"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"
"PUTIN GAMBLES BIG -- AND LOSES"
He needs a new Ukraine policy; we need a new Russia policy
[Article number ten by Michael McFaul]
"THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT" Year 04, Number 247
The Action Ukraine Coalition (AUC), Washington, D.C.
Ukrainian Federation of America (UFA), Huntingdon Valley, PA
morganw@patriot.net, ArtUkraine.com@starpower.net (ARTUIS)
Washington, D.C., Kyiv, Ukraine, SUNDAY, December 5, 2004
NOTE: The politics in Kyiv this weekend was all hardball.
We will get back to that on Monday. We are still trying this
weekend to cover all the feature acticles, editorials and op-eds
Don't miss out on the action in Ukraine. Send people a copy
of this Report and let them they can add their name to our free
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-----INDEX OF ARTICLES-----
"Major International News Headlines and Articles"
1. "THE QUIET REVOLUTIONARIES"
By Chrystia Freeland,
Weekend Magazine, First Person
The Financial Times, London, UK, Fri, Dec 3, 2004
2. "COLD BUT RESOLUTE IN KIEV"
Demanding presidential revote, throngs maintain vigil
By Anna Dolgov, Globe Correspondent
Boston Globe, Boston, MA, Friday, December 3, 2004
3. "EUROPE'S BEST HOPE"
EDITORIAL: Toronto Star
Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Friday, Dec, 3, 2004
4. "IN UKRAINE, HOMEGROWN FREEDOM"
OP-ED: By Nadia Diuk
The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.
Saturday, December 4, 2004; Page A23
5. PEOPLE WAKE UP TO THEIR STRENGTH IN STREETS OF KIEV
By Stefan Wagstyl and Tom Warner
Financial Times, London, UK, Thu, December 2 2004
6. AN EVENING WITH DISTINGUISHED UKRAINIAN COMPOSER
BOHDANA FILTS, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9
Embassy of Ukraine, Washington DC, December 9, 2004
7. "UKRAINE'S FACE IS MIRRORED IN A CANDIDATE"
By C. J. CHIVERS, The New York Times
New York , NY, Sun, December 5, 2004
8. MOSCOW'S 'HANDS OFF!' DOESN'T DISSUADE EU"
Europeans call Ukraine 'our border' too
By Judy Dempsey, International Herald Tribune
Europe, Saturday, December 4, 2004
9. UKRAINE: HOW RUSSIA OVERPLAYED ITS HAND
By Alexei Pankin, International Herald Tribune
EUROPE, Friday, December 3, 2004
10. "PUTIN GAMBLES BIG -- AND LOSES"
He needs a new Ukraine policy; we need a new Russia policy
COMMENTARY: By Michael McFaul
The Weekly Standard, Volume 010, Issue 13
Washington, D.C., December 13, 2004
11. MIRED IN POLITICS OF OIL IN UKRAINE
When it comes to oil the corrupt political process stops everything
Financial Post, Canada, Saturday, Dec 04, 2004
========================================================
ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No. 247: ARTICLE NUMBER ONE
========================================================
1. "THE QUIET REVOLUTIONARIES"
By Chrystia Freeland,
Weekend Magazine, First Person
The Financial Times, London, UK, Fri, Dec 3, 2004
When I was growing up in a close-knit Ukrainian emigre family on the
Canadian prairies, one of my English-Canadian father's most famous jokes
was to bang on the door of my sleeping Uncle Bohdan's bedroom, shouting:
"Wake up, wake up, there is a revolution on the streets of Kiev!"
Notoriously hard to rouse, Bohdan would charge out of bed and race to
the radio.
The joke, of course, was on him, and on all of us in the post-second world
war Ukrainian diaspora. When Bohdan's parents, my grandparents, fled
Ukraine, one step ahead of the Red Army, the only thing they were able to
take with them was their dream of national independence. As they dragged
themselves and their children from German displaced-persons camps into the
comfortable North American middle class, it was that dream that shaped their
existence.
But by the late 1970s, in the eyes of their Anglo son-in-law and of most of
the western world, it seemed as quaint a notion as my grandfather's
old-world hand-kissing. The USSR looked immutable. As for Ukraine, well,
as Margaret Thatcher put it on a visit to Soviet Kiev, it was no more a
separate entity than the state of California.
As it happened, my grandparents were right. In 1991, as the tectonic plates
of Soviet communism grinded and shifted, Ukraine seized the opportunity to
become a separate state. To almost everyone apart from the Ukrainians, it
was a total shock. What the world had missed was a covert tradition of
dissent. On my trips to Ukraine, I had glimpsed only flickers of this. In
1980, my great-aunt Maria, a nun in the underground Catholic Church, told us
how, as a teenage novice, she had withstood interrogation after the Soviet
take-over: "I told the KGB officer, 'You can do anything to me. because I
know that if you kill me, tomorrow I will be in heaven, and one day you will
be in hell.'"
In 1988, when I studied for a year at the University of Kiev, I was at first
ignored by my classmates. As a westerner who spoke English and Ukrainian but
not Russian, I was odd and therefore dangerous. Then, one afternoon, a young
man, Mykola, approached me with a whispered request: did I know the words
to the Ukrainian national anthem? The verses were illegal, and my
handwritten rendering was passed around in a sort of junior samizdat.
In 1991, as Russian reform and Eastern European revolution exposed the
rottenness of Soviet communism, this current of dissent burst into the open.
The Ukrainian opposition wanted to shake off 300 years of Russian rule to
found an independent state, and to shake off 70 years of communist rule to
establish a democratic state. It didn't have the strength to achieve both.
Russia had repressed those who chose to be Ukrainian, but it had rewarded
many who chose to be Russian, or later Soviet. To secure independence, the
opposition had to offer the Ukrainian Soviet establishment even stronger
incentives to break away. And so it offered them their own state - even
those who had spent a lifetime repressing nationalist dissidents were quick
to appreciate that Ukraine was rich enough to be worth ruling in its own
right.
This Faustian bargain both transformed Ukraine utterly, and left it
tragically unchanged. It created the most enduring independent Ukrainian
state of modern times, but it left the Soviet-era elite intact. The result
was a corrupt regime that was slow to reform the economy and increasingly
intolerant of political dissent. The November ballot was to have entrenched
its power. Instead, 2004 has become the year that Ukraine seeks to finish
the revolution it began in 1991. The opposition is gambling that the issue
of Ukrainian statehood is now more or less resolved. It has moved the fight
on to what form that state should take: democratic or authoritarian.
The emblems of the struggle tell the story of the political shift. Once the
symbols of protest, Ukraine's national symbols - the anthem, the blue and
yellow flag, the trident - have become emblems of the existing state. Today
the opposition wears orange. Almost overnight, it has become the colour not
just of protest, but of a deeply hopeful people's solidarity which is
touching every human interaction in Ukraine's transformed capital city. A
few days ago my mother flew to London from Kiev. Her normally unadorned
fingernails were painted orange and her suitcases were festooned with orange
ribbons. Her luggage was also seriously overweight, the sort of thing
Ukrainian ticket agents are sticklers about. This time though, the lady took
one look at all that orange, flashed her own ribbon, and let my mother
through. -30- [The Action Ukraine Report Monitoring Service]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chrystia Freeland is deputy editor of the Financial Times.
