"THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT"
In-Depth Ukrainian News, Analysis, and Commentary
"The Art of Ukrainian History, Culture, Arts, Business, Religion,
Sports, Government, and Politics, in Ukraine and Around the World"
"THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT" Year 04, Number 87
Action Ukraine Coalition (AUC), Washington, D.C.
Ukrainian Federation of America (UFA), Huntingdon Valley, PA
morganw@patriot.net, ArtUkraine.com@starpower.net
Washington, D.C.; Kyiv, Ukraine, TUESDAY, May 25, 2004
INDEX OF ARTICLES
"Major International News Headlines and Articles"
1. UKRAINE'S PRESIDENT CALLS FOR FULLY-FLEDGED
FREE TRADE ZONE DURING YALTA SUMMIT
Priority task for the Single Economic Space (SES) Agreement
UNIAN news agency, Kiev, Ukraine, in Ukrainian, 24 May 04
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Monday, May 24, 2004
2. RUSSIAN PRESIDENT TALKS UP BENEFITS OF ECONOMIC
PACT WITH UKRAINE, BELARUS, KAZAKHSTAN
Creation of a Single Economic Space (SES)
Interfax-Ukraine news agency, Kiev, Ukraine, in Russian, 24 May 04
BBC Monitoring Service,UK, in English, Monday, May 24, 2004
3. PUTIN SEES SINGLE ECONOMIC SPACE AGREEMENT AS
NO BAR TO WTO MEMBERSHIP
Channel One TV, Moscow, Russia, in Russian, 24 May 04
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Monday, May 24, 2004
4. UKRAINE: KRAFT FOODS UKRAINE AIMS FOR 10% SHARE
OF CHOCOLATE BAR MARKET
Just-Food.com Website, Bromsgrove, Worcs, UK, Mon, 24 May 2004
5. UKRAINE: MERGER CREATES RUSSIAN-OWNED DAIRY GIANT
Russia's Unimilk will likely control 30% of the Ukrainian dairy market
By Viktoria Braychenko, Kyiv Post Staff Writer
Kyiv Post, Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, May 20, 2004
6. UKRAINE: $70 MILLION SUN OIL PLANT PLANNED
Bunge and Estron Corporation Begin Construction of
largest sun seed processing facility in Ukraine
By Viktoria Braychenko, Kyiv Post Staff Writer
Kyiv Post, Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, May 20, 2004
7. U.S. CONGRESSMAN DOUG BEREUTER VISITS KYIV TO
CONFIRM DOOR TO THE WEST OPEN FOR UKRAINE
Congressman is the NATO Parliamentary Assembly head
ITAR-TASS, Moscow, Russia, Monday, May 24, 2004
8. "UKRAINE IS NOT RUSSIA"
OPINION/COMMENTS, By Andrew Wilson
The Moscow Times, Moscow, Russia, Thursday, May 20, 2004
9. UKRAINIAN POLITICAL LEADER YULIA TYMOSHENKO
IMPRESSED WITH GEORGE BUSH SR'S VISIT TO UKRAINE
Ukrayinska Pravda web site, Kiev, Ukraine, in Ukrainian 24 May 04
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Monday, May 24, 2004
10. OBSERVER: PAPA BUSH'S 'CHICKEN KIEV'
OBSERVER-EUROPE, Comment and Analysis
Financial Times, London, UK, Sunday, May 23, 2004
11.UKRAINE: ETHNIC TROUBLE IN CRIMEA:VIEW FROM MOSCOW
COMMENTARY: By Sergei Markedonov, M.A. (History), Head of
Ethnic Relations Problems at the Institute of Political and Military
Analysis; For RIA Novosti, Moscow, Russia, Thursday, May 20, 2004
12. SOVIET REPRESSIONS: REWRITING THE BOOK
Dissatisfied with current approaches to the history of Soviet repressions,
a congress of schoolteachers offers new ways of confronting the past.
By Anna Malpas, The Moscow Times, Moscow, Russia, May 21-27, 2004
13. CHESS: UKRAINE WOMEN'S CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP 2004
Held in the beautiful Black Sea resort of Alushta [Alusta] in Crimea
By Olga Alexandrova and Thomas Lemanczyk,
>From Hotel "Cajka" in Alushta [Alusta], Crimea, Ukraine,
Chessbase News, Hamburg, Germany, Sunday, May 23, 2004
14. MISS UKRAINE CHOSEN 2004 TOURISM WORLD BEAUTY
QUEEN IN BEAUTY CONTEST HELD IN MUGLA, TURKEY
Anadolu Agency, TurkishPress.com, Plymouth, Michigan, Sun, May 23, 2004
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THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No. 87 ARTICLE NUMBER ONE
Politics and Governance, Building a Strong, Democratic Ukraine
http://www.artukraine.com/buildukraine/index.htm
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1. UKRAINE'S PRESIDENT CALLS FOR FULLY-FLEDGED
FREE TRADE ZONE DURING YALTA SUMMIT
Priority task for the Single Economic Space (SES) Agreement
UNIAN news agency, Kiev, Ukraine, in Ukrainian, 24 May 04
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Monday, May 24, 2004
LIVADIYA (Yalta) - Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma has said that
"creating a fully-fledged free trade zone without exemptions or restrictions
is the priority task for the Single Economic Space [between Russia, Ukraine,
Belarus and Kazakhstan]".
The president was speaking in Livadiya, near Yalta, during a summit of
participants in the Single Economic Space accord.
Kuchma said there are 13 documents that are key for setting up a free trade
zone. He believes that "it is entirely realistic to complete their
preparation and sign them in the first quarter of next year".
Kuchma said he was confident that "the implementation of this first stage of
the SES will be a litmus test that will demonstrate whether the parties are
truly willing and able to go further than political declarations towards a
new level of economic cooperation".
The Ukrainian president added that creating a fully-fledged free trade zone
"would allow us to achieve a substantial economic benefit from our
integration in the very near future".
