"THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT"
An International Newsletter
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"
UKRAINE SUBJECTED TO INCREASE IN INCIDENTS OF
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN TERRORISM
Reality indicates there will not be a free and fair presidential election.
Such an election is of little interest to the authorities now in power.
"THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT" Year 04, Number 138
The Action Ukraine Coalition (AUC), Washington, D.C.
Ukrainian Federation of America (UFA), Huntingdon Valley, PA
morganw@patriot.net, ArtUkraine.com@starpower.net (ARTUIS)
Washington, D.C.; Kyiv, Ukraine, FRIDAY, August 13, 2004
-----INDEX OF ARTICLES-----
"Major International News Headlines and Articles"
1.UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN MARRED
BY SIGNIFICANT ILLEGAL GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE,
SAY NON-PARTISAN UKRAINIAN OBSERVERS
REPORT: "On The Pre-Presidential Election Environment, July 2004"
Committee of Voters of Ukraine (CVU)
Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, August 12, 2004
2. "ELECTIONS PUT DEMOCRACY AND RULE OF LAW TO
A SEVERE TEST IN UKRAINE"
By Steve Gutterman, AP Worldstream, Kiev, Ukraine, Thur, Aug 12, 2004
2. "BRACING FOR ELECTION DAY HIJINKS IN UKRAINE"
Some doubt the fraud evident in one infamous race will be repeated on
a national scale. Others, including the U.S., are waiting to see.
By Kim Murphy, Times Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, CA, August 12, 2004
3. UKRAINIAN SOCIALIST LEADER'S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN
SUBJECTED TO ELECTION TERRORISM IN DNIPROPETROVSK
TV 5 Kanal, Kiev, Ukraine, in Ukrainian, 12 Aug 04
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Thur, Aug 12, 2004
4. "TELEVISION COVERAGE HIGHLY BIASED IN UKRAINE
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN"
COMMENTARY: By Taras Kuzio, Eurasia Daily Monitor
Volume 1, Issue 72, The Jamestown Foundation
Washington, D.C., Thursday, August 12, 2004
5. USA/UKRAINE: FORMER RADIO CONTINENT HEAD GETS
REFUGEE STATUS IN AMERICA
Was forced to leave Ukraine due to threats to his life
Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF), Paris, in English 11 Aug 04
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Thur, Aug 12, 2004
6. BRACING FOR ELECTION DAY HIJINKS IN UKRAINE
Some doubt the fraud evident in one infamous race will be repeated on
a national scale. Others, including the U.S., are waiting to see.
By Kim Murphy, Times Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, CA, Thursday, August 12, 2004
7. UKRAINIAN AUTHORITIES INTERROGATE JOURNALIST
ASKOLD KRUSHELNYTSKYI REGARDING GONGADZE CASE
Authored article in The Independent, a British newspaper
Oleksandr Sukov, Ukrainian News, Kyiv, Ukraine, Thur, Aug 12, 2004
8. "PRIME MINISTER YANUKOVYCH AND MEDIA FREEDOM"
Donetsk oblast, in fact, has the worst record on media freedom in Ukraine.
COMMENTARY: By Taras Kuzio, Eurasia Daily Monitor
Volume 1 Issue 71, The Jamestown Foundation,
Washington, D.C., Wednesday, August 11, 2004
9. UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE YUSHCHENKO
CALLS UPON AUTHORITIES TO OPEN CRIMINAL CASE
AGAINST POLICEMAN THAT SHADOWED HIM
Zoya Zhminko, Ukrainian News, Kyiv, Ukraine, Thur, August 12, 2004
10. HEADS OF DEFENCE MINISTRIES OF UKRAINE AND THE
U.S. HOLD CONFIDENTIAL MEETING IN CRIMEA
US Defence Secretary Rumsfeld to meet President Kuchma on Friday
Black Sea TV, Simferopol, Ukraine, in Russian, 12 Aug 04
BBC Monitoring Service,UK, Thursday, Aug 12, 2004
11. GERMAN CHANCELLOR SAYS UKRAINE SHOULD STOP
BUILDING CONTROVERSIAL DANUBE RIVER DELTA CANAL
REUTERS, Bucharest, Romania, Thursday, August 12, 2004
12. UKRAINE PLANNING TO LAUNCH DANUBE-BLACK SEA
CANAL NAVIGATION IN SEPTEMBER
On the whole over 85% of all work has been completed.
Interfax Ukraine, Kiev, Ukraine, Friday, August 13, 2004
=======================================================
ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No.138 ARTICLE NUMBER ONE
=======================================================
1. UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN MARRED
BY SIGNIFICANT ILLEGAL GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE,
SAY NON-PARTISAN UKRAINIAN OBSERVERS
REPORT: "On The Pre-Presidential Election Environment, July 2004"
Committee of Voters of Ukraine (CVU)
Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, August 12, 2004
KYIV - The first month of Ukraine's four-month presidential election
campaign was marred by significant illegal government interference,
according to the Committee of Voters of Ukraine (CVU), an election
monitoring organization.
Presenting the results of its comprehensive, nationwide election observation
during the month of July, CVU reports that various governmental or
state-owned institutions are providing illegal assistance to the campaign of
the main pro-government candidate, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych.
THIS INTERFERENCE INCLUDES:
[1] The use of state resources (money, property and equipment) for
campaign purposes.
[2] State officials conducting campaign activities during working
hours, while drawing state wages.
[3] State employees and students being obliged to take part in public
rallies and other campaign events. Often, participants are offered bribes
or compensatory time off for their participation. At other times, they are
threatened with dismissal should they refuse to participate.
[4] State officials coercing citizens to sign nomination forms for
Yanukovych. (Every candidate is required to collect 500,000 signatures
by September.)
State resources and officials are also being used to obstruct the campaigns
of other candidates. The most serious such case involved the large public
rally in Kyiv of Viktor Yushchenko on July 4. Traffic police, road
inspection authorities and railway officials acted in concert to prevent
thousands of Yushchenko supporters from reaching the capital that day.
Elsewhere, independent media have seen their activities restricted and
campaign workers have come under pressure.
Further information on these and other CVU observations from July is
provided in the report that follows.
COMMITTEE OF VOTERS OF UKRAINE
REPORT ON THE PRE-ELECTION ENVIRONMENT, JULY 2004
The Committee of Voters of Ukraine (CVU) is a national, non-govern-
mental organization that has been monitoring election campaigns in Ukraine
for over ten years. CVU observes the degree to which election processes
conform with national legislation and international democratic standards.
Presidential elections in Ukraine are scheduled for October 31st, 2004.
In July, CVU observed the activities of national and local governments,
political parties, candidates' headquarters and the mass media. CVU
representatives are present in all 27 administrative regions of Ukraine.
