US-Ukraine Business Council

"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"

WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM SPEECH BY YUSHCHENKO
"At the beginning of his speech the World Economic Forum's President
Klaus Schwab introduced him as a 'real hero'. All the guests stood up."

A EUROPEAN NATION
Ukrainians have shown that European values unite people on the orange
square in Kiev just as they did during the velvet revolution on Vaclav
Square in Prague. If we believe that the history of mankind is the history
of freedom then Ukraine is beginning the third millennium.

Ukraine has shown that it belongs to the civilization of European nations.
We are not on the way to it and not on the sidelines. We are in the centre
of Europe. We are on a straight path now. Ukraine's European choice was
made in the hearts and minds of Ukrainians. [President Yushchenko]

"THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT" - Number 419
morganw@patriot.net, ArtUkraine.com@starpower.net
Washington, D.C., Kyiv, Ukraine, SATURDAY, January 29, 2005

-----INDEX OF ARTICLES-----
"Major International News Headlines and Articles"

1. UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT YUSHCHENKO OUTLINES ECONOMIC,
POLITICAL PRIORITIES IN SPEECH AT WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM
TV 5 Kanal, Kiev, Ukraine, in Ukrainian 1830 gmt 28 Jan 05
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Fri, January 28, 2005 (18:30)

2. POLISH PRESIDENT KWASNIEWSKI BACKS UKRAINE'S MOVE
TO APPLY FOR EUROPEAN UNION MEMBERSHIP
Agence France Presse (AFP), Davos, Switzerland, Fri, Jan 28, 2005

3. UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT DISCUSSES WTO ENTRY WITH
GERMAN CHANCELLOR GERHARD SCHROEDER
UNIAN news agency, Kiev, in Ukrainian 1632 gmt 28 Jan 05
BBC Monitoring Service, in English, Fri, January 28, 2005 (16:32)

4. UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT, MICROSOFT CHIEF DISCUSS
INVESTMENT, PIRACY IN DAVOS
UNIAN news agency, Kiev, in Ukrainian 1602 gmt 28 Jan 05
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Fri, January 28, 2005 (16:02)

5. EU TO APPROVE FRESH HELP FOR UKRAINE
Agence France Presse (AFP), Brussels, Belgium, Thu, Jan 27, 2005

6. "AFTER THE VICTORY PARTIES IN UKRAINE"
EDITORIAL: The New York Times
New York, New York, Friday, January 28, 2005

7. "YUSHCHENKO'S AUSCHWITZ CONNECTION"
By Malcolm Haslett, BBC Eurasia analyst
BBC NEWS, EUROPE, UK, Friday, January 28, 2005

8. "THE WORLD REMEMBERS"
By Ian Traynor in Auschwitz
The Guardian, London, UK, Friday Jan 28, 2005

9. 'I CAN'T GET USED TO MY FACE': YUSHCHENKO
POISONED UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT
Agence France Presse (AFP), Strasbourg, France, Tue, January 25, 2005

10. "THE MAN WHO SURVIVED RUSSIA'S POISON CHALICE"
On the day of Viktor Yushchenko's inauguration, Tom Mangold
reveals the extraordinary story of his rivals' plot to deny him power.
Article by Tom Mangold, The Age
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Sunday, January 23, 2005

11. "YUSHCHENKO'S POISONING: THE BACKGROUND"
Jane's Intelligence Digest, UK, Friday, January 21, 2005

12. UKRAINIAN SPEAKER'S PARTY SAID TO
WALK POLITICAL TIGHTROPE
"A Boost For The Speaker"
ANALYSIS: By Yevhen Mahda
Glavred, Kiev, Ukraine, in Russian 0000 gmt 20 Jan 05
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Tue, Jan 25, 2005
=========================================================
1. UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT YUSHCHENKO OUTLINES ECONOMIC,
POLITICAL PRIORITIES IN SPEECH AT WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM

TV 5 Kanal, Kiev, Ukraine, in Ukrainian 1830 gmt 28 Jan 05
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, January 28, 2005 (18:30)

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has called EU accession a strategic
goal of his government. Addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Yushchenko said Ukraine intends to apply for EU membership soon. He urged
the EU to admit Ukraine as a member. The nation has proved that its place is
in Europe, he said. He went on to list his economic priorities, including
liberal market reforms, the fight against corruption and making Ukraine a
WTO member by the end of 2005.

The following is the text of Yushchenko's speech relayed live by Ukrainian
5 Kanal TV on 28 January, subheadings have been inserted editorially:

Dear presidium, dear friends, guests and colleagues in this hall.
One-hundred-and-fifty years ago the Ukrainian prophet, Taras Shevchenko,
said these words: "Fight and win, the God will help you, the truth, strength
and the holy will is with you". We fought and won. This is perhaps the most
important event in Ukraine in recent months.

You have just seen unique, probably unexpected for many of you, video
[shown before the speech]. Millions of Ukrainians at the square in Kiev
defended their rights, their dignity and justice. They demonstrated courage,
tolerance and mercy. An interesting fact is that people came to the streets
not to demand bread.

They were united by their desire to have freedom. For the sake of it they
overcame hunger, cold and fear. They shared bread and warmth with everybody
who came to the square and stood next to them. Armed only with belief in
their righteousness, they defeated tyranny and lawlessness peacefully and
elegantly. The whole world applauded them. A modern Ukrainian nation has
revealed itself to the world. But this victory does not belong to my people
only.
A EUROPEAN NATION
Ukrainians have shown that European values unite people on the orange square
in Kiev just as they did during the velvet revolution on Vaclav Square in
Prague. If we believe that the history of mankind is the history of freedom
then Ukraine is beginning the third millennium.

I have the honour to speak to you today on behalf of a free Ukraine. I
became president by the will of its people, who chose democracy and
wellbeing. I have only one goal - to implement their will.

I represent one of the biggest countries in Europe. Europe's geographic
centre is located in Ukraine. Ukrainians are one of the world's
best-educated nations. We have everything it takes to be on a par with the
leaders of the modern globalized world. My country has long been a wise
and powerful, but sleeping elephant.

Today it is awakening. Democracy paves the way to realizing its potential. I
am convinced that one of the most modern European markets is being currently
formed in Ukraine.

Back in 2000, my government led Ukraine along the path of economic growth.
The foundation of stable GDP growth were laid at that time. Last year GDP
grew by 12.4 per cent. There are all grounds for an optimistic forecast for
the future. However, many opportunities for economic growth were lost in the
past years. As a result, the economy remained disproportional and social
standards were very low. An oligarchic economic model was being formed in
Ukraine, its black market growing and corruption spreading.

Investors had a natural reaction to these things. The amount of direct
foreign investment in Ukraine is much lower than in our neighbours. It is
165 dollars per capita in Ukraine. In Russia this figure is 280 dollars, in
Poland 2,100 dollars and in the Czech Republic 2,200 dollars.
NEW GOVERNMENT'S PRIORITIES
Dear friends, the time of missed chances is over. We, together with you,
are starting the time of realized opportunities. Our goal is to turn the
Ukrainian economy into a social and market-oriented system that will ensure
its stable growth. This is our first strategic goal. To achieve this goal we
are going to take a number of steps soon.

