Search site
Action Ukraine Report

ACTION UKRAINE REPORT - AUR
An International Newsletter, The Latest, Up-To-Date
In-Depth Ukrainian News, Analysis and Commentary

Ukrainian History, Culture, Arts, Business, Religion,
Sports, Government, and Politics, in Ukraine and Around the World

ACTION UKRAINE REPORT - AUR - Number 795
Mr. E. Morgan Williams, Publisher and Editor, SigmaBleyzer
WASHINGTON, D.C., MONDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2006

-------- INDEX OF ARTICLES --------
Clicking on the title of any article takes you directly to the article.
Return to the Index by clicking on Return to Index at the end of each article

1. UKRAINE'S PRIME MINISTER WENT TO USA TO ALLEVIATE
NEGATIVE ATTITUDES TO HIM AND HIS TEAM
Regnum, Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, December 7, 2006

2. AMERICANS DOUBT YANUKOVYCH'S STATEMENTS SAYS PIFER
Ukrayinska Pravda, Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, December 8, 2006

3. PIFER SAYS YANUKOVYCH'S DECLARATIONS NOT CONVINCING
Channel 5 TV, Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, December 8, 2006

4. YANUKOVYCH VISITS WASHINGTON: AN INSIDERS VIEW
ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY: By Taras Kuzio
Focus, Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, December 8, 2006 in Ukrainian
Action Ukraine Report (AUR) # 795, Article 4 in English
Washington, D.C., Monday, December 11, 2006

5. UKRAINIAN PM MEETS US TRADE REP, WORLD BANK HEAD
ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in English 1016 gmt 6 Dec 06
BBC Monitoring Service, United Kingdom, Wednesday, Dec 06, 2006

6. OPEN LETTER TO UKRAINIAN PM VIKTOR YANUKOVYCH
FROM THE UKRAINIAN CONGRESS COMMITTEE OF AMERICA
Michael Sawkiw, President
Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA)
New York/Washington, D.C., Monday, December 4, 2006

7. UKRAINE: PM YANUKOVYCH INVITES AMERICAN BUSINESS
CIRCLES TO INVEST IN UKRAINE
UNIAN, Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, December 7, 2006

8. PRIME MINISTER: UKRAINE NO PAWN OF RUSSIA OR WEST
By David R. Sands, The Washington Times
Washington, D.C., Wednesday, December 6, 2006

9. CSDU MEMORANDUM DELIVERED ON THE OCCASION OF THE
VISIT BY PRIME MINISTER YANUKOVYCH TO WASHINGTON, DC
Action Ukraine Report (AUR) #794, Washington, D.C., Tue, Dec 5, 2006

10. YANUKOVYCH MEETS WITH AMERICAN JOURNALISTS
Serhiy Kudelia, Podcast "Ukraine Matters"
Action Ukraine Report (AUR) #795, Article 10
Washington, D.C., Monday, December 11, 2006

11. UKRAINE: BATTLE OVER WHICH VIKTOR IS IN CHARGE
By Roman Olearchyk in Kiev and Guy Dinmore in Washington
Financial Times, London, UK, Thursday, December 7 2006

12. UKRAINE: HIGHLIGHTING FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT (FDI)
Ukraine, Volume 49, Oxford Business Group
London, United Kingdom, Friday, December 8, 2006

13. UKRAINE: U.S. ENERGY COMPANY VANCO VIES FOR RIGHT
TO DRILL FOR OIL IN THE BLACK SEA
By Nikola Krastev, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)
Prague, Czech Republic, Thursday, December 7, 2006

14. ORANGE REVOLUTION'S FOE TRANFORMED IN UKRAINE
By Peter Finn, Washington Post Foreign Service
The Washington Post, Washington, D.C., Tuesday, Nov 28, 2006

15. BUILDING A DEMOCRACY
The Orange Revolution Lives On in Ukraine
OP-ED: By Viktor Yushchenko, President of Ukraine
The Washington Post, Washington, D.C., Wed, Nov 29, 2006; Page A23

16. WHEN AN EX-K.G.B. MAN SAYS THEY'RE OUT TO GET HIM
He believed the Russian security agency was behind the dioxin
poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko, who was running for president of Ukraine.
By Scott Shane, Week In Review, The New York Times
New York, New York, Sunday, December 10, 2006

17. DON'T EXCUSE RUSSIANS IN SPY'S MURDER
What about Viktor Yushchenko, poisoned and disfigured with dioxin?
Charles Krauthammer, Columnist, The Washington Post
Washington, D.C., Friday, December 8, 2006

18. RUSSIA'S ECONOMIC IMPERIALISM
Putin seeks to implement 'liberal empire' in Georgia
By Vladimer Papava and Frederick Starr, The Journal of Turkish Weekly
Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, 7 December 2006

19. UKRAINE'S BOXING BROTHERS TO BE HONORED BY UNESCO
AP Worldstream, Paris, France, Friday, Dec 01, 2006

20. PRESIDENT YUSHCHENKO: YOU'VE TAKEN A STAND AGAINST
GENOCIDE. NOW TAKE EFFECTIVE ACTION TO END IT.
Action Ukraine Report (AUR) #795, Article 20
Washington, D.C., Sunday, December 10, 2006

21. U.N.'S ANNAN DECRIES FAILURE TO HALT DARFUR KILLINGS
Shameful Passivity of Most Governments Faulted
By Colum Lynch, Washington Post Staff Writer
The Washington Post, Washington, D.C., Sat, Dec 9, 2006; Page A14

22. PRESIDENT BUSH: YOU'VE TAKEN A STAND AGAINST GENOCIDE.
NOW TAKE EFFECTIVE ACTION TO END IT.
Save Darfur Coalition, Full Page Advertisement, The Washington Post
Washington, D.C., Wednesday, December, 6, 2007, Pg A5

23. POLISH PARLIAMENT CONDEMNS STALIN' GENOCIDE IN UKRAINE
The lower house of the parliament has unanimously passed a resolution
condemning the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s as a genocide
orchestrated by Stalin.
Joanna Najfeld, Polskie Radio, Warsaw, Poland, Wed, Dec 6, 2006

24. POLISH PARLIAMENT DEEMS UKRAINE SOVIET-ERA FORCED
FAMINE OF 1932-1933 AS GENOCIDE
Associated Press (AP), Warsaw, Poland, Wednesday, December 6, 2006

25. UKRAINE: PRES ADDRESSES NATION ON FAMINE ANNIVERSARY
This was true genocide. One of the worst disasters in human history.
UT1 State Television, Kiev, Ukraine, in Ukrainian 1350 gmt 25 Nov 06
BBC Monitoring Service, United Kingdom, Saturday, Nov 25, 2006

26. UKRAINE: YULIYA TYMOSHENKO CRITICIZES RULING PARTY
OVER REFUSAL TO SUPPORT FAMINE GENOCIDE BILL
"May the eternal memory of the dead be an eternal warning for those living."
UNIAN news agency, Kiev, in Ukrainian, Saturday, 25 Nov 06
BBC Monitoring Service, United Kingdom, Monday, Nov 27, 2006

27. UKRAINE: PRESIDENT APPEALS TO RUSSIA OVER 1932-33 FAMINE
UT1 State Television, Kiev, in Ukrainian 1350 gmt 25 Nov 06
BBC Monitoring Service, United Kingdom, Sat, Nov 25, 2006

28. 3,000 JOIN MOURNING PROCESSION IN IVANO-FRANKIVSK FOR
VICTIMS OF FAMINE AND POLITICAL REPRESSIONS
Iryna Shkapii, Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Sun, Nov 26, 2006
========================================================
1
. UKRAINE'S PRIME MINISTER WENT TO USA TO ALLEVIATE
NEGATIVE ATTITUDES TO HIM AND HIS TEAM

Regnum, Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, December 7, 2006

"First of all, it is worth mentioning that it was not just an ordinary visit
to the USA. Well, America is really state No 1 in the world concerning
issues of security and economy and one should take it into account. To
speak more in detail, Viktor Yanukovich's visit to the USA had many
components.

[1] First of all, the Ukrainian premier went there to alleviate the negative
attitudes towards him and his team," head of the Center for Political
Studies at Ivan Franko Lvov National University, political analyst Anatoly
Romanyuk.

According to the analyst, in order to alleviate the negative attitudes,
Viktor Yanukovich "was speaking so tenderly about the conflict issues
between him and the Ukrainian president, as well as on the issue of foreign
policy, particularly this concerns dismissal of Foreign Minister Boris
Tarasyuk." "So, the premier wanted to show it to the world that he is
guarantor of democracy and stability in Ukraine," Romanyuk said.

[2] "The second component is that Viktor Yanukovich wanted to prove
that it is him who can represent Ukraine in the foreign policy arena.

[3] The third component is aimed at domestic Ukrainian consumer. The
premier wanted to show: you see, we control everything, dismissed the
man we wanted to and are settling necessary issues, and further we will
take power in our hands," the analyst said.

"Another thing is that the United States tried to minimize those components
of the Ukrainian premier's visit. Evidently, that is why there was no
official news conference and Yanukovich's public presentation. So, it was
not that unambiguous about this visit," Anatoly Romanyuk concluded. -30-
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: www.regnum.ru/english/751589.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
2. AMERICANS DOUBT YANUKOVYCH'S STATEMENTS SAYS PIFER

Ukrayinska Pravda, Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, December 8, 2006

The Cabinet's activity casts doubt on Prime-Minister Yanukovych's statements
on crackdown on corruption and establishing an attractive investment climate
in Ukraine. It came from Steven Pifer, the former US Ambassador to Ukraine,
Radio Liberty reports.

"If you say about setting up a favorable investment climate, why you've
restricted grain exports, having deterred investments in agriculture," he
wonders.

"The PM has made some loud statements in regard to combating corruption.
But the last events showed that the State Taxation Service was returning to
the policy of favoritism. So, the government should combat corruption there
as well," Pifer remarks.

He is also puzzled by the fact that the gas intermediary RosUkrEnergo still
remains in the shadow. Nobody actually knows who owns it and how it
works.

As regards the foreign policy, Ukraine risks to lose interest of NATO
following the latest statements of its PM. As was reported earlier,
Yanukovych offered to put relations with NATO on hold during his visit to
Brussels.

This week's visit of the PM to Washington D.C. did not clarify his stance
towards NATO as well.

"President Yushchenko clearly said that he sought to join NATO Action Plan.
But Yanukovych claimed yesterday he backed Ukraine-NATO cooperation
but was not ready to fulfill the Action Plan," the former Ambassador
underlines.

This disagreement between the President and the government weakens
Ukraine's position in the eyes of Americans. "It seems like a competition in
the foreign affairs that doesn't lend credibility to both of them," Pifer notes.

Steven Pifer was a co-author of the Coalition Memorandum on Safety and
Democracy in Ukraine, sponsored by US-Ukraine Foundation seeing
Yanukovych's visit to Washington D.C. -30-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: http://www.pravda.com.ua/en/news/2006/12/8/6865.htm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOOTNOTE: Here is the link to Serhiy Kudelia's RFE/RL report in Ukrainian:
http://www.radiosvoboda.org/article/2006/12/6888d458-8177-4db3-9bb5-310c4fa80c6a.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
3. PIFER SAYS YANUKOVYCH'S DECLARATIONS NOT CONVINCING

Channel 5 TV, Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, December 8, 2006

During his recent visit to Washington, D.C., PM Viktor Yanukovych's
declarations of Ukraine's battle with corruption were not very convincing.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer said he believes Ukraine's
Tax Administration has returned to politics of favoritism.

He also said the establishment of quotas for the export of Ukrainian grain
contradicts Yanukovych's declared goal of creating a favourable climate for
foreign investors.

In Washington, Yanukovych also did not offer any details about the
mysterious gas transport company RosUkrEnergo. It still remains unclear
who owns the company and how it functions.

Pifer, now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies in Washington, said the main goal of Yanukovych's trip was to
establish some credibility with the U.S. administration. He added the
differing foreign policies of the President and the PM undermine Ukraine's
international authority. -30-
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: http://5tv.com.ua/eng/newsline/236/0/34248/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
4. YANUKOVYCH VISITS WASHINGTON: AN INSIDERS VIEW

ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY: By Taras Kuzio
Focus, Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, December 8, 2006 in Ukrainian
Action Ukraine Report (AUR) # 795, Article 4 in English

Washington, D.C., Monday, December 11, 2006

The Viktor Yanukovych of 2006 has changed from that of 2004, at least in an
outward appearance. To what extent this change is opportunistic or sincere
will only be known in the future. Washington public relations specialists
hired by Yanukovych in 2004 when he was Prime Minister and presidential
candidate have confided that he never listened to their advice.