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ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No.247: ARTICLE NUMBER TWO
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2. "COLD BUT RESOLUTE IN KIEV"
Demanding presidential revote, throngs maintain vigil
By Anna Dolgov, Globe Correspondent
Boston Globe, Boston, MA, Friday, December 3, 2004
KIEV -- The weather plunges below freezing each night and the bitter winds
swirl through the snow-lined streets, but the protesters filling the avenues
and squares of Ukraine's capital have shown no sign of relenting. The motley
army of hundreds of thousands of demonstrators has refused to budge since
assembling a day after the Nov. 21 presidential runoff vote to protest what
they believe was the rigged victory of Leonid Kuchma's hand-picked
successor.
They have put up tents in the middle of the road, lending the city center
the air of a refugee camp. They huddle around log fires burning in metal
barrels on the central avenue for warmth and light. Their vigil has endured
beyond their own expectations as they brave frigid temperatures that trigger
incessant shivers, cause feet and backs to grow numb, and make sleep
virtually impossible.
''It's cold, it's real cold, especially at night," said Yuri Anushcha, 20,
accepting a menthol candy to ease his sore throat from a woman distributing
simple medicines at the camp. ''And you start suffering from insomnia."
''But we aren't leaving and aren't letting crooks steal the election," he
said.
Electoral officials awarded victory to government-backed candidate Viktor
Yanukovych, the result of a vote tally that the opposition and Western
observers charge was falsified. Protesters demand that the authorities hold
a new runoff vote, or declare rival contender Viktor Yushchenko the winner.
Ukraine's Supreme Court is weighing Yushchenko's appeal to declare the
result invalid.
Ukraine's parliament sided with the opposition and removed Yanukovych
from the post of prime minister in a no-confidence vote Wednesday.
Yushchenko said his supporters would end their blockade of government
buildings in Kiev, though protests may continue in other parts of the city.
The protest, meanwhile, seems to have taken on a life of its own and seems
to be no longer under Yushchenko's control, if it ever was. Protesters say
they are determined to remain on the streets until their victory is
complete. ''Yushchenko has united people, and if he now does something
wrong, he won't be able to look people in the eye," said one protester,
Volodymyr Matsiyevsky, a 21-year-old student.
Night temperatures in Kiev dropped below 10 degrees Fahrenheit this
week, but humidity and wind made it feel colder. Inside military-style
tents, Styrofoam blocks have been lined along the sides, covered with
blankets. ''We all sleep clothed, and all of us together -- guys, girls, it
doesn't matter," said Volodymyr Shuty, a 45-year-old retired army major.
''One comes in, sees an empty spot, and lies down, wrapping oneself
up in a blanket."
The blankets -- and the tents, the logs for the fire, the sausages,
biscuits, and hot soup served in the camp -- have been donated by
sympathizers ranging from businesses to impoverished retirees, who come
by to drop a few coins into a tin or to hand over a pair of woolen gloves
or a shawl.
The din of conversation is pierced by radio newscasts amplified by
loudspeakers, and by periodic shouts confirming support for the opposition
leader. ''Yu-shchen-ko!" shouts a protester and immediately others join in.
Cars passing through nearby streets respond with three blows of their horns,
echoing the rhythm of the chant.
The duration of the protest -- now nearing the end of its second week --
and the stamina of its participants seem surprising to the people
themselves.
''In this kind of weather, I thought it would be over in a couple of days,"
said Andrei Bychkovsky, a 22-year-old student from the western Ukrainian
city of Zhitomir, inhaling the steam that rose from his plastic cup of tea
and mixed with the wood smoke in the air.
Bychkovsky and his classmates staying at the camp say they couldn't shirk
from an action that they think will decide the fate of their country. They
have missed two weeks of classes, but say that nobody is learning much
these days anyway.
''Each class begins with a political debate, and if a class lasts for an
hour, arguments about politics take up about forty minutes of it,"
Bychkovksy said. Protesters have arranged for garbage removal from the
camp, but many regret the havoc that their action has wreaked on the city's
beloved central avenue -- which for decades has been a place for leisurely
strolls by people dressed in their Sunday best, a place for warm
conversations under blossoming chestnut trees in spring, and outdoor
concerts by rock or jazz bands in summer.
''I look at this camp, and my soul aches," Shuty said. ''It was so beautiful
here, and now -- what will be left behind us?" ''Here" -- he points to an
iron hook driven into the pavement to secure a tent -- ''we had to hammer
this into the asphalt, and it will leave a hole that will need to be
repaired."
The avenue holds hundreds of tents, each secured by several hooks. When
all are pulled out, the pavement will look almost as if it had been through
a battle. ''This is a cry of our souls, the people are desperate," said
Tatyana Klimchuk, 24. ''I'm tired, and I want this to be over before New
Year's, but we need to win."
The desperation that she mentions has numerous causes -- though it's a
desperation of only about half of Ukrainians, those who voted for the
opposition candidate. The perception of the current administration -- and
the candidate it backed -- as a group of liars ranks high among them. ''The
authorities were thinking one thing, saying another thing, and doing a third
thing," Shuty said. Others concur. ''The government served its own interests
and ignored or deceived the people for a long time, and now the people have
said their word," said Yuri Dolmat, 26.
Yanukovych, the government-backed candidate, served two terms in prison for
criminal offenses during the Soviet era, and to many Ukrainians has come to
symbolize duplicity and corruption in the government. His opponents charge
that not only was the vote rigged, but also that many of the people who cast
ballots for Yanukovych were deceived by government propaganda. Most
Yanukovych voters live in eastern Ukraine -- a region where many ethnic
Russians live and Russian is the majority tongue -- and state-run media has
accused the opposition of planning discrimination against Russian speakers.
The street action is only partly driven by support for Yushchenko. It's also
a protest again Yanukovych, its participants say. ''The authorities claim
that western Ukrainians have risen against eastern Ukrainians, but the truth
is that the west has risen against Yanukovych," Bychkovsky said.
Orange is the color of the season in Kiev; it's Yushchenko's campaign color,
and the city is full of his supporters. Clothes shops display any orange
garments they carry in the windows, people wear orange scarves around
their necks and orange bands on their sleeves, dogs sport orange ribbons,
and oranges and orange drinks are top sellers.
The colors of Yanukovych supporters are blue and white, and rare in Kiev.
There has been little antagonism between the two camps, although some
opposition activists suggest that Yanukovych supporters of the rival camp
are embarrassed to display their colors in the city. Three men carrying
blue-and-white flags walked by the tent camp on a recent day, apparently
absorbed in their conversation and seemingly oblivious to the sea of orange
around them.
''They just walk their way, and that's all," said a 58-year-old opposition
protester, who only gave his first name, Gennady. ''They mind their own
business and don't bother us, and we don't bother them." -30-
========================================================
ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No.247: ARTICLE NUMBER THREE
========================================================
3. "EUROPE'S BEST HOPE"
EDITORIAL: Toronto Star
Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Friday, Dec, 3, 2004
The people of Ukraine were denied a fair presidential election last month.
