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Action Ukraine Report

"UKRAINE REPORT"
In-Depth Ukrainian News and Analysis
"The Art of Ukrainian History, Culture, Arts, Business, Religion,
Sports, Government, and Politics, in Ukraine and Around the World"

"In Ukraine, the United States and Europe should work assertively for
free and fair elections this fall. We should pledge at NATO's Istanbul
summit that Ukraine will be welcomed into Euro-Atlantic institutions as
soon as it meets basic standards of democracy.....

But neither the Ukrainian people nor its Atlantic allies can accept the
manipulation of the Ukrainian constitution to extend one man's term in
office, or to change the terms by which elections are held on the eve of
the presidential campaign." [U.S. Senator John McCain, article one]

"UKRAINE REPORT" Year 2004, Number 23
U.S.-UKRAINE FOUNDATION (USUF)
www.ArtUkraine.com Information Service (ARTUIS)
morganw@patriot.net, ArtUkraine.com@starpower.net
Kyiv, Ukraine and Washington, D.C., Wednesday, February 11, 2004

INDEX OF ARTICLES

1. "FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY BEYOND THE BALTICS"
Speech by U.S. Senator John McCain in Riga, Latvia
By E. Morgan Williams, Senior Advisor
U.S. Ukraine Foundation (USUF)
Washington, D.C., Wednesday, February 11, 2004

2. UKRAINIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY LIKELY TO BRING ACTION
REGARDING FALSE STORIES ABOUT SALE OF NUCLEAR
WEAPONS TO "AL-QA'IDAH"
UNIAN, Kyiv, Ukraine, February 10, 2004

3. UKRAINE'S LARGEST GLASS-BOTTLE PRODUCER TO EXPAND
Beverage Daily.com, Montpellier, France, February 10, 2004

4.PROMINENT MEMBER OF UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT, VYACHESLAV
CHORNOVIL, SUSPENDS MEMBERSHIP IN "OUR UKRAINE" BLOC
Radio Kontynent, Kiev, in Ukrainian 0900 gmt 10 Feb 04
BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Feb 10, 2004

5. US PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH BACKS UKRAINIAN ROCKET
FUEL RECYCLING PROGRAMME
Interfax-Ukraine news agency, Kiev, in Russian, 9 Feb 04
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Feb 09, 2004

6. UKRAINE'S POPULATION DROPS BELOW 48 MILLION
Birth rate was negative in 2003, 408,591 births and 765,408 deaths
UNIAN news agency, Kiev, in Ukrainian, 10 Feb 04
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English Feb 10, 2004

7. "UKRAINIAN POWER"
Fun, Educational Children's Products
Ukrainian Power Videos, Inc., Milford, Michigan, February 10, 2004

8. OF GOD, TERRITORY, TITLES AND THREATS
By Prof. James Mace, Consultant to The Day
The Day Weekly Digest in English, Kyiv, Ukraine, February 10, 2004

9.UKRAINIAN FOREIGN POLICY: PRO-RUSSIAN, PRO-WESTERN
OR SIMPLY PRO-KUCHMA?
By Taras Kuzio, RFE/RL Belarus and Ukraine Report
Vol. 6, No. 5, 10 February 2004, Prague, Czech Republic

10. OUR UKRAINE SEEMS TO BE LOSING SWAY OVER
CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM
By Jan Maksymiuk, RFE/RL Belarus and Ukraine Report
Vol. 6, No. 5, 10 February 2004, Prague, Czech Republic
=========================================================
UKRAINE REPORT-2004, No. 23: ARTICLE NUMBER ONE
=========================================================
1. "FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY BEYOND THE BALTICS"
Speech by U.S. Senator John McCain in Riga, Latvia

By E. Morgan Williams, Senior Advisor
U.S. Ukraine Foundation (USUF)
Washington, D.C., Wednesday, February 11, 2004

Washington, D.C. ......U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) lead a
congressional delegation and gave a major speech at a conference on
democracy in northeast Europe, "The Future of Democracy Beyond the
Baltics, " in Riga, Latvia on Friday, February 6, 2004.

The U.S. delegation included Senators Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Bob Graham (D-
FL), Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and
Representatives Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) and Jane Harmon (D-CA).

Senator McCain spoke about democracy building in Belarus and also
addressed the current political situation in Ukraine. The delegation met
with several Belarusian opposition party leaders, including the "Five-Plus"
Coalition.

The U.S. delegation also meet with two members of the Ukrainian parliament,
Boris Tarasiuk of Nasha Ukraina and Oleg Bilarus of Fatherland to obtain a
first hand account of the attempts at constitutional reform in Ukraine and
the efforts of Nasha Ukraina and Fatherland in preparation for the October
presidential election.

The democracy conference in Riga was attended by a number of members
of Europe's diplomatic corps, local and international NGO'S, and political
activists.

Senator McCain serves as chairman of the International Republican
Institute (IRI) in Washington, D.C. Stephen B. Nix, Esq., director for
Eurasia for IRI, also accompanied Senator McCain to Riga and assisted
with the delegations's meetings with the representatives from Belarus and
Ukraine.

