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Action Ukraine Report

"THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT - AUR"
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"

"THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT - Number 466
E. Morgan Williams, Publisher and Editor
morganw@patriot.net, ArtUkraine.com@starpower.net
Washington, D.C. and Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, April 20, 2005

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

1. NATO HEAD WARNS UKRAINE OF 'LONG ROAD' TO MEMBERSHIP
By Daniel Dombey in Brussels
Financial Times, London, UK, Wed, April 20 2005

2. YUSHCHENKO & THE "TYMOSHENKO PLAN" FOR RUSSIA IN NATO
By Ira Straus, Izvestia, Moscow, Russia, Thursday, April 14, 2005

3. UKRAINE JOINS U.S. ZONE OF INFLUENCE FOR KEEPS
Politichesky Zhurnal, Russia, Tuesday, April 19, 2005
From RIA Novosti's digest of the Russian press

4. RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE SAYS GEORGIA MORE TO
BLAME FOR STALINIST GENOCIDE THAN RUSSIANS
MosNews, Moscow, Russia, April 20, 2005

5. RIVALS JOCKEY FOR POSITION IN UKRAINE MOBILE MARKET
By Tom Warner in Kiev and Nicholas George in Stockholm
Financial Times, London, UK, Monday, April 18 2005

6. MYROSLAVA GONGADZE: I TRUST NO ONE. I"VE FORGOTTEN
WHAT THE WORD "TRUST" MEANS
Interview with Myroslava Gongadze
Courtesy of www.glavred.info
The Day Weekly Digest in English, #13
Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 19, 2005

7. UKRAINE: WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH
Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is a tough cookie
COMMENTARY: Misha Glenny, International Herald Tribune (IHT)
Neuilly Cedex, France, Wednesday, April 20, 2005

8. PRIME MINISTER AND FASHION STAR: UKRAINIAN LEADER
APPEARS ON COVER OF ELLE MAGAZINE
Agence France Presse, Kiev, Ukraine, Tue Apr 19, 2005

9. FVP ANATOLIY KINAKH UNVEILS FURNACE FOR BLACK
GLASS SMELTING AT LVIV'S ISKRA COMPANY
50% of black glass to be exported to Poland
Interfax Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 12, 2005

10. U.S. TO PROVIDE LEGAL ASSISTANCE TO UKRAINE
IN FIGHTING AGAINST CORRUPTION
Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Tues, April 19, 2005

11. PROFILE OF UKRAINE'S KHERSON REGION GOVERNOR
BORYS SILENKOV, HE CAME TO POLITICS FROM BUSINESS
BBC Monitoring research in English 20 Apr 05
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, Wed, Apr 20, 2005

12. COMMENTARY: DID RUSSIA DEFEAT HITLER?
COMMENTARY: By Peter Lavelle
United Press International (UPI)
Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, April 19, 2005

13. WHY RUSSIA IS PUTTING STALIN BACK ON TO HIS PEDESTAL
By Nick Allen in Moscow, Guardian
London, UK, Wednesday, April 20, 2005

14. COLD WIND BLOWS FROM THE BALTICS AS VE DAY APPROACHES
Pyotr Romanov, RIA Novosti Political Commentator
RIA Novosti, Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, April 19, 2005

15. HISTORY: OPERATION ARGONAUT AND UKRAINE
Yalta '45: Controversies, secrets, collisions
By Prof. Volodymyr Shevchenko, Ph.D. (History)
The Day Weekly Digest in English, Kyiv, Ukraine,
Part I : #12, Tuesday, 12 April 2005
Part II: #13, Tuesday, 19 April 2005

16. ALLURE OF THE BLANK SLATE: FROM ACEH TO HAITI, A
PREDATORY FORM OF DISASTER CAPITALISM IS
RESHAPING SOCIETIES TO ITS OWN DESIGN
Headed by Carlos Pascual, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine
COMMENT & ANALYSIS: By Naomi Klein
The Guardian, London, United Kingdom, Mon, Apr 18, 2005
=============================================================
1. HEAD OF NATO WARNS UKRAINE OF 'LONG ROAD' TO MEMBERSHIP

By Daniel Dombey in Brussels
Financial Times, London, UK, Wed, April 20 2005

BRUSSELS - The head of Nato has pledged his support for Ukrainian
President Viktor Yushchenko's quest to join the 26-nation alliance, but
has warned that Kiev faces a "long and winding road" before it can finally
become a member.

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Nato secretary-general, also backed the faltering
campaign for the European Union's draft constitution and suggested
logistical help for Sudan's conflict zone of Darfur.

"Ukraine has clearly indicated that it wants to go along the long and
winding road to membership," he said in an interview with the Financial
Times. "Given the fact that there has been a peaceful revolution, the
membership standards can be much more easily fulfilled by the
Yushchenko government than by the [former] Kuchma government."

But Mr de Hoop Scheffer refused to set any timescale for Ukraine's
membership ambitions, which are strongly backed by the US.

At a foreign ministers meeting in Vilnius, Lithuania, this week, Nato is set
to offer Ukraine a package of assistance measures, but stop short of
issuing a "road map" towards membership.

Mr de Hoop Scheffer sees the informal meeting as an important step
towards developing Nato's political role and encouraging both North
America and Europe to make more use of Nato to forge a transatlantic
consensus.

In a speech this year, Gerhard Schröder, German chancellor, called on the
US to engage with Europe as an equal partner in Nato or else deal with it
through the EU.

At the Vilnius meeting, Joschka Fischer, German foreign minister, will
expand on EU-Nato ties. Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, and
Miguel Angel Moratinos, Spanish foreign minister, will discuss the Middle
East. Michel Barnier, French foreign minister, will talk about the Balkans.
As part of the development of Nato's political role, Mr de Hoop Scheffer
believes the alliance should step up its contacts with the EU through a
series of informal meetings.

Formal contacts between the two organisations are currently extremely
limited because of a dispute between Turkey, a Nato country, and Cyprus, an
EU member state. But Mr de Hoop Scheffer points out that Nato and the EU
are both involved in a number of areas across Europe and Asia, including
Ukraine, the Balkans, the Caucasus and Afghanistan.

"It is not in the interest of Nato to see Europe stall," he said, calling
for support for the EU constitution ahead of difficult referendums in France
and The Netherlands over the next few weeks. Mr de Hoop Scheffer added
that Nato could provide logistical help in dealing with the Darfur crisis if
requested by the African Union. -30-
=============================================================
2. YUSHCHENKO AND THE "TYMOSHENKO PLAN" FOR RUSSIA IN NATO

By Ira Straus, Izvestia, Moscow, Russia, Thursday, April 14, 2005

Will Ukraine's rush westward, trumpeted by President Yushchenko in his
American tour, be at the expense of Russia? Mr. Bush maintained a cautious
balancing act, emphasizing the reforms Ukraine must make to meet NATO
standards. Nevertheless, this implies a mechanical membership process
that would ultimately destroy the balance; only an interactive diplomatic
process could bring in Russia. The outcome depends on whether Ukraine gets
sucked into the view of its neighbors who joined the West in order to draw
a sharp line against Russia, or on the contrary sticks to its own natural
line, conceiving of the West as a home for Russia and Ukraine together.

Yushchenko pledged during his campaign to stay close to Russia even as
he integrated with the West. He himself is an Eastern Ukrainian. But his
Foreign Minister, Mr. Tarasyuk of central-western Ukraine, may have a
different view, and the temptation for simplification will be enormous.

The most coherent approach, to the amazement of many people, has been
proposed by Yulia Tymoshenko. On the eve of becoming Prime Minister,
she declared that Russia as well as Ukraine should join NATO and the EU,
saying: "Ukraine may become a NATO member, eventually; together with
Russia, that is. I'm firmly convinced that Ukraine and Russia can never be
members of different, let alone hostile, military blocs." (Yulia
Timoshenko, "Russia Did Not Lose," Vedomosti, January 11, 2005). She
added that, if Ukraine gets into the Western institutions first, it could
act as a "lobbyist" for Russian membership.

Her critics think she said this for political reasons, to make herself seem
more moderate. She herself says it is because she is a radical reformer,
not a radical nationalist. But even the PR explanation would not detract
from the logic of her position. Rather, it would underline the necessity of
such an approach for Ukraine.

This "Tymoshenko plan" is in the interest of both Russia and the West. They
need each other as allies. They need to prevent Ukraine's western turn from
damaging their global relations. And they both need a stable Ukraine, not
one divided internally.

The rapid changes in Ukraine will lead to a fork in the road of Russia-West
relations: either the relations get upgraded to keep pace with the westward
shift of Ukraine, or else they will suffer new crises.

Wise Ukrainian diplomats have long said that Russia and Ukraine should join
NATO at the same time. In the late '90s NATO circles began saying the same
thing; but neither country was seen as a near-term membership candidate.

Now the Ukrainian revolution has raised the stakes. Probably Ukraine will
get into NATO soon -- much sooner than Russia. This promises to be a
major irritant in relations with Russia throughout the next several years --
unless a major effort is made for Russia to move along a parallel track.

The effort might not succeed completely, but lack of an effort would
guarantee failure -- and would risk tearing Ukraine apart as well. Again
listen to Tymoshenko:

"(Ukraine has) substantially split into two camps. One believes that NATO
and the European Union spell trouble, the other believes this is the only
way forward. With this open wound, any sudden radical move completely
incomprehensible to at least some sections of the Ukrainian people would
in effect mean pushing Ukraine towards destruction." (Tymoshenko on
Russian TV1, January 23, 2004)

Westerners are sometimes aware of the extent of their influence, but rarely
of its unintended consequences. The West has an enormous gravitational
pull even when it is not thinking about it. Its pull is currently tugging
along Ukraine far more effectively than it is tugging Russia. Left to
itself, the difference in "tugs", tearing Ukraine away from Russia, would
serve to alienate Eastern Ukraine, destabilizing the country.

It is a paradoxical situation: as Ukraine moves west, it needs a way to
stay close to Russia or else its own stability will suffer. To put it
differently, it is like a joke history is playing on the West: it has to
make a special effort to keep Ukraine connected with Russia, if it is to
succeed in connecting Ukraine stably with itself.

The ultimate way this will get done, as Tymoshenko said, is when Russia
makes it fully into the West as well; then Ukraine and Russia will be back
together. It's in the interim that the details are tricky.

The realities will not allow a precise ideal scenario of simultaneous entry
such as Tymoshenko painted. Ukraine's arrival into NATO prior to Russia
seems inevitable. The only solution is to move faster with Russia -- to
deepen Russia-West relations and preserve Ukraine-Russia strategic
cooperation -- at the same time.