Because of that, they rose, 200,000 strong, in Kiev's Independence Square
to wrest democracy from despair. Now, they must not be denied a chance
to vote for their preferred candidate as their leaders ponder new elections.
Prime Minister Paul Martin must stress that Canada won't recognize any
brokered political outcome in Ukraine that sidelines Viktor Yushchenko. He
is the liberal presidential contender who won the first round Oct. 31 and
seemed headed for victory in the Nov. 21 runoff until it was hijacked by
fraud and intimidation.
Unless Ukraine's Supreme Court rules otherwise, as it reviews the runoff,
Yushchenko must remain the presumptive favourite.
Yet outgoing President Leonid Kuchma is reluctant to accept that. He has
been touting a new election in which both Yushchenko and Kuchma's own
favourite, Viktor Yanukovich, would be barred from running again. That would
be an outrage, not a remedy. It would let Kuchma promote a fresher, stronger
candidate, while depriving liberals of a proven frontrunner.
If the Supreme Court rules the runoff invalid, Ottawa should insist that the
Yushchenko camp's views about a remedial election, be respected.
Short of a court order confirming Yushchenko the winner based on the Oct.
31 ballot, the best outcome would be to re-run the tainted ballot, fairly
this time. The details are for Ukrainians to work out. But another skewed
process would be unacceptable.
The democratic hopes of 48 million people hang in the balance.
Surveys show Ukrainians are deeply split. But the huge protests confirm that
they cherish their post-Soviet freedom to choose.
Canada must speak out in defence of that freedom. -30-
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ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No. 247: ARTICLE NUMBER FOUR
========================================================
4. "IN UKRAINE, HOMEGROWN FREEDOM"
OP-ED: By Nadia Diuk
The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.
Saturday, December 4, 2004; Page A23
There was something familiar about the atmosphere in Kiev this week. I
had the same feeling as a student in Warsaw in 1980, when massive street
demonstrations and the emergence of the Solidarity trade union threw
Poland's Communist government into a state of confusion. At that time,
just one gesture, or the display of a symbol -- the red-and-white logo of
Solidarity -- conveyed a whole set of aspirations, attitudes and emotions.
Now the color orange is the symbol throughout the center of Kiev. Everyone
understands what is at stake, and everyone stands united. The Czechs jingled
keys, the Serbs showed a fist, the Georgians adopted the rose, and now the
Ukrainians wear orange.
Some have sought to portray the events in Ukraine as orchestrated in the
West, a model executed with the support of Western pro-democracy
foundations. Such views have been put forward by the Kremlin's spin
doctors and picked up by commentators in newspapers such as the
Guardian in Britain. But there is no real mystery about how these kinds
of revolutions happen.
In all of the cases of "breakthrough" elections in the past five years, the
pattern has been much the same: An authoritarian regime tries to falsify
elections through a variety of means. This is not unusual in the countries
of Central Asia and in other dictatorships around the world, but what made
the elections in Slovakia in 1998, Serbia in 2000 and Georgia in 2003
different was the combined pressure on the authorities of a highly motivated
and unified civil society, the credible exposure of fraud and expressions of
concern from the West.
In each of these situations there was a massive effort by nongovernmental
organizations to monitor the vote, whether through parallel vote
tabulations, exit polls or reports from domestic observers. These strategies
were supported by the reports of Western election observers. In Ukraine the
same independent polling group that almost precisely predicted the March
2002 parliamentary election results has conducted exit polling for both
parliamentary and presidential elections since 1995. Ukraine also has a
seasoned civic group, the Committee of Voters, which has trained and fielded
tens of thousands of domestic election observers since the mid-1990s.
None of these efforts would have any resonance without the presence of some
free media to spread news of voter fraud. Limited free media were vital in
the Serbian and Georgian elections. In Ukraine, although the electronic
media were obliged to report the news under instruction from the president's
administration, some notable and heroic holdouts ran round-the-clock reports
and interviews with protest leaders and officials alike; they also provided
air time for the steady cascade of journalists defecting from
state-controlled TV, diplomats who signed a statement of protest against the
fraudulent elections and a motley array of pop stars and others. Ukraine
also has many well-developed independent Internet sites that helped inform
the people. Another common element of successful revolutions has been the
predominance of opposition supporters within the municipal authorities and
the population of the capital city.
Finally, all these breakthrough elections have been accomplished with the
vigorous participation of civic groups that support free and fair elections
by monitoring the media, carrying out voter education, publicizing the
platforms of candidates in the absence of a free press, training election
observers, conducting polls and so on.
Youth groups usually form the vanguard of the activist movement: In Slovakia
in 1998, most of the non-governmental organizations opposing Prime Minister
Vladimir Meciar were run by young people; Otpor in Serbia has become a
famous example of the attention-grabbing mix of street theater, civil disobe
dience and sharp-edged political opposition that was so effective in
mobilizing the opposition; and the Kmara youth group in Georgia used similar
tactics to give force to the movement that toppled the government in
November 2003.
Some commentators believe that the similarity of their actions proves they
are part of a U.S.-sponsored plot, an effort to extend American influence
throughout the world. Such accusations are now being leveled at the
Ukrainian youth group Pora ("it's time"), which has successfully mocked the
authorities, held street parades and lain on the highway to block buses
filled with government stooges who were ordered to vote in several districts
on Election Day.
The Ukrainian youth movement's push for freedom has been handed down
through generations: Even the name Pora is instantly recognizable to
Ukrainians as the catchword in the revolutionary hymn by the 19th-century
poet Ivan Franko, who exhorted his compatriots to rise up against foreign
oppressors and struggle for freedom. There's nothing new or Western-inspired
about the desire for freedom, and now at last it appears that Ukrainians
finally stand on the brink of achieving their age-old dream. -30-
------------------------------------------------------------------
The writer is director, Europe and Eurasia, at the National Endowment for
Democracy [Washington, D.C.] a congressionally funded foundation that has
supported nongovernmental democracy-building efforts in Ukraine since 1988.
========================================================
ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No.247: ARTICLE NUMBER FIVE
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========================================================
5. PEOPLE WAKE UP TO THEIR STRENGHT IN STREETS OF KIEV
By Stefan Wagstyl and Tom Warner
Financial Times, London, UK, Thu, December 2 2004
Nadia Berezovska, a middle-aged postmistress from the mining town of
Chervonohrad, in western Ukraine, is nobody's idea of a radical. But she
joined the mass demonstrations in central Kiev when they started 11 days
ago and, despite the freezing cold, she does not intend to leave until
opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko is declared president.
"I am glad to be here. We are singing and dancing with all the young people.
We will not move until we have won," says Mrs Berezovska. "We used to go
down on our knees before the people in power, but now we have got to our
feet."
Mrs Berezovska is among about 5,000 demonstrators who camp every night
in Kiev's Independence Square. Some, including Mrs Berezovska, never leave.
Others are organised into rotas, spending a few nights in the square and a
few nights off. Together they are the core of huge crowds of 100,000 and
more who fill the square and nearby streets every day.