Previous election reports as well as more information on the organization
can be found on our web-site: www.cvu.org.ua.
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS:
1. The first month of the election campaign was marred by significant
government interference in the election process. This interference
illegally disadvantages opposition candidates.
2. The most common violations were connected with the process of
signature collection for Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. Citizens were
induced to sign through administrative pressure, bribes or deceit. In some
cases, pro-Yanukovych signatures were forged. Oddly, no other candidate
mounted any serious signature collection campaign, even though it is a
requirement under the law.
3. The election campaign continues to be marked by violence against
political party activists and campaigners.
4. Local authorities have failed to meet their responsibility to
administer the election process. In many localities, voter lists have not
been updated, election commissions have not been given proper office
space and areas in which election materials can be posted have not been
announced.
5. The electronic and print media generally does not provide voters
with objective and unbiased information about the various candidates.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
[1] State officials should refuse to campaign for political candidates
and should refrain from using their power and resources for the benefit of
any candidate.
[2] Law enforcement authorities should thoroughly investigate all
reports of election violations and prosecute those believed to have broken
the law.
[3] The campaign headquarters of Viktor Yanukovych should refuse
to turn in fraudulent signatures and those collected under duress. It
should ensure that future activities on the candidate's behalf are
undertaken according to the law.
[4] Voters whose legal rights are violated should consider appealing to
courts for redress. Political parties and civic organizations are prepared
to provide free legal assistance in many cases.
[5] Journalists, editors and owners of media outlets should respect
professional ethics, provide balanced coverage of the election campaign
and refrain from disseminating false or misleading information. They should
also make a greater effort to inform citizens of their electoral rights.
[6] Local authorities should complete voter lists as soon as possible.
MAJOR FINDINGS
Illegal Government Interference in the Presidential Election Campaign
I. IN SUPPORT OF VIKTOR YANUKOVYCH
Kharkiv: A July 12 rally in support of the Prime Minister was attended by
over 40,000 people. Many participants were forced to attend by their
employers who had been given quotas from government officials for the
number of people they were expected to send. Workers at the "Komunar"
factory were promised a day off in exchange for their participation.
Employees of other enterprises were threatened with dismissal if they did
not cooperate.
Kharkiv: Local officials organized and paid out of public funds for a
pro-Yanukovych youth rally on July 30 in Kharkiv city. Young employees
of the government and state-owned enterprises were obliged to take part.
Kharkiv: Yanukovych campaign headquarters in several areas (Frunze,
Komintern, Lozova, Sakhnovschyna and Kegichiv) are located in official
government offices and are staffed by state employees.
Kharkiv: Government health-care administrators visited a hospital in Nova
Vodolaga on July 19 dressed in white gowns and wearing badges saying "I
am for Yanukovych". They ordered workers to collect signatures for the
candidate.
Dnipropetrovsk: Official documents of the Zhovtnevy rayon (county)
executive committee report that the "main work of the executive committee is
focused on explaining V. Yanukovych program to citizens. On July 6, at a
meeting of veterans' organizations, an expert on working with political
parties campaigned for Yanukovych ."
Donetsk: Yasynuvata railroad workers were obliged, on July 22, to go to a
Yanukovych campaign office and sign a petition in support of the candidate.
They were instructed to do so by the railway's human resource department.
Sumy: Local officials ordered hospital workers to attend a public meeting
with the Prime Minister on July 7. As a result, doctors in Konotop stopped
seeing patients at 11am. In several towns, public buses were commandeered
in order to bring people to Putyvl to meet Yanukovych.
Kirovohrad: On July 20, at a college on Lenina street, CVU observed 23
teenagers forging signatures on a list in support of Viktor Yanukovych.
Kirovohrad: Equipment has been removed from a college in Novogorodkiv
and a library in Golovoniv and taken to Yanukovych campaign offices.
Kyiv: The chief doctor of Vasylkiv hospital, Ms. Patsale, forced hospital
workers to collect signatures for Yanukovych. She told workers that anyone
who signed for another candidate would be "exposed" because she had
"people on the CEC".
Kyiv: Doctors in the city of Vyshneve invited pensioners to state-run
clinics for free examinations. The patients were first required to sign for
Yanukovych.
Kyiv: State officials in Bila Tserkva rayon called a meeting of village
mayors and the head of state-run agrarian and industrial enterprises on July
16. Participants were given quotas for signature collection for Yanukovych.
Rayon head S. Vakhniy said that anyone who did not ensure the victory of the
Prime Minister would "never set his foot in Bila Tserkva after October 31st"
Volyn: Every Thursday, teachers in local schools are instructed to vote for
Yanukovych. Workers in state-run utilities were tasked with collecting
signatures for him. Government officials take an active role in Yanukovych
campaign meetings, during regular working hours.
Khmelnitsky: Employees of the Khmelnitsky arts museum were directed to
sign for Yanukovych by the oblast (state) culture department. The museum
director was ordered to ensure 100% compliance or face sanction.
Chernivtsi: The Putyl rayon administration organized public meetings in
every village in support of Yanukovych.
Lviv: A citizen of Chernyliavo village, Anastasia Stepanivna Tyrko, reports
that she was forced to sign a petition in support of Yanukovych at the local
post office in order to receive her monthly pension.
Zakarpattya: Hospital administrators have ordered doctors in Uzhgorod to
collect 130 signatures in support of Yanukovych from their patients.
Sevastopol: The head of the city administration, L. Zhunko, made a public
speech supporting Yanukovych during regular working hours. He arrived at
the meeting in a government car.
II. TO OBSTRUCT OTHER CANDIDATES, INDEPENDENT MEDIA
AND CIVIC GROUPS' ACTIVITIES
Nationwide: Police and state traffic inspectors in at least half the
oblasts of Ukraine prevented supporters of Viktor Yushchenko from traveling
to Kyiv to attend the candidate's public rally on July 4. Vehicles were
stopped and had their license plates removed or were subject to very long
"inspections" and drivers had their licenses taken away. In other cases,
state officials advised transportation companies to refuse to travel to Kyiv
on that day. Railway workers in Kirovohrad refused to sell tickets to
Kyiv-bound passengers. In Kherson, buses returning from Kyiv were
impounded; police told drivers that they had been warned not to "leave the
city on such business".
Dnipropetrovsk: The independent Donetsk-based newspaper "Ostriv" ("The
Island") was turned away from a print shop in Pavlograd, on "technical
grounds", the 14th consecutive print shop in eastern Ukraine to deny its
services to the paper. CVU believes that there is a government-coordinated
campaign to close the paper.