This was rather strange as investigations by Luba Shara for Ukrayinska
Pravda in November 2004 found that Yanukovych paid $120,000 per month to
his Washington public relations consultants. This sum sounds like a lot but
the world of public affairs business in Washington is financially lucrative.

The shock of losing the 2004 elections, the impact of the Orange Revolution
protests and personal betrayal by President Leonid Kuchma all had an impact
upon Yanukovych. 2005 became a time of reflection and, what most still
believe, also Potemkin change.

Yanukovych now has a different pubic affairs company who have undertaken a
successful job in changing Yanukovych's image, and, to some extent, that of
the Party of Regions. This can be seen in its victory in the 2006 elections.

In Washington it is difficult to understand why the Party of Regions is the
only Ukrainian party that has contracted with a public affairs company. The
Yulia Tymoshenko bloc is only just beginning to work in this field as it has
largely focused on improving her image and informing western Europe.

Yanukovych has visited Washington more often than Tymoshenko who is
only due to visit for the US in February of next year, following one visit
in the mid 1990s.

President Yushchenko does have a support structure in the US, the Orange
Circle (http://www.orangecircle.org/) but its reputation has badly suffered
from being too apologetic of the strategic mistakes made by the president in
the last two years. Such apologetic defense of the president should be left
to the Ukrainian Embassy, rather than a US NGO, it is widely believed.

A second difficulty for Yushchenko is that the Orange Circle is as
multi-vector in its leanings as that of the president's party, Our Ukraine.

The Orange Circle's links to business groups within the Party of Regions
means it is acting in a similar way to the Liubi Druzi in Our Ukraine.
Affiliated groups to the Orange Circle organized the New York city business
forum for Prime Minister Yanukovych that followed his Washington meetings.

The major difference between Yanukovych and Yushchenko that is noted in
Washington is that only the former seems willing to listen to advisers and
consultants. Yushchenko seems to be affected by the same virus of arrogance
as that of Yanukovych in 2004. Yanukovych has greatly benefited from
listening to his Washington public affairs consultants since losing the 2004
elections.

This more polished version of Yanukovych was seen in an October 2006
opinion editorial article in The Washington Post and in his speeches this
week in Washington. The problem for Yanukovych is that the arguments
laid out in articles signed by him and in speeches given by him are met by
a major degree of skepticism.

This is not surprising as his own past actions have left him open to
accusations of opportunism. It has been noted by others and myself in
Washington that the Party of Regions and Yanukovych should be submitted
to the Guinness Book of Records.

During the last four years their position has changed three times from
support for NATO membership (2002-2004), to outright hostility to anything
to do with NATO (2005-2006) to backing for cooperation only after returning
to government in 2006.

How can Washington take such constant changes in policy as a manifestation
of anything serious? Yanukovych cannot be expected to be taken seriously in
Washington until he overcomes and relinquishes the Kuchma era habit of
saying one thing and doing another. Washington has had enough of this in the
1990s.

Currently there are three positions in Ukraine on Yanukovych and the Party
of Regions. [1] First, that they are all "bandits" (the view of the
Tymoshenko bloc). [2] Second, that it is too early to have an opinion. [3]
Third, that they have already evolved from oligarchs into law abiding
democrats.

In Washington all three views are present but the first is mainly confined
to the Ukrainian diaspora, particularly the fourth wave "noviprybuli". The
largest group in Washington is represented by the middle group of doubters
waiting to see more than Potemkin change initiated by highly paid Washington
public relations. The third group has a small number of followers
represented by the "Liubi Druzi" in the Orange Circle, well known economist
Anders Aslund and some others.

Yanukovych also has to deal with the uncomfortable factor of creeping
Ukraine fatigue in Washington. This fatigue is due to the collapse of hopes
surrounding the Orange Revolution, which was widely welcomed in
Washington.

Other causes include the continuing in fighting within Ukraine's elites,
personal conflicts at the senior level and disappointment in Yushchenko's
lack of leadership. Increasingly one hears that Yushchenko is already a lame
duck president.

If Yushchenko were to return to the US and Canada his reception, judging by
Ukrainian diaspora newspaper editorials and letters, would be very different
to the warm support he received in 2003-2005.

Ultimately, nobody in Washington really knows who Yanukovych is or what
he stands for? The unconstitutional dismissal of Foreign Minister Borys
Tarasiuk on the eve of Yanukovych's visit to the US reinforces this view of
doubt that what we are seeing are merely Potemkin changes, rather than a
substantive evolution away from the Kuchma era.

It is up to Yanukovych to prove to skeptical Washingtonians if he really has
changed from that of the Kuchma era and that he is committed to upholding
the democratic gains of the Orange Revolution.

Yanukovych's US visit will not make up the minds of Washingtonians. This
will only come about from his future actions inside Ukraine. The onus is on
him. -30-
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Taras Kuzio PhD is Senior Transatlantic Fellow, German Marshal Fund of
the United States, Adjunct Professor, Institute for European, Russian and
Eurasian Studies, George Washington University. tkuzio@gwu.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: http://focus.in.ua/litsa/obratnaya-storona-piara.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
Send in names and e-mail addresses for the AUR distribution list.
========================================================
5. UKRAINIAN PM MEETS US TRADE REP, WORLD BANK HEAD

ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in English 1016 gmt 6 Dec 06
BBC Monitoring Service, United Kingdom, Wednesday, Dec 06, 2006

WASHINGTON - Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych told journalists
after talks with World Bank [WB] President Paul Wolfowitz on Tuesday [5
December] that a new agreement on Ukraine's cooperation with the WB for the
next five years is currently being prepared.

According to Yanukovych, "This work has coincided with the preparation of
the Ukrainian development programme for the same period."

He said: "We have agreed that we will harmonize our work with the World
Bank and ensure financing of those priority spheres of activities of (the
Ukrainian) government that coincide with the bank's priorities - I mean
various programmes in the spheres of energy, transport, as well as
improvement of the state management system and fighting corruption."

On the same day, Yanukovych discussed prospects for Ukraine's admission
to the World Trade Organization (WTO) with United States Trade
Representative Susan Schwab. The latter said during the talks with the
Ukrainian prime minister that Ukraine' s admission to the World Trade
Organization (WTO) is now in the hands of Ukraine itself.

The issue of Ukraine's WTO entry was a central one at the talks. Schwab,
in particular, pointed to the need of bringing Ukraine's legislation in
compliance with WTO norms.

"The prime minister stated during the meeting that Ukraine is now on the
home straight in this issue," a source in the Ukrainian delegation told
ITAR-TASS.

"We more than ever have now all possibilities and powers in order to
complete this process," he quoted the prime minister as saying. "Ukraine has
been for 13 years in talks on WTO admission. I hope that the 14th year will
be the last," according to Yanukovych.

The Ukrainian prime minister had said earlier that the future 2007 should
become the year of Ukraine's admission to the World Trade Organization.

Within the framework of WTO entry bid Ukraine is only to sign protocols
with two remaining members of the organization - Kyrgyzstan and Taiwan,
as well as introduce the necessary amendments to its legislation.

The Ukrainian government head at his meeting with Schwab also noted positive
dynamics of the turnover growth between Ukraine and the United States.
Yanukovych ended the Washington part of his visit to the United States with
talks in the World Bank and office of the US trade representative.

From Washington the Ukrainian prime minister flew to New York where he
plans to take part in an investment forum, meet the leadership of a number of
major investment groups, including JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank.

He will also visit the New York Stock Exchange, hold talks with
representatives of Jewish organizations and visit Ground Zero, the place
where the World Trade Centre twin towers stood before the terrorist attack
on September 11, 2001. -30-
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
6. OPEN LETTER TO UKRAINIAN PM VIKTOR YANUKOVYCH
FROM THE UKRAINIAN CONGRESS COMMITTEE OF AMERICA

Michael Sawkiw, President
Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA)
New York/Washington, D.C., Monday, December 4, 2006

Dear Mr. Prime Minister!

The Ukrainian American community is deeply disturbed by recent events in
Ukraine. We believe that the continued confrontation between the branches
of power and illegal decisions by the Parliament prove that Ukraine is
returning to anarchy, based not on democratic principles, but on personal
interests of its politicians.

From the time of your appointment as Prime Minister, our community, which
also includes numerous citizens of Ukraine who now reside in the United
States, has been disturbed by several issues, which in our opinion require
careful consideration by your Cabinet.

As in any young state, which is resurrecting its heritage after a lengthy
occupation and persecution of its national culture, the development of the
Ukrainian language and culture is critical to the reconstitution of its
national identity.

We strongly believe that all Ukrainian government officials, as well as
members of Parliament, while performing their official duties should use
only the state language of Ukraine.

The Constitution of Ukraine states: "The state language in Ukraine is the
Ukrainian language. The State guarantees the comprehensive development
and use of the Ukrainian language in all spheres of society across the entire
territory of Ukraine" (Article 10).

As Ivan Dzuba stated, "without the [Ukrainian] language, without its
Ukrainian culture, Ukraine simply will not be - no matter how great the
state of the economy is."

Mr. Prime Minister, you yourself stated, "the state language is the
Ukrainian language." (October 30, 2006, "Ukrainska Pravda"). It is shameful
that in your official capacity as the head of the Ukrainian government, you
spoke Russian when reacting to the firing of Minister Tarasyuk during your
interview in Mariupol.

Furthermore, in a recent interview with Oles Buzyna, Dmytro Tabachnyk,
the Deputy Prime Minister for Humanitarian Issues, stated that the cultural
policy of Ukraine aimed at resurrecting national awareness and self-respect
is "in the interests of a narrow stratum of the Ukrainian-speaking
intelligentsia, who is simply afraid of competition in all areas."

This statement is deplorable from a representative of the Ukrainian
government and in our opinion such Ukrainophobes have no place in the
Government of Ukraine. We believe that the Government should continue the
process of Ukrainianization in Ukraine, and we urge you to begin this
forthright.

The issue of the 1932-1933 Genocide in Ukraine is extremely important to the
Ukrainian nation. We were pleased to hear that legislation was passed on
November 28th in the Ukrainian parliament, which recognized the
forced-famine as a Genocide, although we were disappointed that the language
of the bill was softened. We were also disheartened by the fact that only
two members of your faction voted for this bill.

We hope that your Government will continue to work for recognition of this
crime as genocide on an international level and we will assist in this
endeavor by working with the government of other countries and international
organizations.

We also believe it necessary to conduct a nationwide educational campaign
regarding the history, causes and repercussions of the Famine-Genocide in
Ukraine's educational facilities, as well as within the general public.

Another sensitive issue for Ukraine is that of recognizing and affording the
appropriate privileges to the veterans of OUN/UPA, who fought for freedom
and the restoration of Ukraine's statehood. It is time to change their
negative image created by the Soviet state and recognize those who fought
against the two cruelest regimes of the Twentieth century.

In the interests of restoring the truthful history of Ukraine, which is an
important element in establishing a civic society in a democratic, sovereign
state, the Government of Ukraine should recognize the OUN/UPA fighters
and afford them the same privileges as other World War II veterans.

Mr. Prime Minister, you defined the main prerogative of the Ukrainian
government's activities during an interview on October 27, 2006 by saying
that "The main principle of our policies is to act based on the national
interests of Ukraine."

The time has come to earnestly implement those principles into action.
Unfortunately, prior to now, the work of your Government has been contrary
to your declared principles, and not in the interest of the Ukrainian
people/nation.

Moreover, the actions [of firing the Minister of Foreign Affairs Borys
Tarasyuk] by representatives of your party in Parliament on the anniversary
of the nationwide referendum of December 1, 1991 for the independence of
Ukraine, are tragically symbolic.

On the anniversary of the day when the Ukrainian people expressed their
desire to be independent, the Parliament made some illegal decisions, which
endanger this independence.

Prior to your appointment as Prime Minister, you signed the Statement
[Universal] of National Unity. However, you continue to violate the
Universal's principles by interfering in the political spheres that are not
within your jurisdiction.