FIRST, eliminating the black economy. About 55 per cent of the national
economy is in the black sector now. Taxes will be cut, but everybody will
pay them. Privileges for the selected few will be cancelled soon. Taxation
will be transparent and stable.

The SECOND step is renewing the foundation of macroeconomic stability.
The budget will be balanced and its stabilizing role will be increased by
using tough budget restrictions and stricter principles for state loans.

The THIRD step is the fight against corruption. My government will not
steal. Local governments will not steal. Business will be separated from
politics. We will remove excessive obstacles and excessive regulation, which
is the origin of corruption. Administrative reform will make the authorities
at all levels transparent.

The FOURTH step is the establishment of honest justice. We will establish
an independent judiciary and complete judicial reform. Courts will become
effective legal means to resolve conflicts.

The FIFTH step is attracting investment. We are interested in modern
technology and business culture coming to our country. We will promote
investment using legislation and economic incentives. Privatization will be
transparent. Competition of investors for lucrative companies will be
honest. A few days ago a court froze the accounts of the Kryvorizhstal
plant, the privatization of which was quite dubious.

To achieve our goal we are ready to cooperate with partners from various
parts of the globe.

Our next strategy is to integrate more into the world economy. We will
work to receive the market economy status as soon as possible and
speed up our entry into the Word Trade Organization. This is the task
for 2005.

Ukraine wants to strengthen mutually beneficial partnership with all its
neighbours, both in the east and in the west. We are ready to widely develop
Ukrainian-Russian partnership, with a view to realizing our economic
interests and maintaining peace and security in Europe. I am convinced that
this approach of ours was received with understanding during my visit to
Moscow.
EUROPEAN INTEGRATION
The orange revolution paved the way to a new quality of our partnership with
the united Europe. Our third strategic goal is Ukraine in the European
Union. History, economic prospects and people's interests show that the
Ukrainian way to the future is the way of the united Europe. A renovated
Ukraine hopes for support by European institutions and highly praises the
signal given by the European parliament on 13 January. I believe that
everyone will support its call for giving Ukraine a clear European
perspective. We welcome EU plans to develop a new strategy of relations with
Ukraine. We want this strategy to aim at opening the European Union's doors
for Ukraine. Ukraine is going to officially apply for EU membership soon.

I would like to emphasize that Ukraine can significantly contribute to the
development of a new united Europe. I will name some of these opportunities
as examples.

FIRST, we are proposing our help to maintain peace and security, especially
in the regions that are our common neighbours. SECOND, Ukraine is ready to
take part in the implementation of European security and defence goals even
more actively. Our contribution to peacekeeping efforts in the Balkans has
already been highly praised. Ukraine is ready to maintain stable energy
supplies to Europe, offering its great transit potential. We can now start a
high-level dialogue with everyone on all energy issues. We consider it
promising to involve partners from EU countries to form a gas transport
consortium.

Without a doubt, our country will remain a reliable partner of the EU in the
joint fight against international terrorism and organized crime. I am
convinced that we have great potential to implement the formula "flourishing
Ukraine in successful united Europe". We are ready to confirm the announced
intentions with day-to-day work. I want to make every decision of the new
authorities a step towards the implementation of our goal.

The introduction of European social, economic and political standards will
be alpha and omega in the work of the new Ukrainian authorities. I have a
team capable of implementing my plan.

We have worked out a national strategy of European integration, which is
aimed at quickly achieving the requirement for EU membership. The strategy
takes into account the experience of our neighbours. It envisages specific
ways to achieve political and economic requirements set out in Copenhagen -
harmonizing the judicial system, reforming justice and law-enforcement
agencies, pursuing a balanced foreign policy and implementing necessary
changes in the work of the Ukrainian government bodies.

The new government will be working in line with this strategy. Its
implementation will be the criterion for assessing the work of all the
ministries. I have introduced the post of deputy prime minister for European
integration to coordinate their actions. I expect convincing results of this
work very soon.

Dear friends, Ukraine is beginning its movement towards extremely ambitious
goals. But I'm convinced that they are real for my government and for my
nation. The will of Ukrainians who threw down the burden of the past makes
them real. The will of Ukrainians, a free European nation, makes them real.

You have seen reports from [Independence] Square. Ukrainian flags were
beside the flags of all the European countries, from Portugal to Poland.
This is a glance into the future. Ukraine opened the third millennium of
European history. On behalf of Ukraine, I salute you. I invite you to
Ukraine.

Dear friends, it is very important to us that you stand beside us at this
moment - which I am sure is historic not only for my country and my nation
but also for Europe. I am addressing you as president - help Ukraine and
you will soon see a beautiful European nation. Thank you. -30-
==========================================================
2. POLISH PRESIDENT KWASNIEWSKI BACKS UKRAINE'S MOVE
TO APPLY FOR EUROPEAN UNION MEMBERSHIP

Agence France Presse (AFP), Davos, Switzerland, Fri, Jan 28, 2005

DAVOS - Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski on Friday backed the
prospect of Ukraine's application to join the European Union just moments
after his Ukrainian counterpart announced a forthcoming bid. "It is
necessary to start to discuss with Ukraine for the membership of Ukraine in
the European Union," Kwasniewski told the annual meeting of the World
Economic Forum in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos.

"We will not only support Ukraine but share our experiences, how to reach
this goal," he announced, following newly-elected Ukrainian President Viktor
Yushchenko onto the podium. Yushchenko had announced just minutes
beforehand that he would lodge an application to join the European Union
"in the near future."

Kwasniewski said: "In my opinion, if we started to discuss with Turkey about
Turkish membership of the EU, we have no argument against Ukrainian entry
and membership." "The question is of time, of procedures, standards, but not
why or if," he added.

Poland, which borders Ukraine, only joined the EU last May as part of the
now 25-nation bloc's expansion eastwards. Kwasniewski played an active
role in brokering a way out of the political crisis that arose in Ukraine
after its controversial election in November, which eventually led to
Yushchenko, the reformist challenger, acceding to the presidency. Last
month, the Polish leader said in a magazine interview that the EU should
adopt a "more daring plan of action" towards his eastern European neighbour,
and set a date to begin negotiations about "possible accession". -30-
==========================================================
3. UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT DISCUSSES WTO ENTRY WITH
GERMAN CHANCELLOR GERHARD SCHROEDER

UNIAN news agency, Kiev, in Ukrainian 1632 gmt 28 Jan 05
BBC Monitoring Service, in English, January 28, 2005 (16:32)

KIEV - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko met German Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder in Davos [Switzerland] today, the Ukrainian presidential
press service has said. Yushchenko and Schroeder discussed bilateral
relations in politics, trade and the economic area, and also Ukraine's
integration into European structures.

They agreed to set up a Ukrainian-German working group to examine problem
issues standing in the way of Ukraine's entry to the WTO and granting
Ukraine market economy status. Schroeder and Yushchenko also agreed
that German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer would soon visit Ukraine.