Dnipropetrovsk: The "Region" TV station was closed on July 8 by officials
from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. "Region" representatives say the
action was taken because they had begun to rebroadcast programs of
"Channel 5", a television station associated with opposition candidate
Viktor Yushchenko.
Dnipropetrovsk: Traffic police officers impounded a minibus belonging to
Our Ukraine MP Yuri Pavlenko on the grounds that pro-Yushchenko
slogans painted on the bus "violate current legislation".
Zakarpattya: Uzhgorod city authorities are conducting an administrative
audit of the media company "Vitas". The investigation violates the
President's directive that all such investigations of the media would be
suspended during the election campaign.
Luhansk: Campaign workers for Socialist Party leader Oleksandr Moroz
were expelled from Novopskovsk rayon after they were detained while
handing out leaflets. The police justified their expulsion on the grounds
that
they were "strangers in the border zone". Ten out of seventeen rayons in
Luhansk are on the Russian border.
Luhansk: CVU was abruptly denied access to a facility it had rented to
train a multi-partisan group of future election commissioners. The state
official in charge of the facility explained the reversal on the grounds
that members of the Rukh party would be present.
Kharkiv: A citizen of Eskhar village, A. Holub, reports that he was
detained while distributing a pro-Yushchenko newspaper. Afterwards,
his apartment was searched several times, his relatives were threatened
and finally, he was asked to work for another candidate. Holub has
complained to the local prosecutor's office.
Chernivtsi: Local police were seen removing legally placed campaign
posters for Viktor Yushchenko on July 29.
CRIMINAL VIOLENCE AGAINST POLITICAL ACTIVISTS
Zhytomyr: A car carrying Andriy Shkil, an opposition member of parliament,
was stopped by two other cars on July 9th. Shkil was removed from his car
and beaten for 10 minutes. The police are not known to have taken any
action on this case.
Sumy: A minibus carrying Yushchenko supporters to Kyiv was stopped by an
SUV. A number of men jumped out of the SUV with metal objects in their
hands. The minibus fled and was pursued for several kilometers. Police are
not known to have taken any action on this case, even though the license
number and owner of the SUV are known.
Kherson: The Kherson election HQ of Viktor Yushchenko was destroyed
on July 20.
Kherson: The car of the leader of the Our Ukraine faction in the Kherson
city council was set on fire on August 3.
Lviv: Grygoriy Sozin, an activist for Oleksandr Moroz, was assaulted on
July 29 while putting up campaign posters.
Lviv: A woman collecting signatures for Moroz was assaulted on July 31 in
Novyi Rozdil. She was threatened with further violence if she continued her
activities.
Zakarpattya: The editor of the local newspaper "Tribune" was assaulted
while collecting signatures for Oleksandr Moroz.
Kirovohrad: Nina Oliynyk, a worker for Nataliya Vitrenko, was assaulted
on July 25 while collecting signatures.
Poltava: On July 27, the apartment of the manager of the Yushchenko
campaign in Zinkiv was broken into. The apartment was ransacked but no
valuables were taken.
Chernihiv: The city headquarters of the Communist party was vandalized
on July 16.
SOME WEAKNESSES IN ELECTION ADMINISTRATION
The Central Election Commission appears to be functioning normally so far.
The CEC conducted the candidate registration process competently and
organized territorial election commissions (TECs) according to the law. The
number of voters between TECs can vary by as much as 100,000, however.
This places an unnecessary burden upon some commissions.
Local government authorities have failed to live up to their administrative
responsibilities. In many areas, voter lists have still not been prepared,
even though the deadline to do so was in early July. In Lviv oblast, for
instance, no city besides Lviv itself had completed its voters list when CVU
checked on July 14. In other areas, local officials have failed to meet the
legal requirement to designate those areas of the city in which candidates
can place campaign materials. In Sevastopol, the city issued the necessary
directive only after an appeal by CVU.
BIAS IN THE MEDIA
The large majority of electronic and print media, both publicly and
privately-owned, does not provide citizens with objective and balanced
coverage of the various candidates and campaigns. Most media outlets
give disproportionate coverage to Prime Minister Yanukovych, whom they
present in a consistently positive light. Other candidates receive less
coverage and are usually portrayed negatively.
In some instances, media outlets have openly distorted information. The
coverage on the national TV channel "1+1" of the party meeting that
nominated former Prime Minister Anatoliy Kinakh gave viewers the false
impression that a large number of party delegates opposed Kinakh's
nomination. When a small number of delegates (6%) voted against Kinakh
at the convention, they were met with cries of "Shame". "1+1" transposed
this audio segment onto video imagery of the announcement of Kinakh's
nomination, making it seem as if delegates were crying "Shame" against the
majority's decision.
The August 4 edition of the state-run "Presidential Newsletter" reported
that the "Washington Times" newspaper had endorsed Prime Minister
Yanukovych when, in fact, it had printed a letter to the editor from a
Yanukovych supporter.
More information on the media in Ukraine can be found from the "Equal
Access Committee" and "Association Common Space":
http://prostir-monitor.org. (END) (ARTUIS)
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Committee of Voters of Ukraine (CVU), 01135, Kyiv-135, a/c 5,
phone/fax: 380 44 490 61 34; E-mail: evu@cvu.kiev.ua, www.cvu.org.ua.
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ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No.138: ARTICLE NUMBER TWO
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2. ELECTIONS PUT DEMOCRACY AND RULE OF LAW TO
A SEVERE TEST IN UKRAINE
By Steve Gutterman, AP Worldstream, Kiev, Ukraine, Thur, Aug 12, 2004
KIEV - Marred by burned ballots, busloads of black-clad skinheads, and
disappearing vote-count records, a mayoral election has set an ominous tone
for the presidential race that will test Ukraine's commitment to democracy
and the rule of law.
More than a dozen years after it emerged independent from the Soviet Union's
collapse, Ukraine _ sprawled between an expanding Europe and a resurgent
Russia _ stands at a crossroads.
The Oct. 31 presidential election "is the most important since 1991, because
Ukraine is frozen, paralyzed in its development," said Anatoliy Hrytsenko,
head of the Razumkov Center for Economic and Political Studies in Kiev.
U.S. and European Union officials are looking to the presidential campaign
as a crucial sign of whether Ukraine can reinvent itself as a thriving
European country.
If Ukraine is weak and undemocratic, they say, its persistent problems _
corruption, poverty, AIDS, human trafficking, a heavily armed but decrepit
and demoralized military _ threaten to spill beyond its borders and even to
redraw Cold War lines across Europe.
A peaceful, democratic Ukraine, says a Western diplomat, is a bulwark
against any re-emergence of a Russian empire, because no such empire can
exist without Texas-sized Ukraine and its 48 million people.