We hope that in the future you will fulfill all the achieved agreements and
will act solely in the interests of the Ukrainian people.

We request you to seriously consider our thoughts and aim your initiatives
to benefit the people of Ukraine. The Ukrainian Congress Committee of
America (UCCA) and the Ukrainian American community have always actively
cooperated with the Government of Ukraine and we hope to continue this
cooperation to ensure a better future for Ukraine and its people. -30-
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
7. UKRAINE: PM YANUKOVYCH INVITES AMERICAN BUSINESS
CIRCLES TO INVEST IN UKRAINE

UNIAN, Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, December 7, 2006

KYIV - Prime Minister of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych invited American
business circles for cooperation. He stated during a working lunch with
leading representatives of financial and business circles of the USA in
New York, according to the press-office of the Cabinet of Ministers.

In his speech the Head of Government underscored that political stability is
very important for stable economic development. At the same time he stressed
that today responsible political forces had come to power in Ukraine which
are able to provide it.

"We intend to work during the following five-ten years and there are no
obstacles in this way", Viktor Yanukovych said.

According to Prime Minister, the present Cabinet is longing to pursue a
transparent policy - both home and foreign.

Prime Minister stressed that the Ukrainian state had already determined its
domestic and foreign course and urged the American business circles to
cooperate with Ukraine stressing on the necessity of attracting foreign
investments to the Ukrainian economy, in particular.

The Head of Ukrainian Government reported that the Cabinet of Ministers of
Ukraine proposes a new innovation-investment model for development of the
Ukrainian economy which requires many investments while mentioning the fact
that Ukraine exports about 70% of its raw materials today.

As Prime Minister noted, the Government of Ukraine and Verkhovna Rada are
working together at creating proper conditions for investment attraction.

In December, the Investors' Council will be created under the Cabinet of
Ministers of Ukraine and Viktor Yanukovych invited the American
businessmen for cooperation with this advisory body. -30-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: http://www.unian.net/eng/news/news-176123.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
NOTE: Send in a letter-to-the-editor today. Let us hear from you.
========================================================
8. PRIME MINISTER: UKRAINE NO PAWN OF RUSSIA OR WEST

By David R. Sands, The Washington Times
Washington, D.C., Wednesday, December 6, 2006

WASHINGTON - Ukraine will reject any effort to be used as a pawn in any
struggle for influence between Russia and the West, Ukrainian Prime Minister
Viktor Yanukovych said yesterday at the end of a two-day visit to
Washington.

But Mr. Yanukovych, whom many in Washington fear is tilting away from the
pro-Western reform alliance that spearheaded Ukraine's 2004 Orange
Revolution, said his four-month-old government will not lobby strongly for
membership in NATO in the face of weak popular support for the
trans-Atlantic alliance inside Ukraine.

"Nobody is trying to push anyone anywhere" on NATO, Mr. Yanukovych said,
speaking through an interpreter to a small group of reporters at a breakfast
briefing. "People have to understand the benefits of this or any other
security system."

The prime minister raised fresh doubts about his commitment to NATO when he
declined to sign a nonbinding "membership action plan" on a September visit
to Brussels.

A poll released in Kiev yesterday said that about 75 percent of Ukrainians
think Mr. Yanukovych is more likely to protect Russian business interests or
those of his home region in eastern Ukraine over the interests of "average
Ukrainian citizens."

President Viktor Yushchenko, the hero of the Orange Revolution, has strongly
pushed a pro-NATO and pro-Western foreign-policy line. But he was forced to
accept Mr. Yanukovych as prime minister after elections this year gave his
defeated rival in the 2004 presidential campaign the biggest single bloc in
parliament.

Mr. Yanukovych held low-key talks with Vice President Dick Cheney and
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on his visit, his first to the United
States since taking office in August. Topics in the talks included Ukraine's
World Trade Organization bid, energy security and domestic reforms in
Ukraine.

Mr. Yanukovych told reporters his government was a vast improvement over the
faction-ridden team installed by Mr. Yushchenko immediately after the Orange
Revolution.

"Beautiful slogans should always be followed by actions," he said. The new
unified government "allows for a foreign and domestic policy where we can be
100 percent sure of implementation."

But the infighting clearly goes on in Kiev.

Mr. Yushchenko yesterday voided a parliamentary vote to fire Foreign
Minister Borys Tarasyuk, a chief architect of his pro-Western foreign
agenda. Mr. Yanukovych's allies hold virtually all of the other Cabinet
posts, but Mr. Yushchenko argued the country's constitution gave him final
say on foreign policy.

Mr. Yanukovych declined to criticize recent anti-democratic moves by
Russian President Vladimir Putin, noting that Russia is Ukraine's biggest
trading partner and the critical supplier of its energy needs.

"President Putin defends the interests of Russia. The way he does -- the
Russian people can assess that," Mr. Yanukovych said.

"The most important thing is that Ukraine should not be allied with Russia
against the United States and the European Union or vice versa," he said.
"We are not going to conduct such a policy." -30-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20061205-102549-5365r.htm
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
9. CSDU MEMORANDUM DELIVERED ON THE OCCASION OF THE
VISIT BY PRIME MINISTER YANUKOVYCH TO WASHINGTON, DC

Action Ukraine Report (AUR) #794, Washington, D.C., Tue, Dec 5, 2006

WASHINGTON - The Coalition for a Secure and Democratic Ukraine
(CSDU) delivered a memorandum to Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor
Yanukovych at a reception held in his honor at the Ukrainian Embassy in
Washington, Monday evening, December 4.

The memorandum was delivered to the PM by Vera Andrushkiw of the
U.S.- Ukraine Foundation. Accompanying Andrushkiw were Marta
Matselioukh, U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, Vera Andryczyk and Zenia Chernyk
Ukrainian Federation of America and Morgan Williams, SigmaBleyzer
Private Equity Investment Group. Coalition members Mark Levin, NCSJ,
CSDU Co-chairman, Ambassador William Miller, and Markian Bilynskyj,
U.S-Ukraine Foundation, Kyiv, were also in attendance at the reception.

The memorandum delivered by CSDU to PM Yanukovych:

Coalition for a Secure and Democratic Ukraine (CSDU)
Moving U.S.-Ukraine Relations Forward
Ambassador Steven Pifer and Ambassador William Miller, Co-Chairmen
Secretariat: U.S.-Ukraine Foundation (USUF)
Washington, D.C., Monday, December 4, 2006

The CSDU. The Coalition for a Secure and Democratic Ukraine seeks to
promote strong relations between the United States and Ukraine, a close
institutional relationship between Congress and the Verkhovna Rada, and the
integration of a democratic, market-oriented Ukraine into the Euro-Atlantic
community. Americans want to see Ukraine succeed as a modern European
state, which offers the brightest future for the Ukrainian people.

The CSDU is the successor to the Jackson-Vanik Graduation Coalition, which
united the efforts of more than 250 businesses and Ukrainian-American,
Jewish-American and other non-governmental organizations to promote
Ukraine's graduation from the provisions of the Jackson-Vanik amendment.

That goal was accomplished in March 2006, when President Bush signed
legislation removing Ukraine from the purview of Jackson-Vanik and granting
permanent normal trade relations status to Ukraine.

The CSDU welcomes Prime Minister Yanukovych's visit to the United States
and hopes it will strengthen U.S.-Ukraine relations and Ukraine's ability to
realize its full potential. The CSDU believes the following are important
for Ukraine's ability to move forward.

DEMOCRATIC CONSOLIDATION. Ukraine has recorded significant
democratic gains over the past two years. It is important that the
government safeguard these gains; promote further steps to protect the
independent media and non-governmental organizations; and institute measures
to make government at all levels more accountable to its citizens.

A COMMON VISION. Prime Minister Yanukovych and President Yushchenko
should have a common vision for Ukraine's democratic future in Europe. This
vision should be pro-Ukraine, practical and understandable to Ukraine's
partners. It should respect the constitutional roles of the President and
Prime Minister.

The appearance of two competing foreign policies in Kyiv, as has been the
case in the past few months, causes confusion among Ukraine's partners and
seriously undermines Ukraine's international authority.

WTO. Accession to the World Trade Organization will integrate Ukraine into
the global economy, open the way for negotiation of a free trade agreement
with the European Union, and help protect Ukrainian exporters in key
markets. The Prime Minister and President both say they support WTO
accession.

They should together work with the Rada for immediate passage of legislation
to bring Ukraine's trade regime into conformity with WTO requirements, so
that Ukraine can complete its accession and begin enjoying the trade and
broader economic benefits of WTO membership.

INFORMATION ON NATO. The CSDU supports Ukraine's rapid integration
into and membership in NATO, but understands this is a subject of debate
within Ukraine. Obviously, how far to go with NATO is a question for the
Ukrainian government and people to decide. But this should be decided based
on a correct understanding of NATO today and the benefits, obligations,
advantages and disadvantages of membership.

Both the Prime Minister and President have called for a public information
effort on NATO. The government should live up to its announced intention to
stimulate a comprehensive public information campaign with appropriate
funding but without exclusionary limits on access to and use of such funds.

ENERGY SECURITY. No issue is more critical for Ukraine than energy security.
Kyiv needs an energy strategy that supports economic growth and minimizes
the prospect that another country could politically exploit its dependence
on energy imports.

Key elements of such a strategy should include allowing prices to rise to
cost-recovery levels, energy efficiency measures, creating conditions for
Ukrainian and international investors to expand domestic production,
developing renewable energy sources and diversifying imports.

ANTI-CORRUPTION MEASURES. Major corruption at all levels continues
to plague Ukraine, imposing great costs on its citizens and discouraging
investment.

For example, in recent months rebates of value added taxes have been
distributed in a discriminatory manner, and reports suggest that some
businesses with political connections to the government are not paying their
full taxes.

Transparency is important: the government should regularly publish value
added tax rebates returned to oblast governments and make public the tax
payments made by Ukraine's largest businesses. Transparency is also vitally
important in the energy sector; too many questions remain, for example,
about the operations and ownership of RosUkrEnergo.

A MODERN ECONOMY. Investment by domestic and international investors
will spur economic growth, create new jobs, and generate greater tax
revenues.

But investors will not invest in Ukraine if they fear arbitrary actions and
interference in the market by the government.

In this regard, the decision to impose grain export quotas has hurt
Ukrainian farmers, badly affected Ukraine's investment image, and set back
Ukraine's ability to become a major exporter of agricultural products. The
quotas should be ended immediately.

LANGUAGE. Ukraine's practice over the past 15 years of having Ukrainian
as the sole state language while Russian can also be used on a practical basis
has worked. Attempts to change this, by trying to make Russian a second
state language, would only make language a divisive issue among Ukrainians.

Finally, performance is the standard by which governments are judged.
Translating words, such as those in recent op-eds by Prime Minister
Yanukovych and President Yushchenko in The Washington Post, and by
the Prime Minister in his December 4 speech at the Center for Strategic &
International Studies, into concrete actions will be important for the
people of Ukraine and for Ukraine's ability to succeed as a modern,
European state.

From the point of view of the CSDU, actions will be important for securing
Washington's continued strong interest in Ukraine and its future development.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
10. PM YANUKOVYCH MEETS WITH AMERICAN JOURNALISTS

Serhiy Kudelia, Podcast "Ukraine Matters"
Action Ukraine Report (AUR) #795, Article 10
Washington, D.C., Monday, December 11, 2006

Morgan,

On December 5, 2006, the second day of his visit to the US, Prime Minister
of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych held a closed working breakfast with a small
group of American journalists. He discussed the Orange Revolution, NATO
and gas trade. The full recording is available through my podcast "Ukraine
Matters": http://www.ukrainematters.org/.

You can also circulate it through your list. Sincerely, Serhiy
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
11. UKRAINE: BATTLE OVER WHICH VIKTOR IS IN CHARGE

By Roman Olearchyk in Kiev and Guy Dinmore in Washington
Financial Times, London, UK, Thursday, December 7 2006

Viktor Yanukovich, cast as the villain in Ukraine's Orange revolution, this
week tried to portray himself as a statesman on his first visit to
Washington since making a remarkable return as prime minister this summer.

However, his visit was overshadowed by an escalating power struggle with
Viktor Yushchenko, the increasingly marginalised pro-western president.