The following is the entire text of the speech given by Senator John McCain:

Speech by U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ)
Before the Conference on Democracy in Northeast Europe
"The Future of Democracy Beyond the Baltics"
Sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia
Riga, Latvia, February 6, 2004

"The history of the world is none other than the progress of the
consciousness of freedom." Wrote the great German philosopher Hegel,
when kings ruled Europe and empire-building ordered the world. In our time,
freedom's consciousness defeated fascism and destroyed a global empire
of tyranny. In today's world, democratic government is the norm and
dictators are a dying breed.

Saddam Hussein is the latest example of how a strong and malevolent dictator
terrorized his countrymen for decades, only to be revealed in a hole in the
ground as a weak and pathetic figure commanding neither loyalty nor power,
and who will be remembered by his people and by history as a coward.

So it has been with so many tyrants, it is their fundamental weakness and
insecurity that drive them to deny their people's most basic rights, and
relegate them to live in a state of fear. So it will be with Alexander
Lukashenko, whose tyranny over Belarus cannot last forever, and whose
legacy will be political and economic devastation that will take years for
you, Belarus' future leaders, to overcome, as you give your people back
their country and put a free Belarus on the path to Europe.

I am honored to be in the company of heroes who serve and sacrifice under
the most trying conditions for the cause of a free, democratic, and
sovereign Belarus. I am also pleased to be joined by leaders of the
democratic opposition in Ukraine, who bravely struggle for your people's
basic rights to freely choose their leaders, and for a country where rights
are protected by law.

The distinguished company with us here today - European foreign ministers,
parliamentarians, and senior officials, American and European civic leaders,
United States Senators and Representatives, and leading members of the press
- is a reminder of how many allies you have in the West, and how interested
our nations are in helping you meet your people's aspirations for freedom.
I'd like to thank our host, the government of Latvia, for bringing us
together to talk about the challenges to democracy in wider Europe.

In Belarus, the progress of the Five-Plus coalition in unifying the
democratic opposition and developing a common platform for democratic
change has given new momentum to the struggle for freedom. In the 2001
elections, a single candidate backed by the democratic opposition emerged
only fifteen days before voting day. Today, the opposition produced a single
list of candidates nearly nine months before the upcoming 2004 election.

In preparation for these elections, you, members of the Five-Plus coalition,
have brought together independent trade unions, over two hundred NGO's,
and a number of prominent leaders to wage a unified campaign for parliament.

You have brought together the five largest pro-reform parties, as well as
the pro-reform faction of the Belarusian parliament, and agreed to a common
platform, a common list of candidates to promote in each electoral district
throughout Belarus, and a common campaign strategy.

I commend you for the outstanding progress you have made in bringing
together Belarus leading democratic forces to give voice to the Belorussian
people, and I encourage you to continue your efforts to broaden your
coalition for change. History has shown that defeating authoritarian rule
requires a broad based opposition that is organized to challenge unjust
state power, an I wish you well in continuing the important progress you
have made in demonstrating to the Belorussian people that they have a voice
in you.

Polling by the International Republican Institute proves conclusively that
belorussiabs are ready for change, with over 70 percent of the people
opposed to Alexander Lukashenko's regime. At the same time, polling
shows that popular support for the Five-Plus coalition is broad and
deepening.

We in the West have moral obligation to support your campaign to end
Lukashenko's dictatorship. Governments and civic organizations in Lithuania,
Poland, Latvia, the Czech Republic, the United States, and elsewhere are
playing critical role. I believe the Atlantic democracies must provide
sustained support and encouragement to the Belorussian opposition to
prepare you for the task of governing after Lukashenko.

With our European allies, including many who remember what life was like
behind the Iron Curtain, we should pursue concerted efforts to help build
the institutions of a free Belarus, civic organizations, independent media,
strong political parties, and other pillars of democratic society, to
create political space not under the regime's control. We should not seek
and accommodation with the tyrant. The maturity of civil society, the
democratic legitimacy enjoyed by opposition parties, and the success of the
Five-Plus coalition make Belarus ripe for change.

The American government, our European allies, and civic activists from free
Europe can help level the political playing field, providing resources for
you to function and organize, supporting free media that would otherwise not
exist, and adding moral force to your campaign for democratic change, for an
end to repression and fear, and for national independence and pride as part
of a free and secure Europe.

The international community should further isolate Belarus and encourage a
new approach to Minsk in Moscow, where President Putin's creeping coup
against democratic opposition and media freedom is all the more reason for
the West to encourage democratic change in Belarus, so that Lukashenko's
automatic rule does not tempt Russia along the same dangerous path.

I'd like to say to our Ukrainian friends that your people's freedom is as
important to the West as that of your Belorussian neighbors. In Ukraine, the
United States and Europe should work assertively for free and fair elections
this fall. We should pledge at NATO's Istanbul summit that Ukraine will be
welcomed into Euro-Atlantic institutions as soon as it meets basic standards
of democracy.

Ukraine may be one election away from a new democratic, pro-western
orientation that would be consequential for your people as it would be for
the wider transatlantic community.

But neither the Ukrainian people nor its Atlantic allies can accept the
manipulation of the Ukrainian constitution to extend one man's term in
office, or to change the terms by which elections are held on the eve of the
presidential campaign.

