It took the late Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, to acknowledge that previous administrations could have been more candid much earlier about Soviet guilt; he duly instructed the FCO historians to revise the existing History Note and lay bare the reasons for the British policy towards Katyn.
Behind closed doors, the search for the Katyn documents began, just in case the speculation by Rohan Butler about ‘the Russians [becoming] more forthcoming about Katyn in he future… than in the past’ became a reality. Butler’s report of 1973 was dusted off and furnished with 37 pages of updated notes with annexes by the present-day historians of the Records and Historical Department of the FCO, with a short foreword by Denis MacShane (Minister for Europe, 2003). British Reactions to the Katyn Massacre 1943–2003 was printed in a limited edition for distribution to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the discovery of the Katyn massacre on 13 April 1943.[9] The general public had to be satisfied with the FCO website.
‘The Unquiet Dead of Katyn Still Walk the Earth’ (G.F. Hudson)
In August 2004 the representatives of the Instytut Pamięci Narodowej IPN (Institute of National Remembrance) in Warsaw, which is responsible for tracing all crimes committed against the Polish nation, informed the Russian Prosecutor that after their abandonment of the case, the Institute would like to investigate the case afresh. The response was positive at first but after initial negotiations, the Russians informed the IPN’s authorities that certain files were still non-disclosable and would not be available until the government decided to release them. The Russians confirmed that out of 183 files of documents, 116 would remain closed and only 67 would be accessible for inspection but not for copying. This was an unexpected blow as such conditions were not part of the August deal.[10]
Things went from bad to worse when in March 2005, the Russian Military Court announced that the inquest on the dead at Katyn was to be terminated, owing to ‘lack of presumptive evidence of crime’. The Poles believed that at least 2,000 perpetrators should have been accused; not only those who issued orders or physically took part in the killings, but also those who assisted in the convoys. It is worth mentioning that in 1990 when the case started, at least five alleged perpetrators of the Katyn crime were still alive. These were Pyotr Soprunenko, Leonid Reikhman and Ivan Serov, who were allegedly involved with ‘clearing out’, that is, shooting the PoWs; plus Kaganovich, a member of the Politburo who approved it, and Shelepin, head of KGB, who was in charge of the Katyn documents and tried to dispose of them.
The word genocide was absent from Russian criminal legislation until it was enshrined in Article 357 of the new criminal code, to be in line with international law which came into force in 1997. Article 357 also dealt with inhumane treatment of PoWs. Article 358 condemned deportations of civilians. However, Article 10 of the new code disallowed charges for those crimes committed before the code came into force – that meant Katyn, Mednoe and Kharkov were out of bounds. Article 10 follows the Russian legal tradition of not prosecuting the dead. Owing to the protracted investigation, lasting until 2005, the last perpetrator responsible for the crime at Katyn was no longer alive.
Yeltsin’s successor Vladimir Putin failed to resolve the situation, even after the opening of Polish war cemeteries at Katyn, Kharkov and Mednoe, which was considered to be a stepping-stone to reconciliation. Presently the matter is at a standstill, no dialogue and no apology for the Polish Families Association, let alone a Russian confession to genocide. Years go by while ‘The unquiet dead of Katyn still walk the earth.’
BERIA’S MEMORANDUM
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First published 2010
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