Their tussle over foreign and domestic policy has left many diplomats unsure
as to which Viktor is in charge.

Mr Yanukovich, who, in spite of backing from Moscow, suffered a humiliating
loss in the 2004 presidential elections, met Vice-President Dick Cheney and
Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state.

He unsuccessfully sought a meeting with President George W. Bush - a signal
that Washington prefers to keep its distance from the prime minister and
recognises Mr Yushchenko as Kiev's top statesman.

In the first days of the trip, Mr Yanukovich played down the wrestling match
over authority with Mr Yushchenko, who was received with highest honours in
Washington during a post-Orange revolution visit.

Despite his support for ties with Moscow, Mr Yanukovich in Washington
pledged support for European integration. He also hinted that many of the
differences with his arch-rival were simply a matter of timing.

"I don't consider there to be, practically, any differences with the
president with regards to the strategic goals for the next 25 years. All
questions lie in tactics," he said. "Our actions in the international arena
should be based on pragmatism. We should not promise more than we can do."

Following his talks in Washington, he said Russia and Ukraine would not be
friends against Europe and the US, but neither should the US and Ukraine be
friends against Russia.

"No one will try to push anyone, anywhere," he said, rejecting pressure on
Ukraine to accept early membership of Nato.

The prime minister also said his coalition was close to passing the last of
two legislative bills required to allow Ukraine to join the World Trade
Organisation.

However, Mr Yanukovich's words cannot conceal the deepening rift with Mr
Yushchenko over control of foreign and domestic policy. Last week, his
governing coalition in parliament fired Borys Tarasyuk and Igor Lutsenko,
Ukraine's pro-western foreign and interior ministers respectively and both
Yushchenko allies.

A bill registered this week by Mr Yanukovich's camp called for the ousting
of Anatoly Hrytsenko, the defence minister and Mr Yushchenko's last ally in
the government.

Meanwhile, prosecutors launched a criminal probe into alleged corruption by
Oleksiy Ivchenko, a close associate of Mr Yushchenko who chaired the state
energy group.

This week, a Kiev court and a presidential decree reinstated Mr Tarasyuk. Mr
Yushchenko's team believes the constitution gives him authority on foreign
policy but Mr Yanukovich last week said parliament formulated foreign
policy.

Mr Tarasyuk was fired after nearly spoiling Mr Yanukovich's Washington
visit. Just days before the trip, the ministry informed US officials that
the premier's visit would be postponed after he refused to seek presidential
approval on the trip's foreign policy initiatives. Mr Yanukovich conceded to
presidential approval for the trip at the last minute but dismissed Mr
Tarasyuk in retaliation.

In a further indication of how petty the power struggle has become, Mr
Yanukovich's government yesterday refused to admit Mr Tarasyuk to a cabinet
meeting, saying it did not recognise him as foreign minister.

Mr Yanukovich has gradually taken away authority from Mr Yushchenko since
forming a coalition government. He has also tried to revamp his image. In
Washington, he pledged to support democracy, dubbing allegations linking his
camp to fraud during the 2004 presidential vote as spin.

The rift between Ukraine's two leaders could set Kiev on a path for repeat
parliamentary elections and a constitutional stand-off.

Mr Yushchenko's allies have accused Mr Yanukovich of backing out of
promises to support speedy western integration and liberal economic reforms
and hope to return Ukraine to stronger presidential rule. They plan to ask
constitutional judges to reverse reforms that shifted key powers from the
presidency to parliament.

Ukraine's parliament yesterday approved the long-awaited privatisation of
Ukr-telekom, the country's largest telecommunications company, which
officials hope will repeat last year's highly profitable sale of
Kryvorizhstal, a flagship steel mill. -30-
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/fc0ac0ec-8593-11db-b12c-0000779e2340.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
If you are receiving more than one copy of the AUR please contact us.
========================================================
12. UKRAINE: HIGHLIGHTING FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT (FDI)

Ukraine, Volume 49, Oxford Business Group
London, United Kingdom, Friday, December 8, 2006

The visit of Prime Minister Victor Yanukovych to the US this week, his first
since taking up the post in August, has once again put the spotlight on
foreign direct investment (FDI) into Ukraine.

During a meeting at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies,
Yanukovych gave assurances that the country was open to foreign investors
and is driving through political and economic reforms.

"We will not abandon the path we have chosen, the path of democratic market
transformations," he said, further indicating to the foreign business
community that his government is focussing on judicial reform, increasing
transparency and is working to develop the stock market and improve
regulation, all areas which potential investors have asked the government to
address.

Foreign direct investment into Ukraine continued to grow in 2006, reaching
$3.07bn by the end of September, a threefold increase on the same period
last year. Estimates for the year-end figure range from $4bn to $6bn.

According to figures released by the economy ministry, the total volume of
FDI into Ukraine following the opening up of the country to outside
investment had reached $19.9bn by October 2006.

Foreign banks have continued to show great interest in Ukraine, with a
report from the State Statistics Committee published on November 15
showing the main areas of interest for foreign investors in the year to date to
be the financial sector ($993.9m), industry ($703.2m) and real estate
($385.3m). The purchase of Ukrsotsbank by Banca Intesa of Italy is due to
be completed by end 2006 or early 2007.

Other major investments this year have included the start of construction of
a $50m electronics plant by American firm Jabil, due for completion in early
2007. The project will include investment in local infrastructure and will
offer significant employment opportunities.

Also in the field of electronics, American company Tyco has been allocated
land near Ivano-Frankivsk where it will invest $66m in a cable and
components plant due for completion in 2009.

Although the total volume will not be comparable to levels seen in 2005,
with the unprecedented scale of the privatisation of Kryvorizhstal and the
sale of Bank Aval to Raiffeisen, which took the total volume of FDI to
$7.6bn, the figure represents a measure of confidence among investors in the
potential for growth.

The majority of interest in 2006 was from European investors, with the bulk
of funds flowing into the country from France ($676m), Cyprus ($554.3m),
the Netherlands ($433.9m), Great Britain ($350.3m), Austria ($221.4m) and
Germany ($198.6m).

The European Business Association (EBA) predicts continued strong interest
in 2007 with a forecast of $4bn to $5bn worth of investment. At a recent EBA
investment forum in London it was noted that at present investors are more
concerned about the practical aspects of conducting business in Ukraine,
rather than the business climate.

Despite this, indications of future investment opportunities were given,
with around 900,000 sq metres of offices and industrial premises scheduled
for completion in the centre of Kiev alone in 2007.

This month will also see the government host the first National Exhibition
and Conference in the United States. The exhibition will showcase 50
Ukrainian companies from the aerospace, mining, metallurgy, machine
building, chemicals, food processing, light industries, consumer goods and
IT sectors.

The conference will highlight the availability of skilled and educated
labour together with the proximity to European markets.

Meanwhile on December 4, the government announced that a proposal to
re-open free economic zones has been dropped from tabled legislation.

This followed pressure from President Viktor Yushchenko who has indicated
that re-establishment of the zones could lead to a similar lack of
transparency in the operation of businesses, which led to the closure of
previous zones.

The zones typically provide tax-breaks and investment incentives to
businesses and are welcomed by many foreign investors. The cabinet will
now vote individually on each zone, rather than including them all as part
of the draft budget.

In 2007 analysts consider it likely that movement in the banking and real
estate sectors will continue, together with an upsurge in interest in the
retail sector.

The anticipated membership of the WTO in February 2007 will also
demonstrate that business reforms have been pushed through and raise the
profile of Ukraine as a destination for investment.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: http://www.oxfordbusinessgroup.com/weekly01.asp?id=2478
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
Send in a letter-to-the-editor today. Let us hear from you.
========================================================
13. UKRAINE: U.S. ENERGY COMPANY VANCO VIES FOR RIGHT
TO DRILL FOR OIL IN THE BLACK SEA

By Nikola Krastev, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)
Prague, Czech Republic, Thursday, December 7, 2006

NEW YORK - Negotiations are continuing between the Ukrainian government
and the Houston-based Vanco Energy Company for the right to drill for oil
in the Black Sea.

Talks on the tender, which would be the first granted to a Western investor
in Ukraine's oil-and-gas sector, took place on December 6 in New York on the
sidelines of a business forum aimed at attracting U.S. investors to Ukraine.
Negotiations are expected to end in January 2007.

Ukraine could net billions of dollars if the deal goes through. If signed,
Ukraine would get at least 51 percent of the future profits from the
production-sharing agreement (PSA).
ENTER GAZPROM?
But there has been speculation that the negotiations have stalled and that
Russia's state-controlled gas giant, Gazprom, may become Ukraine's partner
in the project.

Ukraine's Fuel and Energy Minister Yuriy Boyko denied that the Ukrainian
government is interested in Gazprom's participation.

"There are always topics of dispute when negotiating a project of such
magnitude but I do not doubt that we will find a compromise," Boyko said.

"The negotiations with our partners [Vanco Energy] have demonstrated that
we are close to [a deal]. By the end of January [2007] we will sign an
agreement."

Vanco Chairman Gene Van Dyke also downplayed rumors of significant
differences between his company and the Ukrainian government.

"I think there are only rumors, I've heard nothing of that from the official
point of view, we've been awarded the tender and you've heard what the
minister [Boyko] said. We're negotiating constructively to finish an
agreement within the time allowed," Van Dyke said.

Vanco itself does not have the capacity to conduct seismic-exploration
drilling at a depth of over 600 meters below sea level. Instead, it will
hire subcontractors for the job.

"The type of terms we hope to achieve once it's agreed -- and it's not yet
agreed -- would fall in the middle range of production-sharing agreements
around the world," Van Dyke said of the project.

"It will be certainly compatible with other agreements in what I would call
'frontier exploration areas' and 'areas of deep water,' which has additional
mechanical risks and cost involved."
DOGGED BY PERCEPTIONS
The tender is being negotiated for a period of at least 30 years with
possible 10-year extensions. But questions have been raised about Ukraine's
business environment -- in particular, corruption.

Western investors are eying the Vanco tender as a test for Ukraine's
commitment to liberalize its economy and to introduce much-needed
transparency. Van Dyke says that he doesn't see political risks because the
contract is too big and too important for Ukraine.

As for Ukraine's high place on the annual Transparency International
Corruption Perceptions Index, Van Dyke says that he sees no problem with
that either.

"I'm aware of that, I've seen that index," Van Dyke said. "I don't feel the
influence of that in this project. This contract has the advantage of being
very large and very visible and very important to the government and to us,
so, that adds transparency."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/12/5807a1cd-e475-4f9c-8518-cb4cdc24fd18.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
14. ORANGE REVOLUTION'S FOE TRANSFORMED IN UKRAINE

By Peter Finn, Washington Post Foreign Service
The Washington Post, Washington, D.C., Tuesday, Nov 28, 2006

KIEV, Ukraine, Nov. 27 -- The Orange Revolution, strangely, has been kindest
to the man who played the villain to the waves of protesters who rolled onto
the streets of this capital two years ago.

Viktor Yanukovych, once cast as the bluff hack who tried to steal Ukraine's
presidential election, is back in power as prime minister thanks to free and
fair parliamentary elections in March that were made possible only by the
street protests of late 2004.

As he prepares for his first official trip to Washington, a four-day visit
beginning Sunday, Yanukovych is suddenly projecting himself as the voice of
democratic reform. He also appears eager to assure his White House hosts
that his popular image as a pro-Russian straw man is a gross distortion.

Now, he suggests that he, too, was a catalyst in the transformation of this
once stagnating country into the most politically competitive of all the
post-Soviet states, a nation where debate is dynamic and where power,
ultimately, resides with the people.

"There were many mistakes made by the previous authorities and many
injustices," he said in an interview in his office here Monday. "The
authorities lost trust. One should recognize that there is more democracy,
that there is freedom of speech -- and that is an achievement of these
historic events, although I don't call it a revolution."

Yanukovych bears little resemblance to the figure who provoked tens of
thousands of Ukrainians to demonstrate against electoral fraud in 2004,
eventually sweeping his opponent, Viktor Yushchenko, into the presidency.
And some question the sincerity of what they see as his self-serving
rhetoric.

"He talks like he was part of it," said David Zhvania, a member of
parliament and financier of Yushchenko's campaign and the protests in Kiev's
Independence Square. "It's a game. We showed Ukrainians why he was scary,
but we also explained to Yanukovych why he was scary, and from his first day
in power we saw that he was listening."