As the Council of Europe has stated, such behavior is inconsistent with the
democratic values of the West and will exclude Ukraine from the company of
Western democracies. It is because we in the United States and Europe want
Ukraine to succeed, and want to deepen our partnership, that we must be
rigorous in demanding that free and fair elections are held this October,
without judicial, constitutional, or political manipulation, and that their
results are honored. We look forward to welcoming a democratic Ukraine into
the Euro-Atlantic community and to deepening our friendship with the people
of your great nation.

Given the scale of Alexander Lukashenko's tyranny, our Belorussian friends
face a greater challenge. The leaders of the Belorussian opposition who are
participating in this conference stand as proof that their people value
liberty no less than others. Your campaign to end tyranny of fear that rules
your nation inspires all of us whose values are not tested every day, as
yours are, and who pay no great price for our beliefs, as you do. You are
patriots whose love of your country will change history. We stand with you.

Lukashenko's petty tyranny, his frail mastery in a dictatorship of fear, is
no match for our commitment to freedom, to your nation's right to choose its
destiny freely through its people's will. Alexander Lukashenko is the last
man standing on the deck of a ship of soviet ideas that has been sinking in
the ocean of history since brave men and women empowered by external
pressure brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union. Lukashenko's rule
is an offense to the values whose victory was secured almost everywhere else
in Europe with the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War.

As we did with the Soviet Union, the United States and Europe's democracies
must ally ourselves with you, the dictatorship's democratic opposition, and
provide moral leadership backed by political will to liberate the
Belorussian people from the rule of Europe's last tyrant. The United States
and Europe should make clear to Moscow that support for autocracy next door
will exclude Russia from company of Western democracies, and make
supporting democratic change in Belarus a condition for better relations
between Russia and the West.

Europe's last dictatorship cannot long survive the democratic revolution
that swept the world over the last 15 years, and whose waves of change are
already lapping at the shores of tyranny's redoubt in Minsk. The history of
the consciousness of freedom should give all of us great hope for the coming
democratic transformation of Belarus and Ukraine, and with it the hopes and
dreams of millions of your citizens for a new day. It is coming, and we in
the West will stand by you until it does. (END) (ARTUIS)
========================================================
UKRAINE REPORT-2004, No. 23: ARTICLE NUMBER TWO
Daily News Gallery: http://www.artukraine.com/newsgallery.htm
========================================================
2. UKRAINIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY LIKELY TO BRING ACTION
REGARDING FALSE STORIES ABOUT SALE OF NUCLEAR
WEAPONS TO "AL-QA'IDAH"

UNIAN, Kyiv, Ukraine, February 10, 2004

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry is considering the opportunity of bringing an
action to international court institutions due to the publication in
"Al-Hayat" Arabian newspaper that "Al-Qa'idah" terrorist organization has
tactical nuclear weapon, as if bought from Ukrainian scientists, who paid
visit to Kandagar (Afghanistan) in 1998.

According to an UNIAN correspondent, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry
press-service director Markiyan Lubkivsky has said it at a press conference
today. In his words, Ukraine has a right to find that means of respond,
which it believes most necessary to prevent such situations in future.

As M.Lubkivsky has said, in future the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry will
respond in the same prompt and sharp way to such insinuations. He has also
said, it is difficult to say which exactly will be the court.

In the words of M.Lubkivsky, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry believes in such
a way evil-wishers were trying to weaken Ukraine's positions not only in
Iraq, but also at the international arena.

As reported earlier by UNIAN, International terrorist organization
"Al-Qa'idah" has received tactical nuclear charges, which can go in a small
trunk, as Haaretz newspaper (Israel) reports with a reference to Al-Hayat
Arabic newspaper.

According to the Arabic edition, the terrorist organization is not intending
to use the charges, unless the existence of "Al-Qa'idah" is in danger.
According to the data of the same source, the international terrorist group
has received the nuclear charges from Ukrainian scientists. (END)(ARTUIS)
========================================================
UKRAINE REPORT-2004, No. 23: ARTICLE NUMBER THREE
Travel and Tourism Gallery: http://www.ArtUkraine.com/tourgallery.htm
=========================================================
3. UKRAINE'S LARGEST GLASS-BOTTLE PRODUCER TO EXPAND

Beverage Daily.com, Montpellier, France, February 10, 2004

KYIV.......Gostomel Glass Factory, Ukraine's largest glass-bottle producer,
[Kyiv Region] is borrowing 13.3 million EURO from the EBRD to build a
new facility that will enable it to produce 600,000 beer bottles a day.

In what many industry observers view as an important sign of both Ukraine's
and Gostomel's increasing attraction as a place to invest, 9 million EURO of
the loan is being syndicated to two private financial investors: Austria's
Raiffeisen Zentralbank Österreich and Canada's International Finance
Participation Trust.

Having successfully completed its initial development phase, also financed
by the EBRD, Gostomel Glass Factory is now building the new facility around
a new glass melting furnace. The first stage of the financing has already
helped the company to establish itself as a major supplier of glass to the
domestic market and for it to ascertain the all-important ISO
9001-certification.

