"THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT - AUR"
An International Newsletter
The Latest, Up-To-Date
In-Depth Ukrainian News, Analysis, and Commentary
"Ukrainian History, Culture, Arts, Business, Religion,
Sports, Government, and Politics, in Ukraine and Around the World"
"THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT - AUR" - Number 551 E. Morgan Williams, Publisher and Editor Published in Kyiv, Ukraine, TUESDAY, September 6, 2005
--------INDEX OF ARTICLES--------
"Major International News Headlines and Articles"
1. UKRAINE'S LEADERS FALL OUT OVER CORRUPTION ALLEGATIONS By Tom Warner in Kiev, Financial Times London, United Kingdom, Tue, Sept 6, 2005
2. FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF ALLEGES CORRUPTION IN
UKRAINE PRESIDENT'S TEAM TV 5 Kanal, Kiev, in Ukrainian 1200 gmt 5 Sep 05 BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Mon, Sep 05, 2005
3. UKRAINE'S ORANGE REVOLUTION IN DANGER SAYS
PRESIDENT YUSHCHENKO'S FORMER TOP AIDE TV 5 Kanal, Kiev, in Ukrainian 1230 gmt 5 Sep 05 BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Mon, Sep 05, 2005
4. UKRAINIAN DEPUTY STATE SECRETARY PRAISES HIS
FORMER BOSS'S "COURAGE"
Interfax-Ukraine news agency, Kiev, in Russian 1750 gmt 5 Sep 05 BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Mon, Sep 05, 2005
5. AIDE TO UKRAINE PRESIDENT RESIGNS CITES SYSTEMIC
CORRUPTION AROUND THE PRESIDENT Associated Press (AP), Kiev, Ukraine, Mon, Sep 5, 2005
6. U.N. REPORT CALLS CHERNOBYL DANGERS OVERSTATED
By John J. Fialka, Staff Reporter The Wall Street Journal New York, New York, Tue, September 6, 2005
7. PUTIN STILL BITTER OVER ORANGE REVOLUTION
Jonathan Steele in Moscow, The Guardian
London, United Kingdom, Tue, Sep 06, 2005
8. UKRAINE-U.S. BUSINESS COUNCIL TO HOLD MEETING IN KYIV
WITH JUSTICE MINISTER ZVARYCH AND U.S. AMBASSADOR HERBST
"The Law, The Courts and Business in Ukraine"
The Action Ukraine Report (AUR)
Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Sep 6, 2005
9. UKRAINIAN FOREIGN MINISTER MEETS WITH US DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EUROPE AND EURASIA DAVID KRAMER Ukrinform, Kyiv, Ukraine, Fri, Sep 2, 2005
10. UKRAINIAN FINANCIAL - INVESTMENT FORUM UNDERTAKES TO
FACILITATE TO MUSTER FOREIGN INVESTMENTS TO FOSTER
SMALL AND MIDSIZE PRIVATE BUSINESSES Svetlana Alfimova, Ukrinform, Kyiv, Ukraine, Fri, Sep 2, 2005
11. THE UNDYING RESOLVE TO LIVE
Natalia was taken from her Ukrainian home and imprisoned By Jessica Hawley - Lifestyles Editor The Bandera Bulletin, Bandera, Texas, Sat, Sep 3, 2005 =============================================================
1. UKRAINE'S LEADERS FALL OUT OVER CORRUPTION ALLEGATIONS
By Tom Warner in Kiev, Financial Times
London, United Kingdom, Tue, Sept 6, 2005
The political team that led Ukraine through last winter's Orange Revolution was on the verge of splitting yesterday as President Viktor Yushchenko's chief of staff said he was resigning because of corruption within the president's inner circle.
Olexander Zinchenko, who headed Mr Yushchenko's election campaign, called on the president to sack his national security council secretary, Petro Poroshenko, and his first aide, Olexander Tretyakov, whom Mr Zinchenko accused of "cynically realising their plan to utilise authority to their own purposes". He told a press conference: "I can't and I don't want to put up with this outrage towards the law."