For others, however, the fundamental legacy of the Orange Revolution, named
for the color adopted by those advocating democratic change, is that
Yanukovych must now bow to the electorate and that Ukraine, a nation of 47
million, cannot return to autocratic rule.

"He is forced to play within the rules of a new political culture," said
Vadim Karasev, director of the Institute for Global Strategies in Kiev. "He
understands that a dictatorial style is no longer permissible in Ukraine.
The Orange Revolution made him a politician."

The change in attitude is immediately apparent to visitors to his office.
The first visible image is a portrait of Yushchenko, which was placed in a
prominent position on Yanukovych's orders, according to his media aides.

The prime minister also regularly speaks Ukrainian, not Russian, in public
now; his vastly improved fluency clearly reflects an attempt to project
himself as something more than the representative of pro-Russian business
clans from eastern Ukraine.

The bulk of Yushchenko's support came from the Ukrainian-speaking west,
while Yanukovych's base is in the Russian-speaking east.

"There is more and more desire among the people to unite under the state
flag," Yanukovych said. "They want to build a strong unified state, a united
Ukraine."

The coalition that had backed Yushchenko collapsed following bitter
infighting, but Yanukovych strikes an accommodating tone in discussing the
president's goals -- integration with the West, including membership in NATO
and the European Union, while maintaining respectful but independent
relations with Russia, Ukraine's giant neighbor.

"My goal, first, is to develop a strategic relationship between Ukraine and
the United States that is predictable, effective and has a good
perspective," he said of his Washington visit, during which he will meet
with Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

His aides are still hoping for a meeting with President Bush, however brief.
According to protocol, he should meet only with the vice president, since he
is not the head of state, but a presidential handshake would imply some
acceptance of Yanukovych's new incarnation.

On NATO membership, a prospect that a majority of Ukrainians oppose,
according to opinion polls, Yanukovych said his compatriots first need to
be educated about the goals of the alliance and its benefits for Ukraine.

"You cannot put a boat to sail without first building it," he said. "For
Ukraine, and the Ukrainian people, the priority is first to improve the
standard of living, build up the legal system and create a just state with
democratic values and freedom, and only then a security system. The
population will support integration with NATO when they see positive
changes in the country itself."

Asked about his personal view of NATO membership, Yanukovych said,
"I think we will do everything that serves the national interest." And that,
he
added, includes "a normal and stable working relationship with Russia which
is of mutual benefit. It is extremely important for us. Russia is a very
important strategic, trade and economic partner."

But he also said he wanted to pursue policies that reduce Ukraine's
dependence on its neighbor, particularly its almost total reliance on Russia
for energy. "We want to develop a diversification of energy supplies," he
said. "And Russia is not obstructing us in this process." -30-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/27/AR2006112701229.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
15. BUILDING A DEMOCRACY
The Orange Revolution Lives On in Ukraine

OP-ED: By Viktor Yushchenko, President of Ukraine
The Washington Post, Washington, D.C., Wed, Nov 29, 2006; Page A23

Two years ago an authoritarian regime's attempt to hijack the presidential
election in Ukraine failed. As official results were announced, disbelief
provoked millions of citizens to pour into the streets in protest.

They took a stand against those discredited officials who hid behind law
enforcement bodies in an attempt to prolong their corrupt hold on power.
Those days and weeks are known as Ukraine's Orange Revolution.

In the time since, my main goal as president has been to institutionalize
democracy and guarantee that it is irreversible. Many of the wrongs in my
country have been corrected. We are maintaining our unwavering commitment
to the principles of freedom.

We agreed to shift constitutional powers from an authoritarian presidency to
a coalition government formed by parliament to end the country's political
impasse. And we abolished state censorship of the media, while also
forbidding interference in news reporting.

This year free and fair elections were held at national, regional and local
levels. Overseeing the peaceful and democratic transition of power was my
unique test, as it brought back to office my former political opponents.

But along with our national successes and economic achievements under two
"orange" prime ministers, there have been disappointments and
miscalculations. Infighting among my political allies has been the biggest
disappointment. Some "orange" politicians have ignored their fundamental
duty to deliver results for the public good.

Instead, gaining political power and seeking the limelight have become their
goal. As our country's democracy continues to mature, I am convinced that a
young cadre of leaders will rise through the ranks of Ukraine's democratic
parties to create a political renewal.

On my watch, the corruption that has historically emanated from the
president's office ceased. Thousands of election officials, tax collectors,
foot patrols, road police and customs agents were brought to justice for
petty corruption. Yet the biggest abusers of public office remain at large
because of unreformed prosecutors and corruption in the courts.

I have recently initiated a number of anti-corruption bills to reform the
criminal justice system and the courts, and I will continue to press
parliament for speedy action.

Because we were preoccupied with domestic political reforms this year, we
failed to communicate effectively with our international partners. I want to
explain where Ukraine stands and where we are heading. Democracy and
stability -- two interdependent principles -- form the basis of my agenda.

[1] To this end, I will continue constitutional reforms that facilitate the
effective work of government and prevent a return to authoritarianism or the
usurpation of power.

Today there is a balance of political power between two directly elected
democratic bodies: the president and parliament. The prime minister,
although not directly elected, represents a majority of the
parliamentarians. Bills specifying the role of the governing coalition and
the opposition have yet to be passed.

But let there be no mistake: Together we share responsibility for shaping,
executing and controlling laws and state policies.

[2] Second, constitutional reforms are incomplete, and as a result there is
a political asymmetry. We will continue refining a reliable system of checks
and balances between the presidency, parliament and coalition government to
expedite policy decision making.

To meet these objectives, I have commissioned a group of constitutional
experts to recommend amendments to strengthen our nascent democratic
institutions.

[3] Third, our law on national security promotes participation and
membership in pan-European and regional systems of collective security.
Membership in the European Union and NATO, as well as good relations and
strategic partnerships with Russia and other countries in the Commonwealth
of Independent States, are not romantic ideas of the Orange Revolution --
they are founded in Ukrainian law. The president, coalition government and
parliament determine the speed with which these goals are reached.

Most important, the democratic debates in Kiev's halls of power are now
centered on ideas about competing economic theories, values and worldviews.
Our current system of checks and balances requires policy coordination,
party coexistence and political compromise for us to move forward.

Not everyone likes the new rules of the game, and some are having trouble
playing in this new reality -- but Ukraine's democracy is here to stay.

As president, my historic mission is to guarantee that Ukraine's national
goals are reached not through political dictates but through an
institutionalized democratic process that brings together governing bodies
and citizen groups. I am convinced an inclusive democracy is one of the
most significant and lasting achievements of the Orange Revolution. -30-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE FROM TARAS KUZIO: I have just returned from Ukraine and
the NATO conference in Riga. This op-ed has little to do with reality in
Ukraine. Its claims resemble a virtual Ukraine. Yushchenko is isolated
and cut off from reality. Taras Kuzio (Nov 30, 2006) AUR EDITOR

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================

16. WHEN AN EX-K.G.B. MAN SAYS THEY'RE OUT TO GET HIM
He believed the Russian security agency was behind the dioxin
poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko, who was running for president of Ukraine.

By Scott Shane, Week In Review, The New York Times
New York, New York, Sunday, December 10, 2006

I CALLED Alexander Litvinenko in London to ask him about poison and the
K.G.B., and he was glad to oblige. Yes, he said in that interview two years
ago, he believed that the Russian security agency was behind the dioxin
poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko, who was running for president of Ukraine.

The view inside the K.G.B. and its successor, the F.S.B., where he had
worked for a decade, "was that poison is just a weapon, like a pistol," Mr.
Litvinenko said. He even gave the Moscow address of what he said was an
F.S.B. poison laboratory.

"I was told there were 11 poisons for different uses," he said, and added
one more prescient detail. The same laboratory, he said, worked on
"radioactive items."

Today, the British police are following the radioactive trail of Mr.
Litvinenko's killer from London to Moscow, where two Russian associates
of his are reported to be sick, possibly from radiation. Mr. Litvinenko's slow
and agonizing death last month from ingestion of polonium 210 is an act of
radiological terrorism that has not been solved.

But its grisly exoticism - targeting a British citizen in his adopted
country - seemed almost a throwback to the ruthlessness of the Stalin era,
when it was part of the code of the K.G.B. to kill its apostates where it
found them.

In the interview, which seemed hysteria-tinged at the time, Mr. Litvinenko
said that Russian authorities had marked him for assassination. He e-mailed
me a photograph of the charred wall of his London apartment, damaged by a
Molotov cocktail.

He sent the manuscript of his book, "Blowing Up Russia," which charged that
apartment bombings in Russia, officially blamed on Chechen rebels, were in
fact the work of the F.S.B.

Neither the book nor Mr. Litvinenko's writings at Chechenpress.org were
subtle. In one posting last year, he imagined enraged Russians storming the
Kremlin, to "crack this citadel of barbarity and violence" and "murder the
main security officer Putin and his assistants in the Kremlin toilet."

If Mr. Litvinenko's killing was a response to such verbal attacks, it would
mark the distance Russia has traveled from the late 1980s, when K.G.B.
leaders were grilled by the first elected Parliament and a K.G.B.-led coup
crumbled. In 1989, addressing that Parliament, Yuri P. Vlasov, who had
earned celebrity as an Olympic weightlifting champion, denounced the K.G.B.
on live television as "a real underground empire" responsible for "millions
of people murdered."

The next year, a retired K.G.B. major general, Oleg D. Kalugin, joined the
nascent reform alliance Democratic Russia and became the first insider to
denounce the security service on its own turf.

Mr. Kalugin ran for Parliament himself, and then participated in the
East-West spy thaw that seemed to consign the cold war to history. In 1996,
he even co-starred with a former Central Intelligence Agency director,
William E. Colby, in a computer game called "Spycraft."

But meanwhile the K.G.B., divided into the domestic F.S.B. and the Foreign
Intelligence Service, or S.V.R., bided its time. President Boris N. Yeltsin
considered dismantling the K.G.B. but "decided it was too dangerous," said
Michael McFaul, a Russia specialist at Stanford University.

In the seven-year rule of President Vladimir V. Putin, the security service
has returned to prestige and power. "All the most important jobs in Russia
today," Mr. McFaul said, "are held by K.G.B. or former K.G.B. officers, in
every ministry, in every industry."

Mr. Kalugin, facing increasing hostility at home, settled for good in the
United States. In 2002, the onetime rising star of Russian democracy was
convicted of treason by a Moscow court and sentenced in absentia to 15
years in prison.

For decades, he said, any K.G.B. officer who defected was automatically
tried and sentenced to death, and officers overseas were expected to carry
out the sentences.

In the late 1960s, when Yuri Andropov became K.G.B. chief, the practice
faded. "He never formally ended it, but he found reasons not to give the
orders," said Mr. Kalugin, who knew Mr. Andropov well.

Now the practice may be back and playing out in a world where former K.G.B.
officers, with murky continuing relations with the successor agency, are
found in many countries.

Mr. McFaul said that whoever killed Mr. Litvinenko chose the gruesome murder
weapon to deter others who would openly break with the F.S.B. and the
regime. "The message is: Be afraid. Be very afraid," he said.

Message received, said Alex Konanykhin, a former Russian banker who fled to
the United States in 1992 after former K.G.B. officers muscled him out of
his own business. After he discussed Mr. Litvinenko's death on CNN, anxious
friends called both from Russia and the United States to urge him to keep
quiet.

"They say, 'What are you thinking? It's too dangerous," ' said Mr.
Konanykhin, who runs a computer company and recently published an
autobiography, "Defiance." He has continued to speak out, but he
acknowledges, "It's chilling."

Mr. Kalugin, now living near Washington, says he regularly receives threats.
Russian press reports since Mr. Litvinenko's death have quoted hardliners as
saying that Mr. Kalugin is now first on the list of turncoats targeted for
death.

Does he fear assassination? Mr. Kalugin replied with a humorless laugh that
was neither a yes nor a no. "I've led a good and interesting and honest life,"
he said. -30-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/weekinreview/10shane.html?ref=weekinreview
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
17. DON'T EXCUSE RUSSIANS IN SPY'S MURDER
What about Viktor Yushchenko, poisoned and disfigured with dioxin?