Once the newly expanded facility is up and running it will produce 220
tonnes of glass, which the company hopes will help it to maintain its
leading position in the fast-growing Ukrainian glass market.

Hans Christian Jacobsen, the EBRD's director for agribusiness, commended
Gostomel Glass Factory's high quality and aggressive marketing strategy,
which have earned it clients as Coca-Cola, Sun Interbrew, BBH and the St
Petersburg-based breweries Baltika and Vena.

Although aluminium packaging is of growing importance to the country's soft
drink and beer manufacturers, glass still remains the preferred means of
packaging. In the past, many suppliers have reported that finding a good
quality provider of glass packaging has proved challenging. By emphasising
and improving on the quality of its glass packaging Gostomel has been able
to fulfill such requirements.

Jacobsen pointed out that as quality improves across the board in the
sector, it is only companies like Gostomel - which offer quality but locally
made, and therefore competitively priced, products - which are able to
satisfy ever-demanding clients.

The EBRD is the largest investor in the agribusiness sector across its 27
countries of operations, with more than 202 investments worth more than 3
billion EURO. In Ukraine, the Bank's cumulative investment stands at 1.3
billion EURO through 58 projects. With this investment, EBRD commitments
in Ukraine's glass sector to date are 35.2 million EURO. (END)(ARTUIS)
[LINK: http://www-us.gostomelglass.com/eng/about/]
=========================================================
UKRAINE REPORT-2004, No. 23: ARTICLE NUMBER FOUR
Build Ukraine Gallery: http://www.artukraine.com/buildukraine/index.htm
=========================================================
4. PROMINENT MEMBER OF UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT, VYACHESLAV
CHORNOVIL, SUSPENDS MEMBERSHIP IN "OUR UKRAINE" BLOC

Radio Kontynent, Kiev, in Ukrainian 0900 gmt 10 Feb 04
BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Feb 10, 2004

[Presenter] MP Taras Chornovil [the son of nationalist leader Vyacheslav
Chornovil, who died in 1999] has said that he suspended his membership of
the Our Ukraine [centre-right opposition] faction. At the same time, he said
that he remains in the opposition and that he is not going to join any
faction of the [propresidential] majority.

Chornovil said that he would continue to support Our Ukraine's position on
the majority of issues as, I quote, we most often share the same vision of
legislation and of the state's future, end of quote. But Taras Chornovil
stressed that he does not agree with the faction's methods.

[Chornovil] First of all, I very much disagree with the faction's and the
bloc's tactics. It has recurrently led us to defeats. We missed the
opportunity of a Georgian scenario [presumably, of peaceful power
transition] in 2001 and we missed the opportunities we had after the
parliamentary election victory [in 2002]. Now we are, in fact, losing the
opportunity to win the presidential election [scheduled for October 2004],
the very essence of these presidential elections and the possibility to
change something.

This is being done by a group of people from [Our Ukraine leader Viktor]
Yushchenko's inner circle, who are continuing to do this now. I don't want
to take part in this because I believe that this policy will lead to
colossal losses. We are now a step lower than we were before the Our
Ukraine bloc was set up.

[Presenter] Taras Chornovil was speaking in an interview with Hromadske
Radio today. [On 5 February, MP Yuriy Artemenko quit the Our Ukraine
faction. On the same day, Kiev mayor's son Oleksandr Omelchenko announced
suspending his membership of Our Ukraine; see Radio Kontynent, Kiev, in
Ukrainian, 1105 gmt 6 Feb 04.] (END) (ARTUIS)
=========================================================
UKRAINE REPORT-2004, No. 23: ARTICLE NUMBER FIVE
Ukrainian Culture Gallery: http://www.ArtUkraine.com/cultgallery.htm
=========================================================
5. US PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH BACKS UKRAINIAN ROCKET
FUEL RECYCLING PROGRAMME

Interfax-Ukraine news agency, Kiev, in Russian, 9 Feb 04
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Feb 09, 2004

Kiev, 9 February: US President George Bush has said he "fully supported the
cooperative threat reduction programme in Ukraine" and hoped the programme
would be completed.

This was the message of Bush's letter to Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma,
the press service of the Ukrainian president said. The letter was sent in
response to Kuchma's letter in December 2003.

Bush said in particular that the US-Ukrainian cooperation had resulted in
important achievements as Ukraine had given up its nuclear weapons and
destroyed its intercontinental ballistic missiles and heavy bombers. "Even
if we begin new projects of cooperative threat reduction, I hope we would
complete the last task in strategic weapons elimination and destroy solid
fuel for SS-24 rocket engines," Bush said in his letter.

He also stressed that such an important project must have a solid technical
and financial base. "The method which our governments have been using did
not satisfy a single key criterion mentioned. Despite big spending, the
process had become neither realistic nor safe," Bush stressed.

He said he was in favour of an alternative method to be agreed by Ukrainian
and American specialists "to finish this important project so that it is
technically sound, environmentally safe and financially feasible".

Bush highly appreciated Ukraine's important contribution to "the common
cause concerning Iraq, which became the foundation of our partnership".
"Strategic partnership between the USA and Ukraine depends on joint efforts,
including the fight against international terrorism, and common values,
including aspiration to democratic development," the US president said in
his letter.