[The SES accord was ratified by the four countries' parliaments in April, in
a latest attempt to strengthen economic ties between the former Soviet
republics. Ukraine had previously said it would push for a speedy creation
of a free trade zone within the SES, whereas Russia is expected to lobby for
the implementation of the accord, which also envisages coordinated economic
policy and common tax code, in its entirety.
Critics in Ukraine and in the West say the accord runs counter to Kiev's
proclaimed European course. But the Ukrainian government says the SES is key
to boosting trade with Russia and sustaining economic growth.] [Please send
queries to kiev.bbcm@mon.bbc.co.uk] (END)
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THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No. 87: ARTICLE NUMBER TWO
The Genocidal Famine in Ukraine 1932-1933, HOLODOMOR
Genocide Gallery: http://www.artukraine.com/famineart/index.htm
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2. RUSSIAN PRESIDENT TALKS UP BENEFITS OF ECONOMIC
PACT WITH UKRAINE, BELARUS, KAZAKHSTAN
Creation of a Single Economic Space (SES)
Interfax-Ukraine news agency, Kiev, Ukraine, in Russian, 24 May 04
BBC Monitoring Service,UK, in English, Monday, May 24, 2004
YALTA - Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the creation of a
Single Economic Space [SES] by Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine
could provide a "powerful lever for the growth of the economies of the four
countries, increase their competitiveness on global markets and, most
importantly, make possible an increase in the quality of life of their
citizens".
Speaking today during a summit of the SES member countries, Putin said,
"The main task at the next stage of the formation of the SES is to create as
quickly as possible a viable legal and regulatory basis for economic
cooperation."
Putin said it is necessary to assign experts from the four countries to
draft the relevant documents by the end of this year. "Their signing should
not be drawn out either," he said.
Putin said that by 2005-2006, the countries could reach specific agreements
on most of the main issues. Putin said these include "conducting a
coordinated foreign trade policy, and forming common customs charges, a
unified competitive environment and a unified regulatory body".
Putin said, "Agreements on some of these issues could even be reached in the
near future."
Putin said that during informal meetings on 23 May, the four heads of state
discussed "the most important questions linked to the further steps towards
creating the SES, and the meeting participants concluded that an open and
constructive dialogue will allow us to move forward and find effective
solutions". (END)
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THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No. 87: ARTICLE NUMBER THREE
Check Out the News Media for the Latest News From and About Ukraine
Daily News Gallery: http://www.artukraine.com/newsgallery.htm
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3. PUTIN SEES SINGLE ECONOMIC SPACE AGREEMENT AS
NO BAR TO WTO MEMBERSHIP
Channel One TV, Moscow, Russia, in Russian, 24 May 04
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Monday, May 24, 2004
[Presenter] A new phase in talks on setting up the Single Economic Space
between Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan: The presidents of the four
countries discussed the steps needed to put agreements reached earlier into
practice at a meeting in Yalta today. All the details live from my colleague
Anton Vernitskiy:
[Correspondent] The meeting in the Livadiya Palace outside Yalta has now
ended. A year ago the four presidents signed the agreement on the Single
Economic Space here and since then all four parliaments have ratified it. So
the presidents were synchronizing their watches, as they say, here. This was
an extra meeting for them - the next is planned for Astana in September and
by then a working group from Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus should
already have drawn up the first documents for the Space.
The constitution of the Single Economic Space is a compilation of more than
60 pieces of legislation intended to regulate movement across internal
borders, goods, services, labour and capital - that's what the nascent
Single Economic Space is.
[Putin] I would like to emphasize separately that none of the countries is
joining any kind of organization: We are setting up the Single Economic
Space together. This is to ensure there are no misunderstandings about
anyone forcing or dragging anyone into some kind of regional organization.
No. We have got together to elaborate through discussion rules of economic
conduct which would be of benefit to all four states. We have an
understanding of how this should be achieved.
[Correspondent] The four countries signed the agreement setting up the
Single Economic Space, but that does not mean that this alliance is closed
to other CIS countries. It is simply that the founding principles of the
Single Economic Space will be drawn up by Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and
Belarus, countries which made up 90 per cent of the economy of the former
USSR.
Most of the time at today's meeting the discussion focused on the problem of
Single Economic Space countries joining the World Trade Organization [WTO].
[Putin] There is no contradiction between membership of the WTO and regional
economic organizations. These difficulties can easily be resolved in various
ways. My colleagues have already spoken about that. Any country that is a
member of any regional economic organization either resolves its issues with
the WTO itself and then coordinates with its partners in that regional
economic organization or the entire organization works out general
principles and all the member countries of that organization join the WTO on
the basis of these general principles. All these are tried and tested
principles which are working in practice.
[Correspondent] I'll repeat that the Yalta meeting is now over, the next is
planned for 15 September this year in Astana. See you there. (END)
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THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No. 87: ARTICLE NUMBER FOUR
Major Articles About What is Going on in Ukraine
Current Events Gallery: http://www.artukraine.com/events/index.htm
Become a financial sponsor of The Action Ukraine Program Fund
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4. KRAFT FOODS UKRAINE AIMS FOR 10% SHARE
OF CHOCOLATE BAR MARKET
Just-Food.com Website, Bromsgrove, Worcs, UK, Mon, 24 May 2004
KYIV - The Ukrainian unit of US food giant Kraft Foods is aiming to capture
a 10% share of the chocolate bar market in the Ukraine in 2004.
Yaroslav Koval, marketing director of Kraft Foods Ukraine, said the company
already has a 6% share of the market with its Siesta and 3Bit chocolate
bars, reported the Ukrainian News.
The company plans to continue promotion of its 3Bit bar to raise the
product's market share from 1% at the start of the year to 5% by the end of
2004.