Charles Krauthammer, Columnist, The Washington Post
Washington, D.C., Friday, December 8, 2006

T he poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, renegade Russian spy and fierce
critic of Vladimir Putin's government, is everywhere being called a mystery.

There is dark speculation about unnamed "rogue elements" either in the
Russian secret services or among ultra-nationalists acting independently of
the government.

There are whispers about the indeterminacy of things in the shadowy
netherworld of Russian exile politics, crime and espionage.

Well, you can believe in indeterminacy. Or you can believe the testimony
delivered on the only reliable lie detector ever invented -- the deathbed --
by the victim himself. Litvinenko directly accused Putin of killing him.

Litvinenko knew more about his circumstances than anyone else. And on their
deathbed, people don't lie. As Machiavelli said on his (some attribute this
to Voltaire), after thrice refusing the entreaties of a priest to repent his
sins and renounce Satan, "At a time like this, Father, one tries not to make
new enemies."

In science, there is a principle called Occam's razor. When presented with
competing theories for explaining a natural phenomenon, one adopts the
least elaborate. Nature prefers simplicity. Scientists do not indulge in
grassy-knoll theories. You don't need a convoluted device to explain
Litvinenko's demise.

Do you think Anna Politkovskaya, the journalist who was investigating the
war in Chechnya, was shot dead in her elevator by rogue elements?

What about Viktor Yushchenko, the presidential candidate in Ukraine and
eventual winner, poisoned with dioxin during the campaign, leaving him alive
but disfigured? Ultra-nationalist Russians?

Opponents of Putin have been falling like flies. Some jailed, some exiled,
some killed. True, Litvinenko's murder will never be traced directly to
Putin, no matter how dogged the British police investigation.

State-sponsored assassinations are almost never traceable to the source. Too
many cutouts. Too many layers of protection between the don and the hitman.

Moreover, Russia has a long and distinguished history of state-sponsored
assassination of which the ice-pick murder of Trotsky was but the most
notorious.

Does anyone believe that Pope John Paul II, then shaking the foundations of
the Soviet empire, was shot by a crazed Turk acting on behalf of only
Bulgaria?

If we were not mourning a brave man who has just died a horrible death, one
would almost have to admire the Russians, not just for audacity, but for
technique in Litvinenko's polonium-210 murder. Assassination by poisoning
evokes the great classical era of raison d'etat rubouts by the Borgias and
the Medicis.

But the futurist twist of (to quote Peter D. Zimmerman in the Wall Street
Journal) the first reported radiological assassination in history adds an
element of the baroque of which a world-class thug outfit such as the KGB
(now given new initials) should be proud.

Some say that Litvinenko murder was so obvious, so bold, so messy -- five
airplanes contaminated, 30,000 people alerted, dozens of places in London
radioactive -- that it could not have possibly been the KGB.

But that's the beauty of it. Do it obvious, do it brazen and count on those
too-clever-by-half Westerners to find that exonerating. As the president of
the Central Anarchist Council (in G.K. Chesterton's "The Man Who Was
Thursday") advised: "You want a safe disguise, do you? ... A dress in which
no one would ever look for a bomb? Why, then, dress up as an anarchist, you
fool!"

The other reason for making it obvious and brazen is to send a message. This
is a warning to all the future Litvinenkos of what awaits them if they
continue to go after the Russian government. They'll get you even in London
where there is the rule of law. And they'll get you even if it makes
negative headlines for a month.

Some people say the KGB would not have gone to such great lengths to get
so small a fry as Litvinenko. Well, he might have been a small fry but his
investigations were not. He was looking into the Kremlin roots of
Politkovskaya's shooting.

And Litvinenko claimed that the Russian government itself blew up apartment
buildings in Moscow in 1999, killing hundreds of innocent civilians, in
order to blame it on the Chechens and provoke the second Chechen war.
Pretty damning stuff.

But even Litvinenko's personal smallness serves the KGB's purposes
precisely. If they go to such lengths and such messiness and such risk to
kill someone as small as Litvinenko, then no critic of the Putin
dictatorship is safe. It is the ultimate in deterrence.

The prosecution rests. We await definitive confirmation in Putin's memoirs.
Working title: "If I Did It." -30-
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Charles Krauthammer: letters@charleskrauthammer.com.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/07/AR2006120701439.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
You are welcome to send us names for the AUR distribution list.
========================================================
18. RUSSIA'S ECONOMIC IMPERIALISM
Putin seeks to implement 'liberal empire' in Georgia

By Vladimer Papava and Frederick Starr, The Journal of Turkish Weekly
Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, 7 December 2006

Russia's use of natural gas to exert economic and political pressure on
Ukraine has caused grave concern in the West. But Russia's pressure on
Georgia has been even heavier - and has scarcely been noticed.

In Georgia, as in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin seeks to
implement the doctrine of a "liberal empire" put forward in October 2003 by
Anatoli Chubais, the chairman of United Energy System (RAO UES), Russia's
energy monopoly.

According to Chubais, Russia will never find a place in either NATO or the
European Union, so it must create an alternative to both, a new empire of its
own.

It can do this by using its huge and rich public-private monopolies to take
over the key industries and economic institutions of former Soviet
republics, thereby laying the groundwork for political domination. The
resulting empire will be liberal, according to Chubais's definition, because
it can be built with money rather than tanks.

Russia's first step in fulfilling this plan in the South Caucasus was
directed against Armenia, its strategic partner in the region. Seizing on a
million debt that Armenia owed to Russia, the Putin administration demanded
payment in either cash or equity in Armenia's major industries.

Cash-strapped Armenia had no alternative but to hand over the shares, which
it did in a 2002 treaty candidly titled "Possessions in Exchange for Debt" -
a reminder of the infamous "debt-for-equity" swaps of the Yeltsin years
(another Chubais invention), which spawned Russia's oligarchs.

Russia's second step in rebuilding its empire in the Caucasus is to unite
itself and Armenia in a single economic zone. Because Georgia stands
directly in the geographical path to realizing this goal, Russia had to deal
with it first. In the 1990's, it used crude political pressure to bring
Georgia into line, but it shifted to economic leverage in 2003.

When US-based AES Silk Road failed to transform Georgia's energy system,
Chubais's RAO UES bought AES's holdings and other assets that amounted
to 75% of the country's electricity network.

Then came Georgia's "Rose Revolution." Many state-owned firms were
privatized for ten times the sums yielded in asset sales under the previous
government of Edvard Shevardnadze. But an utter lack of transparency allowed
Russian companies, and their subsidiaries registered in third countries, to
snap up most of the new offerings.

Typical was the Russian holding company Promyslennye investory (Industrial
Investors), which managed to get a major gold mine and then half of a plant
producing gold alloys.

Russia's main foreign policy instrument in Georgia is Gazprom, the
state-controlled gas monopoly. Gazprom's aim is to control not only the gas
industry in Georgia, but also the only pipeline that feeds Russian gas to
both Georgia and Armenia. Had the US not intervened in 2005 with .5 million
to rehabilitate the pipeline, it would have ended up in Gazprom's hands.

Even then, pressure from Moscow may result in joint Russian-Georgian control
of the pipeline, if not its outright sale to Gazprom. The Georgian
government, without clear support from the West, may yet agree to such a
deal, something that Moldova, which saw its gas cut off on January 1st, has
just done.

Gazprom is not the only state entity carrying out Russian policy in the
South Caucasus. In 2004, Russia's state-owned Vneshtorgbank acquired a
controlling stake in Armenia's Armsberbank.

The following year, Vneshtorgbank purchased a controlling stake in the
privatized United Georgian Bank, Georgia's third largest. In effect,
Vneshtorgbank renationalized United Georgian Bank, but the new owner
was the Russian state.

Recently, Chubais's RAO UES has had the lead role in integrating Georgia
into Russia's "liberal empire." When the Georgian authorities announced
plans to privatize the Inguri Power Plant and renew construction of the
long-stalled Khudoni Power Plant, slated to become Georgia's largest, RAO
UES immediately began staking out a dominant role for itself in both
projects.

The combination of massive pressure from the Russian side and silence
from the West could leave Georgia's entire power system - both gas and
electricity - in Russian hands.

Russia's scheme to rehabilitate the rail line from its territory into the
secessionist Georgian province of Abkhazia similarly mixes economics with
neo-imperial aspirations. Even though it is focused on land that the United
Nations recognizes as part of Georgia, the main beneficiaries of this
project would be Russia and Armenia.

If the international community allows this scheme to go forward, it will
have endorsed Russia's effort to separate Abkhazia from Georgia. Parallel
with this, Russia and Armenia are planning a new rail link to Iran.

Besides its obvious benefits to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's
retrograde government, this will deftly weaken the South Caucasus's links
with the West, which the US and Europe have spent a decade fostering.

Thus, Russia's effort to entrap Georgia and its neighbors in the nets of its
new "liberal empire" is part of a well coordinated attempt to reorient the
South Caucasus as a whole towards the anti-Western coalition of Russia
and Iran.

Western countries, and the US in particular, must provide firm backing and
support to the South Caucasus to prevent Russia from realizing its
destabilizing and dangerous neo-imperial dream. -30-
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: http://www.turkishweekly.net/comments.php?id=1900
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: Vladimer Papava is a former Minister of Economy of the
Republic of Georgia
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
19. UKRAINE'S BOXING BROTHERS TO BE HONORED BY UNESCO

AP Worldstream, Paris, France, Friday, Dec 01, 2006

PARIS - UNESCO is honoring Ukrainian boxers Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko
for their work to bring sport and education to poor children around the
world.

The brothers won praise for their work on aid projects in Namibia, Brazil
and Romania, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization said
in a statement Friday.

Former WBC heavyweight champion Vitali and younger brother Wladimir,
the IBF champion, will be named as "UNESCO Champions for Sport" at the
organization's Paris headquarters on Monday.

UNESCO said it was honoring the brothers for "their exceptional success in
the sport of boxing, their long-term commitment on behalf of the
marginalized" and support for agency programs.

Two-time Olympic judo champion David Douillet and recently retired Formula
One driver Michael Schumacher have previously been honored by UNESCO.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
20. PRESIDENT YUSHCHENKO: YOU'VE TAKEN A STAND AGAINST
GENOCIDE. NOW TAKE EFFECTIVE ACTION TO END IT.

Action Ukraine Report (AUR) #795, Article 20
Washington, D.C., Sunday, December 10, 2006

THE GENOCIDE IN DARFUR IS GETTING WORSE.
YOU MUST DO SOMETHING TO STOP IT.

Viktor Yushchenko, because you, as President of Ukraine, have done
nothing and because other President's around the world have done
nothing innocent men, women and children continue to be killed in a
conflict that's quickly spreading beyond the borders of Sudan.

A strong, UN-led peacekeeping force will protect the people, contain the
violence and re-energize the peace process. In order to be effective, this
force will need:

1. An explicit mandate to protect civilians.
2. Rules of engagement permitting the use of force to save lives.
3. Command and control arrangements allowing necessary and
timely military action without approval from distant authorities.

This will not require Ukrainian troops, but it will require Ukraine's help.
The African Union, United Nations and humanitarian aid community
must have the resources and support to undertake this difficult mission
to save Darfur -- before it is too late.

PRESIDENT YUSHCHENKO. BE A VOICE FOR DARFUR NOW
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: Based on an ad from the Save Darfur Coalition.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
Please contact us if you no longer wish to receive the AUR
========================================================
21. U.N.'S ANNAN DECRIES FAILURE TO HALT DARFUR KILLINGS
He Faulted the Shameful Passivity of Most Governments

By Colum Lynch, Washington Post Staff Writer
The Washington Post, Washington, D.C., Sat, Dec 9, 2006; Page A14

UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 8 -- U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan scolded
governments Friday for failing to halt mass murder in Darfur, saying that
the world has not learned the lessons of Rwanda and Srebrenica, where
genocidal killings in the early 1990s defied the global ability to stop it.

PROMISE OF 'NEVER AGAIN' IS RINGING HOLLOW
"Sixty years after the liberation of the Nazi death camps, and 30 years
after the Cambodian killing fields, the promise of 'never again' is ringing
hollow," Annan said in his final speech on human rights as the U.N. leader.

More than 2 million civilians have fled their homes and hundreds of
thousands have died in the Sudan conflict.