This means it is up to Bush and Putin. They will have to take proactive
measures and start filling in the details of the Tymoshenko plan with some
practical steps, such as:

- Upgrade the NATO-Russia Council (NRC); link it more closely with the
real NATO Council (NAC).
- Work out in NRC a joint strategic concept that reconciles the major
interests and strategic conceptions of Russia and the West. Guarantee
the Russian fleet's basing rights at Sevastopol, perhaps through a joint
NATO-Russia base.
- Create a roadmap for Russia to join NATO. Design the conditions so as
to make Russian membership a good thing for both parties.

Both sides need to get realistic about the conditions they try to impose on
the other. NATO needs to define relevant, not arbitrary, membership
conditions for Russia. It may be that Russia will fail to meet democratic
conditions in this period, but it must have an honest chance and a reason
to try. Russia in turn needs to put its demands for NATO transformation in
constructive terms; NATO is never going to agree to self-destructive
reforms. "Making NATO more of a political alliance" will happen only if it
means, not downgrading NATO's military functions, but directing them
better. This could entail adapting NATO's decision-making methods to be
more efficient, so it could deal with the fast-moving problems of the era
of terrorism, and so it could give up its fear that inclusion of Russia
would undermine its ability to make decisions.

If Russia and Ukraine are ever to be reunited deeply as Russians and
Eastern Ukrainians want, realistically it will have to be in the wider
common space provided by NATO and other Western institutions, not alone
where Russia could dominate but Ukraine would refuse. In the end, they may
yet have the shared future Tymoshenko foresees in the West. It is a noble
vision. Perhaps more important, it is the only workable perspective for
moving forward for any of the parties. -30-
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ira Straus is U.S. coordinator of the Committee on Eastern Europe
and Russia in NATO, an independent NGO.
=============================================================
3. UKRAINE JOINS U.S. ZONE OF INFLUENCE FOR KEEPS

Politichesky Zhurnal, Russia, Tuesday, April 19, 2005
From RIA Novosti's digest of the Russian press

Ukraine's joining NATO is unavoidable and spells the expansion of the
US zone of influence into the country once and for all, according to
Vyacheslav Nikonov, president of Russian Politika Foundation.

In its strategic plans, the United States assigns Ukraine the same role of
a US outpost in Europe as it did for Poland. Unlike Poland, the Ukrainian
outpost will wedge into the territory of Russia because Russia and Ukraine
are inseparable, as was widely believed in Moscow until recently. Russian
national sacred places are in Ukraine Kievan Rus. This means the Russian
Federation will be torn away from its national roots.

This pattern was expected to result from the election of Viktor Yushchenko
as Ukrainian president. Ukraine may be offered a fast-track admittance to
NATO because the NATO expansion procedures have been streamlined and
due to the huge PR effect of the 'orange revolution'. However, the main part
in this is being played by Ukraine's geopolitical importance for the final
solution of the Russian issue. It provides for expedited integration of the
country with NATO. The United States proceeds from the premise that Russia
will never come back as a great power if deprived of Ukraine. This will be
the final solution of the Russian issue for the countries that seek it,
e.g. Poland and the Baltic countries.

Ukraine's NATO membership will, most probably, be granted within two
years. Kiev will have to implement an integration program and prepare its
population. In addition, the Ukrainian constitution has to be amended,
because it stipulates the non-allied status of the country. Yushchenko will
also have to settle disagreements with his election coalition partners.

Ukraine's accession to NATO will sharply hinder its military and technical
cooperation with Russia, because the Russian and Ukrainian military
industrial complexes are integrated as much as 80%. The future of the
Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet will be questioned, too, as will be the
combined air defense and ballistic missile defense system. The combined
parts of the two countries' AD/BMD systems may end up as part of the US
AD/BMD system. -30- [The Action Ukraine Report Monitoring Service]
=============================================================
4. RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE SAYS GEORGIA MORE TO
BLAME FOR STALINIST GENOCIDE THAN RUSSIANS

MosNews, Moscow, Russia, April 20, 2005

Russian ambassador to Ukraine, former Russian PM, Viktor Chernomyrdin,
said Georgia is more to blame for genocide of Ukrainians than Russia.

Speaking to journalists, the ambassador said that since Joseph Stalin was
originally from Georgia, accusations of mass repressions should be
directed at that country, Lenta.Ru reported.

Chernomyrdin was asked whether Russia acknowledged the genocide of
the Ukrainians by the Soviet leadership. "If we speak about terror in the
times of the USSR, as a result of that, the number of Russians killed was
far greater than that of Ukrainians. We still cannot answer to our people
for that. If anyone is to receive claims, address them to Georgia, the
'father of nations' Joseph Stalin was from that country," the ambassador
replied.

Historians estimate that some seven million people died during the 1932-33
famine, which Ukrainians say was deliberately started by the then Soviet
leader Joseph Stalin.

Under his policy of forced collectivisation of agriculture, farmers in
Ukraine - known as the "bread basket" of the USSR - were stripped of all
their produce, leaving millions of people with virtually no food to survive.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/04/20/georgiaforstalin.shtml
=============================================================
5. RIVALS JOCKEY FOR POSITION IN UKRAINE MOBILE MARKET

By Tom Warner in Kiev and Nicholas George in Stockholm
Financial Times, London, UK, Monday, April 18 2005

Strong foreign interest in Ukraine's rapidly-developing mobile telephone
market has sparked the first major boardroom conflict in the country
between Russian and western investors.

Norway's Telenor, which owns a 56.5 per cent stake in Ukraine's
second-largest mobile operator Kyivstar, said it was facing an aggressive
two-pronged attack on its position from long-time ally Alfa Group of Russia.

Alfa has launched a challenge to Telenor's dominant role at Kyivstar after
buying all the shares in Storm, a Ukrainian company that owns the remaining
43.5 per cent of Kyivstar. Kyivstar is due to re-elect its board, currently
split between Telenor, Alfa and Storm's former owners, on April 28.

Also, Alfa is threatening to undermine Kyivstar by bringing into the
Ukrainian market Vimpelcom, the second-largest Russian mobile operator,
in which Alfa is the largest shareholder. Telenor, which has a smaller stake
in Vimpelcom, has denounced the proposal.

Kirill Babaev, a vice-president at Alfa Telecom, said the moves reflected
Alfa's strong interest in the Ukrainian market, where the number of mobile
users has quadrupled in two years to 16m, or 34 per cent penetration. Mr
Babaev said his group hoped to reach a compromise with Telenor over
Kyivstar's management and Vimpelcom's proposed entry intro Ukraine. "We
are negotiating both problems together. They are connected," Mr Babaev said.

Telenor accuses Alfa of using unfair tactics. "They are doing very strange
things and building hurdles for our partnership." Last month, Alfa filed
suit in Kiev seeking to cancel a shareholder agreement between Storm and
Telenor, a move Telenor said violated an agreement it had with Alfa to hear
any such disputes in a US court. The Ukrainian court threw out the case.

Similarly, a Vimpelcom shareholder allied to Alfa filed suit in southern
Russia seeking to cancel a clause from the company's charter that requires
super-majorities of its board to approve acquisitions. The local court
supported the complaint but Russia's Supreme Court suspended the ruling
and removed the case from the lower court's jurisdiction.

Alfa had threatened to use the lower court's ruling to push through
Vimpelcom's expansion at an April 22 board meeting. Alfa is proposing that
Vimpelcom buy Ukrainian Radio Systems, a minor operator whose main asset
is a national GSM-900 licence. -30- [Action Ukraine Report Monitoring]
=============================================================
6. MYROSLAVA GONGADZE: I TRUST NO ONE. I"VE FORGOTTEN
WHAT THE WORD "TRUST" MEANS

Interview with Myroslava Gongadze
Courtesy of www.glavred.info
The Day Weekly Digest in English
Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Myroslava Gongadze, who left Ukraine four years ago and has been
living in the United States, flew to Kyiv recently.

After a meeting at the Office of the General Prosecutor of Ukraine,
Myroslava Gongadze told the Ukrainian TV Channel Tonis that the
prosecutor's office and the task force investigating the Gongadze case
have new information about her husband's murder. She insists that the
Melnychenko tapes have to be forensically examined.

This could be done in the United States, but for this to happen General
Prosecutor Sviatoslav Piskun must meet with Mykola Melnychenko in the
US: "Melnychenko's involvement in the forensic examination is of principal
importance because he is the only one who can explain how the recording
was done." Mrs. Gongadze says the General Prosecutor assured her he
intends to visit the United States to conclude the investigation.

Meanwhile, the situation with the Melnychenko tapes is becoming more
convoluted. The number of "owners" of the ex-major's tapes is rising
(together with the level of distrust in their authenticity?). On April 14
Aleksandr Goldfarb, head of Boris Berezovsky's Foundation for Civil
Liberties, and Yuriy Felshtinsky, a historian, testified at the General
Prosecutor's Office. Both were interviewed as witnesses in the Gongadze
case. (The Foundation for Civil Liberties recently declared that it has
Mykola Melnychenko's tapes and is prepared to submit them to the Office
of the General Prosecutor of Ukraine.)

"We handed over the material evidence in our possession, in keeping with
a published list of all items. After that Felshtinsky and I were asked to
give testimony and we recounted everything we knew in regard to the case,
including our relations with Melnychenko," Aleksandr Goldfarb said in an
interview with Interfax Ukraine.

Myroslava Gongadze comments on the subject of Melnychenko's tapes
and their authenticity, and the way Ukraine is viewed across the ocean in
the following interview, courtesy of www.glavred.info

"I KNOW THAT THIS COUNTRY HASN'T CHANGED"

Myroslava, have you discovered anything new in Ukraine?
Myroslava: Honestly, I'm in a state of cultural shock, but unfortunately
it's not a positive one. Perhaps it's just what I've seen after spending a
couple of days here, but everything seems so gray... I don't know, I just
feel out of sync and it'll probably take some time before I get the feel
of things.

How long has it been since you left?
Myroslava: Four years. It's early spring here. Maybe that's why everything
is a bit of a shock for me. I'm disturbed by what I see. The reason is not
so much that I haven't been able to communicate a lot. It's the faces I see
on the streets, the buildings and streets, the way they look. This is more
of an aesthetic impression, but it makes me feel depressed.

But many people say that Kyiv looks better.
Myroslava: Like I said, it's how I feel; others would feel differently, of
course.

When you were coming from Boryspil, what were you expecting? What was
your mood?
Myroslava: I was eager to see Ukraine after all these years, the changes
that may have taken place. But when I stepped up to the customs counter
and the officer asked in Russian, "Where did you come from?" and in such
a tone, I realized that my country hasn't changed yet.

What were you expecting?
Myroslava: I was expecting to hear something like Pryiemnoho perebuvannia
v Ukrayini! - Welcome to Ukraine, we hope you enjoy your visit!
Unfortunately,
I didn't hear anything of the kind. I didn't see any smiling face. Then I
saw the number of media people at the airport. I was shocked and I cried. I
didn't know what to do; should I follow the usual passenger route or escape
through a back door?