In late April, Kraft Foods Ukraine began production of the 3Bit bar at its
facility in Trostianets, Sumy. Previously the company had imported the
product from its facility in Lithuania. (END)
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LINK: http://www.just-food.com/news_detail.asp?art=57645
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THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No. 87: ARTICLE NUMBER FIVE
Ukraine's History and the Long Struggle for Independence
Historical Gallery: http://www.artukraine.com/histgallery.htm
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5. UKRAINE: MERGER WILL CREATE RUSSIAN-OWNED DAIRY GIANT
Russia's Unimilk will likely control 30% of the Ukrainian dairy market
By Viktoria Braychenko, Kyiv Post Staff Writer
Kyiv Post, Kyiv, Ukraine, May 20, 2004
KIEV - Two Ukrainian dairy companies, Galakton and Dnipropetrovsk's
Pavlograd dairy, announced merger plans on May 17 that will give the
combined group 20 percent of the country's dairy market.
Details of the merger have not been announced, but it will create a new
holding company, Unimilk Ukraine, which will be controlled by Russia's
Unimilk.
Serhy Glushchenko, who will be director of marketing and business
development at the new holding company, said Unimilk Ukraine will likely
control about 30 percent of Ukraine's dairy market by 2005.
"We are planning to become the market leader in terms of processing and
distributing milk and milk products," Glushchenko said.
The new holding will combine the businesses of three dairy plants:
Kyiv-based Galakton, the Kremenchuk Dairy, and Pavlohrad, which sells its
products under the Fanny trademark. Galakton, owned by Russia's Unimilk,
acquired the Kremenchuk Dairy, located in Poltava oblast, at the beginning
of 2003.
"The legal documents (creating the holding) will be signed in two to three
months," Unimilk General Director Andry Beskhmelnitsky said May 17. "There
is full agreement between the dairies' shareholders."
Unimilk, Russia's second-largest dairy producer after Wimm-Bill-Dann, was
formed in 2002 after the amalgamation of nine dairy businesses in Russia and
Ukraine.
A division of the Planeta group, it now owns 12 dairy plants in Russia, and
Galakton in Ukraine. It had a turnover of approximately $260 million in
2003.
Analysts from CEE-foodindustry.com, a Web site devoted to the food and
beverage business in Central and Eastern Europe, reported Feb. 3 that
"Unimilk facilities are considerably lacking, especially compared to its
biggest rival Wimm-Bill-Dann... As a result, Wimm-Bill-Dann was able to
produce around one and a half times the volume achieved by Unimilk last
year."
WBD, Russia's largest dairy player, is the second-largest producer in
Ukraine, with 6.2 percent of the market share, according to Ukrsotsbank
data. WBD has recently invested $13.3 million in the modernization of its
production facilities in Ukraine, where it owns Kyiv Milk Factory No. 3 and
sells dairy products under the Slovyanochka brand. WBD also owns the
Kharkiv Milk Plant and Burinsky Dry Milk Factory in Sumy oblast.
Unimilk Ukraine will further develop the well-known Balance, Fanny, and
Frendi trademarks and promote new Russian products in the country under the
Prostokvashyno trademark. (END)
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THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No. 87: ARTICLE NUMBER SIX
The Story of Ukraine's Long and Rich Culture
Ukrainian Culture Gallery: http://www.ArtUkraine.com/cultgallery.htm
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6. UKRAINE: $70 MILLION SUN OIL PLANT PLANNED
Bunge and Estron Corporation Begin Construction of
largest sun seed processing facility in Ukraine
By Viktoria Braychenko, Kyiv Post Staff Writer
Kyiv Post, Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, May 20, 2004
The U.S.-owned agricultural giant Bunge Ltd. and its Ukrainian partner
Estron Corporation last week began construction of what will be the largest
and most expensive sun seed processing facility in the country.
The $70 million oilseed crushing plant is being built in the Illichevsk
port, in Odessa oblast.
"This plant will not just be competitive in Ukraine. It will be globally
competitive; it will be able to compete with the most efficient plants in
Argentina or Western Europe," said Ben Pearcy, director of Bunge Europe.
Bunge's plant will produce the unrefined oil used to make refined products,
which will then be exported to Western Europe and the Middle East.
The plant is a 50-50 joint venture between Bunge Europe, Bunge Ltd.'s
European arm, and Cyprus-registered Estron Corporation. The two
companies have been cooperating on the project for seven months.
The plant is located next to a grain export terminal owned by Estron
Corporation. It will use the terminal's facilities, including its storage
facilities, which have a capacity of 240,000 tons, and its two vessel
loaders. Pearcy said the port of Ilyichevsk is ideally located to supply
Western European and Mediterranean markets.
At full capacity, the new plant will be able to crush 600,000 tons of
sunflower seeds a year, and most of the plant's products will be exported,
through Bunge's international marketing network. "Bunge's offices around
the world will be responsible for finding customers for these products."
Once the plant is operational in spring 2005, it will be a major market
player, analysts say.
Currently, the nation's biggest exporters are Cargill, which supplies
European countries with raw seed oil from its $50 million sun seed
processing facility in Donetsk oblast, and Suntrade, which exports bottled
oil under the trademark Oleina (primarily to Russia).
Bunge entered Ukraine in 2002, when it acquired Cereol, the owner of the
Dnipropetrovsk Oil Extraction Plant (DOEP). The DOEP, which produces
Oleina-brand oil, is one of the three largest vegetable oil production
facilities in Ukraine. At the same time it acquired Suntrade, a sunflower
trading company which has been active since 1998.
Sun seed and other oilseeds will be supplied to the new facility by
Suntrade. Last year Bunge acquired several grain elevators in Ukraine, and
announced plans to invest $11 million in modernization of the DOEP.
"One of the reasons that Bunge bought Cereol was that Bunge was very
interested in participating in the development of agriculture in Ukraine,"
Pearcy said.
"The belief of Bunge and Estron Corporation is that Ukraine has experienced
growth in recent years in agricultural production and will become a major
factor in global agricultural," he added.
The nation currently produces almost 1 million tons of sunflower oil a year,
60 percent of which is exported.
Serhy Feofilov, the head of Ukragroconsult, an agricultural consulting firm,
said that, although Argentina is currently the main exporter of sunflower
oil, Argentinian production is predicted to decrease as the country grows
more and more soybeans. "Ukraine has the potential to become the main
supplier of sun seed products to the world," he said.