Schroeder invited Yushchenko to visit Germany in March. The meeting
between the leaders of the two countries lasted for about 30 minutes. -30-
==========================================================
4. UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT, MICROSOFT CHIEF DISCUSS
INVESTMENT, PIRACY IN DAVOS

UNIAN news agency, Kiev, in Ukrainian 1602 gmt 28 Jan 05
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, January 28, 2005 (16:02)

KIEV - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has had a meeting
with Microsoft board chairman Bill Gates in Davos. The main topic of their
discussion was investment climate in Ukraine, Yushchenko's press service
said. The Ukrainian president said that investors would soon feel changes
in Ukraine.

Bill Gates for his part praised high intellectual potential of Ukrainians
and called for investing in Ukraine. He also called on Ukraine "to use the
high potential of its citizens". Gates said his company was ready to expand
its office in Ukraine and support educational programmes for Ukrainian
youth. Yushchenko promised at the meeting that his team and he would
fight piracy. -30- [The Action Ukraine Report Monitoring Service]
==========================================================
5. EU TO APPROVE FRESH HELP FOR UKRAINE

Agence France Presse (AFP), Brussels, Belgium, Thu, Jan 27, 2005

BRUSSELS - European Union (EU) foreign ministers are expected to
approve a package of new initiatives next week to help Ukraine following
the inauguration of President Viktor Yushchenko, a senior diplomat said
Thursday. But no EU movement is expected on Yushchenko's stated aim of
one day winning membership of the European club for his ex-Soviet country,
a call which EU leaders have dismissed as premature.

The 10-point plan to be discussed Monday includes measures to help Ukraine
secure market economy status and boost its chances of joining the World
Trade Organization (WTO), said the diplomat from the EU's Luxembourg
presidency.

Easing visa restrictions for Ukrainians is also among the proposals, to be
presented by EU foreign policy chief Javier and Solana and external
relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner to regular ministerial talks
in Brussels. "There is no doubt that they will be warmly welcomed," said the
diplomat, adding: "We will discuss how we can move forward and contribute
more to help the new Ukrainian government."

The ex-Soviet republic resolved two months of political crisis last weekend
when Yushchenko was sworn in as head of state, after winning December
26 ballots organized following initial rigged polls in November.

In response the European Commission and Solana drew up the new proposals,
to reinforce an action plan for Ukraine approved last month in the framework
of the EU's so-called "neighbourhood policy" for states just outside its
borders. But the EU commission has insisted that it is far too early to
discuss the possibility of EU candidacy for Ukraine. "Monday's meeting has
to be seen a step along the road" for Ukraine's EU hopes, said the diplomat,
noting the issue will be discussed again at the next regular ministers'
talks February 21, to which Ukraine is to send a delegation. -30-
==========================================================
6. "AFTER THE VICTORY PARTIES IN UKRAINE"

EDITORIAL: The New York Times
New York, New York, Friday, January 28, 2005

It took impressive personal courage for Viktor Yushchenko to overcome a
nearly fatal poisoning and brazen electoral fraud to become Ukraine's new
president. It will now take extraordinary political agility for him to begin
delivering on the huge expectations that accompany him into office. He
needs to strike out boldly in several very different directions: healing the
geographic and political divisions accentuated by the campaign, rooting out
entrenched government and business corruption, and charting a course
toward eventual European Union membership without alienating Russia.

Mr. Yushchenko is off to a fairly encouraging start. His inaugural speech
last Sunday was broadly conciliatory and emphasized clean government
and rule of law. The next day, he took a symbolically significant trip to
Moscow, where he spoke of Russia as Ukraine's "eternal strategic partner."
Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, wisely extricated himself from his
earlier ham-handed support for Mr. Yushchenko's opponent and the
electoral manipulations staged in his behalf.

On a more troubling note, Mr. Yushchenko nominated Yulia Tymoshenko,
an outspoken and ambitious ally, as prime minister. That choice is
especially significant because some presidential powers were transferred to
Parliament last month, enhancing the prime minister's stature. Ms.
Tymoshenko could become still more powerful if the dioxin poisoning Mr.
Yushchenko suffered last year should leave him with serious, lasting health
problems.

Ms. Tymoshenko is a divisive figure who rose to prominence in the 1990's as
a rich and powerful energy executive. She has gone from being an ally of a
corrupt prime minister to a fighter of corruption, then was briefly jailed
on fraud and money-laundering charges that she insists were political, and
were dismissed. But the problem with her nomination lies less in these
distant events than in Ms. Tymoshenko's demagogic and uncompromising
speeches over the past few weeks. She had publicly boasted that Mr.
Yushchenko had pledged to make her prime minister in a deal he could not
withdraw. He must now make sure she understands that he, not she, will be
setting the ultimate direction of Ukrainian policy.

National reconciliation must be more than a slogan in a country where most
of the industry and wealth are located in regions that voted overwhelmingly
against Mr. Yushchenko. It is there, especially, that Ms. Tymoshenko is seen
as needlessly divisive. She now needs to erase that impression by loyally
carrying out Mr. Yushchenko's policies. -30-
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/28/opinion/28fri3.html?oref=login
==========================================================
7. "YUSHCHENKO'S AUSCHWITZ CONNECTION"

By Malcolm Haslett, BBC Eurasia analyst
BBC NEWS, EUROPE, UK, Friday, January 28, 2005

One of the world leaders attending the Holocaust memorial ceremonies at
Auschwitz on Thursday had a particular personal link with the camp. The
father of new Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko was a prisoner there.

Mr Yushchenko has put a heavy emphasis on his father's internment in
Auschwitz, and for obvious reasons. In the past, his opponents have depicted
him not just as a right-wing nationalist working for the US, but as a Nazi,
plain and simple.

During the recent election campaign billboards in the eastern city of
Donetsk portrayed Mr Yushchenko in Nazi uniform giving a Nazi salute.
Opponents in Ukraine and Russia have also played on his wife's US
citizenship and her alleged connections with American right-wing circles.
NAZI VICTIM
In 2001, the Russian television presenter Mikhail Leontiev, known for his
controversial pro-Kremlin sympathies, accused Mrs Kateryna Yushchenko
of being a "CIA agent" sent to Ukraine to bring her husband to power. Mrs
Yushchenko won a libel case in a Ukrainian court against Mr Leontiev and his
Odnako" [However] programme.

But that did not end the accusations, which reached a new high point in the
run-up to the election. To bolster their accusations, Mr Yushchenko's
detractors pointed to the undeniable fact that right-wing nationalist groups
in the Ukraine, such as UNA-UNSO (Ukrainian National Association), clearly
supported Mr Yushchenko rather than the Russian-backed candidate Viktor
Yanukovych.

Mr Yushchenko has tried all along to distance himself from the extreme
right, and at one point told UNA-UNSO to go and campaign for his opponent
instead. The chance to advertise his father's imprisonment and suffering in
Nazi concentration camps has now given his case a strong fillip.

But his opponents have also been trying to imply that his wife's family has
shady secrets. There have been suggestions that hers parents, who emigrated
to the US from Germany in the 1950s, had either collaborated with the Nazis
or at the very least shown disloyalty to their homeland by not returning
home after the war.
CREDIBILITY
Mrs Yushchenko, however, has pointed out that many thousands of Ukrainians
were taken to Germany during the war as slave labour, and those who returned
to Stalin's USSR after the war often ended up being sent back to work
camps - these ones run by the Soviets.