Did people come out to meet you?
Myroslava: Yes, but there were so many cameras, so many questions being
asked.

You said once you didn't trust Piskun. Before flying from the US to Ukraine,
you said you wanted to meet with him.
Myroslava: I have flown to Ukraine to meet with everybody and find out about
the progress on the Gongadze case; after all, I had limited access to
information in America, except what I could find on the Internet. I believe
that most Ukrainian politicians are still unaccustomed to discussing things
freely on the phone; they're afraid their lines are bugged, so I had to make
this visit. My task is to see what has actually been achieved in the murder
case, and what could be done to make Melnychenko's tapes public knowledge
and added as material evidence. I'll also consider certain proposals from
the Ukrainian side, including the possibility of living here.

"KUCHMA AND LYTVYN BOTH KNEW THEY ORDERED THE MURDER"

So have you met with Mr. Piskun?
Myroslava: Yes, and I've met and worked with the task force investigating
the case.

Do you think these people can solve the case?
Myroslava: Yes, I do. I've taken part in certain investigative procedures
and I know that these people are really trying to solve the case, so I feel
optimistic, more or less.

Did you hear President Yushchenko say that the case is nearly solved, that
the killers have been found, and that those who ordered the murder would
be brought to justice shortly?
Myroslava: Of course I did, but I don't believe the "nearly" part. Solving
this case will take a long time; there are just too many nuances to take
into account, many investigative procedures to conduct - all this
complicates the process, especially the Melnychenko tapes. I don't think
that Mykola Melnychenko will be willing to hand them over to the Office of
the General Prosecutor of Ukraine, and I believe that the tapes should be
forensically tested in the United States.

The investigative task force should fly to the US and cooperate with the
FBI, but this requires a number of arrangements on both sides. From what
I know, the FBI and the Ukrainian Prosecutor's Office are willing to do just
that (as the General Prosecutor has assured me), so the tapes will be
added as evidence in the cases.

Are you in contact with Melnychenko? Are you on business, friendly, or
partnership terms with him?
Myroslava: I'm in contact with him and I think that we're on
friendly-partnership terms. I'm willing to make every effort to have the
tapes added to the case. It's a matter of principle. I'm trying to
understand his personal and legal stance. I'm also trying to figure out a
legal way out of the situation. I can sense that he's still cornered, but
when I talk to him, I can also sense that he's prepared to have his tapes
submitted for legal forensic examination, that he's willing to give
testimony, that he's willing to help; I have no reasons to distrust his
intentions.

It's just that we have many interviews to the effect that Melnychenko
offered his tapes to other people.
Myroslava: That has absolutely nothing to do with this case. I don't give a
hoot about who ordered the killing, or who paid for it. All I really want is
legally to establish the voices of Kuchma, Kravchenko, Lytvyn, and Derkach
on the tapes. It is important for me to prove the tapes' authenticity and
the existence of these voices, to identify them. I am interested in this
context. I don't care what he sold to whom, what kind of relationships he
may have had with Berezovsky or Tom, Dick, or Harry. All I want is to get
the recordings that relate to Gongadze accepted as material evidence.

On whom does this depend?
Myroslava: Melnychenko, in the first place, and the General Prosecutor's
Office. All it takes is for the General Prosecutor and Melnychenko to say
yes. The rest, getting them together, is simple.

Why do you think he never made any tapes public after your husband's
disappearance? Has he offered any explanations?
Myroslava: There are decoded versions of these tapes after my husband's
disappearance, including Lytvyn and Kravchenko discussing my conduct,
and Olena Prytula's - it's a fact; you can hear them laughing, telling each
other how she and I looked; everything is there.

What do you think made them focus on your husband?
Myroslava: This was already after his murder. They were involved, there's no
denying the fact. The media were in an uproar, so they had to discuss this,
especially since both Kuchma and Lytvyn knew that they had ordered the
murder.

Did Melnychenko say anything about your husband's name being mentioned
before the tragedy?
Myroslava: Sure. Kuchma said Kravchenko should be used to solve the
Gongadze problem.

We remember your first interviews, where you made aggressive statements
about Lytvyn.
Myroslava: I never made any aggressive statements; I simply stated facts -
that's all. I have no aggression toward Lytvyn or anyone else.

Do you have any reason to believe that Lytvyn sicked Kuchma on your husband?
Myroslava: He is one of them. Derkach was also there and he was directly
involved. I don't know which of them incited Kuchma to make the kind of
statement he did, but both of them were there. The tapes make it clear that
Kravchenko tried to be careful; he wanted to make the whole thing legally
acceptable. Kuchma asked, "What's happening in general? Can this be done?

I've told you..." To which Kravchenko replied, "He [Gongadze] has submitted
an inquiry to the General Prosecutor." To which Kuchma replied, "Yeah, every
assh... writes to the General Prosecutor." Kravchenko replied that everyone
has a right to do this, but then added, "I'll take care of this, I have top
pros." On that particular occasion Kravchenko told him that there was a very
energetic investigating officer, maybe the head of a militia precinct, who
had started digging too deeply into the case in connection with this
statement, and that he'd had him transferred.

Pieces of the corpse that was unearthed at Tarashcha were submitted for
forensic testing two months ago.
Myroslava: I don't know anything about this.

Really?
Myroslava: I know that there's some kind of forensic examination underway
and I've just received official confirmation of the fact.

Do you trust the new Ukrainian government?
Myroslava: I wonder why everyone is pestering me with this question. They
keep asking whether I trust Piskun or anyone else. I trust no one. I've
forgotten what the word "trust" means.

Assuming there must by a starting point for trusting anyone or anything,
what would be such a point for you?
Myroslava: Facts. Solving the case.

Did it shock you when President Yushchenko said that the case has been
solved?
Myroslava: I was more amazed. I don't think that such statements should be
made by a head of state. On the other hand, I thought it was a good sign, in
a way. It was good to hear the president say that he was prepared and
willing to have the case solved and made public, but it was wrong in legal
terms; it could be regarded as political pressure; as a lawyer, I understand
that the defendants may use this factor for their benefit - and I wouldn't
want this to happen.

Did you follow Yushchenko's visit in Washington? How are they responding
to this and other gestures made by the new Ukrainian government?
Myroslava: In fact, I covered his visit as a journalist. He was accorded a
great welcome. They regard him as an opportunity to change Ukraine, as a
way to this country's big future and progress. But everybody expects
concrete deeds. He must prove that he is effective, that's the main thing.
The nation elected him. That's great and everybody feels happy about it,
but it's time to prove his ability to bring about changes in Ukraine.

I was in Congress at the time. I've never seen anything like it. They were
standing and applauding, shouting YUSHCHENKO! YUSHCHENKO! They
were wearing orange neckties and scarves. I was very impressed. I can't
think of another political leader who was welcomed like this.

"I'M INTERESTED IN POLITICS AND DIPLOMACY"

Have your friends' attitudes to you changed in any way? Have they changed?
Myroslava: I don't think so. My friends have remained friends. The same is
true of my political partners and colleagues. No changes there.
Political partners?

Myroslava: I mean people like Borys Tarasiuk, Ihor Hryniv, and Viktor
Pynzenyk. We've remained friends and partners. Also, Oksana Hriaznova,
Hlibovytsky, and many others.

While you were in the United States, did you follow their political and
other careers?
Myroslava: Of course. Informationally, I lived here.

What about your former mother-in-law?
Myroslava: I haven't spoken to her since I landed in Kyiv.

Are you on friendly terms with her?
Myroslava: Yes, I call her on a regular basis.

So you know how she's been, what she's been doing?
Myroslava: Yes, to an extent, considering that I haven't visited her for
four years. I know that my father has been visiting her, keeping her
supplied with food, and so on. She has health problems, especially after
the last visit to the General Prosecutor's Office.

What about your plans? If you decide to stay in Ukraine, what line of
business will you prefer to take?
Myroslava: There are two possibilities that interest me: politics and
diplomacy.

What kind of politics? Getting a seat in parliament?
Myroslava: Yes, at the Verkhovna Rada.

Have you made any arrangements, like getting your name on a roster?
Do you intend to join Yushchenko's party?
Myroslava (laughing): No one has discussed this option with me.

Do you intend to speak with Yushchenko during your visit?
Myroslava: Yes, I do.

When?
Myroslava: I've discussed the possibility with Poroshenko and Zinchenko.
They promised an appointment as soon as Yushchenko returns to Ukraine,
perhaps some time between April 16 and 18.

Is it true that Borys Tarasiuk has offered you a spokesperson's post with
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine?
Myroslava (laughing): I'm not confirming it.

But you aren't refuting it, either?
Myroslava: No comment. I'm more interested in politics. Also, I'm not sure
I want to stay in Ukraine.

How did the children react to your trip to Ukraine?
Myroslava: They cried. They told me it's a terrible country where people get
killed. They are having a hard time getting over this attitude, this fear. I
constantly tried to convince them, especially Nina, to meet with Viktor
Yushchenko. Nina would cry and tell me that he must be in pain; that God
saved him, but that he feels bad because he has to appear in public with
his disfigured face.

But in the end, they met and Mr. Yushchenko gave them some books. He
told them, "Come to Ukraine." They were happy, so everything's OK.
But this will be a difficult decision for them. In thinking of my future, I
have to think about my children first of all. So far I haven't convinced
them. -30- [The Action Ukraine Report Monitoring Service]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: http://www.day.kiev.ua/135982
=============================================================
7. UKRAINE: WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH
Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is a tough cookie

COMMENTARY: Misha Glenny, International Herald Tribune (IHT)
Neuilly Cedex, France, Wednesday, April 20, 2005

KIEV - If democratic revolutions prospered on aspirations and the feel-
good factor alone, Ukraine would soon be one of the world's leading
nations. But they don't. So it is just as well that Prime Minister Yulia
Tymoshenko is a tough cookie.

Her collaborator, President Viktor Yushchenko, was the dignified leader
of the Orange Revolution, which defeated an attempt by his opponents
to steal victory in last year's presidential election. Yushchenko deserves
the accolades he has received in Brussels and Washington for mobilizing
Ukraine's popular democratic will.

A new sense of pride is palpable in this country, even in those areas of
the predominantly Russian-speaking east that are supposedly hostile to
Yushchenko. Nonetheless, Ukraine's new leaders are confronted with
immense problems. Yushchenko's predecessor, Leonid Kuchma,
succeeded in dragging Ukraine into a pit of venality and corruption, and
it seems increasingly clear that Tymoshenko's iron determination will be
a key factor in whether Ukraine will be able to start cleansing itself in
the post-Orange era.