Pearcy commented that he believes Ukraine may in the future become a major
exporter of soy oil, like Argentina. Feofilov said that Bunge, which has a
lot of experience growing grains and oil seeds, may start planting oilseed
in Ukraine.
"It's a major investment that would require a lot of raw materials from
Ukraine to keep this plant operating, and we believe that Ukraine can supply
these raw materials quite competitively, of the quality necessary to compete
in the world market," he said.
UkrAgroConsult experts predict that growing global demand for oilseeds will
likely cause shortages of sunflower seed on the Ukrainian market in the late
2003/2004 marketing season.
Ukraine is far behind Brazil or Argentina in seed yields per hectare. But by
introducing better farming technology and better seeds, Bunge will be able
to improve yields, Feofilov said. "If Bunge decides to invest in planting
and harvesting seeds in Ukraine," he added, "it can only benefit the
company." (END)
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THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No. 87: ARTICLE NUMBER SEVEN
The Rich History of Ukrainian Art, Music, Pysanka, Folk-Art
Arts Gallery: http://www.artukraine.com/artgallery.htm
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7. U.S. CONGRESSMAN DOUG BEREUTER VISITS KYIV TO
CONFIRM DOOR TO THE WEST OPEN FOR UKRAINE
Congressman is the NATO Parliamentary Assembly head
ITAR-TASS, Moscow, Russia, Monday, May 24, 2004
KIEV, May 24 (Itar-Tass) - American congressman and NATO Parliamentary
Assembly President Doug Bereuter will discuss Ukraine's integration in the
European Union NATO, as well as questions related to the forthcoming
presidential elections in Ukraine in Kiev on Monday, May 24.
"During the election of a new president this fall, the Ukrainian people will
have an historical opportunity to direct its country towards the West and
pave the way for it towards membership of such Euro-Atlantic organizations
as the European Union and NATO. The parliamentarians from 26 NATO
member-countries, for their part, are ready to back Ukraine in this
respect," the Ukrainian press quoted Bereuter's statement made on the eve
of his visit to Ukraine.
According to the congressman, during his meetings with Ukrainian government
and parliament members he will stress, "The door to the West is open for
Ukraine."
In his view, "It is necessary for the Ukrainian leadership to be aware that
the presidential election would be regarded as a litmus paper test of
Ukraine's commitment to democracy." "One of mine key messengers during
the forthcoming meetings in Kiev will be the importance of fair and
transparent elections," the American congressman declared.
Bereuter is convinced, "If Ukraine is seeking to meet the standards for
accession to NATO, it should be ready to make necessary decisions and carry
out political, economic and military reforms."
"If Ukraine succeeds in the implementation of these reforms, its accession
to the Euro-Atlantic organizations will be guaranteed in future," the
president of the NATO parliamentary assembly declared. (END)
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THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No. 87: ARTICLE NUMBER EIGHT
Ukraine's History and the Long Struggle for Independence
Historical Gallery: http://www.artukraine.com/histgallery.htm
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8. "UKRAINE IS NOT RUSSIA"
OPINION/COMMENTS, By Andrew Wilson
The Moscow Times, Moscow, Russia, Thursday, May 20, 2004
Andrew Wilson, senior lecturer in Ukrainian studies, University College
London, contributed this comment to The Moscow Times. His most recent
book is "The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation," his next is on "Political
Technology" in the former Soviet Union.
Russia now has its "managed democracy" -- what it does with it is a
different matter. In Ukraine, however, the October 2004 presidential
election is still a genuine contest, not just between politicians and
parties, but between two different political cultures -- broadly, between
"political technology" and a genuine opposition (even if one of the
standard techniques of political technology is to try to blur that line).
As well as marking possible decisive domestic changes, the election will
therefore have a vital demonstration effect for the region as a whole. If
the management of Ukraine's democracy becomes as brutally effective as in
Russia, Ukraine (and other states) will more easily slip back further under
its influence. If a victorious opposition is able to enact real changes to
foreign policy and the model of domestic political economy, the shock
waves will be felt in Russia, too.
The West, on the other hand, is unlikely to intervene as decisively as it
might. The EU is preoccupied with enlargement and has made it clear that it
is up to Ukraine to catch up. The United States is preoccupied with Iraq,
and mindful of its overambitious intervention in Belarus in 2001, has
confined its concerns to the "quality" of the elections.
This at least will have an indirect effect. Ukraine is therefore a testing
ground for the export of the Russian political technology industry. Despite
many apparent failures at the last parliamentary elections in 2002, the
Ukrainian elite continues to put its faith in the talismanic expense of
northern "experts." One key way in which Ukraine is different, however, is
that one-shot strategies have never worked. Ukraine has never had the
equivalent of the Unity party in 1999 or Russia's anti-oligarch campaign in
2003.
In the 2002 elections it took at least four projects to prevent former
Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine Bloc's winning plurality
(23.6 percent) from becoming a majority. The first, the would-be Ukrainian
party of power, For a United Ukraine, won only 11.8 percent; the second,
the smear campaign against the so-called nashisty, may have trimmed Our
Ukraine's vote by 5 percent to 10 percent, mainly in eastern Ukraine; the
third, the various "clone" parties run as covert projects by the
powers-that-be, nibbled away at another 10 percent; it was only after the
opposition's victory had been minimized in this way and Yushchenko
demoralized by the peons and picadors, that operation No. 4 -- hoovering up
independents and intimidating and purchasing opposition defectors to create
a majority in parliament -- became possible.
Why so much history? The authorities have no silver bullet for their "stop
Yushchenko" campaign this year. Instead, they are again reliant on the
cumulative effect of a new compendium of dirty tricks. Many of the Russian
political technologists who were employed in Ukraine in 2002 admit that
their first task this time is to complicate the process. Many of their
previous efforts failed because the last election became too polarized.