Concerned by the closure of independent media outlets, pressure on
opposition politicians and a series of undemocratic elections, Western
officials say what matters most is not who wins the presidential vote, but
how it's conducted.
To the opposition, the April 18 mayoral vote in Mukachevo, a small city in
the Carpathian mountains, showed how far those who hold power will go to
keep it.
Officials handed victory to the candidate from a party headed by President
Leonid Kuchma's aide, even though opposition and Western monitors said
exit polls and vote counts indicated an opposition candidate had won.
Vote counters were intimidated and opposition lawmakers allegedly beaten
by skinheads, while votes and vote records disappeared _ stolen during an
overnight break-in. Volodymyr Filenko, a legislator from the opposition bloc
Our Ukraine who monitored the election, said local residents found a big
pile of ballots, burnt to ashes, by a river.
The presidential election is to replace Kuchma, who has said he will not
seek a third term. His decade in office has brought hot-and-cold relations
with the West, decreasing democracy and a recent spurt of economic growth
that has mostly benefited a small, politically connected elite.
"You have people in power currently who stand to lose a tremendous amount
_ not in terms of retribution but in sheer leverage over government in
promoting their corporate interests," said Kiev-based analyst Markian
Bilynskyj. "This campaign is potentially going to be very, very vicious,
because there's so much at stake," he said.
"The authorities really have only one way to win: falsification of the
elections," said Viktor Yushchenko, a former prime minister who heads the
Our Ukraine bloc and leads opinion polls ahead of the presidential vote.
In April, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych was named as the Kuchma
camp's presidential candidate, setting the stage for a showdown between
what Bilynskyj called "two antithetical poles or ideas of what Ukraine
should look like."
Yanukovych represents "the elite ruling Ukraine for 13 years _ a hybrid of
business and political interests that's fairly skeptical about the need for
democracy," he said, while Yushchenko "can be considered the first
genuinely populist political figure in Ukraine."
The outcome could also affect foreign policy: Yushchenko is a
Westward-leaning reformer, while Yanukovych is from eastern Ukraine,
where ties to Russia are strong. His government has set goals of integration
with NATO and the European Union, Kuchma has sent mixed signals lately.
Visiting Kiev this spring, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Steven
Pifer said there was confusion about Ukraine's direction. "People are just
asking, 'Is it moving toward Europe, is it moving toward another
direction?'" he said. (END)(ARTUIS)
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ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No.138: ARTICLE NUMBER THREE
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3. UKRAINIAN SOCIALIST LEADER'S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN
SUBJECTED TO ELECTION TERRORISM IN DNIPROPETROVSK
TV 5 Kanal, Kiev, Ukraine, in Ukrainian, 12 Aug 04
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Thur, Aug 12, 2004
KIEV - [Presenter] We have got news from Dnipropetrovsk. Socialist
presidential candidate Oleksandr Moroz has got into trouble there. He
tried to meet the workers of the Shynnyk tire factory but people in
camouflage did not let him do that. Andriy Saychuk will tell us what
happened next.
[Correspondent] Yes, there has really been an incident here. When Moroz's
canvassing cars arrived here people in camouflage did not let them through.
The square in front of the factory's culture house was blocked by tractors
so that people could not rally there. A compressor was also brought in
apparently to suppress speakers.
These people knocked down MP Mykola Rudkovskyy's aide, Leonid
Senchenko. He was injured and had a bleeding nose. The police registered
everything. After the incident the cars carrying MPs were let through and
the rally is continuing at the moment.
=======================================================
ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No.138: ARTICLE NUMBER FOUR
Send "The Action Ukraine Report" around the World
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4. TELEVISION COVERAGE HIGHLY BIASED IN UKRAINE
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN
COMMENTARY: By Taras Kuzio, Eurasia Daily Monitor
Volume 1, Issue 72, The Jamestown Foundation
Washington, D.C., Thursday, August 12, 2004
Senior U.S. State Department officials have reiterated their threat that if
Ukraine's elections in October are not free and fair, then Ukraine has no
chance of being invited to join NATO (Ukrayinska pravda, August 9).
Media freedom during the elections, the officials emphasized, is an
important criteria in determining the openness of the elections.
The most important media outlet is television, as most Ukrainian voters
obtain their news and information on the elections and most other issues
from that source. Regular NGO monitoring of television coverage since the
start of the election campaign has revealed strong biases that are likely to
continue through election day.
Ukraine's national television stations can be divided into three unequal
groups. First are channels controlled by the Kyiv clan's Viktor Medvedchuk,
in his capacities as head of the Presidential Administration (State Channel
1) or leader of the Social Democratic United Party (1+1 and Inter). Second,
three channels are controlled by President Leonid Kuchma's son-in-law,
Viktor Pinchuk, and the Dnipropetrovsk oligarch clan (ICTV, STB, and
Novyi Kanal) or Andrei Derkach (Era). Finally, there is Channel 5, which
is owned by Our Ukraine businessman Petro Poroshenko.
Channel 5 has already been removed from the cable schedule in Donetsk
oblast, the home base of presidential aspirant Prime Minister Viktor
Yanukovych. On June 29, after Channel 5 began broadcasting live coverage
of parliamentary proceedings, the director of Volia, the cable company that
transmits Channel 5, Serhiy Boyko and his deputy, Valeriy Salyamov, were
arrested. The trumped-up charges included violating their broadcast license,
money laundering, and transmitting pornography (Ukrayinska pravda,
June 30).
Even the pro-Kuchma 2000 newspaper found this development too hard to
swallow (July 9). Ukrainian commentators concluded that the authorities
seemingly do not wish Ukrainian voters to watch debates or hear opposition
speeches made in parliament during an election campaign.
The Donbas clan plans to launch a new all-Ukrainian television station in
September, possibly by expanding the broadcasts of the Donetsk-based
Ukrayina TV channel throughout Ukraine. The Donbas group is the only clan
without nation-wide media resources. The launch of the Donbas clan's new
channel could signal that Yanukovych does not trust his oligarch partners to
give him the national coverage that he believes his clan needs to win the
elections.
Equal Access, an NGO linked to the New Choice 2004 coalition, studied
broadcasts during the month of July and found that positive coverage was
only given to Prime Minister Yanukovych, the candidate backed by the
pro-Kuchma camp. At the same time, these television stations offered no
censure of Yanukovych. The prime minister's May 6 call to officials to not
be afraid of criticism has not led to more critical reporting of his
government's work or himself as a candidate.
The Equal Access report resembles the conclusions of another survey of
television coverage made by the Academy of the Ukrainian Press NGO,
an offshoot of the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Sociology,
during the month of July. They concluded that the authorities were mounting
a concerted effort to shape public opinion in the elections.