Mr Zinchenko's departure comes amid an increasingly public dispute between Mr Yushchenko and his prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, who is widely believed to be preparing to head her own, separate electoral list for parliamentary elections next March in case Mr Yushchenko indicates he does not want her back as premier after the March vote.
Mr Yushchenko in recent months has increasingly turned to Mr Poroshenko and a group of his allies, including Mr Tretyakov, for personnel and policy decisions. Mr Poroshenko, clearly on the defensive, surprised onlookers and arrived uninvited at Mr Zinchenko's press conference.
After Mr Zinchenko left the press conference, Mr Poroshenko refuted the departing chief of staff's accusations. Mr Zinchenko, he said, had not explained or backed up his claims with any evidence, and Mr Zinchenko should have helped "bring those involved in corruption to justice", instead of making "unproven political accusations".
The dispute between Mr Yushchenko and Ms Tymoshenko has been exacerbated as different groups of businessmen seeking to gain control of key industrial and media assets have allied themselves to one or other political camp.
Last week, Mr Yushchenko sharply criticised Ms Tymoshenko for her handling of a court battle in which the government is seeking to reverse the 2003 privatisation and sale of a big metallurgy plant, Nikopol Ferroalloy, to Viktor Pinchuk, the son-in-law of former president Leonid Kuchma.
Mr Yushchenko backed the reversal, but criticised Ms Tymoshenko for helping another prominent local businessman, Igor Kolomoysky, who owns a minority stake, increase his influence at the company prior to the new auction.
Ms Tymoshenko has insisted her actions were correct and legal. Mr Kolomoysky, in recent interviews, accused Mr Poroshenko of trying to halt the reversal of the sale and of seeking to allow Mr Pinchuk to sell his stake to Russian oligarchs. Mr Poroshenko has strongly denied such intent.
Mr Zinchenko's accusations come after Ms Tymoshenko has increasingly complained that aides to the Ukrainian president were favouring certain businessmen and seeking to enrich themselves. -30- ============================================================
2. FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF ALLEGES CORRUPTION IN
UKRAINE PRESIDENT'S TEAM
TV 5 Kanal, Kiev, in Ukrainian 1200 gmt 5 Sep 05 BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Mon, Sep 05, 2005
Ukraine's former state secretary, Oleksandr Zinchenko, who resigned on 3 September, has accused several key officials in President Viktor Yushchenko's administration of corruption, and said a "counter-revolution"
was inevitable unless urgent steps were taken.
Speaking at a news conference on 3 September aired live by 5 Kanal television, he accused the secretary of the Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, of trying to use power to enrich himself. He also said Yushchenko's aides had orchestrated an "information blockade" of the president.
He said that he still had trust in President Yushchenko himself, but added that Ukrainians' patience with what was happening in the country was "running thin". He accused Poroshenko and several other senior figures of installing their proteges in key posts and fostering corrupt economic schemes to enrich themselves.
"It is obvious that most Ukrainians simply don't understand what's happening". "I believe the president, and I hope that the president and his team must realize that people's patience is running thin." He demanded Poroshenko's immediate resignation.
As the press conference was still in progress, Poroshenko was seen among the journalists, apparently intending to respond to the allegations.
As Zinchenko finished speaking, the audience burst into applause. -30- =============================================================
3. UKRAINE'S ORANGE REVOLUTION IN DANGER SAYS
PRESIDENT YUSHCHENKO'S FORMER TOP AIDE
TV 5 Kanal, Kiev, in Ukrainian 1230 gmt 5 Sep 05 BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Mon, Sep 05, 2005
KIEV - Ukraine's former state secretary Oleksandr Zinchenko, who resigned on 3 September, has lashed out at his former colleagues, saying they have been mired in corruption.
He accused senior figures in President Viktor Yushchenko's administration, primarily National Security and Defence Council secretary Petro Poroshenko, of trying to "privatize everything they can" and "take over instruments of power" to enrich themselves.