In his speech at Auschwitz, Mr Yushchenko pledged to work for the
elimination in Ukraine of "anti-Semitism, xenophobia and hatred among
people". That will not stop the new president's opponents from continuing
their attacks on his integrity. Yet in the eyes of international opinion,
the episode of Mr Yushchenko's poisoning last October, and the admitted
fraud in the first count, give the new Ukrainian president a huge advantage
over his critics in terms of credibility. -30-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4215101.stm
NOTE: There are two photographs with this article.
==========================================================
8. "THE WORLD REMEMBERS"

By Ian Traynor in Auschwitz
The Guardian, London, UK, Friday, Jan 28, 2005

White snow and black iron, white birches and black stone, white hair and
black hats of the last witnesses: Auschwitz yesterday was a monochrome
tableau drained of colour except for the brown brick of the barracks where
hundreds of thousands waited to be murdered.

Several hundred survivors and the few living liberators of the death camp
converged on the geometric expanse of barracks, furnaces, watchtowers and
barbed wire that started to give up its awful secrets to an exhausted Europe
60 years ago.

Political leaders, royals and clergymen converged on the sprawling complex
on the flat land between the rivers Vistula and Sola in southern Poland for
the largest and last such commemoration of the wickedness that humans can
inflict on one another.

For many of those bearing witness in the heart of Europe's darkness, this
was a final farewell and an attempt at a last act of catharsis through
private ritual, a dread-filled pilgrimage back to the nightmare years of
their youth. Survivors in their 70s and 80s came from nearby Ukraine and
faraway Venezuela, from Poland itself and Canada, from Israel, of course,
and from Britain.

Some came eagerly, determined to confront past horrors. Some were intensely
reluctant and frightened, but showed up out of a sense of duty and also the
feeling that this was some kind of last chance.

Olly Ritterband made it from Copenhagen to the black iron gates of the death
camp. Then she could go no further. "I don't want to go into the camp. I
just can't do it. Enough is enough," said the 81-year-old Transylvanian Jew
who survived internment at Auschwitz but who lost 70 family members here
and in other Nazi concentration camps.

Also 81, Zygmunt Soboleski, a Polish Catholic interned at Auschwitz for
almost five years, paid for her trip from Calgary in Canada, driven by the
urge to remember and to warn a world he thinks is sinking into amnesia.

"It's amazing," he said. "So many young people have never heard of the word
Auschwitz. We're so obsessed with the tsunami. But more people were being
killed here every month and nobody cared a damn about it."

The first blizzards of 2005 blanketed the camp in a deep covering of snow,
adding to the hush. The ageing survivors hobbled down the paths, some
wearing the grey-and-white striped caps of the concentration camp inmate,
to stand in temperatures touching minus 10C (14F).

Russian, American, Jewish and Polish leaders paid tribute to the survivors.
A German Romany leader made a poignant speech about the relatively
ignored mass murder of Gypsies.

Three of the seven surviving Red Army soldiers who were the first allied
soldiers to fight their way to the gates of the camp on January 27 1945 were
also in attendance, their chests proud with medals. The Polish president,
Alexander Kwas niewski, added to their collection.

If the dominant note was one of remembrance and bearing witness, the
political leaders were also not slow to draw pointed parallels with
contemporary troubles.

"The story of the camps reminds us that evil is real and must be called by
its name and must be confronted," the US vice-president, Dick Cheney,
declared. President Vladimir Putin of Russia was even more explicit,
declaring that terrorism is the new fascism. "The terrorists have picked up
the baton of the executioners in black uniforms," he stated.

"We can only preserve our civilisation by dismissing all secondary
disagreements and rallying against the common enemy, like we did in the
second world war."

For Viktor Yushchenko, the new president of neighbouring Ukraine,
yesterday's ceremonies were of a personal nature. His father was Auschwitz
prisoner number 11367. "This is a sacred place for me and my family. I came
here with my children and I hope to come here with my grandchildren." Under
his presidency, he vowed: "There will never again be a Jewish question in my
country."

The problem of contemporary anti-Jewish prejudice, especially in Europe, was
a thread that ran through the speeches of the Israeli and Jewish leaders, as
well as being voiced by ageing camp survivors.

Moshe Katsav, the president of Israel, said: "We fear anti-semitism. We fear
Holocaust denial. We fear a distorted approach by the youth of Europe. We
call upon the European Union: do not let Nazism dwell in the imaginations of
the young generations as a horror show."

Survivors said they had come to Auschwitz partly to sound the alarm for
younger people lacking awareness of the war years. "The world never learns.
There's nothing new under the sun," said Trudy Spira, a camp survivor living
in Venezuela. "I just don't like it when they compare the Holocaust with any
other event since, before, or after."

The reasons for such sentiment are not hard to find in a place where the
gold teeth fillings of Jewish victims were smelted down, and women and
children became the human guinea pigs for the deranged medical experiments
of SS doctors. Of the estimated 1.5 million murdered over five years at
Auschwitz, 93% were Jews. And yet, until democracy came to Poland 15
years ago, the information listed at the camp museum described the victims
only by nationality.

Last night, as three hours of speeches and ceremonies came to a close, the
dark skies over Auschwitz were lit up by a corridor of fire along a mile of
railway track that brought the trains to the gas chambers. The ceremonies
had opened with the sound of a train arriving at the point where the
prisoners were "selected".

Mrs Ritterband, although she could not step inside Auschwitz, was none the
less satisfied that she had come, a final gesture of closure. She bears no
ill will towards the Germans, she said. Indeed, the main lesson she has
learned from the evil she survived 60 years ago is that hatred is the
biggest enemy of life.

"I wanted to live. I wanted to continue living. And to do that it is
important not to hate." -30- [Action Ukraine Report Monitoring Service]
==========================================================
9. 'I CAN'T GET USED TO MY FACE': YUSHCHENKO
POISONED UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT

Agence France Presse (AFP), Strasbourg, France, Tue, January 25, 2005

STRASBOURG - Viktor Yushchenko, the newly elected president of
Ukraine, said Tuesday he still has not come to terms with his disfigured
face resulting from a poison he was administered during his campaigning
on a pro-West ticket. "Frankly, I can't get used to this face, and I don't
think I ever will get used to it," he told a media conference in Strasbourg
after addressing the parliament of the 46-member state Council of Europe.
But," he added, "we are men and we don't make a big deal over our scars."

Yushchenko, 50, underwent a dramatic transformation within days in early
September, his once telegenic good looks bloating up and his skin becoming
ockmarked so that he looked much older. After months of tests, doctors in
an Austrian clinic concluded that he had been deliberately poisoned with a
dioxin.

Speculation focused on Ukraine's SBU intelligence service, an heir to the
national branch of the Soviet Union's KGB, with many of Yushchenko's
supporters believing it was a failed assassination bid by those who did not
want Ukraine to fall out of Russia's influence. After a rigged presidential
election in November that led to a re-run in December, Yushchenko was
ultimately voted president of Ukraine, taking over from retiring autocrat
Leonid Kuchma and defeating the pro-Moscow candidate, former prime
minister Viktor Yanukovich.