Kuchma sent a letter to Bush at the end of last year about an important and
topical issue for both sides: the renewal of US funding for environmentally
safe recycling of solid rocket fuel at the Pavlohrad chemical plant
(Dnipropetrovsk Region).

Kuchma emphasized that the funding of the project to recycle solid rocket
fuel at the Pavlohrad plant was a commitment undertaken by the USA under an
agreement with Ukraine dated 25 October 1993 on providing assistance to Kiev
in eliminating strategic nuclear weapons and preventing the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction. This commitment is also stipulated in the
so-called implementation agreement between the Ukrainian Defence Ministry
and the US Defence Department on providing Ukraine with equipment, services
and personnel training in connection with the elimination of nuclear weapons
dated 5 December 1993.

Kuchma asked Bush to consider the issue and facilitate its quick and fair
settlement in accordance with bilateral agreements between the two
countries. (END) (ARTUIS)
======================================================
UKRAINE REPORT-2005, No. 23: ARTICLE NUMBER SIX
Genocide Gallery: http://www.artukraine.com/famineart/index.htm
=======================================================
6. UKRAINE'S POPULATION DROPS BELOW 48 MILLION
Birth rate was negative in 2003, 408,591 births and 765,408 deaths

UNIAN news agency, Kiev, in Ukrainian, 10 Feb 04
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English Feb 10, 2004

There were 47,622,436 people living in Ukraine as of 1 January 2004,
the UNIAN news agency reported on 10 February quoting the State
Statistics Committee of Ukraine. Roughly two thirds of Ukrainians live
in urban areas.

The country experienced a negative birth rate in 2003 with 408,591
births against 765,408 deaths. Of those who died, 3,883 were unfants
up to the age of 12 months, the agency said. (END) (ARTUIS)
=========================================================
UKRAINE REPORT-2004, No. 23: ARTICLE NUMBER SEVEN
Historical Gallery: http://www.artukraine.com/histgallery.htm
=========================================================
7. "UKRAINIAN POWER"
Fun, Educational Children's Products

Ukrainian Power Videos, Inc.
Milford, Michigan, February 10, 2004

Ukrainian Power Videos, Inc. now sells a wonderful Ukrainian language
learning tool for teens and adults, the "Ukrainian for Speakers of English"
Language Kit.

They sell entertaining Ukrainian puppet videos and other educational
Ukrainian products for kids and, now, for adults, too! Check out the
products offered by "Ukrainian Power" at http://www.ukrainianpower.com/.
=========================================================
UKRAINE REPORT-2004, No. 23: ARTICLE NUMBER EIGHT
Arts Gallery: http://www.artukraine.com/artgallery.htm
=========================================================
8. OF GOD, TERRITORY, TITLES AND THREATS

By Prof. James Mace, Consultant to The Day
The Day Weekly Digest in English, Kyiv, Ukraine, February 10, 2004

Recently our friends at The Ukraine Report-2004 (http://www.artukraine.com)
passed along a most interesting item taken from Rome's ZENIT News Services.
It seems that Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I has urged Pope
John Paul II not to establish a Greek-Catholic patriarchate in Kyiv, warning
him that to do so would risk a break in ecumenical relations.

This occurred in the discussion of a document presented by Cardinal Walter
Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity,
to Aleksiy II, patriarch of Moscow and All Rus'.

Aleksiy II sent the document, which alludes to the eventual recognition of a
patriarchal title for the Ukrainian Greek-Catholics, to other Orthodox
patriarchs. Obviously, Patriarch Aleksiy was able to prevail upon the
Ecumenical Patriarch to support him in yet another battle for what he
considers to be Moscow's canonical territory.

In the letter dated November 29, Patriarch Bartholomew I rejected Cardinal
Kasper's document, labeling it "erroneous, confused, unacceptable,
provocative," and after a lengthy refutation of the cardinal's
historical-canonical document, warned about the possible negative
consequences of an eventual recognition of a patriarchal title for the
Greek- Catholic Church in Ukraine, which "will cause strong reactions on the
part of all the Orthodox sister Churches and will put a stop to attempts to
continue the theological dialogue between the Catholic Church and Orthodox
Churches," the Italian magazine 30 Giorni reported. In his letter to the
Pope, Bartholomew I said there is a danger "of returning to the climate of
hostility that reigned up to a few decades ago."

"Therefore," the Patriarch wrote, "it is necessary that you assure the
Ukrainian people and all the Orthodox Churches with persuasive force that
you have no intention of initiating the institution of the Greek-Catholic
Patriarchate in Ukraine as Cardinal Kasper's text alludes."

Like all church politics, the issue here might seem a bit incomprehensible
to the layman. It really has to do with fifteenth and sixteenth century
church history, which from the perspective of the twenty-first seems not
always to have been ruled by the highest spiritual values. In 1439 Orthodox
hierarchs, under instructions from the Eastern Emperor who hoped to thereby
secure aid for the struggle of what was left of the Byzantine Empire against
the Ottoman Turks, signed the Union of Florence, agreeing to accept the
primacy of the Pope and settling certain other theological questions in
Rome's favor.