Speaking at a press conference on 5 September carried live by 5 Kanal TV, he said the achievements of Ukraine's "Orange revolution" were in jeopardy unless urgent steps were taken. He added, however, that he still had trust in President Yushchenko himself.
"I believe the president and I trust him. But the president and his team must realize that people's patience is running thin," Zinchenko said. "The people won't keep silent watching the situation in the administration. This is not what people expected and what they hoped for. Corruption is the main problem. Corruption and bribery are rearing their head once again, in many cases surpassing the scale seen under the previous administration."
"There is no problem of Yushchenko's entourage. There is a lot of honest, decent and patriotic people around him. But a small group of adventurists are trying to take advantage of the achievements of last autumn, of the wishes and desires of the entire people, of the heroic efforts of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian patriots.
They have set up their own clan, they have orchestrated an information blockade of the president and pushed him into a virtual, not real world, they have cynically twisted the real situation, neglecting the hopes of their compatriots.
Step by step they are implementing their plan to use power for their own enrichment, to privatize and to grab everything they can. They want a monopoly, they want to take over instruments of power as soon as they can."
=============================================================
4. UKRAINIAN DEPUTY STATE SECRETARY PRAISES HIS
FORMER BOSS'S "COURAGE"
Interfax-Ukraine news agency, Kiev, in Russian 1750 gmt 5 Sep 05 BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Mon, Sep 05, 2005
KIEV - Deputy State Secretary Markiyan Lubkivskyy has said that Oleksandr Zinchenko's decision to resign was "a courageous act by an honest and decent man".
"I will never cast a stone at Oleksandr Zinchenko, even though some may be pushing me to do this. Zinchenko committed a courageous act as an honest and decent man. Only people who are courageous and confident of their rectitude are capable of doing such things," Lubkivskyy said.
"I am deeply convinced, and my experience of working with Zinchenko proves this, that he is a man of the president, who is sincerely happy about the victories and sincerely concerned about the authority of the president.
Zinchenko was on a path towards uniting like-minded people, and it is a pity that the circumstances prevented him from achieving his goals," Lubkivskyy added. -30- =============================================================
5. AIDE TO UKRAINE PRESIDENT RESIGNS CITES SYSTEMIC
CORRUPTION AROUND THE PRESIDENT
Criticizes Oleksandr Tretyakov and Mykola Martynenko
Associated Press (AP), Kiev, Ukraine, Mon, Sep 5, 2005
KIEV - A close political aide to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko who was a chief organizer of the "Orange Revolution" protests said Monday he had resigned from the government because of systemic corruption around the president.
Oleksandr Zinchenko, who resigned Saturday, said the situation had grown worse than under former President Leonid Kuchma. "Corruption is now even worse than before," he told journalists.
Zinchenko accused Petro Poroshenko, the head of Ukraine's Defense and Security Council, of being one of the most corrupt members of the government. He also criticized Oleksandr Tretyakov, a top aide to Yushchenko, and Mykola Martynenko, who heads the pro-presidential faction in parliament.
Poroshenko attended the news conference, which was broadcast live, and stood in the back frowning as Zinchenko spoke. When Zinchenko completed his prepared statement, lengthy applause broke out in the room.
Zinchenko's departure as state secretary is the first major resignation since Yushchenko took office in January, after last year's bitter and prolonged campaign in this former Soviet republic.
Zinchenko said he decided to make such a "sharp public announcement" to ensure that Ukrainians and Yushchenko understood the extent of the problem.
He said he had repeatedly called on Yushchenko to fire Poroshenko.
"With my resignation, I am trying to sharply convey this danger to the president and his team," Zinchenko said.
After Zinchenko finished speaking, Poroshenko took the podium and said this was "the hardest day" of his life. He angrily accused Zinchenko of trying to "destroy (Yushchenko's) team from the inside" and challenged him to find evidence to back up his allegations.
"He didn't look in my eyes the entire time he was reading his statement,"
Poroshenko said about his former ally.