At peak hours central Kiev is transformed into a rolling carnival of
protesters, all wearing something orange, Mr Yushchenko's campaign colour.
These protesters have helped bring Mr Yushchenko to the brink of power.
And they are determined he should not give an inch in the struggle with his
rival, prime minister Viktor Yanukovich, or the current president, Leonid
Kuchma. They support Mr Yushchenko's demands for an early re-run of the
disputed polls and reject the proposals put forward by Mr Kuchma for new
elections with new candidates, which could be held in three months. The
protesters say they will stay to the end.
"There will be rotations, of course, but we won't leave until democracy has
prevailed," says Igor Shkolny, a heating engineer from Ternopil.
With such strong support, Mr Yushchenko has been able to take a tough
position in the conflict. He knows the protests will run as long as he
needs. But the demonstrators' views may also - at some point - limit his
room for manoeuvre. Even a tactical retreat might be hard to explain to
the crowds.
Mr Yushchenko's aides have also been careful to control situations which
might turn violent. All police lines are protected by lines of older
demonstrators facing the crowds, to keep out hot-heads and possible
infiltrators planted by the authorities. The crowds co-operate - the moment
a couple of drunks start pushing they are surrounded and isolated. The cry
of "no provocation" goes up.
However, the longer the demonstrations continue, the bigger the risks of
violence. On Tuesday, discipline temporarily broke down when the firebrand
Yulia Tymoshenko, among Mr Yushchenko's closest allies, rushed from
parliament and persuaded part of the crowd surrounding the building to storm
inside. The demonstrators backed off only after personal intervention by Mr
Yushchenko.
Although Mr Yushchenko's support comes from all over the country - with
banners in the crowds from Mr Yanukovich's political heartlands in the east,
including Donetsk - the majority of demonstrators come either from Kiev or
from Mr Yushchenko's strongholds in western Ukraine.
While most demonstrators have joined spontaneously, they are guided by core
groups including the Yushchenko campaign team, his Our Ukraine political
coalition, the Znayu civic organisation and the Pora youth group. Andrey
Miroschnichenko, a Yushchenko campaign manager, said yesterday that the
first ideas for possible post-election protests were discussed six months
ago and tentative plans laid six weeks ago. He insisted that most activity
and financial support had been spontaneous.
Some money came from abroad, mostly donations from Ukrainian expatriates
and well-wishers, but the great bulk was raised in Ukraine. Some tactics
were centralised, such as the prominent deployment of attractive young
women in key roles such as chatting up anti-riot police. Roman Zvarych, a
pro-Yushchenko MP says: "It's very hard to be angry when beautiful Ukrainian
girls are pushing flowers into your riot shield." But many other moves were
made independently - such as the production of everything from sunglasses to
plastic Christmas trees in orange.
Mr Yushchenko will not win with people power alone. But he cannot win
without it. However the political crisis ends, the demonstrations have
already prompted an important social change in Ukraine - ordinary people
have learnt they can participate in public life.
As Hryhory Nemyrya, chairman of the Renaissance Foundation, says:
"Ukrainians are learning to be free. Civil society is being born."
========================================================
ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No.247: ARTICLE NUMBER SIX
Your comments about the Report are always welcome
========================================================
6. AN EVENING WITH DISTINGUISHED UKRAINIAN COMPOSER
BOHDANA FILTS, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9
EMBASSY OF UKRAINE
3350 M Street, NW, Washington DC, 20007
You are cordially invited to attend
AN EVENING WITH DISTINGUISHED UKRAINIAN COMPOSER
BOHDANA FILTS
Lyuba Shchybchyk, soprano
Oleksandr Abayev, violin
Maryna Rogozhyna, piano
Thursday, December 9, 2004, at 7:00 PM
Tickets: $20, Donations will be accepted at the door
RSVP by December 6, 2004 by telephone (202) 349-2961
or email: Natalia Holub; nholub@ukremb.com
This is Bohdana's first visit to the United States. She returns to Ukraine
on December 14th, 2004. Her long and distinguished career in promoting
Ukrainian vocal music for children's choirs, choruses, art songs to words of
Shevchenko, Franko, Lesia Ukrainka, Lina Kostenko, Oleksander Oles' and
others, as well as compositions for piano solo and symphonic works have
received wide acceptance and recognition in Ukraine, the countries of the
Former Soviet Union and Europe. -30-
========================================================
ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No.247: ARTICLE NUMBER SEVEN
Your comments about the Report are always welcome
========================================================
7. "UKRAINE'S FACE IS MIRRORED IN A CANDIDATE"
By C. J. CHIVERS, The New York Times
New York, NY, Sun, December 5, 2004
KIEV, Ukraine, Dec. 4 - Viktor A. Yushchenko, the opposition candidate
who is trying to remake Ukraine through a sweeping change of power, stood
on the stage in Independence Square here and surveyed the rapt crowd during
one of his many appearances in two weeks of political crisis. His face, from
chin to forehead, was a darkened mask of cysts. Its ugliness was unsettling.
"Do you like my face?" he asked, his voice passing through the huge speakers
spread around the square. "This is the face of today's Ukraine."
Mr. Yushchenko is now surging, the leading candidate in a second
presidential runoff that Ukraine's Supreme Court ordered because last
month's was tainted by government fraud.
A former prime minister and head of Ukraine's central bank, he has seized
the reform agenda in the battle against the incumbent government of the
departing president, Leonid D. Kuchma.
Riding a wave of anti-Kuchma public sentiment, Mr. Yushchenko's message
rests partly on the sustained exposure of what he calls the current
government's ills. Many Ukrainians believe that Mr. Yushchenko is their best
hope for changing the way the country has been ruled since Soviet times.
In this battle for public perception, Mr. Yushchenko's face is one of his
weapons. Mr. Yushchenko said his recent disfiguration was a result of his
being poisoned. Mr. Kuchma's camp says that he is afflicted by a mysterious
disease, or that perhaps he ate bad sushi. But the illness underscores Mr.
Yushchenko's message that in Ukraine, things are so fundamentally ugly that
they must fundamentally change.
Mr. Kuchma's government, the opposition leader says, is shadowy, thuggish
and corrupt, most recently expressed in its effort to force its choice for
president, Prime Minister Viktor F. Yanukovich, into power. It remains
rooted in a mix of post-Soviet centralization, economic banditry and an
embarrassing subservience to Vladimir V. Putin, Russia's president. It is,
as Mr. Yushchenko called it Friday night, "a colossus on clay legs."
His administration, Mr. Yushchenko says, would be organized around ideas
central to civil society: honesty, transparency, democracy and fairness. It
would also nudge Ukraine toward the global world, expanding trade with
Europe and urging the Ukrainian use of Western languages, all while seeking
to unify a country that throughout the campaign has shown signs of an
organic political split.
These are his positions. A question follows him. If he succeeds in toppling
the current political clan, can he deliver on his promises?
Mr. Yushchenko's background is of a man who has lived in both the Soviet
and Western worlds, and spent a great deal of his energy examining their
economic models and links.
Mr. Yushchenko, 50, was born in a family of teachers in northeastern
Ukraine, and began his career as an economist in a regional affiliate of the
Soviet Union's state bank. He later held a series of bank management posts
in Kiev, the Ukraine capital, in the Soviet Union's final years.