The aid was not forthcoming, and in 1453 Constantinople fell, placing the
Ecumenical Patriarch under the rule of the Muslim Ottoman sultan, who wanted
to break all ties between the Eastern Church, the center of which was in his
territory, and the Western Church, which was not. Thus the Union of
Florence, never accepted by all, was dutifully rejected at an Orthodox
church synod in 1472 and has been anathema to Orthodox dogma ever since.

Incidentally, this was still quite some time before Constantinople approved
the transfer of the metropolitan's throne of Kyiv to the jurisdiction of
Moscow in exchange for some very rich bribes.

To be fair, these were also not the best of times for Catholicism. The Union
of Florence occurred only two decades after the Catholic Great Schism came
to an end at the Council of Constance to decide between three papal
claimants declaring one, Gregory XII, the legitimate vicar of Christ and
John XXIII, who had called the conference in the first place, an "antipope."
1472 was also only about four years before one Caesare Borgia, hero of
Machiavelli's Prince, was born the illegitimate son of future Pope Alexander
VI, perhaps the worst excuse for a priest in the whole history of
Christianity. Incidentally, in 1453 the Turks were helped in taking
Constantinople by Venice, a Roman Catholic republic with its own patriarch.

Later during the Counterreformation, Rome, in agreement with a number of
Orthodox bishops, decided to renew the Union of Florence with the 1596 Union
of Brest-Litovsk, thus creating the Greek Catholic (Uniate) Church, whose
relations with those who remained Orthodox were bitter and often violent.

Accepting Roman dogma but retaining the Eastern rite, its own calendar of
saints, it has for centuries constituted the bedrock of the Ukrainian
identity in Western Ukraine, even when banned by the Soviets. Its estimated
seven million Ukrainian faithful now make it the largest of the five Eastern
rite Uniate Churches under the Pope.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian Catholics, first in the diaspora and later in
independent Ukraine, have worked for many years to have their spiritual
leader given the dignity a patriarch. Recognizing the level of development
reached by its Church, the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Synod's plenary
assembly, held in Kyiv in July 2002, asked the Holy Father to sanction this
process by granting it the patriarchal title.

After all, if Venice has a Catholic patriarch, why not Kyiv? And the Pope
has the power to recognize on his own initiative the patriarchal rank of a
church. The complex and less than glorious history of this particular issue
is something that men of God might consider putting behind them.

Many Ukrainians have understandable reasons for not wanting to be under
the Moscow Patriarchate.

The Russian Orthodox Church not long ago canonized the last tsar, Nicholas
II, a thorough reactionary of whom it seems the best that can be said is
that he was executed by the Bolsheviks. One can buy icons depicting the
autocrat who encouraged pogroms and ordered a demonstration of workers
led by Father Gapon fired upon, thereby touching off the Revolution of 1905,
from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate).

Who could be next, Nicholas's spiritual guide, Grigory Rasputin? This
church, in turn, has declared Ukrainian Orthodox Patriarch Filaret of Kyiv
a schismatic, while Constantinople weighs the issue.

The central player here is the Russian Orthodox Church, which seems to
consider that all Ukraine's Christians should be Orthodox, and all Ukraine's
Orthodox under Moscow. It should be noted that this particular church, has
been trading in oil since 1990 and allegedly received a gift of five million
barrels from one Saddam Hussein, who seems to have similarly generous to a
number of other unlikely groups in Russia and elsewhere. This was reported
by RFE/RL Organized Crime and Terrorism Watch on February 3
(www.rferl.org/corruptionwatch), citing the Iraqi daily newspaper Al-Mada of
January 25. The charges are being denied in Russia and investigated in Iraq.

Whatever the outcome of the Iraq investigation, it should also be considered
that in Kyiv last year the local followers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church
(Moscow Patriarchate) were involved in a number of illegal property seizures
(occupation by monks and nuns, while police looked on and did nothing),
including the Kyiv premises of the US-Ukraine Foundation, the main sponsor
of The Ukraine Report-2004 and quite a number of other good works.

Hence, in deciding whether to give the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church a
patriarch, one hopes that Pope John-Paul II or his successor will take the
warning mentioned above for precisely what it is worth. (END)(ARTUIS)
=========================================================
UKRAINE REPORT-2004, No. 23: ARTICLE NUMBER NINE
Support Ukraine Gallery: http://www.artukraine.com/uasupport/index.htm
=========================================================
9. UKRAINIAN FOREIGN POLICY: PRO-RUSSIAN, PRO-WESTERN
OR SIMPLY PRO-KUCHMA?

By Taras Kuzio, RFE/RL Belarus and Ukraine Report
Vol. 6, No. 5, 10 February 2004, Prague, Czech Republic

President Kuchma is fond of explaining Ukrainian foreign policy as being
neither pro-Russian nor pro-Western, but simply pro-Ukrainian. In
reality, the best way to understand Ukraine's confusing and constantly
shifting foreign policy is by understanding it as pro-Kuchma.

If we understand the president and his oligarchic allies as being the
equivalent of "Ukraine," then President Kuchma could be indeed understood
to be following a "pro-Ukrainian" foreign policy. For this to be true
though, two assumptions would have to hold.