Zinchenko, who had served as deputy speaker of parliament, was initially aligned with former President Leonid Kuchma; he was a senior party official in the Ukrainian Socialist Party, headed by Kuchma's former chief-of-staff, Viktor Medvedchuk.
But Zinchenko fell out with the party, and was dismissed from its ranks in 2003. He later aligned himself with Yushchenko and became a constant sight at the president's side during last year's campaign. -30- =============================================================
6. U.N. REPORT CALLS CHERNOBYL DANGERS OVERSTATED
By John J. Fialka, Staff Reporter The Wall Street Journal New York, New York, Tue, September 6, 2005
A team of United Nations researchers said the health dangers from the
1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident were vastly overstated, resulting in a "paralyzing fatalism" among the 350,000 evacuees that proved to be the "largest public health problem."
The team, drawn from eight U.N. agencies, prepared the report in cooperation with the Russian Federation, Belarus and Ukraine, where the accident occurred. The results will be discussed at a special meeting in Vienna, where health experts continue to track medical and mental-health problems caused by the event.
"There are a bunch of lessons in this for the United States, for handling homeland-security events and for terrorism," said Fred Mettler, one of the researchers who prepared the report. He is a professor at the medical school at the University of New Mexico.
The Chernobyl accident spurred a mass evacuation after the nuclear reactor caught fire and began spewing a cloud of radioactive debris. The report notes that the radiation threat was vastly exaggerated and that many evacuees from the area shouldn't have been moved.
While some experts and authorities predicted tens of thousands of deaths, the report notes that so far there have been 59. An additional 3,940 victims, mainly emergency workers and people who lived close to the reactor, are expected to die prematurely as a result of cancers caused by radiation exposure.
"This was still an horrific accident, but one of the messages here is that events like this are not totally devastating and are manageable," said Dr.
Mettler. He said the radioactive doses experienced by many victims were relatively harmless, but because they were evacuated and given long-term aid and frequent medical attention, many still fear their lives will be shortened.
Over the years, Dr. Mettler said, the evacuees have absorbed a lot of scarce medical resources that could have been used on more-serious public-health problems in the region.
A lot of the report's recommendations, he said, are designed to get managers of future accidents and natural disasters to focus more on "people who really do have problems and to get other people into a mode where they have more self-confidence."
The 600-page report said that almost 99% of children diagnosed with thyroid cancer after the incident survived. It found "no convincing evidence" that the incidence of leukemia rose among the population exposed to radiation in Russia and Ukraine. (Write to John J. Fialka at john.fialka@wsj.com) =============================================================
7. PUTIN STILL BITTER OVER ORANGE REVOLUTION
Jonathan Steele in Moscow, The Guardian
London, United Kingdom, Tue, Sep 06, 2005
President Putin last night denied there was any cooling of Russia's relations with European governments despite the EU's role in helping the pro-Moscow candidate's defeat in the Ukrainian election.
On the eve of a visit to Germany tomorrow and a Russia-EU summit to be hosted by Tony Blair in London next month, the Russian leader talked bitterly about the "orange revolution" and the street protests which saw a pro-western president emerge in Ukraine.
"One of the parties cannot be cornered by means of unconstitutional activities. Otherwise other people in the region can say 'Why don't we act against the constitution?'", he told the Guardian during a 2 1/2 -hour meeting with western journalists and academics in the Kremlin.
He highlighted the weekend resignation by President Viktor Yushchenko's chief of staff, Oleg Zinchenko. "He said corruption was blooming there and people round the new president have started to enrich themselves. We said this before and no one wanted to listen to us," he added.
Mr Zinchenko yesterday said that if corrupt officials in Ukraine were not fired they could reverse the results of last year's orange revolution. Mr Zinchenko accused Petro Poroshenko, the head of Ukraine's defence and security council, Oleksandr Tretyakov, a top aide to Mr Yushchenko, and Mykola Martynenko, who heads the pro-presidential faction in parliament, of attempting to subdue all branches of government. They denied the charges.