But he continues to have deformed features, drawing sympathy and curious
gazes wherever he goes. In the media conference, Yushchenko read out a
certificate from his doctor stating that his condition was not contagious
and he was able to fulfil his presidential duties. As for the SBU,
Yushchenko warned "we are going to reform" it. -30-
==========================================================
10. "THE MAN WHO SURVIVED RUSSIA'S POISON CHALICE"
On the day of Viktor Yushchenko's inauguration, Tom Mangold
reveals the extraordinary story of his rivals' plot to deny him power.

Article by Tom Mangold, The Age
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Sunday, January 23, 2005

The big khaki tents are coming down in Independence Square and the braziers
are being doused. The Orange Revolutionaries, shrunk from half a million to
a few hundred, are going home.

It's inauguration day for new President Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine's
modernist President, a reformer who beat a brutal and medieval assassination
attempt by poisoning and an outrageous example of poll rigging last November
to become Ukraine's new leader.

And only now are the astonishing truths of Mr Yushchenko's fight for the
leadership he had earned being revealed.

An investigation has discovered:
· Britain's germ warfare laboratory in Porton Down has received a biopsy of
his skin which shows several poisoning attempts over a four-week period.
· Not one but two deadly poisons have been found in his body.
· Evidence has emerged that seems to link one of Russian President Vladimir
Putin's closest staff members to the murder plot.

As Mr Yushchenko's face erupted in a mask of cysts and pustules and even
as he fought for his life, his nation came dangerously close to a civil war
deliberately engineered by his political enemies.

What stopped a war that could have torn this crucial state bordering western
and eastern Europe apart was a series of extraordinary co-ordinated
intelligence operations. Those operations involved a breakaway faction of
Ukraine's Secret Service, the SBU, Ukraine's military intelligence, with CIA
and MI6 officers. They helped by running their own special operations to
frustrate corrupt politicians and gangsters who tried to seize power from
the newly elected leader.

American and British agents used spy satellites, intercept technology and
old-fashioned dirty tricks against President Leonid Kuchma, the departing
leader, and his allies and cronies. In the end, Mr Kuchma's power and
authority simply hemorrhaged away and he was left unable to exercise his
authority.

Mr Yushchenko was given a large final dose of a deadly toxin at a dinner on
September 5 organised by the leader of the SBU, General Ihor Smeshko, and
his deputy, General Volodymyr Satsyuk, at the latter's Kiev dacha. General
Smeshko is believed to have been unaware of the poison plot. Both the cook
and the waiter that night have been spirited out of the country by Mr
Yushchenko's team and have written admissions of involvement. The amount
of poison needed to kill him was the size of a poppy seed.

In an exclusive interview, Professor Mykola Policshuk, the leading authority
on the Parliamentary Special Investigation Commission into Mr Yushchenko's
poisoning, said: "Two, not one, poisons have been found in his tissue
samples. I have not the slightest doubt this was an attempt to murder him.

The plan was to give a huge dose at that dinner party so he would die the
next day and be buried without the kind of post-mortem examination that
would have revealed the dioxin and the other poison - an endo-toxin.

"What may have saved his life was that he vomited on the way home. Either
way, it's a miracle he lived."

In another interview, Mr Yushchenko's head of security, Yevhen Chervonenko,
revealed how he had been tricked out of attending that dinner.

"I was in the car behind Yushchenko and his state bodyguard when I got a
call from the bodyguard telling me I was not required on that night because
Yushchenko was going to a secret meeting. Normally, I go everywhere with
him and taste his food.

"That night, I was deliberately cut out. When my boss got to the dacha, his
bodyguard was ordered to stay in the car. Yushchenko was on his own, he had
his own plate of food. If I had been there, this could never have happened."

The man in charge of the commission of investigation, a supporter of rival
candidate Victor Yanukovich said: "I don't think Yushchenko was poisoned.
I've had no official papers to prove it. Look here, I've got his medical
records, he was a sick man. Look at this, he had a lot of herpes zoster -
that could have been behind the so-called poisoning."

The plans to prevent the great presidential robbery of Ukraine and protect
the people's rightfully elected leader were hatched mid-year. Washington and
London, mindful of Mr Kuchma's unappetising record as a corrupt arms dealer
and implicated in several murders, gently warned him that if any attempt
were made to rig the election, he would find himself disgraced and isolated.
To press the point, one of Mr Kuchma's closest business associates suddenly
found he could not get a visa to visit the US. The message was deliberate
and clear.

Nevertheless, Mr Kuchma and Viktor Medvedchuk, his gatekeeper and chief
of staff, became involved in a colossal election fraud, so blatant it was
easily spotted by the hundreds of independent election monitors last year.
Mr Putin also took a deep interest in the election in a border nation whose
allegiance between the East and the West is almost split. The miners of the
East look to Russia. Mr Putin noisily supported their candidate, Mr
Yanukovich.

Shortly before Christmas, a courier arrived at the security gate of
Ukraine's Channel 5 carrying an anonymous letter written in Russian and a
CD. The CD had extracts of intercepted phone conversations between two men,
one in Moscow and one in Kiev, talking about the poisoning of Mr Yushchenko.
One name mentioned on the CD is that of Gleb Pavlovskiy, a close adviser to
President Putin.

I have listened to the CD and I have the transcript. Although its bona fides
have yet to be forensically tested, diplomats in Kiev who have heard it and
read the transcripts take it seriously.

Volodymyr Ariev, the Channel 5 journalist who has investigated the
background, said: "I now know the identity of both men on the intercept. The
man in Kiev has admitted to me that the conversation is real and that Moscow
was indeed involved in the poisoning, but it doesn't follow that Putin knew
or ordered it.

"The recording was done by a rogue faction of the FSB (the replacement to
the KGB) who are opposed to Putin and Pavlovskiy."

If the Kremlin did have a hand in the events in Ukraine, as most observers
now believe, they unwittingly came across a series of Western intelligence
operations that simply outsmarted them.

By November, an important section of the SBU had veered away from Mr
Kuchma's tyrannies and believed the future lay with modernist reformers like
Mr Yushchenko. Some of this may have been self-serving, but it was realistic
and was encouraged by small teams of CIA and MI6 officers sent to back up
their respective stations in Kiev for the most important elections in 20
years.

An intelligence net involving Mr Yushchenko's youthful and energetic chief
of staff, Oleg Rybachuk, an important faction of the SBU, Ukrainian military
intelligence and British and US ambassadors was established. When Mr
Rybachuk received SBU warnings of attempts to disrupt the elections or
threats to Mr Yushchenko, he reported these to both ambassadors.

Spy satellites maintained round-the-clock vigilance and Western teams inside
Ukraine established an enormous communications intercept. Slowly it became
clear that a substantial number of Mr Kuchma's players were deserting his
team.

Washington and London told Mr Kuchma: "We have no horses in the election
race, and we will work with whoever wins - legitimately. But one hint of
election fraud or hanky-panky and the West will be tough on you. Your
country deserves a fully transparent and democratic poll - at last."