If this time the electorate still thinks in simple binary terms of (honest)
"us" versus (corrupt) "them," then their efforts will again fail. The
overall project is therefore dubbed "toad's eye": an attempt to distract
the toad -- that is, those voters who backed the opposition in 2002 --
from its original object of attention with a big show of vigorous but
superficial movement.
The plan to reform the constitution earlier this year by making the
government answerable to the parliament rather than the president was
therefore both an end in itself and part of the show. The aim was to deny
Yushchenko the possible fruits of victory and redefine the political game
away from the binary simplicities of 2002.
In this sense, the protracted saga before the final vote on April 8 worked
well for the authorities. The opposition camp was distracted and divided,
and looked impotent and confused. On the other hand, the final defeat
of the plan by 11 votes and the opposition's celebration of the failure
of so much blatant arm-twisting partially recreated the binary stereotype.
What comes next? Option two is to hold the election as normal and back a
single candidate for victory. However, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych
versus Yushchenko makes only partial sense. Despite some delusional
thinking in the president's entourage, Yanukovych cannot win with a simple
rerun of Kuchma's original 1994 campaign. Kuchma was then sold as an east
Ukrainian everyman running against a "nationalizing" incumbent (Leonid
Kravchuk).
This time Kuchma is the incumbent, there is no "nationalist threat" and
Yanukovych is narrowly associated with one particular region, the Donbass.
Nor can Yanukovych easily be sold as the "Ukrainian Putin": He does not
represent the "strong hand" of the KGB, but that of the Donbass economic
elite, whose muscular business practices are pushing other nervous clans
into putting out feelers to the Yushchenko camp.
The authorities need much more if Yanukovych is to win or, more exactly, to
put him within reach of a victory obtainable with minimum use of
"administrative resources" so as not shock the West too profoundly. Unlike
Russia in 2003, the authorities will also seek to puff up the Communists as
an extra obstacle in Yushchenko's path; although Communist leader Petro
Symonenko and Yanukovych may take votes off each other in eastern Ukraine.
Yushchenko is also likely to face more obvious "clones" in the political
center, such as the former Economics Minister Valeriy Khoroshkovsky or
National Bank head Serhiy Tyhipko. Tyhipko's PR men are busily
appropriating credit both for current growth in GDP and the introduction of
the "new" hryvna (the same but shinier) to "replace" the currency
Yushchenko successfully introduced in 1996.
The authorities will also foment trouble on the right to try and pull
Yushchenko away from the center ground (where he must stay to win). Even
if Yulia Tymoshenko cannot be bought, she or her supporters can objectively
play this role. Too many members of the opposition fell into the obvious
trap of the "Village News" affair (involving a racist article probably
planted in the largest circulation opposition newspaper as an excuse to
shut it down), their longstanding rhetoric against the "alien" rule of
"creolic" (Ukrainian but culturally Russophile) oligarchs being too easily
converted into anti-Semitism.
Divide-and-rule tactics also seem to be working with the Socialist Party,
whose support for the constitutional amendment project almost delivered
the necessary 300 votes in April. Kiev is awash with rumors of a
Russian-inspired project to detach the Socialists from the opposition in
return for posts in some future government and/or protecting the
commercial interests of party businessmen like Mykola Rudkovsky.
Even if the various strands of the opposition eventually pull together
later in the campaign, the damage may already have been done.
As in 2002, the authorities' technologists will also try to depict the
opposition as "just as bad" as, implicitly, themselves. In 2002, they
produced "cassette scandal 2," but Yushchenko chatting on the phone with
Kiev Mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko about removing Viktor Medvedchuk
as deputy chair of the parliament had nothing like the political resonance
of the murder of Georgy Gongadze.
This time the authorities' more exact aim is to clone the success of
Russia's "anti-oligarch" campaign in 2003. True, there are many ambitious
small oligarchs in Our Ukraine who would like to become big oligarchs
after a Yushchenko victory, such as the "chocolate king" Petro
Poroshenko.
But there is no equivalent of Yukos lurking in their ranks. The public
perception, quite rightly, is that most of the oligarchs are on the
government side.
Yushchenko's strength is that he has been flat-lining in the polls since
2002 -- none of the technologists' tricks have yet made a decisive
difference. But this is also his weakness. There is no dynamism in his
campaign. He is always in defensive mode for whatever dirty trick comes
next and his lead in the polls is small. A minority of the electorate has
firmly made up its mind. It would only take a drop of five percentage
points or so to put Yushchenko in the danger zone, where anything can
happen.
Ukrainian sociologists are often suspected of manipulating data, but one
institute (www.niss.gov.ua) recently had Yushchenko at 21.8 percent
and Yanukovych at 16.4 percent. Just as tellingly, in the same survey 26
percent of those polled expected Yanukovych to win, and only 20.3
percent expected Yushchenko to win. (END)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/05/20/006.html
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THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No. 87: ARTICLE NUMBER NINE
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========================================================
9. UKRAINIAN POLITICAL LEADER YULIA TYMOSHENKO
IMPRESSED WITH GEORGE BUSH SR'S VISIT TO UKRAINE
Ukrayinska Pravda web site, Kiev, Ukraine, in Ukrainian 24 May 04
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Monday, May 24, 2004
The leader of the [opposition] Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc, Yuliya Tymoshenko,
has said that [businessman, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma's son-in-law
and MP] Viktor Pinchuk made a mistake in bringing former US President
George Bush Senior to Ukraine. Tymoshenko said this in an interview with
Radio Liberty.
"I would like to emphasize that it was actually Pinchuk who brought such a
respectable individual and a politician of the level of President Bush
Senior. He brought him with his own goals in mind, in order to whitewash his
reputation and to legalize himself and all his actions not only in Ukraine
but also in the world," Tymoshenko said.
Despite "pursuing his own goals", Pinchuk brought a politician of a "Western
scale, with a Western approach towards democracy, so each visit of that kind
is Ukraine's victory, as such people, on coming, meet not only those who
have invited them", Tymoshenko said.