Mr Putin declined to blame western governments directly, saying "I don't think any western countries, either European or the United States are working against the Russian Federation", but added that Russia knew certain non-governmental organisations in Ukraine were financed by foreign governments.
Student movements, websites, and radio stations helped to bring huge crowds into the street in Kiev to demand clean elections. Mr Putin said Russia was not against change but "we're only afraid these changes will be chaotic.
Otherwise it'll be a banana republic where the one who shouts loudest is the one who wins".
Mr Putin has been criticised in independent Russian newspapers for twice visiting Kiev to support the pro-Moscow candidate who was defeated. He made it clear that in Berlin this week he will not repeat this. He would meet Angela Merkel, chancellor Gerhard Schroder's challenger in the imminent German election, as well as the chancellor.
Mr Putin is in his second term and under the constitution cannot stand again. The Russian press as well as opposition parties constantly speculate that he may seek a device to stay in power. But the Russ ian president yesterday to gave his clearest denial so far. "I'm not going to run for president in 2008. We're not going to amend the constitution," he said.
"Although I don't intend to be president again, I intend to stay in Russia,"
he added with a smile.
He spoke with repeated anger about what has been happening in the former Soviet republics. "We cannot go back to the Russian empire. Only an idiot can imagine we're striving for that," he said.
Mr Putin said he had not talked to "George" by telephone since the disaster in New Orleans, but on the first day Russia had offered to send cargo planes with water purification equipment and medicine. When he saw what was happening, "I couldn't believe," he said. The disaster showed that "however strong and powerful we believe we are, we're nothing in the face of nature and God almighty." (guardian.co.uk/russia) -30- =============================================================
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8. UKRAINE-U.S. BUSINESS COUNCIL TO HOLD MEETING IN KYIV
WITH JUSTICE MINISTER ZVARYCH AND U.S. AMBASSADOR HERBST
"The Law, The Courts and Business in Ukraine"
The Action Ukraine Report (AUR)
Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Sep 6, 2005
KYIV - The Ukraine-U.S. Business Council, Washington, D.C. will hold a meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday evening, September 6th, for the Ukraine representatives of its members. This will be the first meeting the Council has ever held in Ukraine according to Morgan Williams, SigmaBleyzer, who serves as Chairman of the Council's executive committee.
Ukrainian Justice Minister Roman Zvarych and U.S. Ambassador John Herbst will address the meeting on the topic, "The Law, The Courts, and Business in Ukraine." Their presentations will be followed by a roundtable discussion/question and answer session.
Over 30 persons are expected to attend the meeting which will be held in the Conference Room of the new offices of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation
(USUF) in Podil. Some of the Council's members that will be represented at the meeting include, Kraft, Philip Morris, Cargill, WJ Grain Group, EC Data, AES, Ukrainian Legal Group, Chadbourne Parke, SASI Corp, SigmaBleyzer, Westinghouse, ADM/Toepfer and ALICO AIG Life Insurance Company.
A light dinner will be served compliments of SigmaBleyzer Private Equity Investment Group. The meeting will be held from 6-8 p.m. The USUF offices are located at 35-V Borychiv Tik St., 6th floor (Fortuna Bank) in Podil.
The Council's new President/CEO, Dr. Susanne Lotarski, will make her first business trip to Ukraine, as the new head of the Council, in early October.
=============================================================
9. UKRAINIAN FOREIGN MINISTER MEETS WITH US DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EUROPE AND EURASIA DAVID KRAMER
Ukrinform, Kyiv, Ukraine, Fri, Sep 2, 2005
KYIV Ukrainian Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk met with US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia David Kramer on Friday, the Foreign Ministry's press service told Ukrinform.
Borys Tarasyuk hailed the decision by the US Government to delete trade sanctions against Ukrainian commodities and aired his hope for settlement of such bipartite economic issues as recognition of Ukraine as market economy nation and completion of the negotiating process within the framework of Ukraine's accession to the WTO.