The British warned the much disliked Minister of the Interior, General
Mykola Bilokon, that if he misbehaved he would find unusual difficulties in
ever getting a visa to visit any West European country or the US.

So monitors were astonished when, despite the gentle warnings, the first
election round showed blatant evidence of crude election rigging and fraud.
Why did Mr Kuchma still allow it? One observer told me: "Because he had to,
he could not have won any other way."

After the fraudulent "win" by Mr Yanukovich, Ukraine began to spiral into
conflict. Half a million supporters of Mr Yushchenko and democracy - the
Orange Revolutionaries - gathered in Independence Square, thousands
camped there. Tents, stoves, food, medical supplies, polystyrene boards
for sleeping on in the bitter cold arrived as if my magic. In fact, much had
been planned.

Western intelligence officers had one overriding aim - to ensure that the
thousands of protesters would not be provoked into violence. They believed
that if the young people held, the country would hold.

And indeed, an extraordinary discipline was maintained among the thousands
of revolutionaries - much of it exercised by an intriguing activist
organisation called PORA. This largely unknown student organisation (there
are no members) organised revolutionaries along para-military lines. Sex,
drugs and alcohol, but not rock'n'roll were forbidden. Skinhead and secret
police provocations were ignored.

Western intelligence officers had recommended constant music and rock
concerts to distract the huge crowd, which virtually owned the heart of
Kiev. My conversations with PORA leaders reveal that some of them attended
a seminar in the Crimea funded by the American Freedom House Foundation -
whose chairman is former CIA chief James Woolsey, and USAID, where these
techniques were taught.

As support for Mr Yushchenko grew daily, the Yanukovich-Kuchma faction
became more desperate. They decided to transport miners from Donetsk on the
Russian border and diehard Yanukovich supporters to Kiev to
counter-demonstrate the students. The intention was clear - they would spark
a conflict and violence and crack down on the peaceful Orange
Revolutionaries. The fighting would not just crack skulls, it would lead to
a suspension of Parliament, of the elections, a one-year state of emergency
and the continued rule of President Kuchma.

Then a curious thing happened. As the miners gathered in Donetsk, free vodka
was handed out. They got vodka on their coaches and trains, and they were
met in Kiev by trucks loaded with crates of vodka. By the time they had been
in Kiev for an hour or so, most were paralytically drunk.

"No, the vodka was not a coincidence," said Alex Kiselev, a close adviser to
Yushchenko rival Yanukovich, glumly. "We realised what was going on too
late. It wasn't illegal but it was damned clever. It was a trick and we were
dumb enough to fall for it, we shot ourselves in the foot with that one. It
was all very scripted. There were hundreds of Western agents in Ukraine."

The miners' fiasco increased Mr Kuchma's desperation. The fraudulent
election had been exposed, Mr Yushchenko was still alive, although very ill
and in considerable pain; the poisoning had become public knowledge,
sympathy for the victim had grown, and the fingers pointed openly at Kuchma
cronies. Moscow was being dragged in too.

Then on November 28, the Empire struck back.

Around 10pm, the commander of the Minister of the Interior's ample forces,
Lieutenant-General Serhiy Popkov, ordered that live ammunition be handed
out to 13,000 of his men waiting at bases outside Kiev.

But so penetrated was the ministry that within 45 minutes the phones were
ringing in the homes of leading Western diplomats in Kiev. They learned that
General Popkov's men were marching towards Independence Square. The
crackdown had begun.

Washington alerted its ambassador to satellite imagery, which confirmed his
worst fears. Infra-red cameras had picked up the telltale signs of trucks on
the move despite the clouds and despite the night.

The ambassador reportedly alerted Secretary of State Colin Powell, who put
a call into Mr Kuchma, who refused to take it.

The ambassador called Viktor Pinchuk, the President's powerful son-in-law,
and warned him that Mr Kuchma would not be let off the hook by ignoring the
call from the Secretary of State.

In urgent meetings and telephone calls, Mr Kuchma, his hard-line Minister of
the Interior, General Popkov and Mr Medvedchuk were made painfully aware
that a substantial part of the SBU and military intelligence were now out of
Government control.

The crunch came when Mr Kuchma learned from his top generals that they could
not support an attack on the Orange Revolutionaries and they would protect
"the innocent public".

His authority had leaked away. The SBU, the army, the outside world and the
people who voted for change had finally defeated one of the most corrupt
gangster-states in the world.

First thing tomorrow, Mr Yushchenko's bodyguard will be changed.
Someone from his entourage has had access to his food and this will stop.
His final victory has already brought about a significant reaction. After
the Yushchenko victory, Minister of Transport Heorhiy Kirpa blew his brains
out in his sauna. He had been associated with allegations of extensive
corruption.

Although Mr Yushchenko is anxious to keep Moscow on side, his inauguration
has been a triumph for the man, the new machine, for those in the West who
believe it helps to give democracy a gentle shove now and then and for 48
million Ukrainians who will begin to taste freedom for the first time. -30-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: www.theage.com.au
==========================================================
11. "YUSHCHENKO'S POISONING: THE BACKGROUND"

Jane's Intelligence Digest, UK, Friday, January 21, 2005

Western governments and international organisations were shocked to hear
confirmation in December from an internationally respected Viennese medical
clinic that Ukrainian opposition winner Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned four
months earlier. JID's regional correspondent reports on allegations that
will have serious repercussions in post-election Ukraine.

"This was a project of political murder prepared by the authorities,"
Yushchenko claimed. Meanwhile, Western governments have called for those
behind the poisoning to be brought to justice. This is now more likely after
Yushchenko's victory in the re-run Ukrainian elections, which took place on
26 December.

Yushchenko himself has warned: "I have no doubt that, within several days
or weeks, this path will lead the authorities to specific people
representing the government - who administered the poison, who was
involved and from whom the poison was procured."

The Soviet record of assassinating opponents abroad is long and very well
documented. Four Ukrainian nationalist leaders were assassinated by the
Soviet security services between 1926 and 1959 in Paris, Rotterdam and
Munich. Two of these assassinations were carried out in Munich with a gun
that sprayed heart attack-inducing poison into the face of the victim. The
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) became aware of the poison only after a
KGB assassin who had previously used it defected to the US in 1961.

Under President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer, this practice has
returned. Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) agents were arrested in
Qatar in February, after being accused of assassinating a Chechen exile.

In Ukraine, opponents of the outgoing administration have either died at the
hands of a Ministry of Interior Spetsnaz special forces unit, or as a result
of attacks carried out by so-called 'skinheads' linked to organised criminal
gangs. In March 1999, opposition Rukh leader Vyacheslav Chornovil died in
a car 'accident', after the vehicle in which he was travelling was hit by a
Kamaz truck, a heavy-duty vehicle that has figured in many 'accidents' in
Ukraine. An attempt to kill Yushchenko in early August using a Kamaz truck
failed.