She has addressed her two major domestic issues with gusto. At the heart
of Ukraine's problems and Kuchma's legacy lie a tax regime that is an open
invitation for Ukraine's superrich oligarchs to cheat the state of revenues
and a customs operation that claimed to protect Ukrainian industry with high
tariffs but in reality benefited only large-scale fraudsters and smugglers.

A more equitable tax regime and a "No to Contraband" campaign was
Tymoshenko's bold answer to this. She drastically lowered tariffs on a range
of key products, wiping out at a stroke the incentives for people to move
goods illegally across Ukraine's borders. She has also ordered an overhaul
of the notoriously corrupt Customs Service.

Her second problem contains greater dangers but also a couple of awkward
moral dilemmas: The influence and financial clout of the oligarchs who
indulged in everything from grand larceny, extortion and (most people
believe) murder to amass huge fortunes under Kuchma.

This month, Tymoshenko sent out the most dramatic message possible
when her interior minister ordered the arrest of the Donetsk regional
governor, a close ally of the richest of all oligarchs, Rinat Akhmetov. More
arrests could follow. The danger for Yushchenko and Tymoshenko is
whether the oligarchs will take this lying down.

Then there are those moral dilemmas. Tymoshenko herself is believed to
have made more than $1 billion during the Kuchma period before falling into
disfavor and ending up in jail on corruption charges. At some point, if she
is to avoid accusations of using the justice system as an instrument of
revenge, she will have to define what was criminal behavior in the past
decade and what was not. Furthermore, the new leadership will eventually
have to decide whether to open an investigation against Kuchma himself,
whom everybody recognizes as the great ringmaster of corruption.

In foreign policy, Ukraine needs to take particular care with Russia.
However attractive the European Union's warm embrace might be, it is a
very distant one. Ukraine stands far down a long line of EU aspirants, and
politically and economically its relationship with Russia is central to its
past, present and future. And however triumphal Yushchenko's U.S.
reception might have been, Congress doesn't pay Ukraine's bills -
especially its gas bill. And gas is the very stuff of Ukraine's relationship
with its eastern neighbor.

Last week, President Vladimir Putin and Gerhard Schröder, the German
chancellor, signed an agreement to build a gas pipeline through the Baltic
Sea. By 2010, this will end Ukraine's virtual monopoly over the transit
route supplying Russian and Central Asian gas to Western Europe. Ukraine
is dependent on revenues from the transit to subsidize its own hugely
inefficient gas consumption.

The situation is even more bleak because the deal under which Turkmenistan
sells cheap gas to Ukraine ends next year, and the Turkmens insist they will
charge much more in the future. The new Baltic pipeline deal looks very much
like Russia putting the squeeze on Ukraine where the country is most
vulnerable.

The Orange Revolution was an inspiring spectacle, but it humiliated Putin,
who campaigned openly for Yushchenko's opponent while Yushchenko and
Tymoshenko celebrated the values of the West. And a corrupt bureaucracy,
powerful oligarchs and a mighty neighbor with huge influence over the
economy means that Ukraine faces a very rough ride over the next few years.

It does so, however, with confidence in its democratic credentials, and that
gives it real hope for the first time in a decade. -30-
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Misha Glenny is author of ''The Balkans: Nationalism, War and the
Great Powers, 1804-1999.''
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/04/19/opinion/edglenny.html
=============================================================
8. PRIME MINISTER AND FASHION STAR: UKRAINIAN LEADER
APPEARS ON COVER OF ELLE MAGAZINE

Agence France Presse, Kiev, Ukraine, Tue Apr 19, 2005

KIEV (AFP) - Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, a leader of last
year's pro-Western "Orange Revolution," made the cover of the Ukrainian
edition of Elle magazine, a rare event for a political personality here.

The deputy editor-in-chief in Ukraine, Myroslava Makarevich, characterized
the 44-year-old prime minister's appearance on the cover as "a revolution in
the world of magazines," according to the online journal Ukrainska Pravda.

She said it was rare for women politicians to be on the magazine's cover,
citing France's one-time prime minister Edith Cresson and the late US first
lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis as other examples.

Tymoshenko was a pivotal figure in the movement that led to a presidential
election victory for Viktor Yushchenko in December. She was once accused of
corruption by Russia, where a judged issued an arrest warrant for the woman
considered by the Kremlin as a radical anti-Russian.

The magazine's cover photo shows Tymoshenko, her blonde hair fashioned
in her trademark braid wound around her head. She is wearing a violet Louis
Vuitton dress with a Chanel brooch.

Inside the magazine, three other photos show the head of the Ukrainian
government in clothes signed by Yves Saint Laurent and Valentino Red, the
Italian designer's ready-to-wear line, and adorned by jewels. The pictures
were taken in Ukraine's government building after two months of
negotiations, Makarevich said.

In an interview accompanying the photos, the premier is quoted as saying
that she was "happy not to have lost my romanticism." "What may appear
radical in my actions is just the fact that I know how to hold on to my
positions," she told the magazine. -30-
=============================================================
9. FVP ANATOLIY KINAKH UNVEILS FURNACE FOR BLACK GLASS
SMELTING AT LVIV'S ISKRA COMPANY
50% of black glass to be exported to Poland

Interfax Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 12, 2005

KYIV - Ukraine's First Vice Premier Anatoliy Kinakh took part on Tuesday
in the opening ceremony of the only furnace for smelting black glass in
the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) at Lviv's OJSC Iskra.

Addressing the company personnel, he noted that Iskra is a strategic
enterprise for the Ukrainian economy, as it supplies electric bulbs to the
majority of the home market and is doing well in external markets.

"We will support the domestic producer and do the utmost for the whole
of the world to learn about Iskra products," the first vice premier said.
The furnace was installed by the Polish Techglass firm. Fifty percent of the
black glass will be exported to Poland, 10% to Russia, and the rest will be
used for domestic needs. -30- [Action Ukraine Monitoring Service]
=============================================================
10. U.S. TO PROVIDE LEGAL ASSISTANCE TO UKRAINE
IN FIGHTING AGAINST CORRUPTION

Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Tues, April 19, 2005

KYIV - The United States intends to provide legal assistance to
Ukraine in fighting against corruption, in the judicial system and
availability of legal education. Press service of the Ministry of
Justice informed Ukrainian News about this.

According to the data of the press service, the agreement on legal
assistance on the part of the US was reached at the talks of Minister of
Justice Roman Zvarych and advisor on democracy development for
the US Agency for International Development [USAID] David Black.

Zvarych said that Ukraine is interested in assistance from the Agency in
increasing efficiency of state executive service and qualification of its
officers, because level of fulfillment of court decisions in Ukraine still
remains low, especially in the sphere of bankruptcy of enterprises.
According to Zvarych, this problem may create obstacles on the way of
Ukraine's accession to the World Trade Organization and in relations with
the European Union, which is why it requires immediate action.

Zvarych asked the Agency to perform expert examination of the Code of
Honor of Public Servants and Clean Hands program that the Justice Ministry
developed within the framework of fighting against corruption. He also asked
the Agency to perform expert examination of the draft of the Criminal
Procedure Code, approved by the Verkhovna Rada in the first reading.

The Justice Ministry believes that this draft law does not correspond to
democratic principles of provision of human rights, which is why Zvarych
asked to evaluate amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code developed
by the Ministry of Justice.

According to Zvarych, another direction of cooperation with the USAID may
be development of programs for advanced training of judges. As Ukrainian
News earlier reported, the Verkhovna Rada ratified the Civil Convention on
Fighting against Corruption.

The Convention contains provision on measures that should be performed
at the national level for fighting against corruption by civil legal
methods, as well as on international cooperation in this sphere. President
Viktor Yuschenko believes that his first and foremost task and task of the
new Cabinet of Ministers is fighting against corruption. -30-
=============================================================
11. PROFILE OF UKRAINE'S KHERSON REGION GOVERNOR
BORYS SILENKOV, HE CAME TO POLITICS FROM BUSINESS

BBC Monitoring research in English 20 Apr 05
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, Wed, Apr 20, 2005

Borys Silenkov has come to politics from business, like many other regional
governors under President Viktor Yushchenko. But, unlike most of his fellow
businessmen-turned-governors, Silenkov has had a rich experience in the
regional executive. He used to be a deputy governor and a popular town
mayor. Despite being only a recently converted supporter of Yushchenko,
Silenkov has been picked to be his chief representative in a difficult
region - Kherson has been haunted by unemployment, and its economy is
one of Ukraine's poorest.

Borys Silenkov was born on 7 November 1960 in the town of Smila in Ukraine's
central Cherkasy Region. After military service in Moscow, he moved south.
In 1984 Silenkov graduated from the Odessa Institute of People's Economy,
where he specialized in finance. He started his working career at the
Kherson regional finance directorate.

In 1990 Silenkov moved up the career ladder to head the financial department
of Nova Kakhovka, a town in Kherson Region. In 1994 he moved to private
banking, holding top posts first at the Kherson branch of the Vidrodzhennya
bank and then at the Nova Kakhovka's branch of one of Ukraine's largest
banks, Aval.

Silenkov became deputy governor of Kherson Region in 1996. His first stint
in the regional executive was not successful. In 1998 Silenkov was fired by
the governor, who reportedly grew wary of his popularity. Silenkov went back
to private business the same year, moving to Crimea, where he became CEO
of TER Holding Ukraine, a fuel business then controlled by MP Ihor Franchuk,
a former son-in-law of then President Leonid Kuchma.

Simultaneously Silenkov continued his studies as a postgraduate economist
at the Kherson State Technical University. In 2001-02 Silenkov headed the
economic department at LUKoil-Crimea. In 2002 Silenkov returned to Nova
Kakhovka, where on 31 March of the same year he, unexpectedly for many,
won the mayoral election.

Silenkov was a popular mayor, earning the reputation of a mafia-fighter in
conflicts with big businessmen. At the early stage of the 2004 presidential
election campaign Silenkov tried to be neutral, but this was not easy in a
region whose leaders openly backed Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. After
Silenkov had allowed Yushchenko to meet voters in Nova Kakhovka's central
square, he was accused of corruption and barely escaped prison, fleeing the
town. The local council condemned a criminal case against Silenkov as
political. Ahead of the November second round of the elections, Silenkov
called on the locals to back Yushchenko. On 4 February 2005 Yushchenko
picked him for the post of Kherson governor.

The first thing that Silenkov did in his new post was to replace the
majority of officials at the regional administration with his appointees. A
local newspaper wrote that Silenkov and his family have been either owners
or founders of "40 oil companies, banks, media holdings and other
companies", but Silenkov denied this, saying that he did not know the
names of most of the companies linked to his name by the newspaper.
Silenkov is married, with two sons. -30-
============================================================
12. COMMENTARY: DID RUSSIA DEFEAT HITLER?