Firstly, Kuchma and his allies would have to be broad-based ruling elites.
In reality, the executive and centrist oligarchs only represent a portion of
the elites (e.g., in parliament they control half of the deputies) who have,
in the World Bank's terminology, "captured" the Ukrainian state and refuse
to share power.

Secondly, to pursue a "pro-Ukrainian" foreign policy would require the
elaboration of the country's national interests. As Ukrainian commentators
and opposition politicians have pointed out, the executive and its
oligarchic allies have been unable to formulate any clear national interests
for Ukraine over 13 years of independence.

National interests would require that long-term goals (i.e., EU membership)
be backed up by domestic policies. Yet, Ukraine has a radical mismatch
between its declared foreign-policy goals and its domestic policies, the
former -- advertised as "re-joining Europe" -- are regularly undermined by
the latter.

Ukraine has not achieved strategic foreign-policy goals it outlined in the
1990s, such as becoming an associate member of the EU or joining the
World Trade Organization (which, according to high-placed International
Monetary Fund sources, will not take place this year). If anything, Ukraine
is further away from achieving these goals in 2004 than it was in the 1990s.

Witness the highly critical Parliamentary Assembly Council of Europe
(PACE) resolution on 29 January that threatened Ukraine with suspension
of its membership in the Council of Europe. PACE's resolution was backed
by an EU declaration jointly signed with European Free Trade Association
and accession countries, which were, in turn, backed by statements from
U.S. officials.

These confusing and contradictory signals have led to two repercussions in
the West. Firstly, Kuchma's international (i.e.Western) image is so low that
it will be impossible to change it before he leaves office. Western
government leaders and international organizations no longer believe
statements by Kuchma and his allies.

An outcome of this is that Ukraine is not treated as a serious country, a
factor long pointed out by Ukrainian commentators and opposition
politicians.

Secondly, this lack of trust in Kuchma and his allies is reflected in
"Ukraine fatigue" in the West. The West perceives Kuchma and his allies as
possessing a neo-Soviet political culture. This confirms the already deeply
held stereotypes in the EU and elsewhere that Ukraine is culturally not a
"European" country (the fact that it is geographically inside Europe, as
Ukrainians continually point out, is irrelevant).

The political crisis in Ukraine over proposed constitutional changes is a
case in point. Kuchma, presidential administration head Viktor Medvedchuk,
and their parliamentary allies have repeatedly claimed that "reforms" are
necessary to bring Ukraine into line with "European" standards. This shows
the degree to which their neo-Soviet political culture speaks a different
language to that of the West.

Western governments and international organizations know the real reason
why "reforms" are being undertaken in the presidential election year as
being to prevent a Viktor Yushchenko victory or to ensure that if he is
elected he inherits few powers. Kuchma's "reforms" therefore reinforce the
Western view that Ukraine is not "European," as its elites are again
pursuing a policy of deception, are afraid of free and fair elections, and
the
opposition are denied an authentic role in the "reform" process. Meanwhile,
Western criticism is denounced by Kyiv with Soviet-style language as
"interference in internal affairs."

This deception shows the degree to which Ukraine's foreign policy is
closely tied to Kuchma's personal fate. Kuchma's fear of being out of
power, coupled with a Soviet-style reluctance to admit responsibility for
one's actions while in power, has led him to initiate "reforms." These have
led to Ukraine's crisis with PACE and the West.

The majority of the pro-presidential elite are disinterested in Western
integration, and Ukraine's "European choice" is therefore narrowly confined
to the center-right and some centrists. Maintaining Russia and the West at a
distance, even if this means on occasion isolation, is the price to pay for
Kuchma's and his allies' staying in power. Membership in NATO, the EU,
or the CIS Single Economic Space are less important than their continued
"capture" of the Ukrainian state.

The Davos World Economic Summit in January was not attended by a
Ukrainian delegation, the first occasion this has happened. Another example
of recent isolationist trends are roundtables organized in Warsaw to
facilitate dialogue between the Ukrainian opposition and authorities.

The first roundtable, organized in November 2002 by the Polish Know-How
Foundation with backing from the Polish president, was attended by the
Ukrainian opposition and presidential camp, including Medvedchuk. In
November 2003 only the Ukrainian opposition turned up at the second
roundtable in Warsaw, as Polish sources reported that Medvedchuk had
blocked the attendance of representatives from the pro-presidential camp.

This again gave an impression of disinterest in dialogue with the
opposition. At the same time, this willingness to accept some degree of
isolation if that means staying in power is pragmatic, thereby
differentiating it from Belarus's ideologically driven isolation.