A videotape interview of Ministry of Interior Spetsnaz officers admitting to
organising Chornovil's murder was passed in 1999 to then opposition
presidential candidate and former Security Service (SBU) chairman Yevhen
Marchuk. This potentially explosive tape is expected to be released to the
incoming Yushchenko administration once it re-opens investigations into a
series of alleged political murders.
THE ATTEMPT ON YUSHCHENKO
It now seems likely that Yushchenko was either poisoned during a trip to
Crimea in late August 2004 or at a dinner. Ministry of Interior officers
were caught carrying out a surveillance operation against Yushchenko in
Crimea.

The poison involved - TCDD, the most toxic form of dioxin - can take up to
two weeks to take effect. TCDD was also a key ingredient of Agent Orange,
which was used by US forces during the Vietnam War. The level of this dioxin
found in samples taken from Yushchenko was 6,000 times higher than normal
and the second highest ever recorded.

On audio tapes illicitly made in pro-Moscow Prime Minister Viktor
Yanukovych's secret campaign headquarters by elements of the SBU loyal to
Yushchenko, there is evidence that may provide clues. There was a
conversation concerning surveillance of Yushchenko's election headquarters
in Kiev and ways to carry out a secret operation against him. Those recorded
speaking on the tapes complain about the presence of a bank's video security
cameras close to Yushchenko's headquarters.

Yushchenko's wife said that she tasted "a metallic-smelling medicine" on her
husband's lips after he returned home from a dinner. Yushchenko himself has
expressed the view that this occasion was the most likely opportunity for
the poison to be administered as it was the only time he did not take
security measures to test his food.

The political background is significant. Until round two of the elections on
21 November, the Kuchma-Yanukovych camp was prepared to 'win' the
elections using fraud. Given what was then seen as the inevitability of a
Yanukovych presidency, they did not fear legal action following victory
in the poll.

US National Intelligence Council sources believe that the timing of the
poisoning was highly suspicious. By early September 2004, the authorities
had planned that after two months of a very dirty campaign their candidate,
Yanukovych, would be ahead. However, at that stage Yushchenko's lead
was actually growing.

It is highly likely that the audacious poisoning was a desperate act of
panic by his political opponents. Yushchenko twice visited the Vienna clinic
for treatment and this removed him from the election campaign for four
weeks. By the end of the campaign in October 2004 his [Yanukovych]
ratings caught up to Yushchenko's. Dubious results released in round
one showed Yanukovych and Yushchenko level at 40 per cent.

The 'Orange Revolution' undermined Yanukovych's attempted fraudulent
election victory when mass protests after the second round forced a re-run
on 26 December, handing victory to Yushchenko. Interestingly, suspicion has
not fallen on SBU chairman Ihor Smeshko who, according to JID sources,
has personal sympathies with the Yushchenko camp.
RUSSIAN CONNECTION?
Yushchenko has publicly alleged a Russian connection to his poisoning, a
claim that has been denied by politicians allied to Putin. Russian
opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, head of the Union of Right Forces, has
stated that he cannot rule out the involvement of the Federal Security
Service (FSB), Russia's domestic secret service, which is charged with
carrying out espionage activities in the Commonwealth of Independent States
(CIS).

TCDD dioxin is not produced commercially and cannot be digested naturally.
It is a chemical mixture, rather than a specific poison. The preparation of
the dioxin could have been undertaken in a former KGB secret
chemical/biological laboratory that is now under the control of the FSB.

Renegade intelligence officer Alexander V. Litvinenko, who served in the KGB
and the FSB before defecting to Britain, has revealed that the FSB controls
a secret laboratory in Moscow that specialises in the study of poisons.
Meanwhile, a former dissident scientist now living in the US, Vil
Mirzayanov, has confirmed that dioxins were studied in this laboratory
during the development of defoliants for the military. Moreover, Valeriy
Krawchenko, an SBU defector, has also pointed to this FSB laboratory as
the likely source of the dioxin that was used to poison Yushchenko.

Such poisoning incidents are not unknown in Russia. A leading Russian
banker, Ivan Kivelidi, died in 1995 after using a telephone contaminated
with a poisonous substance. In 2002, a Saudi militant named Khattab, who was
working for the Chechens, died after opening a poisoned letter. In September
2004 - the same month that Yushchenko was poisoned - the prominent Russian
journalist Anna Politkovskaya was poisoned on a flight to Beslan, where
Chechen rebels had taken over a school. She survived.
REPERCUSSIONS
Under Yushchenko's presidency, the poisoning incident is set to have
wide-ranging domestic and foreign policy ramifications. Domestically, it
will further erode Kuchma's tarnished reputation and further undermine the
political party he relies on for support, Medvedchuk's SDPUo. Medvedchuk
is already being accused of involvement in election fraud.

Internationally, the attempt on Yushchenko's life will undermine Putin's
reputation in Ukraine and abroad. The Russian president's open interference
in Ukraine's elections has been widely condemned by Western governments.
This is likely to lead to a reassessment of Western foreign policy towards
Putin's increasingly authoritarian Russia. -30-
==========================================================
12. UKRAINIAN SPEAKER'S PARTY SAID TO
WALK POLITICAL TIGHTROPE
"A Boost For The Speaker"

ANALYSIS: By Yevhen Mahda
Glavred, Kiev, in Russian 0000 gmt 20 Jan 05
BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Jan 25, 2005

The People's Agrarian Party of Ukraine is growing in strength as various MPs
quit parliamentary factions associated with the previous government to join
speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn's group, a Ukrainian analytical web site says.
However, Lytvyn needs to be wary of who he brings into his team if he is to
maintain good relations with the new government and not antagonize President
Yushchenko. He also needs to expand his party's electoral base and move away
from its focus on agriculture ahead of the 2006 elections, the site
concludes.

The following is the text of the article by Yevhen Mahda entitled "A boost
for the speaker", carried on the Glavred web site on 20 January; subheadings
have been inserted editorially:

Two main trends in parliamentary life may be noted in 2005 - the Regions of
Ukraine party is losing a deputy every day and the ranks of the PAPU
[People's Agrarian Party of Ukraine] faction are increasing almost as fast.
[Party leader and parliamentary speaker] Volodymyr Lytvyn is outwardly cool
about the latest "convert to the agrarian faith", but he knows perfectly
well that each deputy who comes in gives it more strength and confidence in
this uneasy situation.

While Ukraine's elite was celebrating the Christmas-New Year holidays, away
from the protracted presidential campaign, Lytvyn, with Christian humility,
went to Moscow for Christmas. To be seen with all the top Russian political
leaders, without exception, and even given an audience with [Patriarch]
Aleksiy II was quite a considerable achievement, which Lytvyn proved equal
to. He remains someone whom the Kremlin understands, and who is today an
objectively more legitimate leader of Ukraine, and so it fell to Mr Lytvyn's
lot to open the year of Russian-Ukrainian relations.

It is not important whose name he gave in Moscow as the future [Ukrainian]
prime minister; here the speaker can only be an advisor, but as to the
possible advantages of co-operation with the next head of the cabinet, more
later. Lytvyn is skilfully integrating himself into the new system of
authority, suggesting that it will prove clear to him, and disclaiming the
preconditions for a sharp departure to the opposition USDPU [United Social
Democratic Party] and Regions of Ukraine.