"It is Pinchuk's big mistake to bring people at his own expense in the
belief that this will be his own exclusive version and that they will be
seeing only what Pinchuk suggests. Those people see absolutely all
processes taking place in Ukraine," Tymoshenko said.
She was "very pleased to communicate with a politician of such a high
status, who has sorted out the details, who has not just heard superfluously
that we are building democracy and that our economy has been growing
rapidly, but has sorted out the details and has been capable of drawing
appropriate conclusions", Tymoshenko said.
"So both Ukraine and the civilized world stand to benefit highly from the
visit," Tymoshenko said.
She noted that at a meeting between Bush Sr and the opposition leaders
(Tymoshenko, [Viktor] Yushchenko [of the Our Ukraine bloc] and [Socialist
leader Oleksandr] Moroz), all events were discussed: "those concerning the
coming presidential election, the deaths of journalists, the impossible
current situation with the media, the repressions [during the recent
controversial mayoral election] in Mukacheve [in western Ukrainian
Transcarpathian Region] and what Ukraine should do when it joins forces
with the world in order not to lose what may be its final battle - the
presidential election".
"This politician impressed me with his deep understanding of the situation
and with the appropriate reaction to what is going on in Ukraine,"
Tymoshenko added. (END)
========================================================
THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No. 87: ARTICLE NUMBER TEN
Politics and Governance, Building a Strong, Democratic Ukraine
http://www.artukraine.com/buildukraine/index.htm
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10. OBSERVER: PAPA BUSH'S 'CHICKEN KIEV'
OBSERVER-EUROPE, Comment and Analysis
Financial Times, London, UK, Sunday, May 23, 2004
George Herbert Walker Bush's speech in Kiev last week must have pleased
his hosts.
The former US president talked about how Ukraine delayed its bid for
independence until after the failed August 1991 coup against Mikhail
Gorbachev, a decision he described as a wise move that helped the Soviet
Union dissolve peacefully.
A flattering interpretation, and not only of how Ukrainian leaders were
thinking. Bush had visited Kiev just before the coup and urged nationalists
to cool their jets. Ukrainians dubbed it the "chicken Kiev" speech.
Bush Sr was a bit more cagey this time around when Viktor Pinchuk, a steel
and media magnate who funded the junket, asked whether it would be
"prudent at this juncture" for George W. Bush to meet Ukraine's president,
Leonid Kuchma.
Kuchma, who happens to be Pinchuk's father-in-law, has been shunned in
recent years over allegations of selling radars to Saddam Hussein.
Bush said he had no influence over his son, unlike his wife Barbara, who
still "bawls out [George Jr] as if he were a 15-year-old child".
So the lesson for Pinchuk is clear. Next time, get Barbara. (END)
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FT e-mail address for the Observer: Observer@ft.com
========================================================
ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No. 87: ARTICLE NUMBER ELEVEN
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11.UKRAINE: ETHNIC TROUBLE IN CRIMEA: VIEW FROM MOSCOW
COMMENTARY: By Sergei Markedonov, M.A. (History), Head of
Ethnic Relations Problems at the Institute of Political and Military
Analysis, For RIA Novosti, Moscow, Russia, Thursday, May 20, 2004
MOSCOW - Early May was marked by political tension in the Crimea,
because this year the population of the peninsula marked 60 years since the
Stalinist deportation of local ethnic groups. Some time before it, the
peninsula was visited by Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, who promised
to celebrate Holy Easter in the Crimea, and Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Erdogan, who called on the residents of this problem-ridden part of Ukraine
"to abandon the obsolete ideology of racism and nationalism." Ethnic
relations are far from harmonious on the peninsula, and some experts think
it may repeat the fate of Kosovo or Cyprus.
The tragedy of Crimean Tartars differs from that of the other national
groups "punished" by Stalin. Unlike Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachayevs
and Kalmyks, the Crimean Tartars were not partially rehabilitated during
the Khrushchev "thaw" and were not granted, as political compensation, "an
autonomous area" of their own. In this sense, their case is similar to the
history of the Volga Germans, who lived as an ethnic community in the
current Saratov region before their deportation. On the other hand, the
Volga Region has never been the Russian Germans' proper fatherland, and
those who wanted to leave Stepmother Russia have done so.
But Tartars and the Crimea are quite another matter. The very image of the
peninsula is the core of the ethnic self-identification of the Crimean
Tartars, who had a state there from the late 15th century to 1783. Though
the Crimean Khanate was subordinate to the Ottoman Empire and pursued
the sultan's policy, the general public views the Girei Dynasty as the
golden age of the Crimean Tartar state, which was respected on the world
scene.
The last Tartar raid on the outskirts of the Russian Empire came in 1769
but the Russian reformer tsar, Peter the Great, sent "gifts" to the Crimean
Khan as late as in 1709. This explains the political passion of the ethnic
movement of the Crimean Tartars and the radicalism of their slogans, which
Russian and Ukrainian experts note. The 55th anniversary of deportation
five years ago was marred by political excesses, including extremist calls
for transforming the Crimea into the ethnic property of the Crimean
Tartars, the appearance of militant Tartar youths, and the dispatch of
Ukrainian military hardware to Simferopol. Happily, the problem was settled
at the time.
But spontaneous demonstrations and rallies are held in the Crimea
sporadically and highway and railway lines are blocked, not to mention the
illegal seizure of land by the Crimean Tartars. The return of the Tartars
to the Crimea, which was aptly called "self-return" by a journalist,
proceeded without a substantiated economic plan or an ethnic development
strategy for the returning and reviving Tartar community. Vasvi Abduraimov,
head of the Centre for Applied Information Technologies of the Crimea, said
the peninsula "is not a Crimean Khanate or Turkish Vilayet [province]."
Alas, the new realities of Ukrainian sovereignty and the domination of the
Russian population holding Russian passports and entertaining strong
pro-Russian views went unnoticed by many leaders of the Crimean Tartar
national movement. They advanced the idea of the Crimea as the collective
ethnic property of the Crimean Tartars and claimed that the latter had the
exclusive right to economic and political domination in their "homeland."