In 1993, two years after Ukraine broke from the Soviet Union, he was
appointed head of the nation's central bank, a post he held until he became
prime minister in 1999.
During his years at the bank, he was involved in steering Ukraine from
Communism to a market economy, developing monetary and credit
policies, and introducing the hryvnia, Ukraine's currency.
Ukraine is not a country known for its public integrity, and yet, in spite
of his rival campaign's efforts to explore his past and smear him, Mr.
Yushchenko has managed to navigate the intersection of Ukrainian
government and business without a major or enduring scandal. His
reputation is clean enough that his opponents sometimes sneeringly
refer to him as "the messiah."
His period as Mr. Kuchma's prime minister was short-lived and marred
both by infighting in Parliament and what seemed his sense of powerlessness.
Under the current Ukrainian Constitution, real power lies in the presidency.
In 2001, less than two years after Mr. Yushchenko assumed the post, as a
potential protégé, Mr. Kuchma orchestrated a no-confidence vote against
him, and those who had worked with him were forced to choose sides.
Mr. Yushchenko left office, vowing to return. It was a clear sign that he
would try the opposition route, even though, not long before he lost his
post he had said on Ukrainian television, referring to Mr. Kuchma, "I think
that our relations are similar to those between a father and a son."
Some of the splits were bitter. Oleksandra Kuzhel, who worked for Mr.
Yushchenko when he was prime minister and was one of the Yanukovich
administration's liaisons to business, said Mr. Yushchenko had some of the
worst characteristics of politicians, thinking more of his image and
politics than of his government duties.
Some days, she said, he was more likely to go to political events than
government meetings, and was chronically late.
"He is a good man, but he's not a manager," she said. "He does not plan his
next day. He does not live up to his promises. He does not control the work
he has set out before him. This is a death sentence for a business manager."
Such descriptions of him are of a type. Having assumed the role as foil to
Mr. Kuchma, whose popularity in much of Ukraine has sunk, Mr.
Yushchenko's own popularity has risen, as the government's efforts to
demonize him have grown.
The state-run news media, or media owned by his rivals, have portrayed
him as a radical and nationalist, and questioned whether his marriage to
Kateryna Chumechenko, a Ukrainian-American who once worked in the
State Department, has put him under the sway of the United States.
The bad press has not stopped him, and in a style of politicking reminiscent
of campaigns in the West, he has reached out to almost all classes of
voters, promising bold, instant change.
On Thursday night, addressing supporters in Independence Square, he
appealed to Ukrainian history and his own roots in a small village on the
border with Russia. He collects and restores rustic Ukrainian artifacts
and relics from the country's ancient past. He keeps a house outside of
Kiev, as his father and grandfather did.
For all his charisma on the stump, however, he can display stubbornness, a
trait his opponents criticized again on Saturday as wrangling over the new
election continued. He refused to follow the advice of doctors treating his
mysterious ailment in Austria, and returned to campaigning in October with a
catheter in his back to feed him painkillers.
He has campaigned partly by promising that as president he would immediately
sign 11 decrees that would, among other things, fight public corruption,
require local governments to make public reports of their activities, reduce
the activities of the tax inspectors and accelerate withdrawal of Ukraine's
soldiers in Iraq.
Those decrees could begin to nudge Ukrainian government away from its
reputation as a gangster state. One includes a requirement for senior public
officials to declare all income and expenditures and another would bar
government employees from accepting gifts worth more than about $18.
His platform offers promises to almost every class of voter. For young
men, there is a pledge to cut the term of military conscription to 12
months from 18, and then, in 2010, to do away with it altogether. For
young women there is a pledge to increase financial assistance at childbirth
by a factor of 10. For those who lost savings during the runaway inflation
of the 1990's, he included a promise to reimburse them, in part through
trying to undo a privatization deal Mr. Kuchma made this year.
Those in the opposition camp say he may have one weakness: Aside from
the unifying cause of ousting Mr. Kuchma, Mr. Yushchenko has few issues
that can bind his various blocs of supporters.
His coalition is a mix of very different interests. They include students
who seek revolutionary and absolute change; his own oligarchs, who are in
part engaged in competition with the Mr. Kuchma's money clans, and who
might seek protection or favors should Mr. Yushchenko become president;
a raft of medium-size businesses that want law and agencies more favorable
to their growth; and politicians in his camp who expect him to divide the
president's powers with Parliament, and introduce a new degree of balance
in Ukrainian political life.
As Mr. Yushchenko enters his next campaign, he will have to continue to
navigate these sometimes conflicting pulls, which are, for now, largely
quiet in the din of political battle Mr. Kuchma.
Ms. Kuzhel, speaking before the momentum clearly shifted toward the
opposition, called its base "a situational majority," which she defined as
"a lot of people who use an image to get together to take power."
She also said no matter what his stature in Kiev and western Ukraine might
be, Mr. Yushchenko's appeal had not been universal, and much of the country
was against him, most notably the industrial interests in eastern Ukraine.
"I would like to remind you," she said, "that these people produce more than
half of Ukraine's G.D.P." -30- [The Action Ukraine Monitoring Service]
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ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No.247: ARTICLE NUMBER EIGHT
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8. "MOSCOW'S 'HANDS OFF!' DOESN'T DISSUADE EU"
Europeans call Ukraine 'our border' too
By Judy Dempsey, International Herald Tribune
Europe, Saturday, December 4, 2004
KIEV - European Union leaders said Friday that they had no intention of
abandoning efforts to mediate a peaceful end to Ukraine's political crisis,
despite a tough resolution by Russia's Parliament accusing the Europeans
of having a "destructive influence" on Ukraine. The determination by the
Europeans on one side and the criticism by Russia on the other highlight
their conflicting views on how to deal with Ukraine.
.
While it has shared a border with the EU since last May, Ukraine has
deep political, cultural and strategic ties to Russia. The Europeans brushed
aside any criticism that they were interfering in Ukraine.
.
"It is our border," said Elmar Brok, speaking on Ukrainian television during
a brief visit to Kiev. "It is in our interests to have neighbors that are
democratic and stable." Brok is head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of
the European Parliament and a member of Germany's opposition Christian
Democrats.
.
Diplomats said three European leaders - the EU foreign policy chief, Javier
Solana; President Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland, and President
Valdas Adamkus of Lithuania - would go to Ukraine, now that the country's
Supreme Court has ruled for another vote to settle the presidential
election. It will be the third attempt by EU envoys to mediate in roundtable
negotiations, which also include Russia.
.
The EU's external relations commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, on
Friday welcomed the decision by Ukraine's Supreme Court to nullify the
result of the presidential runoff.
.
The Russian Parliament, or Duma, which has become an echo for President
Vladimir Putin, pulled no punches when it said Friday that the EU and other
European institutions had "attempted destructive interference in the
development of the situation in Ukraine."
.
The resolution, approved by a vote of 415 to 8, accused Europe of starting
the crisis in Ukraine by supporting the demands of the opposition leader,
Viktor Yushchenko, and openly shunning Viktor Yanukovich, whom Putin
congratulated as the winner of the presidential runoff vote last month.