The parties to the meeting touched on a wide number of Ukrainian - American agenda, in particular, implementation of the provisions of the joint statement by the Ukrainian and American Presidents of April 4, 2005 "Agenda of the Ukrainian - American Strategic Partnership in the New Millennium =============================================================
10. UKRAINIAN FINANCIAL - INVESTMENT FORUM UNDERTAKES TO
FACILITATE TO MUSTER FOREIGN INVESTMENTS TO FOSTER
SMALL AND MIDSIZE PRIVATE BUSINESSES
Svetlana Alfimova, Ukrinform, Kyiv, Ukraine, Fri, Sep 2, 2005
KYIV - The Ukrainian Financial-Investment Forum, which will start working in October, 2005, is an organisation, meant for constructing an investment bridge to Ukrainian small and midsize privately-run businesses, Ksenia Lyapina, Chairperson of the Council of Entrepreneurs under the Cabinet of ministers and an adviser to the President of Ukraine, told a press conference in Kyiv, which was jointly held by officials of the UkrConsulting Association, the Council of Entrepreneurs and the Institute for Competitive Society.
According to Ms Lyapina and Oleh Lykhovyd, president of the UkrConsulting, food and processing industries, transportation, trade and construction industry are Ukraine's most investment-attractive economy branches.
Agriculture is another investment-promising branch, according to Ukrainian experts. As the bulk of Ukrainian economists maintain, the State's domineering regulatory policies, inadequate legal protection of investors'
rights, legal uncertainties with regard to protection of proprietorial rights are chief factors, which brake and hamper investment inflows.
Kseniya Lyapina also pointed to poorly developed investment infrastructures and Ukrainian entrepreneurs' unpreparedness for using financial market mechanisms and instruments in running business and drawing investments as other major adverse factors.
According to the organisers of the press conference, in September and October a package of bills will be considered by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, which will favorably change investment environments and which facilitate the process of establishing conducive conditions for small and midsize privately-run businesses.
Within the framework of this broad drive toward fostering entrepreneurship, private initiative and endeavor the Ukrainian Financial - Investment Forum will sponsor a series of regional conferences, meant for informing local businesspeople about the financial market's investment opportunities and its instruments.
In 2005 such conferences are being contemplated for Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia, Poltava, Kyiv regions and the process will continue in 2006 to encompass Ukraine's other administrative regions.
As the initiators believe, the UFIF's role will not be limited to just informing small and midsize businesses about ways to become investment-attractive and about sources for investments, but will also extend to exchanging experience of running businesses among entrepreneurs.
Besides, the UFIF will create necessary supportive informational infrastructures, which will be helpful in coordinating interactions between Ukrainian entrepreneurs and potential foreign investors.
According to the organisers, institution of the UFIT will not need any budgetary funds, but will necessitate regional and local authorities'
promotional support.
In view of the UFIF's important mission to foster small and midsize businesses and thus strength the private sector, the organisers hope that such support will be forthcoming. -30- =============================================================
11. THE UNDYING RESOLVE TO LIVE
Natalia was taken from her Ukrainian home and imprisoned
By Jessica Hawley - Lifestyles Editor
The Bandera Bulletin, Bandera, Texas, Sat, Sep 3, 2005
Indomitable is the human spirit. After being beaten, starved, devoid of humane treatment and threatened with death almost daily, hope continues to miraculously live on, somehow. Find hope and find survival. Find survival and find love. Find love and renew hope.
Sitting in his living room while a grandfather clock gently ticks the passing minutes, Alexander Bunegin recalls a dark existence far from his Pipe Creek home. He spoke of the Komitet Gosudarstvenoi Bezopasnosti (Russian KGB), his family's exile to Siberia, being held a prisoner of war in a German labor camp and finding his soul-mate while there.
Once an officer in the Russian Army, Alexander was captured by the German Nazis during World War II and imprisoned from 1941 to 1942. After his release, he went to Ukraine but was arrested again when Hitler's forces swept through the country. Alexander was sent to a labor camp in Munich, where he would remain until the war was over.