Hence the striving to create Tartar bodies of power (majlis, kurultai) and
to set Tartar authority against the official structures of the Crimean
autonomy and Ukraine.
What did the authorities do in this situation? Ukraine gained not just
independence but also an acute problem of national identity and a seat of
double-edged ethnic separatism. On the one hand, there is the mass desire
of the dominant Russian community in the Crimea to achieve a union with
Russia. On the other hand, the movement of the Crimean Tartars, though it
has frequently advanced anti-Russian slogans, is largely xenophobic also
with regard to the Ukrainian authorities.
Meanwhile, Russia knows that it cannot "regain the Crimea" and has no plans
to this effect. Did Khrushchev have the right to "present" the Crimea to
Ukraine in the 1950s? Was Yeltsin right when he did not fight for
Sevastopol? These are issues of history, and emotions should be left on one
side. Our policy must be guided by common sense. (END)
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ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No. 87: ARTICLE NUMBER TWELVE
Ukraine's History and the Long Struggle for Independence
Historical Gallery: http://www.artukraine.com/histgallery.htm
=========================================================
12. SOVIET REPRESSIONS: REWRITING THE BOOK
Dissatisfied with current approaches to the history of Soviet repressions,
a congress of schoolteachers offers new ways of confronting the past.
By Anna Malpas, The Moscow Times, Moscow, Russia, May 21-27, 2004
The parents in the neighboring apartment have just been detained by the
secret police, and their son knocks on your door, asking to spend one night
at your place. Do you let him in, knowing that this might lead to your own
arrest?
This moral dilemma was posed to students by Natalya Lyapina and Oksana
Fatina, history teachers from Novomoskovsk in the Tula region. Their
videotaped lesson took one of the top prizes last week in a contest for the
best lesson on the topic of political repression and resistance, run by the
Andrei Sakharov Museum and Public Center.
"I am quite outraged by the fact that studying the history of political
repression, and giving it the status of a state crime, isn't a compulsory
part of the school program," Sakharov Museum director Yury Samodurov
said last Friday at a conference devoted to the competition. "If the
government won't do it from above, then it means we have to do it from
below."
The competition, which aims to encourage school teachers to spend more time
educating their students about Soviet repression, attracted almost twice
the number of entries as it did in its first incarnation one year ago. "We
feel that what we are doing is necessary and in demand," Samodurov
commented.
Yet switching over to free discussion of the past has proved difficult in
Russia. Most current school textbooks barely mention such sore points as
the mass deportation of the Chechen and Ingush nations in 1944.
Textbook patriotism received an official thumbs up last November, when
President Vladimir Putin commented that history books "should instill a
sense of pride in one's history, and one's country."
Some interested teachers were even dissuaded by their schools from
participating in the Sakharov Museum's competition, which is sponsored by
the Open Russia Foundation. "There were situations when a teacher wanted
to take part in the competition, but didn't receive permission from the
administration," said Yelena Zakharova, a jury member and senior lecturer
at the Moscow Institute of Open Education, adding, "There were times when
they were simply banned from videotaping lessons."
Some of the contest's 235 entrants, most of them women, came from places
notorious for their Soviet labor-camp past, such as the city of Vorkuta in
the Far North, where prisoners mined coal, and the Siberian city of
Krasnoyarsk. Shown in taped fragments, their lessons featured blackboards
covered in dates and facts, fieldtrips to sites such as a former
prison-camp mine, and pupils staging plays. One teacher read the following
lines from Anna Akhamatova's poem, "Requiem": "It happened like this, when
only the dead / Were smiling, glad of their release."
Prizewinners Lyapina and Fatina divided their class into two groups. The
first group was assigned symbols of Soviet triumphalism: a bust of Stalin,
propaganda posters, a red flag. The second was given real aluminum dishes
and quilted jackets from the prison camps. Both groups were asked the same
question: "Was the Soviet Union a great state?"
Then the children were given the details of the scenario described above, a
true story from the 1930s in which a boy's parents were arrested and he
asked his neighbors if he could take shelter at their apartment. After
discussing the situation, the pupils had to give one of three answers: "I
would let him in because ...," "I would not let him in because ...," and "I
don't know how to answer."
"There were some who said, 'No, it was necessary to resist at whatever
cost,' while others said, 'Unfortunately, you only live once,'" Fatina
recalled.
"They had the chance to really understand that you can talk about human
values, about human rights, but that when it affects you personally, you
have conscience, honor and decency on the one hand, and the camp awaiting
you on the other. Not only you, but all your family," Lyapina said.
Meanwhile Marina Kredzinskaya, from Vorkuta (founded in the 1930s as part
of the VorkutLAG camp) chose to focus on the tsarist period, whose violent
rebellions and crackdowns she sees as responsible for the severity of
future repressions. She denied that children were unable to understand the
horror of the past. "Our children understand very well where they live,
that we have a very unusual city," she said, dubbing Vorkuta "a city built
on the bones of political prisoners."
All of the teachers present were educated at least partly in the Soviet
era, and several commented that they were still at school in 1988, the year
when, in an extraordinary step, the official history exam was canceled, due
to a new spirit of glasnost and open discussion of prison camps and
political arrests.
"It turned out that the history that we had studied was not the history
that had really happened," said Svetlana Bochkina from the republic of
Mordovia. "I believe that my children have outgrown me as I was in 1988,
and I see that as the result of my work."
Appearing at the conference was one of last year's winners, Grigory
Plotkin, with a poem of his own composition ending with the lines: "Russia
can only be saved by a teacher, not by a leader." Plotkin said that he
began teaching history in the Soviet era, and that it had been a
"torturous" step for him to change his views. Joseph Stalin had always been
a negative figure in his eyes, what with his grandfather's death in the
purges and the subsequent suffering of his grandmother, a loyal communist.
But he had always respected Vladimir Lenin, and it was only in the time of
perestroika that he began to see the Bolshevik leader and Stalin as "links
in the same chain."