His systematically correct remarks are cooling many of the hotheads among
Ukrainian politicians, but at the same time they are arousing the poorly
concealed anger of yesterday's opposition. By no means all of [President
Viktor] Yushchenko's supporters have forgotten the methods Mr Lytvyn
used to "steer the situation" from the office of the head of the president's
administration or even simply as the president's first aide. There are
grounds to believe that [former President] Leonid Kuchma's long held
"anti-party attitude" was carefully nurtured by the specialist on
contemporary political history Lytvyn, whom the "villain of fate" in the end
threw the first number on the "For a United Ukraine" party list [reference
to Lytvyn's election to parliament on a pro-Kuchma list in 2001].
LYTVYN AS SPEAKER
I have no wish to repeat the oft-mentioned notions about Lytvyn's maturity
and the evidence of his effectiveness as a parliamentary politician. All I
will say is that Mr Lytvyn is honing his skills at under-the-carpet intrigue
in his office of speaker too, as witness the serious political problems of
the coordinators of the parliamentary majority who encroached on the levers
of control of the legal process. We have seen that Lytvyn was closely and
actively involved in both political reform and the settlement of the
situation in the period between 21 November and 26 December.

He dug in and strengthened his position when he persistently refused to play
third violin in a provincial political orchestra. Parliament, which with
Lytvyn's immediate participation has been forced to play a leading role in
big politics, will scarcely lose any of its significance before 2006, rather
the contrary. So this is the time for the speaker to ponder his own
political future.

Although Mr Lytvyn opposed the proportional election system, he will have to
bow to parliament's decision and prepare the party for the 2006 marathon.
Incidentally, after the "orange revolution", it was precisely the People's
Agrarians who became record breakers in increasing the strength of their
parliamentary ranks. One can speak as much as one likes about the fact that
Mr Lytvyn is forming a party of "revenge of the elite" and is gathering up
those who are dissatisfied with the new regime, but it is still a fact that
there are already 32 deputies in his faction. A place has been found, too,
for former Social Democrats and Regions of Ukraine members, and virtually
the whole of the People's platform in the People's Democratic Party.

To improve the operational administration of the faction Ihor Yeremeyev has
been elected its leader. This young and previously inexperienced politician,
together with another MP, Serhiy Slabenko, was in charge of the Kontinium
Trust firm, which sits alongside the Halychyna oil refinery. When the Lviv
tax people "got on" to Halychyna, it was precisely the PAPU faction which
was behind the special investigation committee into this question. But I am
just saying this so it may be understood that Mr Lytvyn also values the
young members and sponsors of the party, especially if all these qualities
are embodied in one colleague in the corps of deputies.

And here is another curious thing - only the "Donetsk" Agricultural Policy
Minister Viktor Slauta has in this time quit the ranks of the People's
Agrarians. Incidentally, his boss in the government, former leader of the
PAPU Ivan Kyrylenko, is being written about much less in the media than
other deputy prime ministers. Supporting the agrarian sector is the destiny
of Lytvyn's party, which he needs to reformat, otherwise he will come up
against serious problems. The time of operational administration by the
agrarian elite is passing and it is necessary to broaden its electoral
field. Restricting itself to narrow and fairly specific problems may cost
the party dearly in the future. If there is a poor harvest the party is
virtually guaranteed to be seen in a poor light because of the number of its
people promoted to the government.
RE-NAMING THE PARTY
Evidently, it was not by chance that Lytvyn was very unwilling to comment on
the rumours going around the parliamentary corridors since last December
about re-naming the PAPU the People's Party. Of course, he is afraid of
casting an evil eye on things, after all he had problems with Tatyana
Zasukha when he started running the PAPU. One can only imagine, how many
"friends of the people" will side with Mr Lytvyn once the party is re-named.
For example, Ihor Sharov, who announced the arrival of the Democratic
Ukraine group, promised that it would be orientated towards Lytvyn. It has
not been ruled out that Sharov and other members of Working Ukraine see the
speaker as Kuchma's heir in terms of predictability and pragmatism. One has
to ask - how many more deputies does the speaker have up his sleeve, and
why is he doing this?

Let us suppose that Volodymyr Lytvyn, as a politician who has an excellent
knowledge of how power works from within, harbours no illusions as to the
use or non-use of administrative resources at future parliamentary
elections. Therefore the People's Party of Ukraine already today needs to
delegate its representatives to power, and it was not for nothing that one
of the first statements of the new leader of the party parliamentary faction
Ihor Yeremeyev was a request for three portfolios in the new government.
Who will give it to them, you may ask? And what, pray, will become of
Yushchenko, if several dozen deputies can gather around Lytvyn - not
opposition members doing so out of spite, but constructive people who
would quite rightly demand their own little bit of power?

Incidentally, Mr Yushchenko, at the beginning of 2003, promised to do almost
anything for the speaker. But, of course, these are emotions of the past.
Today, Lytvyn has started to play a fairly dangerous game of "bringing in
the old and the dissatisfied". He is criticizing [outgoing Prime Minister
Viktor] Yanukovych and [former head of presidential administration Viktor]
Medvedchuk, but he is confident of establishing good relations with the new
prime minister, apparently guessing who it will be. Incidentally, can you
imagine the intrigue if the prime minister and the speaker start to "gang
up" against the "people's president"?

But Mr Lytvyn has had little short-term success, and he is already thinking
about the parliamentary elections. When he said that the president-elect
should not feel obliged to anyone, he was giving his personal opinion -
since his elevation to the presidium by 226 votes Lytvyn has evidently been
in no hurry to think about settling things with the politicians who helped
him to be elected. Nor should those MPs who have of late been "supping" on
the speaker's ambitions, either, harbour any illusions - by no means all of
them will get prominent places in the PAPU list.

FIRST, push-button voting is one thing, but electioneering opportunities are
quite another; SECOND, there will evidently be more than one in Lytvyn's
bloc, so it will be necessary to seek mutually acceptable formulae, and
THIRD, places in the first five are hardly guaranteed just for Mr Lytvyn and
Kateryna Vashchuk (after all, she is a woman), but now [former Working
Ukraine MP] Mykhaylo Poplavskyy may even make the twenty, if he is not
disillusioned by that time in his new party's ideas. The remaining
contenders for political partnership will have to fight for "a place in Mr
Lytvyn's sun" not just formally, but by doing something positive.

Virtually since the start of the "Orange Revolution" we have seen how
Ukraine has been turning into a parliamentary-presidential republic almost
unnoticed. Even before the ballot for political reform Mr Lytvyn took up the
reins of government himself and took advantage of his undoubted legitimacy
as speaker. He skilfully converted his job into building up the ranks of the
faction, which he then wants to exchange for places in the executive power.
And everything could go according to Lytvyn's plan but for one thing - the
successes of Lytvyn's party are an insult to Yushchenko's supporters.

But there are enough experienced players in the attractive game of "winding
up the president" in Mr Lytvyn's circle. So Mr Lytvyn is resigned to taking
his time in setting the bar which he is not going to hurl himself at, at
least for the time being. Otherwise they will remind him of his cooperation
with Leonid Kuchma and try to force him out to the political margins. -30-
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