When candidates officially launched their campaigns on July 4, the day's
television coverage was heavily biased in favor of Yanukovych (Zerkalo
nedeli, July 10-16). Nearly half of the reports on that day depicted
Yanukovych positively, while only 5% were negative. Favorable reports
on the rally in Zaporizhzhia held by Yanukovych's Party of Regions were
extensively broadcast.
The television channels controlled by the pro-Kuchma camp frequently air
examples of "support" for Yanukovych to give his campaign a sense of
momentum that will inevitably lead to his victory. At the same time, TV
coverage of opposition rallies take pains to minimize the number of
participants. One temnyk (secret order from the Presidential Administration)
explicitly instructed television stations on how to cover challenger Viktor
Yushchenko's first election rally on July 4: "When covering the event, do
not give long shots of the rally and shots of the crowd; show only groups
of drunk people with socially inappropriate or deviant behavior" (Zerkalo
nedeli, July 10-16). To minimize the possible damage, Our Ukraine stewards
confiscated the vodka that "provocateurs" were distributing at the rally.
TV coverage also focused on examples of extreme-right support for
Yushchenko, such as images of individuals daubing slogans on the Lenin
statue in downtown Kyiv or screaming provocative slogans at delegates to
the Communist Party congress. "Pro-government TV channels also portrayed
Viktor Yushchenko as an anti-Russian politician supported by extreme
Ukrainian nationalists," the BBC Monitoring Research Service (July 8) found.
TV channels also reported that the only political party backing Yushchenko
was the extreme right All-Ukrainian Liberty Party, formerly the Social
National Party.
Defectors from the Kuchma camp also have been subjected to biased
television coverage, including Anatoliy Kinakh who is himself standing as a
candidate. When his Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (PPPU) held
its congress, Ludmilla Zhuk, deputy head of the related Union of
Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, complained that TV coverage alleged that
most of the delegates backed Yanukovych, rather than Kinakh, as their
candidate (Ukrayinska pravda, July 14).
The first major attempt to muzzle Ukraine's media in a biased manner during
an election took place in 1999. The final election monitoring report by the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) found that
media had failed to provide equal access. Some of the recordings made
illicitly in Kuchma's office by Mykola Melnychenko in 1999 also contain
discussions about how to silence critical media outlets. But the current
attempt by the authorities to control the media and influence public opinion
operates on a far larger scale than in the 1999 elections. (END) (ARTUIS)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Taras Kuzio is a visiting professor at the Institute for European, Russian
and Eurasian Studies, Elliott School International Affairs, George
Washington University, Washington, D.C.
=======================================================
ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No. 138: ARTICLE NUMBER FIVE
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5. USA/UKRAINE: FORMER RADIO CONTINENT HEAD GETS
REFUGEE STATUS IN AMERICA
Was forced to leave Ukraine due to threats to his life
Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF), Paris, in English 11 Aug 04
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Thur, Aug 12, 2004
PARIS - Sergiy Sholokh, former head of Ukraine's Radio Continent, has
obtained refugee status in the United States, he announced on 10 August. He
has lived in Poland for the past six months after being forced to leave
Ukraine due to threats, many from the SBU state security police, and was
given US refugee status on 6 August.
His privately-owned opposition radio station was shut down on 3 March after
re-broadcasting programmes put out by the Ukrainian service of Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE). (END) (ARTUIS)
========================================================
ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No.138: ARTICLE NUMBER SIX
Ukrainian Information Website: http://www.ArtUkraine.com
========================================================
6. BRACING FOR ELECTION DAY HIJINKS IN UKRAINE
Some doubt the fraud evident in one infamous race will be repeated on
a national scale. Others, including the U.S., are waiting to see.
By Kim Murphy, Times Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, CA, August 12, 2004
MUKACHEVO, Ukraine - For a preview of the upcoming Ukrainian
presidential election, one might examine what happened when this scenic
town in the Carpathian Mountains tried to elect a mayor.
After the polls closed, city officials locked the doors at the election
commission. Four hours later, they emerged with official results that bore
little resemblance to the counts called in from the polls. Thugs later stole
so many ballots that no recount was possible. Parliament deputies who tried
to intervene were beaten and tossed down the stairs. One candidate's car
was blown up. The proclaimed winner finally resigned after receiving
threats.
"Very rough and bad things happened in Mukachevo," said President Leonid
D. Kuchma's former spokesman, Oleksandr Martynenko, who heads the
Interfax-Ukraine news agency. "Everybody's interested now in the question of
whether we will repeat Mukachevo on the scale of Ukraine. I doubt it is
possible."
Then again, in this sprawling republic that has long formed the turbulent
border between Europe and Russia, almost anything seems possible. If Russia
has moved slowly to shake off the authoritarianism, corruption and brawling
capitalism that accompanied the transition from the Soviet era, Ukraine has
moved hardly at all.
Powerful oligarchic cabals control much of the government, and their leaders
hold seats in parliament. Lucrative state industries have been sold off at a
fraction of their values while millions of Ukrainians live on minimal wages.
Both national television stations are controlled by Kuchma's chief of staff,
Viktor Medvedchuk, and journalists who look too closely under the rug have
been attacked with baseball bats, shot at or found hanging from their
refrigerator doors. Radio Continent journalist Giorgi Gongadze was beheaded
in 2000, and evidence increasingly points to the security services.
A court ruled in December that Kuchma, whose popularity hovers around 7%,
could run again despite a two-term limit. Facing an international outcry,
the president has pledged he will not be a candidate in the Oct. 31 race.
Instead, Kuchma is pushing a plan to transfer power from the president to
the parliament and is tentatively backing Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich,
who is tough enough to be a politician even in Ukraine. In his youth,
Yanukovich twice served prison terms for assault. (He says he took the rap,
both times, for a friend.)
Yanukovich trails the most popular politician in the country, Viktor
Yushchenko, a former prime minister who is credited with fighting corruption
and igniting the economy during his brief tenure. Yushchenko, running under
the banner of the pro-market, pro-democracy Our Ukraine faction, has pledged
to open the country to Western-style democracy and end the dominion of
oligarchs.
But Yanukovich has the media advantage guaranteed by the presidential chief
of staff's patronage. During the official opening of the presidential
campaign last month, Yanukovich was shown receiving hugs and traditional
gifts of bread loaves from enthusiastic supporters. Yushchenko's rally of
60,000 supporters, by contrast, was limited to a shot of revelers with wild
looks on their faces as they bought vodka and beer.
Yanukovich can point to an economy that grew 9.4% last year, allowing him
to find money for a pay raise for pensioners, state employees, doctors and
teachers.
Yushchenko's campaign manager, Oleksandr Zinchenko, acknowledges that
the economic indicators are good. "But against what background?" he asked.