'SHAMEFUL PASSIVITY OF MOST GOVERNMENTS'
Annan said the failure to protect civilians in the Sudanese region marked a
low point in recent U.N. history. In a speech organized by Human Rights
Watch in honor of International Human Rights Day, he faulted the "shameful
passivity of most governments" in the face of a government-backed military
campaign that has driven more than 2 million people from their homes and
killed hundreds of thousands.

[The 'shameful passivity of most governments' certainly includes Ukraine
which knows the terrible pain of genocide much more than most countries,
but continues to remain silent along with most Ukrainian organizations
around the world. AUR EDITOR]

Annan provided a gloomy assessment of the organization's performance in
confronting abusers of human rights during his 10-year tenure. He charged
that the U.S.-led fight against terrorism has helped erode human rights
standards.

He said the United Nations needs to pursue an "an anti-terrorism strategy
that does not merely pay lip service to the defense of human rights but is
built on it."

Human rights activists have credited Annan, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate,
with advocating human rights more aggressively than any of his predecessors.

But his legacy has been clouded by his own failure, as the head of the U.N.
peacekeeping department, to promote a tougher response to the mass killings
in Rwanda and Srebrenica.

Annan said his tenure has been marked by some important innovations, citing
the creation of war crimes courts in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, Sierra
Leone and Cambodia, as well as the establishment of the International
Criminal Court. The Hague-based court is preparing for the possible
prosecution of Sudanese perpetrators of the Darfur killings.

But he said the initial work of the new Human Rights Council, established
this year by the U.N. General Assembly to hold the world's tyrants and
dictators to account, has been discouraging.

The Geneva-based rights body has focused almost all its attention on
condemning Israel's human rights record while remaining silent about rights
abuses in Darfur, Burma and elsewhere. Annan said he hopes the council
will confront Sudan in a special session on Darfur.

"The United Nations has a special stake, and a special responsibility, in
promoting respect for human rights worldwide," he said. "I don't need to
tell you that the U.N. has often failed to live up to that responsibility."

Annan made clear that he believes the U.N. membership bears the chief
responsibility. He reserved some of his harshest criticism for Third World
governments that, he said, have mischaracterized the U.N. human rights
agenda as "a conspiracy by imperialist powers to take back the hard-won
national sovereignty of formerly colonized people."

He also took an indirect swipe at China and Islamic governments that have
defended Sudan. China, which relies on Sudan for oil, has repeatedly
blocked U.S.-backed efforts to punish Sudan for rights abuses.

"There is more than enough blame to go around," Annan said. "It can be
shared among those who value abstract notions of sovereignty more than the
lives of real families, those whose reflex of solidarity puts them on the
side of governments and not of peoples, and those who fear that action to
stop the slaughter would jeopardize their commercial interests."

Annan said two pillars of U.S. counterterrorism strategy -- clandestine
prisons and the promotion of tougher interrogation methods -- are playing
into the hands of terrorists and ceding the moral high ground. "Secret
prisons have no place in our struggle against terrorism," he said.

A U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the United
States has an obligation to prosecute the fight against terrorism. "We are
doing everything we can to make sure human rights are protected, always,"
the official said. -30-
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/08/AR2006120801535.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: God save DARFUR from the well-meaning incompetent.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
22. PRESIDENT BUSH: YOU'VE TAKEN A STAND AGAINST GENOCIDE.
NOW TAKE EFFECTIVE ACTION TO END IT.

Save Darfur Coalition, Full Page Advertisement, The Washington Post
Washington, D.C., Wednesday, December, 6, 2007, Pg A5

THE GENOCIDE IN DARFUR IS GETTING WORSE.
YOU MUST DO MORE TO STOP IT.

Despite all of your diplomatic efforts, innocent men, women and children
continue to be killed in a conflict that's quickly spreading beyond the
borders of Sudan.

A strong, UN-led peacekeeping force will protect the people, contain the
violence and re-energize the peace process. In order to be effective, this
force will need:

1. An explicit mandate to protect civilians.
2. Rules of engagement permitting the use of force to save lives.
3. Command and control arrangements allowing necessary and
timely military action without approval from distant authorities.

This will not require American troops, but it will require America's help.
The African Union, United Nations and humanitarian aid community
must have the resources and support to undertake this difficult mission
to save Darfur -- before it is too late.

BE A VOICE FOR DARFUR. www.SaveDarfur.org.

Save Darfur Coalition, 2120 L Street, Suite 650, Washington, D.C. 20037
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
23. POLISH PARLIAMENT CONDEMNS STALIN' GENOCIDE IN UKRAINE
The lower house of the parliament has unanimously passed a resolution
condemning the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s as a genocide
orchestrated by Stalin.

Joanna Najfeld, Polskie Radio, Warsaw, Poland, Wed, Dec 6, 2006

The forced famine in Ukraine in 1932 and 1933 cost the lives of an estimated
number of 10 million people, which back then, amounted to nearly 1/3 of the
Ukrainian population.

According to historians, Stalin's genocide effectively wiped out Ukrainian
intellectuals and broke the nation's economic backbone.

The Polish resolution comes just a week after a similar declaration was
passed by the Ukrainian authorities. It reads that "joining in pain with the
relatives of the victims of the great famine in Ukraine, which cost the
lives of millions of residents of the Ukrainian countryside from 1932 to
1933, Polish parliament condemns the totalitarian regime responsible for
the genocide."

Polish MEP and historian, Prof. Wojciech Roszkowski explains the
circumstances of the tragedy in Ukraine :

'In the 1930s, the Stalinist administration started forced collectivization
of agriculture, forcing peasants to leave their household, and they were
transported to the Gulag. Those who resisted where brutally treated.

As a follow up to this action, those who stayed in Ukraine were in fact
forced to starve because they were obliged to supply grain at state fixed
prices, they were not allowed to leave any of it for themselves, so they
didn't have food for themselves.

It was one of the worst cases of forced hunger in the history, the other
being the Great Leap Forward in China. The forced hunger in Ukraine
cost lives of 6 to 10 million human beings.'

In an attempt to affect world economy and weaken capitalist power, the
Soviet state sacrificed the lives of millions of people, argues Prof.
Roszkowski.

'The grain that was squeezed out from the Ukrainian countryside was exported
to the West to decrease prices on the world market. This was during the
Great Depression. So the Stalinist state starved its own population as a
cost of an anti-capitalist action in the West.'

Back in the early 1930s, the western public opinion was confused about
what was really happening in Ukraine. Jagiellonian University historian and
expert on the history of Polish-Ukrainian relations, Jan Jacek Bruski
explains why that was the case:

'We can't say that the West did not now what was happening in Ukraine, as
information on that appeared in serious western media in 1933 but that was
thanks to a campaign organized by the Ukrainian circles. However, the Soviet
state had a very effective strategy to counter that.

They denied the famine totally and refused to accept western humanitarian
aid. At the same time the Soviets were arrogantly exporting grain. But the
Soviet state was, I am sorry to say, helped by some western intellectuals
such as George Bernard Shaw who later proposed to award Stalin with the
Nobel Peace Prize.'

Not only intellectuals, but also foreign correspondents were responsible for
keeping the western world in the dark about the extent of the tragedy that
was decimating Ukrainians. Prof. Roszkowski again:

'The Western public opinion was generally favorable of the Soviet Union. It
was not only the Western left - socialists and communists, but also the
liberals were open to good news from Russia. They were ignoring the bad
news. Especially those Western journalists who were responsible for letting
the West know and failed to do so. Part of the blame falls on them.

Those who were reporting from Russia for various reasons did not tell the
truth, which the public opinion in the West wouldn't listen to anyway, but
it was a vicious circle and the West didn't know until very much later.'

One of the journalist who would put to practice the Soviet policy of famine
denial was Walter Duranty, the New York Times Moscow correspondent
at the time. Jagiellonian University historian Jan Jacek Bruski:

'Duranty knew the truth about the extent of the famine in Ukraine, we know
that from his private correspondence. He even estimated the number of
victims at 10 million people. And still he hasn't said a word about this but
actively supported the Soviet policy of famine denial. We don't know what
Duranty's motivation was.

He might have been blackmailed or offered money for covering the Soviet
authorities. Three years ago, Ukrainian organizations wanted to take the
Pulitzer prize back from Duranty, but they didn't succeed.'

We asked historian Jan Jacek Bruski about the significance of the Polish
parliament's condemnation of forced famine in Ukraine:

'I think this resolution is of enormous moral importance. Poland has joined
the company of over 20 states now which condemned the forced famine in
Ukraine. Especially important is the use of the word "genocide".

A similar term was used in the Ukrainian resolution on the same topic. It
should also be reminded that in March this year the Polish senate has passed
a resolution to the same effect.'

Professor Roszkowski, Polish MEP, agrees that the Polish resolution is a
message of solidarity with the oppressed Ukrainian nation.

'I think it's a symbolic gesture of solidarity with the sufferings of the
Ukrainian people. Neighboring nations should remember things like that and
feel sympathy for the victims of cruel repression, or man-made disasters
like the forced hunger in Ukraine.

I think it's our obligation, as an international community, to remember.
Because if we remember, then the chance of repeating these crimes will be
lesser. '

Moscow still strongly opposes calling the famine a genocide. On Poland's
part since Ukraine gained independence in 1991, it has worked consistently
to bring it into the western fold. Poland sees letting the world know about
Stalin's crimes against the Ukrainian nation as part of its strategy of
explaining to the EU and America where Ukraine's present problems stem
from. -30-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.polskieradio.pl/polonia/article.asp?tId=45739&j=2
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
24. POLISH PARLIAMENT DEEMS UKRAINE SOVIET-ERA FORCED
FAMINE OF 1932-1933 AS GENOCIDE

Associated Press (AP), Warsaw, Poland, Wednesday, December 6, 2006

WARSAW - Polish lawmakers unanimously adopted a resolution Wednesday
condemning the Soviet-era forced famine in Ukraine and the totalitarian
regime responsible for what it said was genocide.

In the resolution, Poland's parliament, "joining in pain with relatives of
the victims of the Great Famine in Ukraine, which cost the lives of millions
of residents of the Ukrainian countryside from 1932-33, condemns the
totalitarian regime responsible for the genocide."

The famine, orchestrated by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, killed 10 million
Ukrainians, almost one-third of Ukraine's population at the time.

The Polish resolution comes a week after the parliament in Kiev adopted a
bill recognizing the famine as genocide, a move seen as a victory for
Ukraine's pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko.

Moscow strongly opposes calling the famine a genocide, contending it didn't
specifically target Ukrainians. Genocide is defined as the deliberate and
systematic destruction of a racial, political or cultural group. It is a
crime under international law. The resolution also comes amid tense
relations between Warsaw and Moscow.

Poland, where memories of domination by Moscow during the Cold War are
still fresh, angered Moscow with its support for Ukraine's so-called "Orange
Revolution," in which Yushchenko won election against a candidate backed by
Moscow.

Poland, which joined the European Union in 2004, has vetoed the launch of
talks on a new E.U.-Russia partnership accord to protest a Russian ban on
Polish meat and grain imports. -30-
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
25. UKRAINE: PRES ADDRESSES NATION ON FAMINE ANNIVERSARY
This was true genocide. One of the worst disasters in human history.

UT1 State Television, Kiev, Ukraine, in Ukrainian 1350 gmt 25 Nov 06
BBC Monitoring Service, United Kingdom, Saturday, Nov 25, 2006

KIEV - President Viktor Yushchenko has called on the Ukrainian parliament
and the international community to recognize the artificial famine of 1932-33
in Ukraine as genocide.

Addressing the nation in an emotional speech during events in Kiev to
commemorate the famine anniversary on 25 November, Yushchenko
compared the famine to the Holocaust.

He said that those denying the famine hate Ukraine and deny its statehood.
He urged Russia to join Ukraine in commemorating the famine's victims.

The following is an excerpt from the 11-minute speech by Yushchenko
broadcast live by the Ukrainian state-owned television UT1 on 25
November; subheadings inserted editorially:

Dear Ukrainian people. I am holding an head of wheat in my hand. If I
could hand this ear of wheat to a small boy who died of hunger in 1933
by the field in the village of Kruty in Chernihiv Region, to a little girl in the
village of Vilenka in Zhytomyr Region, to a woman in the village of
Krasnohirka in Odessa Region, to a man in the village of Teplivka in
Poltava Region.