COMMENTARY: By Peter Lavelle
United Press International (UPI)
Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, April 19, 2005

MOSCOW - To defeat Nazi Germany 60 years ago, the Soviet Union lost
28 million citizens, or as one Russian historian put it -- the Soviet Union
bled 148 million liters of blood to finally have the hammer and sickle fly
over Hitler's Reichstag in 1945 after Germany's aggressive and
unprecedented murderous war. The majority of lives lost on the Soviet side
were ethnic Russians. But did Russia win the war?

Russia's approach and attitude to World War II is something akin to the
cosmonaut who was launched into space before the Soviet collapse in 1991
and only to return to a newly established Russian Federation. To where do
the cosmonaut's efforts and accomplishments lie? For the cosmonaut, it
probably doesn't matter, but for history it does.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Russia assumed the role of the
Soviet successor state. In that role, Russia assumed mostly headaches:
foreign debts, inheritor of some really nasty foreign policy and treaty
obligations, and the meta-history of the controversial Soviet experience.
Essentially, everything that was wrong and hated about the Soviet Union was
legally accepted by the new and frightfully erratic Russian state headed by
Boris Yeltsin.

On the upside, the successor state continues to be an unquestioned nuclear
power occupying a seat on the U.N. Security Council with veto rights and one
of the internationally recognized, in the strictest legal since, victor that
destroyed the Nazi scourge that menaced all of Europe and beyond.

For the Russian Federation, in the realm of international politics, the
Soviet inheritance is clearly more than problematic. But for many Russians,
particularly war veterans, the Soviet inheritance and the meaning of World
War II is anything but. President Vladimir Putin appears to agree.

Putin's attachment to the historic achievement against Hitler's monstrous
regime and war is hardly greeted with enthusiasm with many of the
nationalities that once made-up the Soviet Union and its empire. Two of the
three presidents of the Baltic republics will boycott Moscow's commemorative
celebrations -- dismissing the Soviet Union's war efforts as a cover for
another 40 years of oppressive and totalitarianism.

In the Baltic republics, particularly in Latvia, war veterans have recently
marched through the streets of Riga to proudly remember their collaboration
with the Nazi occupation of their country during the war. One certainly has
to wonder if those same veterans knew of, supported, or were involved in the
destruction of Eastern European Jewry during Hitler's jackboot occupation.

Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko has said he will opt to spend victory
day with local veterans in Kiev. It is part of the historical record that
many Ukrainian communities welcomed the Nazi invader as liberators in June
1941. Those same communities were sorely disappointed as the German
military, the Gestapo, and other fascist security forces deemed the
Ukrainian nation -- like all Slavs -- as noting more than slave labor to be
exploited. Many Ukrainians willing collaborated with the Nazi invader to
exterminate the country's large Jewish community, which went as far as to
accept the "privileged" positions of being a "kapo" (a prison guard allowed
to beat other prisoners in service of their fascist masters) in Auschwitz.

Yushchenko's position, his country the victim of the great manmade famine
under Soviet auspices, offends the memory of Soviet soldiers -- of many
nationalities -- who died to liberate Auschwitz. The Soviet Union and its
ideology ravished Ukraine -- not to mention what the same ideology did to
the Russian nation. Before, during, and after Ukraine was traumatized, the
nation of ethnic Russians experienced repeated purges, deportations,
imprisonment and executions. Russians are not circumspect when it comes
to honoring the loss of millions to defeat Hitler -- actually it is the only
way to give sense to the sacrifice made as the Soviet juggernaut destroyed
so many millions of lives at home.

Does Putin demand recognition and glorification of the Soviet achievement
over Hitler to serve his own "autocratic" and "neo-imperialist" agenda for
today's Russia? This is what most media appear to claim as the 60th
anniversary events in Moscow approach. Far from it, Putin's ambition is only
to claim the right of "historical succession" the end of the Soviet Union
bestows upon Russia.

The Soviet victory over Nazi Germany was later used to justify the
dictatorship of the Communist Party at the expense of the nations who fought
and died in that conflict. Putin is intent to do just the opposite. He is
not using the end of the war to promote an ideology or as a means to remind
other nationalities that they should be beholden to Russia.

He is merely reminding the world the respect Russians deserves for crushing
one totalitarian nightmare, living through its own totalitarian darkness,
and a first step in the much-needed area of reconciliation. Putin can't do
otherwise. To do so would leave open the question: Did Russia defeat Hitler?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTACT: Peter Lavelle at plavelle@untimely-thoughts.com
=============================================================
13. WHY RUSSIA IS PUTTING STALIN BACK ON TO HIS PEDESTAL

By Nick Allen in Moscow, Guardian
London, UK, Wednesday, April 20, 2005

MOSCOW - The cult of Joseph Stalin, once worshipped as a near deity
but later reviled as one of history's worst monsters, is enjoying a revival
across Russia and beyond.

To the dismay of many, proposals to erect new monuments to the tyrant for
what apologists see as his "outstanding" war leadership have won support
from figures close to President Vladimir Putin's Kremlin.

A shiny effigy of the Communist dictator in a prominent position might even
put uppity foreign powers in their place, said one senior politician.
"They never miss a chance in the West to rewrite history and diminish our
country's role in the victory over fascism, so that's even more reason not
to forget Stalin now," said Lyubov Slizka, a parliamentary vice-speaker.

While usually couched in terms of admiration for his part in defeating the
Nazis 60 years ago, the language of the campaign to rehabilitate the
dictator suggests a more sinister interpretation, liberals fear.

Under this theory, the Kremlin is seeking a return to Stalinist xenophobia,
"discipline" and veneration of the state, if not the out and out terror that
sent millions to perish in the gulag.

Stalin's first prominent statue in modern times was to have risen in the
Crimea, seated with Winston Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt at the
Yalta palace, where the three leaders carved up post-war Europe in 1945.

Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin are to be sited in Volgograd

But a change in Ukraine's leadership last year and protests by Stalin's
surviving victims forced its sculptor, Zurab Tsereteli, to find a new home
for the trio in the Russian city of Volgograd, the former Stalingrad.

Elsewhere, and largely unnoticed, a handful of villages have already put
up small Stalin memorials of their own over the past two years.

Plans have also been mooted for a huge monument near the Russian city
of Kursk, site of the biggest tank battle in history, that would also
include Marshal Zhukov "to balance the ideological composition", the
region's governor said.

Officials in Moscow have insisted that no statues of the dictator will
appear in the Russian capital. But his name resurfaced last year when a
Kremlin memorial plaque to "Volgograd" was replaced with one to
"Stalingrad".

That city was renamed Volgograd in 1961. Since then, veterans' associations
and the Communist Party have lobbied to have the name change revoked,
citing the importance of its victory over Hitler's armies in 1943. But,
while preferring to stay above the debate, Mr Putin has spoken against the
move, saying: "I'm sure that it would give rise to suspicions that we are
returning to Stalinist times."

The resurgence of Stalin, no matter what the context, threatens to open
fresh rifts in a society still traumatised by the horrors of his rule,
critics argue. "Imagine the reaction to Hitler monuments in Germany -
that's how we regard this," said Boris Belenkin of Memorial, a human rights
group originally founded to remember Stalin's victims. "This individual has
no moral or historical right to any monuments."

Stalin's reputation reached its height in the last 15 years of his life when
his personality cult eclipsed that of Hitler's. The "father of nations" was
portrayed as all-powerful and all-knowing, almost divine.

But three years after his death in 1953 he was publicly denounced by the
Communist leadership and in 1961 his body was removed from its place of
honour in the Red Square mausoleum. Floral tributes still abound at his bust
by the Kremlin wall while millions of Russians revere his legacy to this
day.

In a nationwide poll published before Stalin's birthday last December, 29
per cent of respondents credited him with the Soviet Union's survival and
victory in World War Two, despite compelling evidence that his tactical
misjudgments nearly proved disastrous. A further 21 per cent saw Stalin as
a "wise leader" who built a "mighty, flourishing" country. And 16 per cent
said only a similar figure could restore order in today's Russia. -30-
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Photo: The figure of Stalin in the sculpture by Zurab Tsereteli
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/04/20/wstal20.xml
=============================================================
14. COLD WIND BLOWS FROM THE BALTICS AS VE DAY APPROACHES

Pyotr Romanov, RIA Novosti Political Commentator
RIA Novosti, Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, April 19, 2005

MOSCOW - The closer VE-Day approaches, the more resolved Baltic
politicians appear to be to spoil it.

They are reluctant to recall Auschwitz, the Battle of Stalingrad, the
British seamen who died in the icy waters of the Barents Sea delivering aid
to Russians in Murmansk, the fighting in the Ardennes, the French
Resistance or people who fought the Nazis within Germany. For them, the
fate of the Baltic republics is probably the most important result of WWII.

According to the Baltic leaders, there was nothing remarkable about the
Nazis' retreat from Riga, Vilnius, and Tallinn, whereas Soviet troops'
entering the cities was a tragedy. Therefore, the Nazi death camp in
Salaspils near Riga, where children were tortured and forced to donate
blood for German soldiers, is now called a labor correctional facility in
the Baltic republics. Red Army veterans are imprisoned in the republics,
while former SS members are allowed to march on the streets. The European
Union has turned a blind eye to those events, apparently treating them as
insignificant. This is exactly how many Europeans treated some European
leaders' Munich accord with Hitler.

Lobbyists have worked in some countries to promote the Baltic countries'
position. A "Baltic faction" in the U.S. House of Representatives, for
example, has submitted a draft resolution to Congress, demanding that
Russia acknowledge the illegal occupation of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia
from 1940 to 1991. This is both a political and economic demand. Should
Russia admit that the territories were annexed, Latvians, Estonians, and
Lithuanians will be lining up at Russian embassies seeking compensation
for the damage caused by their liberation from the Nazis.

I wrote once historical truth was a dangerous thing, including the truth
about war. However, it is not so dangerous for the Russians and Germans.
The former have condemned the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and the Stalin
regime's crimes, whereas the latter have denounced Nazism and Hitler. The
truth is more dangerous for the Baltic republics, which could not decide
whether they should side with Moscow or Berlin and pledged allegiance to
both of them. The evidence can be found in archives. There are commit-
ments in the archives signed by certain Baltic politicians who made frequent
visits to Moscow and Berlin before WWII.

The documents containing the Baltic leaders' requests to join the Soviet
Union are kept at the Russian Foreign Ministry. One can naturally argue
that these documents were written under pressure from Stalin. This is
obviously true in part. However, at least two things should be taken into
account while discussing this problem. First, other countries also
interfered in the Baltic republics' affairs. Indeed, European politicians
were hardly innocent and many major powers wanted to swallow the tiny
Baltic region, but Stalin was the first to do so in 1940.