.
Although the Duma does not make foreign policy, it has been used often
by Putin to whip up populist sentiment, particularly on issues related to
expansion of NATO and the EU, both of which recently admitted several
East European countries that once were under the sway of the former
Soviet Union.
.
Diplomats in Kiev said, without any hint of gloating, that it must seem
galling for Russians to have Poland and Lithuania - former satellites of the
Kremlin - taking part in the round-table talks on Ukraine.
.
EU diplomats based in the region said Putin was trying to tap into Russian
nationalist feelings. But they added that the effort was understandable from
a country that has such close ties with Ukraine and that also fears the
consequences of having a large and genuinely independent and democratic
Ukraine on its border. "If Ukraine can pull it off peacefully, it would
raise questions about Russia's own institutions," said a senior European
diplomat in Kiev, who requested anonymity.
.
An East European diplomat based in Kiev said, "What is happening in
Ukraine could seem as a kind of threat to Russia because the civil society
here has unexpectedly leaped into existence; the media are presenting real
news and people have lost their fear." Senior European diplomats based
in Brussels and in the region said it was time Putin accepted the European
Union's legitimate concerns over what happened in Ukraine.
.
"The reality is that, since Poland, Hungary and Slovakia joined the EU last
May, Ukraine is our new neighbor," said a diplomat based in Brussels who
requested anonymity. "It is in our interests that there is stability and
democracy in that important country. That does not mean we are interfering."
.
As a result of the EU's expansion, the European Commission - the EU's
executive arm - and member states agreed to strengthen links with Ukraine,
Belarus and Moldova through a "Neighborhood Policy." The goal of the
policy is to strengthen economic and political ties and to provide more
financial assistance to these countries, particularly for border security.
"It offers everything except the prospect of eventual EU membership,
so we wonder why Putin is so upset," another diplomat said.
.
Yet Putin, in talks with EU leaders, recently protested the Neighborhood
Policy, insisting that Ukraine was a neighbor of Russia, but not of the EU.
Even though the policy makes no mention of possible EU membership, it was
one reason why Putin requested a postponement of the EU summit meeting
in The Hague last month. He fears that Ukraine will eventually fall under
the influence of the EU, diplomat said. -30-
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http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/12/03/news/europe.html
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ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No.247: ARTICLE NUMBER NINE
Suggested articles for publication in the Report are always welcome
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9. UKRAINE: HOW RUSSIA OVERPLAYED ITS HAND
By Alexei Pankin, The International Herald Tribune
EUROPE, Friday, December 3, 2004
MOSCOW - The Ukrainian revolution is the big topic of conversation in
Moscow: Suddenly, we've realized how closely our countries are bound
together. I, for example, met my wife exactly 10 years ago in Kiev. Her
parents still live in Odessa. A colleague's mother lives in Kiev - she will
soon turn 70, and he hopes to mark the birthday in a calm setting. Of the
six people on our staff, four are tied to Ukraine in one way or another.
.
Like Ukrainian society, Moscow is divided. "White-blue" Muscovites see
Western intrigues in what's happening, an attempt to tear Ukraine away from
Russia. "Orange" Muscovites welcome the "democratic revolution." A few,
like me, believe that without the crude antidemocratic violations by the
authorities, there would not have been these ignominious protests, which
have pushed the situation outside constitutional boundaries. Many on both
sides are frightened by the fanaticism of Yulia Tymoshenko and are indignant
at the Russian interference in the Ukrainian electoral process.
.
But we all see what's happening as our internal affair. This is not
imperialism. It's a genetically instilled habit from living with Ukrainians
in one country.
.
It's hard to imagine a country more fated to have good relations with
Russia - and more difficult to govern - than Ukraine. Basically, the
Ukrainian state combines two identities. Ukrainian-speaking western
Ukrainians define themselves precisely as different from Russia and bear a
profound and ancient yearning for independence.
.
In Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, many still believe that the results of
the independence referendum on Dec. 1, 1991, were falsified by Ukraine's old
Soviet nomenklatura to stay clear of the democratic revolution that began in
Russia that August. Eastern Ukrainians began to realize the value of
independence from Russia only after the start of the Chechen war.
.
Both sides believe their rights - language, for example - are violated in
principle. But there is so little overlap between the two that nobody really
suffers any practical inconvenience. There is a mutual understanding: "Leave
me alone, and I'll leave you alone."
.
Maintaining this balance is, basically, the main task of the Ukrainian
president. If he's from the Russia-friendly east, he must make periodic
gestures to the west. A westerner needs to reassure the east in his dealings
with Russia. So good relations with Russia are inherent in any national
administration, whatever its background, and Russia shouldn't care who is
president. All Moscow needs to do is to show good will and respect for the
Ukrainian state, even when protecting legitimate Russian interests.
.
Russia's main mistake in these elections was not that it supported the wrong
candidate, but that it supported anyone at all - more, that it actively
supported him. I believe that the reasons for this lie not in some
geopolitical scheming, but elsewhere.
.
First, there is the peculiar managerial culture of this administration. It
has a hypertrophic sense of responsibility, a tendency toward activism and
micromanagement, a need to put a "reliable" man in place even when no
interference is required.
.
Second, there's what Stalin called "dizziness from success": In June,
Vladimir Putin had a higher popularity rating in Ukraine than Ukraine's own
president, Leonid Kuchma, or either presidential candidate. And there's what
I call the "1996 syndrome" - the situation in which a massive television
campaign made it possible for Boris Yeltsin to win a second term even though
his rating at the start was 2 percent. That created a strong temptation for
Putin in Ukraine, where Russian television is very popular.
.
The results are obvious. The double "vertical of power" turned out to be
rotten. It was nudged and fell apart. My Odessan in-laws - who speak only
Russian, watch only Russian TV and want Russian to be on a par with
Ukrainian - were so indignant at Moscow's pressures that they voted for the
pro-Western opposition candidate, Viktor Yushchenko. I know many such
people. So there it is, the Kremlin's contribution to forming a single
Ukrainian national identity!
.
We Russians may not have got the lava flowing by ourselves, but both
Ukrainians and the world now perceive Russia as the aggressor. In other
words, Putin disqualified himself from the most advantageous position - that
of a neutral mediator.
.
I hope this Russian failure abroad brings a lesson home: that the time of
vertical power is coming to an end. The time has come to shift from
administrative methods of control to democratic rule: instead of squeezing,
to try freeing; instead of issuing orders, to try persuasion; instead of
dictating, to try listening.
.
Here in my offices, where all these positions are represented, we often come
to shouting about the situation. But we always back off and agree on one
thing: that Ukraine must be peaceful, and united. -30-
.---------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Alexei Pankin is editor of Sreda, a Russian magazine for media
professionals. This was translated from the Russian by The International
Herald Tribune.)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/12/02/opinion/edpankin.html
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ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No. 247: ARTICLE NUMBER TEN
Names for the distribution list always welcome
=========================================================
10. "PUTIN GAMBLES BIG -- AND LOSES"
He needs a new Ukraine policy; we need a new Russia policy
COMMENTARY: By Michael McFaul
The Weekly Standard, Volume 010, Issue 13
Washington, D.C., December 13, 2004
AS THIS ARTICLE goes to press, it remains uncertain who will emerge the
winner of Ukraine's presidential election. The official tally favored Prime
Minister Viktor Yanukovich by 3 percentage points, but momentum is with
opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko, whom exit polls showed to be the
actual winner. All credible electoral monitors denounced the vote as
fraudulent, as did even one election commission official.
