council.
A preliminary count gave religious parties
12 of the 31 council seats, up from 10 in 1983.
Kollek’s One Jerusalem slate got 11 or 12
seats, down from 17; four went to Likud and
three or four to the secular Citizens Rights
► Movement
More seats on the council will give religious
parties greater power to enforce demands that
restaurants and theaters close on the Jewish
sabbath, but Kollek said he won’t make con
cessions that “do not conform to the will of the
majority.’’
Final results are not expected until later in
the week, but Labor estimates it lost control of
at least 10 towns councils, including several in
traditional strongholds. Most were taken by
Likud, including five of the largest cities.
Shimon Peres, the Labor Party leader, said
on army radio Wednesday: “We have defi
nitely been dealt a blow, and I don’t want to
underestimate its force. But five years ago,
when we won a big victory in municipal elec
tions, it didn’t mean anything for the Knesset
(parliament) elections.’’
Food stores jammed after riot,
at least 100 dead in Venezuela
CARACAS, Venezuela — New riots
broke out in the western slums Wednesday
despite martial law imposed because of two
days of disturbances, and at least one person
was reported killed.
Venezuelans jammed the few remaining
food stores, guarded by soldiers, to stock up
after two days of riots and looting over price
increases in which more than 100 people
have been reported killed and 800 injured.
Witnesses in outlying areas of Caracas
said police exchanged gunfire with snipers
and drove mobs away from stores. Other
witnesses said a woman had been killed by
police early Wednesday in the town of Catia
as she tried to loot a store.
Radio reporters said delinquents tried to
break into homes in Guatenas, 30 miles
west of Caracas, while homeowners wme
defending themselves with guns.
President Carlos Andres Perez declared
martial law late Tuesday, saying the 'in
credible tragedy" of the violence threat
ened Venezuela’s "consolidation of de
mocracy." His spokesman said people must
realize the rich years of the oil boom are
over.
The president also announced an agree
ment between industry and labor for an
immediate wage increase that would raise
the pay of those earning the minimum wage
by more than 50 percent.
Bus fare increases of 30 percent to 50
percent, and price gouging by drivers, were
the immediate cause of the riots, but oil
accounts for 90 percent of Venezuela’s
export income and the economy never re
covered from the plunge in world prices
several years ago.
Inflation is expected to reach 70 percent
this year, double the 1988 level, and the
foreign debt is $33 bilikm.
Perez, in office only four weeks, an
nounced a sweeping reform package under
pressure from international creditors. It
includes freeing interest rates, doubling
gasoline prices and letting the currency
float, which means higher prices for im
ports.
Martial law prohibits public gatherings,
suspends the right to privacy and freedom of
the press and permits detention without
charge. Perez also imposed a 6 pjn.-6 a.m.
curf-w that government spokesman Pastor
Heydra said would last 'until peace was
restored.
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Armed forces
call cease-fire
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SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — The
armed forces on Tuesday declared a unilateral
halt to military operations involving offense
and called on leftist rebels to reciprocate.
The armed forces press office said in a
statement that the cease-fire would begin at
midnight Tuesday (1 a.m. Wednesday EST)
and run through June 1, when President Jose
Napoleon Duarte’s term in office ends.
It asked the guerrillas to reciprocate “to
comply with the Salvadoran people’s desire for
peace.’ ’ Itdid not say whether the armed forces
would abide by the cease-fire if the guerrillas
kept up their military attacks.
No immediate response to the announce
ment came from the rebels’ Farabundo Marti
National Liberation Front, or FMLN. The
government had no comment on the announce
ment.
Political party leaders said late Tuesday
they were still studying the move by the armed
forces.
Questions?
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The gesture came after the five Farabundo
Marti commanders said in a communique that
they were willing to discuss peace with Duarte
SunS^nTht* VCnUC agenda hc suggcsted
But it also lamented Duarte’s “invariable
design to obtain our surrender, which is unreal
istic, illogical and impossible.”
It was unclear Tuesday if the conflicting
be reconciled. Both steS
firom a Jan. 24 guerrilla peace overture that
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