"It's a slave camp. You have no rights," Alexander said. "The food is horrible. We were not allowed to go in public places. We walked three kilometers on Sunday in restricted areas. That's the way we lived until the end of war."
Every person was tagged to identify his or her nationality and camp placement. The Russians wore a blue and white patch with OST printed on it.
The abbreviation stood for Ostlager, the eastern section of the camp that housed the Russians and Poles.
In a neighboring camp just over a mile away, lived Natalia. Natalia was taken from her Ukrainian home alongside her mother and father and imprisoned in 1943. During a Sunday visit with Alexander's friend, Natalia saw a photograph of Alexander and asked about him. The friend swiftly reported back to him that a girl showed interest in him.
"Next Sunday, I go to the camp, I meet her and that was it," Alexander said.
"We stick together until today." Their courtship was anything but fanciful.
When their romance was discovered, Natalia's lagerfuhrer, or camp commandant, threatened to send Alexander to a concentration camp if he continued to visit her.
"I told director of my camp what he said, so he called him and gave him a couple of words," Alexander said. "I asked my camp director for a permit to marry her. He said yes, hers said no."
So, like any young couple in love would do when denied forever, they ran away. Because of their unmistakably Russian dialect and eastern order patches, all doors shut on them. They slept in the woods overnight and, with nowhere else to go and nobody willing to help, they snuck back into camp.
Over the next two months, the devoted couple diligently worked to get the commandant's approval for their marriage permit.
After they finally married, Munich was bombed. Alexander and his bride hid in a small corner of a building in the camp. Natalia described the deafening noise as dust settled upon them from the ceiling. Following their instincts, the newlyweds ran out of the building for other shelter.
"When we came out, the bomb exploded on the building we were in," Natalia said. "It was our wedding present."
The Bunegins lived apart for four to six months, until they were able to share one room with three other families in her camp. Soon, Natalia became pregnant. As her belly grew, so did the director's contempt. "The lagerfuhrer threatened to throw the baby out of the window if I woke him when I gave birth," Natalia said. "I was scared to death."
When she went into labor, Alexander said that she didn't make a sound. The following morning, overcome with uncharacteristic guilt for his cruelty to Natalia, the director brought 1/2 liter of fresh cow's milk for the newborn.
He continued to bring the baby boy milk every morning, yet despite his efforts, the Bunegin's first son died. "He was nine months and 10 days old,"
Natalia said. "I remember it."
When the war was over, many camp directors suffered the turned table, enduring torture and death at the hands of their captives. Remembering the brief and shining act of kindness, Alexander alone spoke out against killing his director.
"He helped my baby," Alexander said. "For this, I said, he should live. And he did."
Many people prepared to return to their countries and villages, but going home was not an option for the Bunegins. As an Army officer, Alexander would have been executed for surviving his initial capture in 1941.
"The last bullet in your gun, you save for yourself," he said. "If you don't kill yourself, you're a traitor against your country."
Life, however, had not provided Alexander much opportunity for free choice.
In an historical meeting on Feb. 11, 1945, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill signed the infamous Yalta Agreement with Soviet Union Marshal Joseph Stalin mandating the forcible repatriation of all Soviet-born refugees back to the USSR.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower helped carry out the orders. Between 1945 and 1948, two million Russians were returned to the Soviet Union to face imprisonment, exile and execution. An international organization formed in protest of the act, which included the Bunegins.
"We wrote a letter to Mrs. Roosevelt telling her what her husband had signed," Natalia said. "Mrs. Roosevelt called President Truman and he said, 'Stop.' He said if people don't want to go, let them stay."
In 1949, the Bunegins emigrated to the United States. "We didn't believe how much freedom was in America," Natalia said. "In Russia, every you go, you carry passport. If you don't have passport, they arrest you," Alexander said. "We live in Russia under Communist system. We live in Germany under Nazi system. We never lived in a Democratic system."
