Ukraine's Communists announced they would open a museum dedicated to victims of U.S. imperialism in the Crimea next month, as a riposte to a Communism memorial recently put up in Washington.

Communist Party member Leonid Grach said Tuesday the memorial museum on the predominantly Russian-speaking peninsula would be "a marquee with an exhibition presenting the whole period, starting from the massacres of Native Americans, up to racial discrimination in America, which continues to this day."

Grach said the museum would consist of a permanent display in Simferopol, while a mobile exhibition will tour Crimea's main cities. The exhibition will feature photographs, maps, and copies of documents showing crimes against humanity in the United States.

Communists in the ex-Soviet country announced plans to set up the museum after the Victims of Communism Memorial was opened in Washington on July 12. The dedication ceremony, at which U.S. President George W. Bush compared Communists to terrorists and blamed the ideology for the deaths of 100 million innocent people, also provoked the ire of China.

In his dedication speech, Bush had said: "Like the Communists, the terrorists and radicals who attacked our nation are followers of a murderous ideology that despises freedom, crushes all dissent, has expansionist ambitions and pursues totalitarian aims."

Grach said he hoped that the initiative to set up the imperialism museum in the Crimea, where support for the country's pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko is low, would be backed by other regional Communist branches.

The party official said last month that the memorial in Washington would please its "vassals" like Yushchenko, but that it would not be appreciated by the Ukrainian nation.

"American imperialism, from the extermination of native Americans to war crimes in Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, has caused substantially more deaths than the 'orange forces,' along with their masters over the ocean, blame Communism for," he said.

Russian Newswire

---