Tens of thousands of Yushchenko supporters remain mobilized on the streets
of Kiev. The Ukrainian parliament has swung behind Yushchenko, the Supreme
Court has annulled the election and called for a new vote, some of the prime
minister's supporters have defected, and the guys with the guns have sent
mixed signals about whether they would obey orders to repress the
demonstrators.
Yet, the ancient régime has not given up. Pro-Yanukovich governors in
eastern Ukraine have threatened to secede, and the lame duck president,
Leonid Kuchma, is trying to secure constitutional amendments that would
weaken presidential power as a condition of allowing a new election. If the
stalemate drags on, the demonstrators' mood could shift, towards either
radicalism or disappointment.
Whoever wins, Russian president Vladimir Putin is a clear loser. No matter
what the endgame, Putin has suffered a serious setback because of the way
he tried to deal with his most important neighbor. Putin's behavior has
weakened Russia's influence in strategic Ukraine and damaged the Russian
president's reputation in the West. It should call into question the Bush
administration's embrace of the Kremlin leader.
Putin fancies himself a foreign policy pragmatist, adept at defending
Russian national interests in a rational, dispassionate manner. In Ukraine,
however, he has been exposed as a leader still driven by outdated
ideological constructs like "spheres of influence" and "East versus West."
The result is Putin's greatest foreign policy disaster since he took office
four years ago.
In Ukraine, Putin made his first aggressive attempt to consolidate "managed
democracy"--his advisers' term for Russia's new regime-type-- in another
country. Hoping to prevent a democratic breakthrough like those in Serbia in
2000 and Georgia in 2003, Putin's administration orchestrated a giant
effort, first to aid Yanukovich's electoral campaign, then after the vote to
blur the world's understanding of the results. (Kuchma's own government
needed no technical assistance from Russia to carry out the actual
fraud--adding votes to precincts, some of which then reported 100 percent
turnout, with over 90 percent voting for Yanukovich.)
Campaign consultants tied to the Kremlin set up shop in Kiev, millions of
Russian rubles poured into the Yanukovich war chest, and Putin personally
visited Ukraine twice to campaign for the prime minister. On Election Day,
Russia sent its own observer mission, which pronounced--surprise,
surprise--the vote free and fair. Putin congratulated Yanukovich on his
victory well before the official results were released.
But this effort was all for nothing. Putin's advisers accurately foresaw
that Yushchenko and his supporters would protest the stolen election, and
they expected some perfunctory criticism from mid-level diplomats in the
West. But they also calculated that Ukrainian protesters would eventually go
home to escape the cold. And they reasoned that the West, especially the
Bush administration, would soon forget about the fraud, as more important
issues like the war on terrorism resumed their rightful place at center
stage.
Putin's advisers were wrong, about both Ukrainian democrats and Western
leaders. The opposition had prepared for this moment for years. Within hours
of the announcement of the fraudulent results, Yushchenko supporters were
pouring into the streets, ready to stay for the long haul. Then, as if in
concert, every democratic government in the world refused to recognize the
result. Secretary of State Colin Powell stated categorically, "We cannot
accept this result as legitimate because it does not meet international
standards and because there has not been an investigation of the numerous
and credible reports of fraud and abuse."
NOW THAT PUTIN'S ATTEMPT to wield "soft power" in Ukraine has
backfired, there are no good outcomes for Russia.
If Yushchenko eventually becomes president, the setback for Putin is
obvious. Remember, the candidate for whom Putin aggressively campaigned
has a criminal record (robbery and assault) and is closely tied to corrupt
oligarchic networks in the southeastern city of Donetsk, whose surrogates
tried to poison Yushchenko to get him out of the race. After Putin's
intervention, a President Yushchenko would have every right to adopt
anti-Russian policies.
It did not have to be this way. If Putin had been motivated by Russian
national interests alone, he would not have invested his personal reputation
in a candidate as unattractive and corrupt as Yanukovich. He would have
stayed on the sidelines during the campaign, reached out to the winner after
the vote, and mediated national reconciliation.
In that scenario, Yushchenko would have bent over backwards to meet with
Putin and prove to ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine that he was a uniter,
not a divider. Putin might have been able to guarantee Kuchma's retirement
somewhere in Russia (useful, since Kuchma has been accused of ordering the
murder of Ukrainian journalist Georgy Gongadze), and he might even have
secured a commitment from Yushchenko to make Russian a second official
language in Ukraine.
In addition, before the radicalizing events of the fall campaign, Yushchenko
was more likely to have been friendly to Russian investors in Ukraine, in
contrast with Prime Minister Yanukovich, who has made money for himself and
his cronies by keeping economic competitors out of Donetsk. Putin's blunders
during the election make a cooperative relationship less likely now.
In the wake of last week's events, a Yanukovich victory would be no triumph
for Russian foreign policy. If Yanukovich or someone from his camp manages
to become Ukraine's next leader, he will spend his entire term trying to
hold the country together and avoid civil war. Ukraine will stand in the
same relation to Russia that Poland did to the Soviet Union during the Cold
War--an ally in name, an oppressed and hostile society in reality.
So Putin loses either way. At this stage, only a major strategic mistake by
Yushchenko and the opposition--a spontaneous eruption of violence in
downtown Kiev or the adoption of a new, strident position in the
negotiations underway to defuse the crisis--could offer Putin a face-saving
exit.
Paradoxically, democracy in Ukraine is strengthened when an American
"ally"--Russia--pursues a misbegotten foreign policy. Putin not only had the
wrong objective in Ukraine, he also proved unable to construct a strategy
for achieving it. Is this really the kind of partner President Bush should
cultivate? As Bush assembles his new foreign policy team for the second
term, perhaps it's time to reassess his Russia policy.
When he first came to office, President Bush made a strategic decision to
develop a personal relationship with Putin as a means to achieve important
foreign policy goals. Before September 11, what was important to Bush was
national missile defense, which required, for diplomatic reasons, Putin's
acquiescence to the abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. Thanks
to his rapport with Putin, Bush got what he wanted. That's good diplomacy.
For a while, the close bond between the two also served American interests
in the aftermath of September 11. Putin sided unequivocally with the United
States in the war on terror and provided real assistance to the U.S.
military intervention in Afghanistan.
Since Afghanistan, however, it is difficult to identify any American foreign
policy objectives that Putin has helped us to achieve. The Russian president
is not much of an asset in fighting the global war on terror. Putin's
ruthless and unsuccessful war against Chechnya, where the death toll of well
over 100,000 in the last decade has reached genocidal proportions, has not
defeated Islamic radicals, but inspired them. Nor is Putin a champion of
American nonproliferation efforts, especially in places like Iran, where
Russians continue to build a nuclear reactor and transfer nuclear know-how,
despite overwhelming evidence that Iran has been hiding a secret nuclear
weapons program for years.