In addition, people in the region were divided into two almost equal parts
at the time, i.e. pro-Soviet and pro-German. This is something the Baltic
leaders are not willing to recall today, but is extremely important. The
pro-Soviet population had their reasons. For example, many of them thought
they might lose their property with the advent of German troops looking for
new lands. Many people talked about the Soviets, but little was known about
them, as distinct from the Germans, and so a hope, albeit phantom, remained.

For Jews, who made up a large percentage of the Baltic population, the
choice was clear. Before WWII, Vilnius was largely populated by Jews. The
Soviet Union meant life for them, and Nazi Germany death. Therefore, it was
not surprising they welcomed the Soviets. This writer visited a large
beautiful synagogue in Vilnius 15 years ago. It was empty not because local
Jews had emigrated to Israel, but because all of them had died in the
Holocaust, as the Nazis had killed almost every Jew in Vilnius.

Those few that did survive say those marching under SS banners in a
civilized, anti-fascist, democratic, and politically correct Europe
committed the most atrocious crimes against Jews.

I do not mind repentance, as many of my relatives were killed or died in
Stalin's prisons. I only want both Stalin's jail wardens and SS accomplices
who killed Jews, and the civilized Europeans who were not outraged by the
Munich accord to show repentance. The nine Congress members should
also repent their betrayal of the American soldiers killed in Normandy and
the Ardennes. If the dead could vote, none of the politicians lobbying the
Baltic countries' position would be sitting in Congress today.

The VE-Day celebrations will take place anyway for those who survived the
massacre and in memory of those who never came home. It is not that
important whether Baltic politicians will pay tribute to Russian war
veterans. Ordinary people in the Baltic countries remember the wartime
reality, and they will commemorate Russian soldiers. The soldiers fought
to protect them, not the politicians, after all. -30-
=============================================================
15. HISTORY: OPERATION ARGONAUT AND UKRAINE
Yalta '45: Controversies, secrets, collisions

By Prof. Volodymyr Shevchenko, Ph.D. (History)
The Day Weekly Digest in English, Kyiv, Ukraine
Part I : #12, Tuesday, 12 April 2005
Part II: #13, Tuesday, 19 April 2005

March 1, 2005, marked 60 years from the day that US President Franklin D.
Roosevelt reported the successful completion of Operation Argonaut. The
title was adopted by the Allies (US, UK, and USSR), for reasons of security,
as a code name for the Crimea conference that Roosevelt, Churchill, and
Stalin attended between February 4 and 11, 1945, in Yalta, in the Crimea.

Over the past decades this event has been the subject of a discussion
focusing on its proceedings and significance. Researchers are still divided,
with some praising and others sharply criticizing the event. The key figures
have also been exposed to criticism. In the US one often hears that
Roosevelt was too conciliatory toward Stalin, and there have even been
proposals to strike Roosevelt's image from the 2 - cent coins.

In Great Britain, opinions on Sir Winston Churchill also differ. Many
believe that the statue on Trafalgar Square doesn't tally with the
politician's actual image. He is portrayed as an old and totally
disillusioned man, who can hardly keep himself in an upright position,
relying heavily on his thick cane. Stalin is correctly blamed for
mind-boggling atrocities against his people. President Roosevelt died on
April 12, 1945, just weeks before the Allied victory in WWII. He is often
accused of having failed to uphold American national interests during the
Yalta Conference, owing to reasons of health. Sir Winston Churchill found
himself exposed to vigorous political opponents' criticism and lost the July
1945 parliamentary elections along with his party, immediately after the
cessation of hostilities in Europe and after the Pacific campaign reached
its peak.

After Stalin's death on March 5, 1953, a number of his atrocities and other
abominable acts were publicly exposed, and his system of administration duly
condemned. Without going into any vital details relating to these political
leaders, who were destined to make fateful decisions in Yalta in 1945, it
should be noted that history is a complex and controversial matter.
Individual political personalities, regardless of their positions, appear as
pawns on a huge political chessboard. Each must be assessed in the context
of pertinent events and realities, as well as in terms of his role, then and
there.

A scholarly approach excludes a black-and-white/good or bad-man attitude;
this is a childishly naive approach. Most historical events turn out to be
controversial, demanding a palette of colors rather than just black and
white. Here every phenomenon must be exposed along with all attendant
consequences. A positive assessment of a historical figure's actions does
not refute that personality's negative deeds, and vice versa.

Preparations for the Allied Yalta Conference began with the US President
forwarding a proposal to the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on
July 19, 1944: "Since events are unfolding so quickly and so successfully, I
think a meeting between you, the prime minister, and myself should take
place as quickly as possible." Churchill supported the idea on July 20.
Stalin first sent his photo to each of them, implying: "I am entering
Europe." Both were forced by protocol to thank him for the unusual present,
but both were left in a troubled state of mind. Stalin only informed them
about his agreement to the conference one week later, adding that he would
attend only if it were held in the Soviet Union, since he couldn't afford to
leave the USSR and his leadership of the army, not even for a couple of
days.

President Roosevelt replied that he was prepared and willing to travel
anywhere in order to attend the summit. The American president was known
for being eager to reciprocate in any way, so he had his bust presented to
Stalin by the US ambassador in Moscow, which was another way of saying,
"I'll be in Europe, too" (after launching the second front, of course). In
the course of further debate, President Roosevelt's chief foreign policy
aide, Harry Hopkins, suggested that the conference be held somewhere
on the Soviet Black Sea coast. Roosevelt liked the idea, discussed it with
Churchill, and Stalin also agreed to hold the top-level conference in Yalta,
Crimea.

Churchill suggested the summit's code name, Operation Argonaut, and the
other leaders concurred. The name originated from the Greek myth about the
Golden Fleece and the voyagers aboard the boat Argo. On January 22, 1945,
President Roosevelt set off on board the heavy cruiser Quincy headed for
Yalta. The voyage was kept top secret. On February 2 he reached the seaport
of La Valetta (Malta) to greet Churchill, who had flown in earlier. That
same day, during a dinner held on board the USS Quincy, the American and
British leaders finally agreed on their stance for the Yalta summit. Sir
Winston Churchill later wrote that they were both opposed to the idea of the
Soviets occupying more space in Western Europe than absolutely necessary.

Joseph Stalin arrived in Simferopol on February 1, 1945, on board a special
train from Moscow, with enhanced security arrangements. That same day he
left for Yalta, making a brief stopover in Alushta. The Soviet delegation
was quartered at Yusupov Palace located between Livadia and Alupka. Stalin
sent Churchill a short message: "I am here."

On the night of February 3, cargo aircraft lifted off every ten minutes from
the Malta airfield, escorted by Lockheed Lightnings, twin-engine fighter
planes, carrying the US and British delegations to the Crimea. The
delegations totaled some 700 persons and they had to fly 2,000 km over the
Mediterranean and Black Seas to land on an airfield near Saky in the Crimea.
The hard-ground landing strip was 1,300 m long, a rarity at the time, which
permitted the landing of heavy aircraft, including the Flying Fortresses.
Carrying out such flights as well as transporting and accommodating the
delegations was a very risky business.

In February 1945 the Crimean Peninsula, with its ground and air force
facilities, was within the Luftwaffe's striking range, as Nazi airfields
were based in the north of Italy, Austria, and Hungary. The possibility of
Nazi terrorist acts was another big risk, which was the case with the 1943
Big Three conference in Teheran, and the Abwehr was constantly after the
Allied leaders. The Nazi espionage network in the Crimea was becoming
very active; among other things, agents were required to report weather
conditions on a 24-hour basis: the Germans were planning an air raid to
destroy the leadership of the anti-Hitler coalition.

An alternative conference site was prepared in Odesa, just in case, complete
with premises, communications, and top-level security arrangements. It was
also meant as a diversionary maneuver intended to turn the Nazis' attention
from Yalta.

The Douglas C-54 plane, dubbed "The Sacred Cow," carrying FDR and his
daughter Anna, landed at Saky on the morning of February 3, 1945, marking
the last airlift of the US and British delegations. Roosevelt was
transferred to a Willis jeep while Churchill, smoking his invariable 20-cm
cigar, walked alongside. Accompanied by Molotov, they inspected the guard
of honor and thanked the brass band for a good rendition of the Stars and
Stripes. Afterwards the distinguished guests were taken to a tent with
tables laden with glasses of sweet tea and twists of lemon, bottles of
vodka, cognac, and champagne, plates of caviar, smoked salmon, cheeses,
boiled eggs, and brown and white bread.

Then the heads of the US and British delegations boarded Soviet armored
ZIS-101 limos with boosted engines and blinds covering the side windows,
and headed for the south Crimean seacoast. Churchill recalled that the trip
took almost eight hours and that they often saw neatly turned out Soviet
soldiers (men and women) who were standing shoulder- to-shoulder on
the roads of settlement, main bridges, and mountain canyons. After
crossing the Crimean mountain ridge and descending to the Black Sea,
they were greeted with sunlight and warm air. The microclimate was very
mild. The guests were then offered lunch on the Angar Pass.

The Allied functionaries were shocked to see the war's devastation. Riding
in their limos, they often passed ruined buildings, burned-out vehicles,
trains, and tanks. Later, Roosevelt told the US Congress on March 1 that
hardly a dozen dwelling structures had survived the ravages of war in
Sevastopol, adding that he had read about Warsaw, Lidice, Rotterdam, and
Coventry, but that he had also seen Sevastopol and Yalta; that he was now
sure that German imperialism and Christian decency could not coexist.

The main plenary sittings (eight in all) were held in the Great White Hall
of Livadia Palace. There was no previously coordinated agenda, except that
every side was entitled to broach any subject. The Ukrainian problem was not
discussed separately, although most issues on the agenda per se related to
Ukraine in one way or another. After all, the conference was held in the
Crimea, a territory bordering on Ukraine, and which is now its legally
inseparable component.

The first session commenced at 17:00 on February 4, and the three sides
considered the course and prospects of WWII operations. By February 1945
almost all Nazi-occupied countries had been cleared of the aggressor, but
the situation remained very complicated. Despite the reductions in the Third
Reich's sources of raw material and the constant Allied air raids, the
German defense industry continued to grow in 1944. The Nazi regime had
not been ultimately vanquished, not in moral, material, or military terms.
In early 1945 the Wehrmacht still had a high potential, numbering 5.6
million men, including 3.7 million troops on the Eastern Front, 56,200
cannons and mortars, 8,100 tanks and assault cannons, and 4,100 fighter
planes. At this time Germany's atomic weapons development program
had entered the crucial phase.

In Yalta, the sides exchanged military data and the Allies were interested
in the Soviets' experience of forced water crossings - e.g., during the
Korsun-Shevchenkove and other WWII combat operations aimed at liberating
Ukraine. Such operations boiled down to focusing some 230 artillery pieces
per kilometer in a given breakthrough area. Such massive artillery attacks
would destroy most of the enemy manpower and materiel. The surviving
German troops were so intimidated and unnerved that they would fail to
offer any tangible resistance and often simply fled the battlefield.