"What kind of a nation is being formed?"
Our Ukraine questions the economic relationships between political leaders
and the business elite, which have seen billion-dollar state industries go
into the hands of friends - even relatives - of the president.
In June, Ukraine's largest steel mill was sold to a consortium backed by
Kuchma's son-in-law, Viktor Pinchuk, who is one of Ukraine's richest men,
and an even richer businessman, Rinat Akhmetov. The buyers paid $800
million, even though foreign bidders, including United States Steel Corp.,
offered as much as $1.5 billion.
The darkest shadow trailing Kuchma is the specter of reporter Gongadze.
Tapes purportedly recorded secretly by a former Kuchma bodyguard reveal
that the president made repeated complaints about Gongadze to his former
interior minister, Yuri Kravchenko. In one, Kuchma suggests that "this
Georgian" be "give[n] to the Chechens" for ransom, or taken somewhere.
"Undress him, the [expletive], leave him without his trousers, and let him
sit there. He's simply a [expletive]."
Two months later, on Sept. 11, Kuchma was still fuming. "What about
Kravchenko? He was supposed to take care of him?" says an unidentified
voice on the tape.
"What!" Kuchma exclaims. "What did he take care of?" When Kravchenko
comes into his office, the president barely says hello. "Welcome! Everything
OK? So I don't forget: Gongadze is continuing to mouth off." Kravchenko
apologizes for "a bit of a mistake" in logistics. "I will take care of him,
Leonid. I will do it. He will be sorry."
Gongadze disappeared the night of Sept. 16, 2000, shortly after going out to
empty the trash. An autopsy showed that he died within hours. His head has
not been found.
A former police officer, Ihor Honcharov, said last year that he had
information that police working with a criminal gang had abducted Gongadze,
on orders from Kravchenko, who was following orders from Kuchma.
Honcharov himself had been arrested on charges of being a member of a
rogue police gang that had been involved in contract killing. He died in
prison last August. The prosecutor general's office recently announced that
he died of spinal trauma as a result of being beaten. The new revelations
have spurred calls for Kuchma's impeachment and drawn international
attention to the election.
"The lack of a credible and transparent investigation into the Gongadze
murder, particularly in light of indications of involvement by Ukrainian
government officials, is troubling and has had a detrimental impact on
U.S.-Ukraine relations," Steven Pifer, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of
State for European and Eurasian affairs, told a House subcommittee in May.
U.S.-Ukraine relations have been on the mend since Kuchma dispatched
more than 1,600 troops to join the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq last year. But
Yanukovich has signaled his intent to draw down the deployment, and U.S.
officials say the conduct of the coming election is crucial.
"We believe that the upcoming presidential election will affect Ukraine's
strategic course for the next decade," Pifer said. "We have tried to make as
clear as possible what we see at stake, and we now wait to see if the
Ukrainian leadership will create the conditions for a good election."
In Mukachevo, there are doubts. "What we had here were completely rigged
elections. They just wanted to check their methods out and see how they
worked," said Zenovy Buta, a street light engineer.
The first round of voting last summer was so filled with shenanigans and
finger-pointing that Kuchma stepped in and declared presidential rule -
appointing his own candidate in the process. But the new elections in April
were worse. "At that point, no one was paying any attention to the law
whatsoever," recalled local journalist Yaroslav Halas.
The city's powerful former mayor, Viktor Baloha, who had given up the post
to take a seat in the national parliament, returned and declared his intent
to run. With the support of Our Ukraine, he was pitted against Ernest Nuser,
who had lined up support from the government's ruling coalition and five
other parties. On election day, half of Our Ukraine's parliament faction
traveled to Mukachevo, a 16-hour train ride from the capital, Kiev, to act
as observers.
Exit polls and reports phoned in from polling places showed Baloha with a
convincing victory, many observers said. But when the tallies were assembled
at the territorial election commission at midnight, Our Ukraine's observers
were prevented from entering. Meanwhile, thugs began breaking into polling
stations, several deputies were beaten, and, during the mayhem, officials
announced that Nuser had won by 5,000 votes. The municipal council met to
declare Nuser the winner; Our Ukraine deputies who tried to enter the hall
were beaten and thrown down the stairs.
Baloha's last option was a recount, but the day after the election, guards
were removed from the election commission office. Someone broke in and
stole a number of ballots. "That made it impossible to ever prove anything
by recounting the ballot papers," Halas said. "It was such a crude job that
people's hair stood on end. People refused to believe that something so
outrageous could be pulled off."
Nuser held on until June, when he resigned in the face of what he called
"protests, insults and threats "- an indication that there had been bad
behavior on both sides. Another ruling coalition loyalist, Matvey Popovich,
is acting mayor until another new election is held.
"You should appreciate the fact that they were honing their methods and
seeing if there would be a public reaction to what they did or not," Baloha
said. "I think the level of reaction on the part of the international
community, all over the world, is positive. They won't be able to get by
with this again." (END) (ARTUIS)
=======================================================
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7. UKRAINIAN AUTHORITIES INTERROGATE JOURNALIST
ASKOLD KRUSHELNYTSKYI REGARDING GONGADZE CASE
Authored article in The Independent, a British newspaper
Oleksandr Sukov, Ukrainian News, Kyiv, Ukraine, Thur, Aug 12, 2004
KYIV - The Prosecutor General's Office is interrogating Askold
Krushelnytskyi, who authored the article in The Independent, a British
newspaper, about the investigation into the murder of journalist Georgy
Gongadze. PGO chief spokesperson Serhii Rudenko disclosed this to
Ukrainian News. "He came upon the subpoena," he said. Rudenko added
that he possesses no other information on the case.
As Ukrainian News reported previously, the PGO launched in early July a
criminal procedure on divulgence of pre-trial evidences into the murder case
of journalist Gongadze. On June 19, The Independent newspaper published an
article citing documents containing evidence from Ukrainian Internal Affairs
Ministry officials who carried out surveillance on Gongadze shortly before
his disappearance.
The PGO stated that the publication of the evidences gathered in the case
had had a negative effect on the investigation of the case and put the lives
of the people involved in the investigation in real danger. The PGO has
interrogated Verkhovna Rada Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn, who said that he
got to know about the preparation of the article in The Independent from
rumors, which circulated in Rada, and that he did not have any other
information that might help.
As PGO investigators assert, the article published on the newspaper's pages
distorts the actual course of the events. The investigation and operational
group has strongly denied any involvement of its workers in the leakage of
the information. (END) (ARTICLE)
=======================================================
ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No.138: ARTICLE NUMBER EIGHT
Ukrainian Information Website: http://www.ArtUkraine.com
=======================================================
8. PRIME MINISTER YANUKOVYCH AND MEDIA FREEDOM
Donetsk oblast, in fact, has the worst record on media freedom in Ukraine.