But Putin does most harm to Bush's foreign policy agenda precisely in
situations like the crisis in Ukraine, where Putin is actively undermining
democracy. Since September 11, Bush has made the promotion of liberty
abroad one of the central pillars of his foreign policy. After his
reelection, he has the opportunity to make his liberty doctrine his greatest
foreign policy legacy.
To date, the Bush administration's response to events in Ukraine has served
that legacy well. Bush officials have rejected Moscow's attempt to frame the
crisis as a struggle between East and West, insisting instead that the
battle is between supporters and foes of democracy. But Ukraine also shows
the difficulty of maintaining the fiction that Bush's promotion of democracy
in Ukraine is compatible with his indifference to autocracy in Russia.
The moment is ripe for a new approach to Putin and Putin's Russia. On
issues of nonproliferation, antiterrorism, and ending regional conflicts in
the states of the former Soviet Union, the U.S. government still has real
business to do with the government of Russia. State-to-state cooperation,
facilitated by personal ties between our presidents, must not only continue,
but grow.
In parallel and at the same time, however, Bush must develop a real strategy
for bringing his message of liberty to Russia. Bush should be able to work
constructively with his Kremlin counterpart without having to check his
values at the door. This dual-track diplomacy, which worked so well for
Ronald Reagan in dealing with his Kremlin counterparts (even before
Gorbachev came to power), must be attempted again.
On that score, Ukraine offers several lessons.
First, words matter. The demonstrators on the streets of Kiev cheered when
they heard Colin Powell's hard-hitting message rejecting the results of the
presidential vote. Speaking the truth about democratic rollback inside
Russia will similarly inspire the democrats there.
Second, a united Western voice matters. The United States and Europe both
strongly denounced the fraudulent elections in Ukraine. Had a major European
leader defected and reached out to Yanukovich, the West's positive influence
in this crisis would have been greatly diminished. A common Western message
about the seriousness of Putin's antidemocratic policies currently does not
exist. It should.
Third, assistance matters. European and American support for Ukrainian
civil society helped election monitors, exit pollsters, and independent
journalists who told the truth about the fraudulent vote. In turn, this has
inspired democrats in Kiev, London, Kharkiv, and Paris to stand firm.
Rather than cutting funds earmarked for democracy-building and educational
exchanges with Russia, the Bush administration should expand those programs
dramatically.
Finally, the pull of the West matters. Most Ukrainians want to live in a
normal, prosperous, and boring Europe. To bring Ukraine into such a
community, they fully understand that democratic consolidation is a
precondition, while reversion to autocracy would doom them to pariah status
like Belarus, the last full-blown dictatorship in Europe. Similar incentives
for reform must be offered to the Russians, most of whom also want to live
in a normal, prosperous, boring country considered part of Europe. In this
sense, the eastern border of Europe, whether defined as NATO or the
European Union, can never be finally fixed.
Russian democrats face a far greater challenge today than does the
opposition in Ukraine. But as they press their long and difficult struggle,
first to stop and then to reverse the establishment of authoritarian rule in
Russia, they should at least know that we are on their side. -30-
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael McFaul is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and teaches
political science at Stanford University. He is coauthor, with James
Goldgeier, of "Power and Purpose: U.S. Policy Toward Russia after
the Cold War" (Brookings, 2003).
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ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No. 247: ARTICLE NUMBER ELEVEN
Names for the distribution list always welcome
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11. MIRED IN POLITICS OF OIL IN UKRAINE
When it comes to oil the corrupt political process stops everything
Financial Post, Canada, Saturday, Dec 04, 2004
KIEV - Taras Soltys of Toronto runs a Ukrainian company controlled by
TSX-listed Epic Energy Ltd., which struck oil in Ukraine. But he has been
the victim of the country's corrupt political process, he says. "You can do
business here and I've had a number of successful ventures in the food and
beverage industry, but when it comes to oil the politics stop everything,"
he said in an interview this week in Kiev.
Epic has been suspended from trading for a year because of the trouble it
has encountered, he said. Mr. Soltys joined Epic in 2001, after its oil
licences were lifted without justification. He has been in Ukraine since
1992, working mostly on agrifood projects.
Ukrainian-speaking and sensing opportunities, he left Canada, where he held
various posts with Nabisco, Unilever and Canada Packers in Toronto. He is a
biochemist with an MBA in marketing from York University. His first foray
was a project jointly financed by CIDA and Ault Foods to bring technical and
marketing assistance to the dairy industry.
A proposed cheese plant for Pizza Hut followed, a cereal facility and then a
bottling plant, which is generating income of US$40-million a year and
employing 600 people. "Then I got involved in the oil business and oil is
always about politics."
In fall 2001, he became Epic Energy's director of its Ukrainian partnership,
Krym Texas Nafta, 60% owned by Epic and 40% by The State Property Fund
of Ukraine, a government corporation. At the time, the company employed 125
people but had just lost its licences on three oil fields, all of which were
producing about 36,500 barrels of oil a month. Now it struggles to employ 27
people and hasn't produced a drop of oil since 2001.
Mr. Soltys was brought in to fix the situation and battle Ukraine's systemic
corruption. Epic had held licences since 1996 and raised US$30-million to
try and find oil on dormant oil fields. It succeeded and began production.
Then the licences were cancelled inexplicably by the local government in
Crimea where the fields are. "After I was hired as a director of Krym the
assault began," he said.
The company was harassed by tax authorities and dragged into court on a
variety of trumped up issues. He fought them in court, and won, but remained
unable to get licences. His next move was to tie up the surface rights to
the land so that anyone trying to tap his wells would be trespassing. He has
also had to hire guards to protect his equipment and wellheads.
Meanwhile, well-connected business interests were granted licences nearby,
including outgoing President Leonid Kuchma's son-in-law, Igor Franchuk.
"I got calls from these guys. They said 'we've got licences. You put up the
money, provide your equipment and if we hit oil on our licences you'll get
your money back and then we'll split the profits 50-50.' "But I said no
because if I did, and I can't mobilize because I have no cash flow, I'd
never see any money. They'd keep it."
He obtained help from the Canadian Embassy in Kiev, which intervened
twice on Epic's behalf. Deals were struck, then ignored by local
authorities.
This, and other similar difficulties, is why the trade section of the
Canadian Embassy in Ukraine has been closed. "I keep bobbing and weaving
and they can't take it away from me," he said. "I'm not alone. Hunt Oil of
Texas has signed memorandums of agreement to explore for offshore gas
but nothing happens. Oil is big politics everywhere." Mr. Soltys acted as
an observer in the recent election and saw flagrant violations.
"It was rigged. I saw it first-hand. There were people voting who gave
addresses that didn't exist. There were people who registered but dropped
off the electoral list," he said. "I'll pack up and go home if the election
result isn't overturned and I won't be the only one leaving. A lot is riding
on this. Right now, this is a banana republic. "My father was born in
Ukraine and my mother is Ukrainian from Manitoba. I want this to work. This
could be a great country. The people are educated and get it very quickly."
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