A positive assessment was given to Allied cooperation during the shuttle
missions that were launched by the US Air Force in June 1944, using air
bases in the vicinity of Poltava, Myrhorod, and Pyriatyn in Ukraine. The air
bases received 1,030 B-17 Flying Fortresses, B-24 Liberators, Mustang-1
fighter escort planes, which had 2,207 combat missions to their credit,
having dropped some 2,000 tons' worth of bombs on Nazi territories.
Wounded US pilots were treated at the hospital of Novy Sanzhary (32
km from Poltava) and those who died were buried in the local cemetery.

After considering the situation on the various fronts, the Allied leaders
agreed that it was necessary to step up offensives everywhere to counteract
possible Nazi and Axis threats in the Third Reich's final attempt to win the
war. They further agreed on coordinating Allied combat missions, because in
the past such combat operations were often uncoordinated, allowing the enemy
to maneuver the available forces. As part of the Yalta Conference, Allied
general staff meetings were held to work out closer Allied cooperation in
these matters.

The Ukrainian people were interested in the successful implementation of the
plans outlined during the conference, which was aimed at ending the war.
Hitler and his hirelings had launched hostilities that had turned into a
worldwide confrontation, largely because they wanted to have Ukraine's rich
and fertile land and to turn the Ukrainian people into slaves. The only way
to save our people from enslavement and death was by totally destroying
Nazism.

The number of Ukrainian officers and troops in the Red Army tripled in
1943-44, amounting to 34%, compared to the number of Russian troops
(51.8%). The heroism and willingness to sacrifice themselves, demonstrated
by our fellow countrymen who were fighting the final battles of WWII,
culminated in considerable losses; by the end of the war their percentage in
the Red Army ranks was down to 20-25%. Nor should we forget that among
those who hoisted the Flag of Victory above the Reichstag was the Ukrainian
lieutenant, O. Berest.

Militarily and economically the Ukrainian people made a tangible
contribution to guaranteeing the conclusion of the war. The liberated
territory of the republic was the Soviet army's rear line near the front,
supplying materiel and provisions. Thirty percent of Ukraine's
reinstalled/rebuilt production facilities worked for the front, and a number
of army supply routes traversed Ukrainian territory.

Pressed by Roosevelt and Churchill, the Yalta conference concluded an
agreement on the Soviet Union's entry into the war against Japan, some two
or three months after Germany's capitulation. The Western powers were
interested in this. In early 1945 the Japanese militarists had an army of 7
million troops, more than 10,000 aircraft, some 500 warships, compared to
the US and Great Britain's 1.8 million troops, 5,000 aircraft, and 750
warships deployed in Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and Indian theaters of
war. Allied headquarters estimated that the war against Japan could last
until 1947 and cost the US at least a million fatalities, along with
considerable material damage.

As a result of this decision, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians were
relocated from Europe to the Far East, where as part of the Soviet forces,
they routed the Kwangtung (Guangdong) Army and stormed the Kuril Islands.
Marshal Rodion Malinovsky, who was born in Odesa, successfully commanded
one of the three newly-formed fronts, while our fellow countryman from Uman
district, Lieutenant-General Kuzma Derevianko, signed, on behalf of the
Soviet Supreme Commander-in-Chief together with the representatives of the
other great powers, Japan's act of unconditional surrender on September 2,
1945, which put a formal end to the Second World War.

The conference focused considerably on the future borders of the European
states, including a restored Poland, which had a direct bearing on Ukraine.
In general, the Polish question occupied more discussion time than any other
topic in Yalta.

Earlier, at the Teheran Conference in 1943, the US and Britain had attempted
to call into question Ukraine's western border established in 1939. At the
time the Soviet delegation had pointed out that this border was correct from
the ethnic point of view and referred to the so-called Curzon line proposed
in 1919 by the Entente Supreme Council as the eastern border of Poland. In
response, Winston Churchill displayed a map on which the Curzon line's
southern segment was drawn east of Lviv, thus leaving the city in Polish
territory.

The Soviet side in turn produced the text of British Foreign Secretary Lord
Curzon's radiogram of July 12, 1920, which listed the points through which
the border must pass: Grodno - Jaliwka - Brest - Dorohusk - Ustyluh - east
of Hrubeshiv via Kryliv, and then west of Rava-Ruska and east of Peremyshl
as far as the Carpathians. In other words, Lviv (Lwow at the time) appeared
to be part of Ukraine. For lack of other arguments, Churchill was forced to
declare, "I am not going to make a fuss about Lviv." Then he said to Joseph
Stalin, "In principle, there are no serious differences between us."

Yet, at the Crimean Conference, Franklin D. Roosevelt tried (with
Churchill's consent) to revise the previous agreement. He called for
"concessions to the Poles in the southern segment of the Curzon line."
This in fact amounted to deviating from the line rather than questioning
its legitimacy.

Stalin said to this: "The authors of the Curzon line are Curzon, Clemenceau
(prime minister of France and chairman of the Paris Peace Conference in
1919-1920 - Author ) and the Americans. There were no Russians at that
conference. The Curzon line was adopted on the basis of ethnographic data...
What will the Ukrainians say if we accept your proposal? You will put us to
shame." It was stressed that this proposal did not fit in with the ethnic
composition of the region, where the Ukrainians comprised the majority.

Acceptance of the Curzon line as a basis for resolving the problem was in
itself a major concession, for this line left a considerable part of ethnic
Ukrainian lands - the Posiannia, Pidliashshia, Kholm, and Lemko regions -
under Warsaw's control. It was also announced that during the Moscow talks
in October 1944 three members of the Polish government in exile, Stanislaw
Mikolajczyk, Stanislaw Grabski, and Tadeusz Romer, had willingly accepted
territorial compensation at the expense of Poland's western territories
seized by Germany. As a result of these irrefutable arguments, the
conference reached the following conclusion: "The three heads of government
consider that the eastern frontier of Poland should follow the Curzon Line
with digressions from it in some regions of five to eight kilometers in
favor of Poland." Lviv was considered part of Ukraine. This Yalta Conference
decision laid the groundwork for all subsequent international agreements and
is also the basis for today's nearly 550-km- long Ukrainian-Polish border.

One of the most important items on the Crimean Conference's agenda was
the creation of the United Nations Organization (UNO) to promote
international security and cooperation. In particular, the "Big Three"
discussed which countries would attend the UN founding conference. Earlier,
at the 1943 Teheran Conference and in the course of further correspondence
between the leaders of the great powers, the USSR suggested that the future
international organization include as members all 16 Soviet republics.
Roosevelt said in reply that in this case all 48 US states should also be UN
members. To break the deadlock, the Soviet delegation changed its position
and stated on February 7 that it considered "correct and fair if three or,
at worst, two Soviet republics were among the initiators of the
international organization. We mean Ukraine, Belorussia, and Lithuania."

Reference was made to Ukraine's recognized importance, population size,
and economic resources. Ukraine and the other "named republics suffered
the greatest losses in the war and were the first territories invaded by the
Germans." Roosevelt then insisted that this problem would be solved if his
country were given more than one vote in the UN. In the end, Stalin agreed
that the US and the USSR would have three votes each (in the latter case,
one for the USSR and one each for Soviet Ukraine and Soviet Belorussia).
The conference resolved that Ukraine and Belorussia would be among the
UN's founding members.

Naturally, Stalin was not thinking of Ukraine's interests in Yalta but the
need to gain additional votes in the future UN and the solution of some
difficult domestic problems. For instance, speaking to Roosevelt on February
7, he complained about "the difficult situation in Ukraine," where the
national movement was well on the rise. According to Stalin, Ukraine's
membership in the UN was indispensable for the preservation of unity in the
USSR. To this end, in 1944 people's commissariats of defense and foreign
affairs were established in Ukraine and other Soviet republics, which made
them de jure subjects of international law. This contrasted favorably with
Hitler's policy of partitioning Ukraine, eliminating any forms of statehood,
and exterminating the Ukrainian people as such.

Naturally, Stalin was watching closely so that these steps did not cross the
line he had drawn and had no adverse effect on the federal state. When
playwright Oleksandr Korniychuk, who was appointed Ukraine's people's
commissar of foreign affairs on February 5, 1944, proposed a rather modest
reorganization of his agency, whereby it would remain a branch of the
All-Soviet Commissariat of Foreign Affairs but would still be able to
establish direct diplomatic relations with other counties, he was promptly
dismissed from this post in July 1944. On June 26, 1945, a different and
more cautious people's commissar, Dmytro Manuilsky, signed the UN
Charter on behalf of Soviet Ukraine.

In any case, the Yalta Conference's decisions on Soviet Ukraine's accession
to the UN were undoubtedly a positive fact: Ukraine was returning to the
international arena, albeit on a limited scale. In spite of Stalin's
subjective intentions, the objective status of Ukraine as a founding member
of the UN was an important cornerstone of its independence, which was
proclaimed in 1991.

Ukraine was also deeply interested in the implementation of other decisions
that were made in Yalta, including the reparations protocol, which was
signed after a lengthy debate and mutual recriminations. This document
obliged Germany to compensate for the losses it had inflicted on the
countries that suffered from its aggression. The reparations envisaged the
requisition of a variety of equipment, ships, railway rolling stock,
industrial enterprises' shares, a supply of consumer goods, as well as
German labor. Although the reparations never reached the planned targets,
Kyiv alone received 8,300 carloads of equipment and goods in 1945-1946
from Germany and its client states. German prisoners of war were also
involved in the reconstruction of the crippled economy.

The Big Three also signed an agreement concerning the reciprocal
repatriation of the allied states' POWs and civilians, which made it
possible in 1945-1946 to repatriate 1,036,000 American, British, French,
Polish, Yugoslav, and other prisoners of war liberated by Soviet troops from
Nazi captivity. In 1945-1949, nearly 5,416,000 Soviet citizens were
repatriated to the USSR, 37% of whom (1,524,000) were Ukrainians and
36.8% (1,488,000) Russians.

The fate of these repatriated people varied. The vast majority of Ukrainian
civilian slave laborers in Germany - 1,137,000 - were reunited with their
families in their former places of residence. Out of the 387,000 liberated
Ukrainian POWs, about half of them joined Soviet Army units, 17% were
deported to the Gulag, and over 30% were consigned to so-called working
battalions, in fact slave labor teams, at industrial enterprises.

It is impossible to assess the course and importance of the Yalta Conference
correctly without understanding the role of the individual participants and
the importance of their decisions. In particular, facts that have come to
light now disprove the claim that Roosevelt was too acquiescent because of
his illness and Stalin's pressure.