By Taras Kuzio, Eurasia Daily Monitor
Volume 1 Issue 71, The Jamestown Foundation,
Washington, D.C., Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Equal access to the media during this year's Ukrainian presidential campaign
is a key issue in determining to what degree Western governments, the
Council of Europe, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe can judge the election as "free and fair" (Ukrayinska pravda, August
3). Serhiy Tyhipko, the head of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych's campaign,
rejected accusations that his allies were censoring television and therefore
not providing equal access for all candidates. Claiming he had never seen
temnyky (presidential instructions to TV stations), Tyhipko claimed, "I do
not know about such kinds of political censorship" (Ukrayinska pravda, July
27).
Prime Minister Yanukovych, the candidate of the pro-Leonid Kuchma camp, is
unsuccessfully attempting to prove he supports media freedom. Speaking to an
all-Ukrainian conference of heads of state and communal mass media outlets,
he said that media freedom is one of the most important requirements for the
normal functioning of the state. There was a need to speak the "truth," he
added (Ukrayinska pravda, May 6).
The problem Yanukovych and his allies face is that actions speak louder than
words, both domestically and internationally. A new report by Freedom House
entitled, "Under Assault: Ukraine's News Media and the 2004 Elections,"
concluded, "Few believe Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych's May 6, 2004,
speech defending the rights of the media"
(freedomhouse.org/research/specreports/ukmedia604.pdf). One major factor
why "Ukraine fatigue" exists in the West is precisely because of the wide
gulf between words and deeds on the part of Ukraine's pro-Kuchma elites.
The same factor explains why Ukrainians have such low trust in their
leaders.
Yanukovych declared in his May 6 speech, "If an official takes criticism as
a personal insult then he should be not working in state institutions."
Furthermore, he explained, "I, for example, have always taken criticism in
my family and in society at large as a signal that I am not doing something
in the right way, and I was grateful to my friends and colleagues [for
this]."
During Yanukovych's six-year rule as governor of Donetsk oblast between
1997 and 2002, such humility went unnoticed. Donetsk oblast, in fact, has
the worst record on media freedom in Ukraine. With a poor history on media
freedom as both governor and prime minister, Yanukovych's promises to
support media freedom if elected seem hollow.
Our Ukraine deputy Mykola Tomenko, head of parliament's Committee on
Media Freedom, called upon Yanukovych to uphold media freedom in
Donetsk oblast, but the appeal went unheeded (Ukrayinska pravda, June
24). The overwhelming majority of media outlets in Donetsk oblast,
Tomenko pointed out, were "directly or indirectly tied to the oblast
authorities or Donetsk financial-industrial groups." This explains Donetsk
oblast's dismal record on media freedom.
Tomenko raised the issue after Channel 5, a television station owned by Our
Ukraine businessman Petro Poroshenko, was removed from the cable schedule
in Donetsk oblast. While the official reason was "technical problems," cable
TV providers unofficially told Channel 5 that the real reason was pressure
from the local authorities (Ukrayinska pravda, June 23). One day later
Volodymyr Demydko, deputy head of the Donetsk state administration, denied
any official pressure on cable providers (Ukrayinska pravda, June 24).
Donetsk oblast also has very few opposition newspapers. One of the few, the
weekly Ostriv, has always encountered difficulties. But since the election
campaign began, these problems have dramatically worsened. Ostriv is the
Donbas region's second most popular socio-political publication, according
to a June survey by the Fund for Social Research that was financed by the
Donetsk branch of the Union of Journalists (Ukrayinska pravda, June 18).
But in June the Donbas printing house refused to print Ostriv, explaining
that it had too many back orders to fulfill and broken printing machines.
Earlier, the Donechchyna printing house had also refused to print Ostriv.
Their unofficial reason was an article that appeared in Ostriv in a November
2003 issue entitled, "The October Criminal Putsch." The article investigated
the use of organized crime skinheads and other smear campaign techniques
against challenger Viktor Yushchenko when he unsuccessfully attempted to
hold an Our Ukraine convention in Donetsk on October 31, 2003.
Ostriv's editor sought to find other printing facilities outside the two
Donbas oblasts (Donetsk and Luhansk), but with little luck. The
Dnipropetrovsk-based printing house Zoria became the thirteenth in three
weeks to refuse to print Ostriv because of yet more "technical reasons"
(Ukrayinska pravda, July 13). However, the "technical reasons" did not
prevent Zoria from accepting other print jobs. Anatoliy Polishko, Deputy
Director of Zoria, advised Ostriv to, "Look for another print shop. But, in
the Dnipro region, you will not be printed" (Ukrayinska pravda, July 13).
At this stage the editor of Ostriv, Yevhen Talyshev, called on Yanukovych
to withdraw from the presidential race. Talyshev revealed that printing
houses had been ordered to not print opposition publications, such as
Ostriv, during the election campaign (Ukrayinska pravda, July 15). He
challenged the prime minister to prove his "regard for the principles of
democracy, the rule of law, and free elections [which] can be [confirmed by]
only one step: beginning with the next issue, the newspaper Ostriv will be
again printed in Donetsk, where the editors of the weekly are based." He
continued, "And if you, Viktor Fedorovych, are not in a position to ensure
not even this, then, do not take the trouble of having feelings for the good
of Ukraine" (Ukrayinska pravda, July 15).
Yanukovych apparently took little notice, as Ostriv's printing problems have
continued. In Pavlohrad the newspaper managed to print one issue, but was
then informed by the director of the Pavlohrad City Print Shop that there
would be "technical problems" with printing further issues (Ukrayinska
pravda, July 21). This was now the fourteenth printing house to turn away
Ostriv, including every print shop in Yanukovych's home base of Donetsk
oblast.
Kharkiv became the fourth oblast in which the Ostriv editors attempted to
print their newspaper. Here, again, they encountered "technical problems."
On top of the printing problem, now Ukrposhta, the state postal service,
refused to continue fulfilling a contract to sell Ostriv in its Donetsk
outlets.
Ostriv's editor, Talyshev, has reached the conclusion that his difficulties
come from the regime's presidential candidate, Yanukovych. "If this state
activist allows himself in the post of Prime Minister to so easily infringe
the law, one can say with all certainty that he will not become the
guarantor of the constitution if he is to be elected to the position of
president of our country" (Ukrayinska pravda, July 22). (END)(ARTUIS)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Taras Kuzio is a visiting professor at the Institute for European, Russian
and Eurasian Studies, Elliott School International Affairs, George
Washington University, Washington, D.C.