Still, not all the teachers agreed as to how the Soviet period should be
presented. Some were in favor of putting a more heartwarming spin on the
difficult stories. "I have very big doubts about the way the information is
being put across," said Lyubov Maksimova, criticizing the focus on
"suffering and humiliation." Just giving chernukha (muckraking) is "not
correct," she explained. "It's important to show that a person wasn't
broken by this situation, and tried to survive."
Similarly, Lyapina, a younger teacher, said that her pupils used to ask her
about the 1970s and 1980s, wanting to know how people could smile when
life was so terrible. "If we only concentrate on political repressions, we
will deepen this rift still further," she said.
If the opinions of conference participants seem mixed, society as a whole
is even more divided. According to Boris Dubin, head researcher at the Yury
Levada Analytical Center, Russians have become increasingly focused on the
positive aspects of the Soviet era. Asked in 1989 what they considered
Russia's most significant historical event, a third of respondents named
the purges of the 1930s. Today, only 17 percent gave that answer, while 40
percent of Russians now name Stalin as Russia's most outstanding historical
figure, as compared to 11 percent in 1989.
"There is a tendency to paint a big, official, patriotic, power-centered
picture of history," Dubin said. Taken as a whole, he commented, the
general line of thought goes something like this: "Whatever else Stalin
did, he was the one who led us to victory [in World War II]."
Still, emphasizing Stalin's repressions to the exclusion of everything else
is not the solution, said a number of historians at the conference, arguing
that to do so neglects the question as to why people supported the Soviet
regime in the first place. "A modern schoolchild can quite easily
understand the idea of resisting bondage, but does he understand the idea
of running away from freedom?" asked Vladimir Buldakov, senior researcher
at the Institute of Russian History.
"If we forget, we are doomed to many unpleasant things," said Igor
Yakovenko, head researcher at the Institute of Sociology. "The Soviet idea
seems to be completely washed up, but totalitarianism is possible not only
in communist societies. (END)
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ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No. 87: ARTICLE NUMBER THIRTEEN
The Genocidal Famine in Ukraine 1932-1933, HOLODOMOR
Genocide Gallery: http://www.artukraine.com/famineart/index.htm
=========================================================
13. CHESS: UKRAINE WOMEN'S CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP 2004
Held in the beautiful Black Sea resort of Alushta [Alusta] in Crimea
By Olga Alexandrova and Thomas Lemanczyk,
>From Hotel "Cajka" in Alushta [Alusta], Crimea, Ukraine,
Chessbase News, Hamburg, Germany, Sunday, May 23, 2004
ALUSHTA - The Ukraine Women's Championship 2004 was held in the
beautiful Black Sea resort of Alushta [Alusta]. The Ukraine Women's
championship had 53 participants and was held in the Cajka ("Seagull")
hotel. The winners were WIM Tatiana Kostiuk, WGM Olga Alexandrova,
and WIM Evgeniya Doluhanova.
The championship started with a ferocious 4/4 by WIM Natalia Zdebskaja,
who then lost to WIM Evgeniya Doluhanova, who then took over the sole
lead with 5½ out of 6. Evgeniya looked like a clear winner, but in the
eighth round she was beaten by WGM Olga Alexandrova, who incidentally
started the tournament with a loss. In the end Olga won the championship
with 7/9.
It brought us dazzling chess - and dazzling pictures of young women
grandmasters and IMs in beachside circumstances. We remain eternally
indebted to the tournament winner and new Ukraine women's champion,
Olga Alexandrova, for sending us this pictorial report.
The town of Alusta (or Alushta, as we shall call it) lies on the Crimean
peninsula on the north of the Black Sea, which is part of the modern
Ukraine. It is a seaside resort, popular with the Russian and Ukrainian
middle-class. There are many sanatoriums in Alushta, each one with its
own piece of beach.
There is a long-long promenade along the sea shore and it is covered by
many cafes, restaurants, souvenir shops. A great number of chess tournaments
have been held in the city - official ones like national championships, and
qualification tournaments for world and European championships,
international opens, invitationals. "-----------------------------------"
NOTE: To read the entire story and see the collection of photographs
click on link: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=1660
=========================================================
ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No. 87: ARTICLE NUMBER FOURTEEN
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14. MISS UKRAINE CHOSEN 2004 TOURISM WORLD BEAUTY
QUEEN IN BEAUTY CONTEST HELD IN MUGLA, TURKEY
Anadolu Agency, TurkishPress.com, Plymouth, Michigan, Sun, May 23, 2004
MUGLA, Turkey - Miss Ukraine Olena Razimova was chosen on Sunday
2004 Tourism World Beauty Queen in the 2004 Tourism World Beauty
Contest held in Akyaka hamlet in Ula town of Aegean Mugla province.
Contestants from 22 countries took the stage with their national clothes,
sports clothes, swimsuits, and wedding gowns.
The jury chose Miss Ukraine Razimova the queen of the contest. Miss
Lithuania Valentina Bezusaja was ranked the second and Miss Latvia Kristina
Djadenko became the third.
Miss Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) Cemile Coskun and
Miss Greece Anastasia Chritakis were given peace award. Miss Finland
Sanna Kankanpaa was presented with Miss Caria Ancient Award.
The province of Mugla is covering an area that has the most famous of
Turkey's tourism centers within its boundaries. The center of Mugla extends
over the plain stretching from the foot of the Asar or Hisar (Castle)
Mountain and is surrounded by Karadag (Black Mountain), Kýzýldag (Red
Mountain), Masadag (Table Mountain) and Hamursuz Daglarý (Unleavened
Mountains).
Koycegiz, Fethiye, Bodrum, Milas, Marmaris and Datca are well-known
touristic towns of Mugla. Mugla is one of the most ancient cities of the
Caria region.
Prior to the Aegean migrations, Western Anatolia had been inhabited by
indigenous peoples known as the Lelegians, Pelasgians and Carians. (END)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: http://www.turkishpress.com/turkishpress/news.asp?ID=20367
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