They immediately got jobs in a butcher shop. The pay was below minimum, but they didn't care. "We have a job," Alexander said. "We have money like everyone else. As soon as possible, we get citizenship."
In 1950, their second son was born. In 1952, their daughter was born. "I got the family," he said.
Still, thoughts of his family in the Ural Mountains of Russia often occupied the back of Alexander's mind. He had not seen his mother, father or sisters since he was drafted into the Russian Army in 1938. He wrote a letter to his oldest sister in 1960 stating simply, "I'm alive."
Soon, her response arrived. She explained that their mother died of a heart attack in 1943, immediately after receiving the dreaded letter from Russian officials that he was missing in action. Their father lived for 15 more years, all the while believing that his son had survived the war. He counseled his daughters to never forget Alexander, that he was still alive.
Alexander returned to Russia in 1988. He had not seen his sisters for 50 years. "They were school girls when I left," he said.
The family was tucked away and remote enough that they were spared the horrors of Hitler's Third Reich, but life in Russia had its own unique atrocities. "It was hell," Natalia said. "It was just hell."
BEFORE THE WAR
On Feb. 3, 1932, when Alexander was nearly 17 years old, the Russian government withdrew him from school and seized his father's farm. They were accused of socialism and capitalism. As punishment, they were exiled for five years to a labor camp in Siberia. There, they joined approximately 250 other families, some with two-month-old infants, others with 80-year-old seniors.
Right away, the men built a snow wall as shelter for the young and old from the 50-degrees-below-zero temperatures. Everyone else dug holes as shelter in the frozen ground. "It was terrible," Alexander said. "Our job was to cut trees. Old women and children, everybody worked."
In May of 1933, with his parents' blessing, Alexander escaped the labor camp and headed toward Tashkent, the capital city of Uzbekistan. There, he had a trusted friend. He carried with him a knife, a piece of steel, one stone and a tree pod to make fire. He walked for 29 days in the woods, eating whatever he found and sleeping in the trees to protect himself from wolves and bears.
He carried two sticks. One was his gun and the other was his calendar. He made hash marks with each rising sun to document the number of days he traveled. A farmer and his wife took him in, providing shelter, food and clothing.
"I'm skin and bone when they see me. I'm tall and skinny," Alexander said.
"The first thing the wife said to her husband was, 'feed him.' They kept me for almost two weeks. I asked them where they got the clothes they gave me.
They said their teenage son was arrested and they hadn't seen him anymore.
They gave me his clothes."
After sneaking him in the back of a wagon full of hay to the train station, the farmer bought Alexander a ticket to Tashkent. There, he found his friend's family and remained with them for two months. Once he had regained his health and strength, Alexander was given falsified, stamped papers that said he had completed his sentence in Siberia.
He again boarded the train, this time with bread, butter and sausage, and went back to the labor camp from which he escaped over three months prior.
Under the cloak of night, he snuck back into camp and reunited with his family. The next day, Alexander presented the papers to the Russian officials, and his family was released. With train tickets purchased by his friend, they traveled back to Tashkent together.
"Life was rough in Soviet Union," Natalia said. "The children couldn't talk in school. If their parents said anything against the government, the teachers would tell the KGB and the father would disappear."
As a young girl, Natalia survived the famine that killed her two younger sisters. "I was nine years old. I ate in school. The teachers would say, 'Come, eat the food that came from America.'"
After their emigration, the Bunegins stayed in Philadelphia. They provided both of their children a college education and watched them grow into successful careers. "They fly away, like birds," Alexander said.
Now, the proud grandparents of three live in the Texas Hill Country near their son, a researcher and associate professor at the University of Texas San Antonio Health Science Center. Their lives are markedly better now than 60 years ago, but the memories are still vivid and clear.
"When we come here, it was Heaven," Natalia said. "We always dream
about America." -30-
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http://banderabulletin.com/articles/2005/09/03/news/lifestyles/life66.txt
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