=======================================================
ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No.138: ARTICLE NUMBER NINE
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9. UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE YUSHCHENKO
CALLS UPON AUTHORITIES TO OPEN CRIMINAL CASE
AGAINST POLICEMAN THAT SHADOWED HIM
Zoya Zhminko, Ukrainian News, Kyiv, Ukraine, Thur, August 12, 2004
KYIV - The campaign headquarters of presidential candidate and Our
Ukraine's leader, Viktor Yanukovych, is calling on General Prosecutor
Hennadii Vasyliev, Internal Affairs Minister Mykola Bilokon and Ihor
Smeshko, the Head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), to open
a criminal case against the policeman that was shadowing Yuschenko.
Mykola Katerynchuk and Mykola Tomenko, Verkhovna Rada deputies
and members of Yuschenko's campaign team, disclosed this to journalists.
In their words, Yuschenko's campaign headquarters has prepared the
corresponding request, and also a letter to Verkhovna Rada Speaker
Volodymyr Lytvyn asking for his intervention.
"We consider that the actions of the police officer fall under 3 articles of
the Penal Code, 344, 364 and 364, and on aggregate they envisage
punishment of 5 to 15 years in detention, and we will insist on involvement
of these officials to this case," Katerynchuk emphasized.
Katerynchuk recalled that article 32 of the Constitution forbids
interference in the personal life of citizens, besides those cases that have
been determined by the Constitution.
He also recalled that it is not allowed to keep, use and spread confidential
information on an individual without his permission, besides cases that are
determined by law, and only in the interests of national security and the
economic well-being of the state.
"They could have shadow and photograph Yuschenko if he would had been
a criminal or was about to commit a crime, if he would had hidden from
investigative agencies, the court as an underage person, or he would had
evaded punishment for a crime or was considered missing," Katerynchuk
summed up.
As Ukrainian News reported previously, on Tuesday, August 10, during the
time Yuschenko and his supporters were climbing the summit of the Ai-Petri
Mountain in order to remove garbage from it, they noticed that some men
were shadowing them from a vehicle.
The vehicle was apprehended, and according to a statement by the press
service of Yuschenko's election headquarters, various spying devices were
uncovered in the vehicle, as well as 12 different license plates, disks,
cassettes, 10 footage materials, permit for unobstructed movement, and also
an official instruction from the Internal Affairs Ministry to monitor
Yuschenko. (END) (ARTUIS)
=======================================================
ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No.138: ARTICLE NUMBER TEN
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10. HEADS OF DEFENCE MINISTRIES OF UKRAINE AND THE
U.S. HOLD CONFIDENTIAL MEETING IN CRIMEA
US Defence Secretary Rumsfeld to meet President Kuchma on Friday
Black Sea TV, Simferopol, Ukraine, in Russian, 12 Aug 04
BBC Monitoring Service,UK, Thursday, Aug 12, 2004
SIMFEROPOL - [Presenter] Another summit has just been held in Crimea.
Today, [12 August] in Partenit [a Crimean south coast resort]. The heads of
the defence ministries of Ukraine and the United States, Yevhen Marchuk and
Donald Rumsfeld, held a confidential meeting there.
After the meeting, official talks were held in which military delegations of
the two countries took part. Military experts discussed the further stay of
Ukrainian peacekeeping troops in Iraq and Kosovo, as well as the prospects
for Ukrainian-US military cooperation.
A meeting between US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Ukrainian
President Leonid Kuchma is planned for tomorrow. (END) (ARTUIS)
=======================================================
ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No. 138 ARTICLE NUMBER ELEVEN
=======================================================
11. GERMAN CHANCELLOR SAYS UKRAINE SHOULD STOP
BUILDING CONTROVERSIAL DANUBE RIVER DELTA CANAL
REUTERS, Bucharest, Romania, Thursday, August 12, 2004
BUCHAREST - German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said on Thursday
that Ukraine should stop building a controversial canal in the Danube River
delta until global experts have assessed its impact on the environment.
The European Union asked Ukraine last month to halt works at the Bastroe
canal amid fears the waterway could harm the unique ecosystem of the
delta -- home of more than 280 bird species and declared a world heritage
site by UNESCO in 1991.
"It's clear that such a construction should be done only after an
international analysis of the impact on the environment otherwise it is
irresponsible," Schroeder told a news conference during a one-day visit to
Romania. "This is our view and we have expressed it also to our Ukrainian
counterparts," he said.
Schroeder discussed the Bastroe canal during a meeting with Romanian Prime
Minister Adrian Nastase. Ukraine's neighbour Romania, which hopes to join
the EU in 2007, has protested to international bodies over the project which
began in the spring.
The waterway will provide a channel between the Black Sea and the Ukrainian
section of the Danube. Ukrainian officials said last month that work on the
canal would continue and that the project would improve the economy and
create jobs in an impoverished region. (END) (ARTUIS)
=======================================================
ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No. 138 ARTICLE NUMBER TWELVE
=======================================================
12. UKRAINE PLANNING TO LAUNCH DANUBE-BLACK SEA
CANAL NAVIGATION IN SEPTEMBER
On the whole over 85% of all work has been completed.
Interfax Ukraine, Kiev, Ukraine, Friday, August 13, 2004
KIEV - Ukraine is planning to launch navigation along the Bystraya Riva,
part of the Danube-Black Sea deep-water canal on September 1. All major
work on laying the navigation canal has been completed as for now, Viktor
Bezdolny, the director of the state-owned enterprise Delta-Lotsman
(Mykolaiv), told Interfax-Ukraine.
A Mobius suction dredger has performed the first technological passage in
the ramification of the Bystraya River and is currently finishing
"cleaning-up" in the canal. On the whole over 85% of all work has been
completed.
Bezdolny added that Danube shipping company has been holding talks with
potential clients and operators of the channel from Ukraine, Russia and
Kazakhstan - with ports, agency services and shipping companies.
According to the Transport Ministry, the construction of the Danube-Black
Sea deep-water navigation canal's part on the Bystraya River is expected to
attract 60% of the Danube's freight flow into the Ukrainian delta of the
Danube. As for now, the flow is a mere 1-2%. At the moment Romania is
holding a monopoly in providing transport routes for ships through the
Danube's delta. (END) (ARTUIS)
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CONTACT: P.O. Box 2607, Washington, D.C. 20013,
Tel: 202 437 4707, morganw@patriot.net
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"POWER TENDS TO CORRUPT,
ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY"
An observation that a person's sense of morality lessens as his or
her power increases. The statement was made by Lord Acton, British
historian of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
True then, true today, true always.
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THE ACTION UKRAINE COALITION
"Working to Secure Ukraine's Future"
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