The US president became disabled in 1921 at the age of 39 and was confined
to a special wheelchair. This did not prevent him from being elected
president in 1932 and reelected in 1936, 1940, and 1944 (the two last terms
as a wartime exception). Naturally, his health had not improved during those
years, and the burden of war-related worries had been sapping his strength.
Yet he continued to work vigorously, embarking on long journeys by land,
sea, and air. It was Roosevelt who proposed the idea to hold a conference in
the Crimea and actively worked toward this goal.

According to the conference minutes and observations of the participants,
while in Yalta Roosevelt effectively chaired the sessions (on Stalin's
suggestion): he was always composed, attentive, calm, witty, and quick on
the uptake when somebody was speaking. He knew how to devise a formula
that could reconcile the arguers. Everyone was surprised by his stamina,
cheerfulness, and alertness during the lengthy sessions. In addition, the
president was absorbed in the affairs of his own country via a
communications center on board the USS Catoctin anchored off Sevastopol.

President Roosevelt consistently defended US interests at the conference.
Having talked the Soviet leader into declaring war on Japan, he made it
clear that the West would oppose excessive Soviet influence on the countries
of Eastern Europe. At the very first session the American leader asked
Stalin if the European-gauge railroads in the Red Army-occupied territories
were being refitted for a broader gauge, which would mean that these states
would have closer ties (at least in economic terms) with the USSR. Stalin
had to assure him that he had no such intentions. Roosevelt also succeeded
in ensuring that in the Declaration on Liberated Europe the three powers
pledged to ensure the restoration of the sovereign rights of peoples and the
resolution of political and economic problems by democratic methods based
on the principles of the Atlantic Charter and the UN Declaration.

The Soviet side also made a number of other concessions. It was decided
that voting in the UN Security Council would take place according to the
US-proposed formula: equality of the great powers' votes and refusal of an
interested party to vote. The USSR agreed to closer coordination of the
allied war effort, granting France an occupation zone in Germany and a seat
in the Control Commission, accepted the West's compromise wording on
the composition of the Polish government and holding free elections in that
country, and accepted the US viewpoint on how to solve the reparations
problem, etc.

Of course, Roosevelt was a realistic politician, well aware of the need to
take into account the limits of pressure on the opposing side and of the
latter's pliability. He proceeded from the existing correlation of forces
and common interests of states. It was this approach and the ability to
cooperate with their partners that enabled the Big Three to make decisions
in Yalta that were acceptable for each of them and to avoid ill-advised
steps. For instance, according to Ambassador William Averell Harriman,
"there were no negotiations about any division of the world." The point is
that, as the minutes say, when Winston Churchill visited Moscow in October
1944, he drew up what he himself called "a rather dirty and crude document"
that indicated the division of the Soviet and British "spheres of influence"
in Eastern Europe.

Stalin did not express his stance toward this proposal and did not discuss
it. He merely ticked this paper off with a blue pencil, which might equally
mean that he agreed with what was written there or that he had read it.
Given the vague reaction of his Soviet partner, Churchill chose not to
attempt anything similar in Yalta. The USSR's influence on postwar Eastern
Europe was based not on some international documents but on the actual
balance of power, the presence of Soviet troops in a number of countries,
and the existence of economic, political, and ideological leverage.

The conference produced agreements which, as the participants estimated,
could help avoid unleashing a new world war in the next 50 years. A
representative international symposium held at Lyvadiya in early February
2005 noted that in the last 60 years humanity has managed to avert a
worldwide military conflagration. Europe, including Ukraine, still has the
borders that were proposed in Yalta.

The UN, established in compliance with the agreements reached there,
is still actively functioning. This international forum clearly hears the
voice of independent Ukraine, a country that became one of its founders
in accordance with the fateful decisions made in 1945 in the Crimea.
-30- [The Action Ukraine Report Monitoring Service]
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Link to Part I: http://www.day.kiev.ua/135544/
Link to Part II: http://www.day.kiev.ua/135986/
=============================================================
16. ALLURE OF THE BLANK SLATE: FROM ACEH TO HAITI, A
PREDATORY FORM OF DISASTER CAPITALISM IS
RESHAPING SOCIETIES TO ITS OWN DESIGN
Headed by Carlos Pascual, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine

COMMENT & ANALYSIS: By Naomi Klein
The Guardian, London, United Kingdom, Mon, Apr 18, 2005

Last summer, in the lull of the August media doze, the Bush
administration's doctrine of preventive war took a major leap forward. On
August 5 the White House created the office of the coordinator for
reconstruction and stabilisation, headed by Carlos Pascual, the former
ambassador to Ukraine. Its mandate is to draw up elaborate "post-conflict"
plans for up to 25 countries that are not, as yet, in conflict. According to
Pascual, it will also be able to coordinate three full-scale reconstruction
operations in different countries "at the same time", each lasting "five to
seven years".

Fittingly, a government devoted to perpetual pre-emptive
deconstruction now has a standing office of perpetual pre-emptive
reconstruction. Gone are the days of waiting for wars to break out and
drawing up plans to pick up the pieces. Pascual's office keeps "high risk"
countries on a "watch list" and assembles rapid-response teams made up of
private companies, NGOs and members of thinktanks - some, Pascual told
an audience at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, will have
"pre-completed" contracts to rebuild countries that are not yet broken.

The plans Pascual's teams have been drawing up in his office in the
state department are about changing "the very social fabric of a nation", he
told CSIS. The office's mandate is not to rebuild any old states, you see,
but to create "democratic and market-oriented" ones. So his reconstructors
might help sell off "state-owned enterprises that created a nonviable
economy". Sometimes rebuilding, he explained, means tearing apart the old.

Few ideologues can resist the allure of a blank slate - that was
colonialism's seductive promise: discovering wide-open new lands where
utopia seemed possible. Now there are no new places to discover, no terra
nullius , but there are many countries smashed to rubble, whether by acts of
God or Bush; there is a chance to grab hold of "the terrible barrenness", as
a UN official described the devastation in Aceh, and fill it with the most
perfect plans.

"We used to have vulgar colonialism," says Shalmali Guttal, a
Bangalore-based researcher with Focus on the Global South. "Now we have
sophisticated colonialism, and they call it 'reconstruction'." It certainly
seems that ever larger portions of the globe are under active reconstruction
by a familiar cast of consulting firms, engineering companies, mega-NGOs,
government and UN aid agencies and financial institutions. From Iraq to
Aceh, Afghanistan to Haiti, a similar chorus of complaints can be heard: the
work is far too slow, if it is happening at all; foreign consultants live
high on expense accounts and thousand-dollar- a-day salaries, while locals
are shut out of jobs, training and decision-making; "democracy builders"
lecture governments on transparency and "good governance", yet most
contractors and NGOs refuse to open their books to those same govern-
ments, let alone give them control over how their aid money is spent.

Three months after the tsunami hit Aceh, the New York Times reported
that "almost nothing seems to have been done to begin repairs and
rebuilding". The dispatch could have come from Iraq, where, as the Los
Angeles Times has reported, all Bechtel's allegedly rebuilt water plants
have started to break down, one more in a litany of reconstruction
screw-ups. It could have come from Afghanistan, where President Karzai
blasted "corrupt, wasteful and unaccountable" foreign contractors for
"squandering the precious resources that Afghanistan received in aid".

But if the reconstruction industry is stunningly inept at rebuilding,
that may be because rebuilding is not its purpose. According to Guttal:
"It's not reconstruction at all - it's about reshaping everything." The
stories of corruption and incompetence mask this deeper scandal: the rise of
a predatory form of disaster capitalism that uses the desperation created by
catastrophe to engage in radical social and economic engineering. On this
front, the reconstruction industry works so efficiently that the
privatisations and land grabs are usually locked in before local people know
what hit them. Herman Kumara, of the National Fisheries Solidarity Movement
in Negombo, Sri Lanka, sent an email to colleagues around the world warning
that Sri Lanka is facing "a second tsunami of corporate globalisation and
militarisation . . . We see this as a plan . . . to hand over the sea and
the coast to foreign corporations . . . with military assistance from the US
marines."

Paul Wolfowitz, the US deputy defence secretary, oversaw a similar
project in Iraq: the fires were still burning when US officials announced
that the country's state-owned companies would be privatised. Some argue
that Wolfowitz is unfit to lead the World Bank; in fact, nothing could have
prepared him better.

'Post-conflict" countries now receive 20-25 % of the World Bank's
lending, up from 16% in 1998. Rapid response to disaster has traditionally
been the domain of UN agencies. But today, with reconstruction revealed as
tremendously lucrative, the World Bank leads the charge. There are massive
engineering and supplies contracts ($10bn to Halliburton in Iraq and
Afghanistan alone); "democracy building" has exploded into a $2bn industry;
and times have never been better for the private firms that advise
governments on selling off their assets. (Bearing Point, the favoured of
these firms in the US, reported that revenues for its "public services"
division "had quadrupled in five years".)

But shattered countries are attractive to the World Bank for another
reason: They take orders well and will usually do whatever it takes to get
aid dollars - even if it means racking up huge debts and agreeing to
sweeping policy reforms. Even better, many war-ravaged countries are in
states of "limited sovereignty" and considered too unstable to manage aid
money, which is often put in a trust fund managed by the World Bank - in
East Timor, the bank doles out money to the government as long as it
shows it is spending responsibly.

Apparently, this means slashing public-sector jobs (the government is
half the size it was under Indonesian occupation) but lavishing aid money
on foreign consultants. In Afghanistan, the World Bank mandated "an
increased role for the private sector" in water, telecommunications, oil,
gas and mining and directed the government to leave electricity to foreign
investors. Few outside the bank knew of these changes, as they were
buried in a "technical annex" attached to an emergency-aid grant.

It has been the same story in Haiti. In exchange for a $61m loan, the
bank requires that private companies run schools and hospitals - extremely
controversial given Haiti's socialist base. The bank admits that, with Haiti
under what approaches military rule, there is "a window of opportunity for
reforms that may be hard for a future government to undo".

Now the bank is using the December 26 tsunami to push through its
favoured policies. The most devastated countries have seen almost no
debt relief, and most of the bank's aid has come in the form of loans, not
grants. The bank is pushing for expansion of tourism and industrial fish
farms, rather than rebuilding small-boat fisheries. As for roads and
schools, bank documents recognise that rebuilding "may strain public
finances" and suggest that governments consider privatisation (yes, they
have only one idea).

In January Condoleezza Rice horrified many by describing the tsunami
as "a wonderful opportunity" that "has paid great dividends for us". If
anything, she was understating the case. A group calling itself Thailand
Tsunami Survivors and Supporters says that for "businessmen-politicians,
the tsunami was the answer to their prayers, since it wiped these coastal
areas clean of the communities that had stood in the way of resorts, hotels,
casinos and shrimp farms". Disaster, it seems, is the new terra nullius .
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A longer version of this article is published in the Nation, additional
research by Aaron Mate and Debra Levy. (www.thenation.com)
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