Ukraine, for example, took into account some of PACE's criticism, hoping
thereby to avoid suspension from the Council of Europe and the country's
full isolation. Full isolation would inevitably drive Ukraine (like Belarus)
into a dependent relationship with Russia, a step Kuchma and his allies
would oppose. Ukraine's "multivector" foreign policy is geared toward
fulfilling Kuchma's and his allies' short-term objectives, not because it is
responsive to domestic factors. These short-term horizons are an outgrowth
of Ukraine's foreign policy being pro-Kuchma, not pro anything else.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This report was written by Dr. Taras Kuzio, a resident fellow at
the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, and adjunct
professor, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto.
=========================================================
UKRAINE REPORT-2004, No. 23: ARTICLE NUMBER TEN
Current Events Gallery: http://www.artukraine.com/events/index.htm
=========================================================
9. OUR UKRAINE SEEMS TO BE LOSING SWAY OVER
CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM

By Jan Maksymiuk, RFE/RL Belarus and Ukraine Report
Vol. 6, No. 5, 10 February 2004, Prague, Czech Republic

The Verkhovna Rada voted on 3 February to excise the clause allowing
the election of an "interim" president by direct election in 2004 and the
subsequent parliamentary selection of a head of state in 2006 from a
contentious bill on political reform that was preliminarily approved on 24
December (see "RFE/RL Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine Report," 20
January 2004). The amendments to the bill were passed by 304
deputies, that is, by four votes more than are necessary for the final
adoption of the constitutional reform in the second reading.

This became possible due to the opposition Socialist Party, whose
lawmakers threw their support behind the bill, arguing that it is now
generally in accord with their own intent to transform the political
system in Ukraine into a more democratic one. Our Ukraine and the
Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc, by destroying microphones in the session hall
and unleashing turmoil, unsuccessfully tried to prevent the Verkhovna
Rada from voting.

The 3 February vote took place during a short, "extraordinary"
parliamentary session preceding the opening of a regular session later
the same day. The pro-presidential majority in the Verkhovna Rada
apparently resorted to this stratagem in order to meet the constitutional
requirement for passage of constitutional amendments in two regular
plenary sessions, thus making it possible for them to become law before
the presidential ballot that is expected in October 2004.

If the bill is passed by the Verkhovna Rada in the second reading before
1 May, when the presidential election campaign is expected to begin,
then a new president elected this coming fall will have significantly fewer
prerogatives that Leonid Kuchma is enjoying now (see "RFE/RL Poland,
Belarus, and Ukraine Report," 23 December 2003).

The center of power in Ukraine will be shifted from the presidency to the
prime minister and parliament. Many in Ukraine as well as abroad see
the constitutional reform in Ukraine as Kuchma's and his aides' ploy to
strip Our Ukraine leader Viktor Yushchenko, a leading presidential
candidate, of real executive power in the event he is elected president.

The recent siding of the Socialist Party with the presidential majority
in pursuing the constitutional reform does not necessarily mean that
now the reform bill will be cleared by the Verkhovna Rada without
difficulties. Another hurdle is the adoption of a law on fully proportional
parliamentary election that is the sine qua non for support of both the
Communist Party and the Socialist Party to the constitutional-reform
bill in the second reading.

Many lawmakers in the pro-presidential majority, who were elected
under a first-past-the-post system, are reportedly not particularly happy
with this idea, feeling that an all-proportional system would spell defeat
for many of them in the next elections. The carrot for them is reportedly
the idea currently mulling among pro-presidential forces to lower the
threshold for winning parliamentary representation by a party to 1
percent from the current 4 percent.

However, such a prospect will hardly satisfy the Communists and the
Socialists, who are opting for a fully proportional, party-list system to
prevent political small fry from winning parliamentary mandates and thus
augment their own parliamentary gains. Some large parties in the
pro-Kuchma majority may also be opposed to the lower-threshold idea.

Viktor Yushchenko and Yuliya Tymoshenko filed a complaint
against parliamentary speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn with a Kyiv district
court on 5 February, charging that Lytvyn approved an illegitimate
vote on a constitutional-reform bill in the Verkhovna Rada on 24
December. According to them, videotape of the 24 December session
shows that the bill was supported by just 154 deputies, not the 276
deputies written in the official records.

Surprisingly enough, the complaint was also signed by Oleksandr Moroz,
whose Socialist Party supported the amendments to this very bill on 3
February. Moreover, Yushchenko and Tymoshenko filed another court
complaint, charging that Lytvyn called an illegal extraordinary session on
3 February to vote on amendments to the constitutional-reform bill.

Yushchenko and Tymoshenko appear to be seeking to gain time in the
constitutional-reform game -- as long as the complaints are considered
in court, they argue, the introduction of any constitutional amendments
should be halted, according to the Civil Procedure Code. Related petitions
regarding the 24 December and 3 February votes have also been filed by
Tymoshenko and Yushchenko with the Ukrainian Constitutional Court.

As matters stand now, the court litigation by Yushchenko and
Tymoshenko and the potential discord over the parliamentary-election
system may now be the only impediments to the adoption of a
constitutional reform that evidently does not suit Yushchenko's
presidential ambitions.

Critics of Yushchenko point out that he has already lost the opportunity
when he could side with Moroz -- a staunch supporter of the shift to
a parliamentary-presidential republic in Ukraine -- and take the initiative
in shaping a constitutional reform with his own hands.

Those critics argue that presidential administration chief Viktor
Medvedchuk, whom many see as the main author of the reform,
outwitted Yushchenko by striking a political deal with Moroz. Even
if it not clear what immediate gains are expected by Moroz from his
situational alliance with the pro-Kuchma camp, it is not difficult to
predict that the current lack of political harmony between Yushchenko
and Moroz bodes ill for their potential cooperation in the upcoming
presidential election campaign. (END) (ARTUIS)
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