It is with excruciating, heartbreaking pain that I would like to pass this
ear of wheat to my grandfather Ivan, who died from the terrible famine
together with his large family in 1932.

I would like to pass this ear of wheat to hundreds and thousands of
Ukrainian towns and villages - in Kiev, Donetsk, Cherkasy, Mykolayiv
regions, in Kuban [southern Russia].

If I could pass those grains across decades to the villages of Lyutesk in
Kharkiv Region, Kosynky in Sumy Region, Zaykivtsi in Luhansk Region - to
the villages that saw almost each of its residents die. They perished 17 people
a minute, 1,000 an hour, 25,000 a day. That was the harvest the great famine
reaped in Ukraine.
FAMINE "TRUE GENOCIDE"
My answer to the question as to what genocide is - this is true genocide. I
don't know what Ukraine could have become - the Ukraine where they would
have stayed alive.

I know what Ukraine is like today and I know what it can become if it
forgets the innocent souls of its dead children - because of its pettiness
and feeling of inferiority.

A country like this will inevitably sell its soul, language and memory. It
will turn into a faceless territory with a faceless and dead people.

Those who deny the famine today hate Ukraine deeply and utterly. They
hate us. They hate our spirit. They hate our future. What they deny is not
history - they deny Ukrainian statehood.

On behalf of the Ukrainian people I state - the victims of the famine must
be honoured as martyrs of one of the worst disasters in human history.

I DO NOT ASK, I DEMAND
I do not ask, I demand that the Ukrainian parliament recognize the famine as
an act of genocide against our nation and our people. This is a duty of the
Supreme Council [parliament], a pressing demand of history - of the same
essence as the act of proclaiming Ukrainian independence. Free yourselves
from fear and lies.

History has already passed sentence on the murderers who prepared and
implemented the famine. This is the totalitarian Stalin Communist system,
which has no national identity features, as nationality is human, but death
by famine and extermination is not human.

Genocide is the purposeful extermination of a nation or part of it. [Passage
omitted: more on the definition of genocide, quotes from historical
famine-related letters]

Ukraine and Kuban were surrounded by armed detachments to block attempts
to buy bread outside these regions. Life became unimportant, death was
dominating in Ukraine.

Just think of this: according to historians, an average life expectancy in
Ukraine for men in 1933 was seven years. Only seven years. And 10 years
for women. What is this? This is true genocide.

In August 1932 trade was banned to prevent peasants from selling or buying
bread. It was only possible to hand over bread to the government for free.

In autumn 1932 the government started the universal expropriation of bread
from so-called debtors under overstated purchase plans. Everyone was
considered to be a debtor. This is true genocide.
BLACK BOARDS REGIME IMPOSED
After a corresponding decree was issued by the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of Ukraine, a so-called black boards regime was imposed.
It meant the complete isolation of farms, villages and entire districts and
removal of all food products and stock of seeds from these areas.

There were 83 areas like this in Ukraine. If an area is put on a black
board, it was equivalent to a death sentence. This is true genocide. This is
similar to Jewish ghettos and Nazi concentration camps.

The crime of the man-made famine paved the way to the crimes of World
War II and, in its devilish idea, to the crime of the Holocaust.

It is difficult for me to continue listing this range of crimes, but today
there is only one thing that matters: despite all, Ukraine exists and
Ukraine is alive. We keep in our memory the pain that we experienced as
a warning to crimes against humankind and humanity.
INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION OF GENOCIDE
We are looking forward to international understanding and support in this
issue. Today from St Michael's Square in central Kiev I am addressing the
Russian Federation, calling on it to stand beside us and, through
state-level commemoration of the man-made famine, demonstrate a high
example of human compassion, which is characteristic of the Russian
people,.

I appeal to every nation that suffered from the Communist regime. We
together were hostages of the evil of the past and we should cleanse
ourselves together.

I express my gratitude to all countries who at the legislative and at the
political level have recognized the famine as genocide of Ukrainians. I
believe that on the 75th anniversary of the tragedy [in 2007] the UN will
unilaterally support this.

I FEEL THE SOULS OF OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS
I deeply believe in this as I deeply believe in justice. This head of wheat
burns me as I feel the souls of our brothers and sisters reaching out for it
through time. I feel the warmth of this touch. Do not be afraid. Do not be
afraid of anything now.

All our people, your country is behind you now, those killed by the famine.
We are stopping time for a moment, and at this moment God is listening to
you. [followed by a minute's silence] -30-
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
26. UKRAINE: YULIYA TYMOSHENKO CRITICIZES RULING PARTY
OVER REFUSAL TO SUPPORT FAMINE GENOCIDE BILL
"May the eternal memory of the dead be an eternal warning for those living."

UNIAN news agency, Kiev, in Ukrainian, Saturday, 25 Nov 06
BBC Monitoring Service, United Kingdom, Monday, Nov 27, 2006

In a statement commemorating the 1932-33 famine, Ukrainian opposition
leader Yuliya Tymoshenko criticized the pro-Russian Party of Regions,
which has recently refused to support a motion recognizing the 1932-33
famine as genocide.

The following is the text of a report by Ukrainian news agency UNIAN:

KIEV - Opposition bloc leader Yuliya Tymoshenko has said that "the
memory of the murderous famine should be a warning to those political
forces that are now trying to sell the national sovereignty in exchange for
some mythic price preferences and geopolitical benefits".

This was said in Tymoshenko's statement to Ukrainians on the day of
commemorating the victims of famines and political repression.

"Today we are paying tribute to the countless victims of the terrible
political terror campaign which took place in Ukraine in the 1930s," the
statement said. "Millions of Ukrainians as well as representatives of other
nations fell victims to the inhuman ideology of the imperial Stalinism.

Virtually every family, which lived in Ukraine at the time, suffered losses.
Until now we, the living descendants of the famine victims, feel its
terrible consequences. The Ukrainian nation has suffered total destruction."

"It is well known that organizers of the famine aimed to annihilate our
freedom-loving people. By these inhuman means, the ideological masterminds
of the Bolshevik 'global rule' wanted to get rid of the people who could put
up resistance once and forever," the statement said.

"However, Ukraine has survived. It has not just survived but got up from its
knees. Ukrainians have won state sovereignty to make sure that neither
famines nor repression ever repeat in our beautiful country. Still, we must
remember the terrible tragedy of the 1930s," Tymoshenko said.

"It is painful to hear some state officials trying to deny the fact of the
tragedy, which is fearsome for everyone in Ukraine," Tymoshenko said. "All
of us, citizens of Ukraine, should now feel solidarity in understanding our
unity and tragic lessons of the past," she said.

She stressed that "this day should unite us in great mourning regardless of
our ethnic background, the language we speak, our religious denomination or
place of residence". "The horrific famine made no difference between
people," Tymoshenko said.

"May the eternal memory of the dead be an eternal warning for those living,"
Tymoshenko said. -30-
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOOTNOTE: A strong statement by opposition bloc leader Yuliya
Tymoshenko regarding the Holodomor. But I did not see her at any of
the 73rd commemoration events in Kyiv on Friday, November 24 and
Saturday, November 25th. Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych was also
nowhere to be seen at the Holodomor events. AUR EDITOR
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
27. UKRAINE: PRESIDENT APPEALS TO RUSSIA OVER 1932-33 FAMINE

UT1 State Television, Kiev, in Ukrainian 1350 gmt 25 Nov 06
BBC Monitoring Service, United Kingdom, Sat, Nov 25, 2006

KIEV - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has called on Russia to
recognize the man-made famine in Ukraine in 1932-33. Speaking in a live TV
address to the nation, which was broadcast by all national TV channels.

Yushchenko demanded that the Ukrainian parliament recognize the famine
as genocide. He also said the genocide in Ukraine paved the way for the
Holocaust during World War II.

"I am addressing the Russian Federation and calling on it to stand beside us
and, through state-level commemoration of the man-made famine, demonstrate
a high example of human empathy, which is characteristic of the Russian
people," Yushchenko said.

The average life of men in Ukraine at that time was seven years and of women
11 years, he said describing the disaster. "Those who deny the man-made
famine hate Ukraine deeply and convincingly, hate us, our spirit and our
future.
I DON'T ASK, I DEMAND
They deny not only history, they deny Ukrainian statehood," Yushchenko
said. "I don't ask, I demand that the Ukrainian parliament recognize the
man-made famine as act of genocide of our nation, our people," he said.

Yushchenko said that the artificial famine in Ukraine was an example for
acts of genocide during World War II. "The crime of the man-made famine
paved the way to the crimes of World War II and, in its devilish idea, to
the crime of Holocaust," he said. -30-
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
28. 3,000 JOIN MOURNING PROCESSION IN IVANO-FRANKIVSK FOR
VICTIMS OF FAMINE AND POLITICAL REPRESSIONS

Iryna Shkapii, Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Sun, Nov 26, 2006

IVANO-FRANKIVSK - More than 3,000 people joined a mourning procession
for Ukrainian victims of great famines and political repressions in Ivano-
Frankivsk on Saturday. With lit candles and state flags in hands, people
assembled on Vichevyi Square in the city center at 3:30 pm.

There were also the flags of the political parties - Our Ukraine People's
Union Party, Ukrainian People's Party, Narodnyi Rukh, Ukrainian Republican
Party Sobor, Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, and the Bloc of Yulia
Tymoshenko - with black ribbons attached.

Ivano-Frankivsk region's governor Roman Tkach, regional council chairman
Ihor Oliinyk, city mayor Viktor Anushkevychus, people's deputy Zynovii
Shkutiak, representatives of regional government agencies and local
self-government bodies, members of political parties and non-governmental
organizations joined the procession.

The gathering listened to President Viktor Yuschenko's speech aired live,
and dedicated a minute of silence to the victims of great famines and
political repressions. After that, the procession walked along the city
streets to the Memorial Park and Stepana Bandery Street.

There, at the symbolic cross raised in the memory of the victims, the
priests of different Christian confessions chanted a requiem.

After a collective prayer, the procession left lit candles at the cross and
the priests expressed condolences to the families who lost their members
during the famine.

They reminded that peasants from western regions had helped peasants in
eastern regions, "they carried a piece of bread to hand over to their
brothers in the east."

The priests called on all national democratic forces to unite in parliament
and declare the 1932-1933 Famine an act of genocide against Ukrainians.

As Ukrainian News earlier reported, Yuschenko instructed governors to take
adequate measures on Remembrance Day of November 25 to commemorate
the victims of great famines and political repressions.

The Ivano-Frankivsk regional council requested the Verkhovna Rada to
declare the 1932-1933 Famine an act of genocide against Ukrainians.
According to different estimates, from 3 million to 7 million people died of
hunger in Ukraine in 1932-1933. -30-
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
If you are receiving more than one copy of the AUR please contact us.
Please contact us if you no longer wish to receive the AUR.
You are welcome to send us names for the AUR distribution list.
If you are missing some issues of the AUR please let us know.
========================================================
"ACTION UKRAINE REPORT - AUR"
A Free, Not-For-Profit, Independent, Public Service Newsletter
With major support from The Bleyzer Foundation
Articles are Distributed For Information, Research, Education
Academic, Discussion and Personal Purposes Only
Additional readers are welcome.
========================================================
ACTION UKRAINE PROGRAM - SPONSORS
Action Ukraine Report (AUR)
Holodomor Art and Graphics Collection & Exhibitions
"Working to Secure & Enhance Ukraine's Democratic Future"
1. THE BLEYZER FOUNDATION, Dr. Edilberto Segura,
Chairman; Victor Gekker, Executive Director, Kyiv, Ukraine;
Washington, D.C., http://www.bleyzerfoundation.com.

Additional supporting sponsors for the Action Ukraine Program are:
2. UKRAINIAN FEDERATION OF AMERICA (UFA), Zenia Chernyk,
Vera M. Andryczyk, President; Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania
3. KIEV-ATLANTIC GROUP, David and Tamara Sweere, Daniel
Sweere, Kyiv and Myronivka, Ukraine, 380 44 298 7275 in Kyiv,
kau@ukrnet.net
4. ESTRON CORPORATION, Grain Export Terminal Facility &
Oilseed Crushing Plant, Ilvichevsk, Ukraine
5. Law firm UKRAINIAN LEGAL GROUP, Irina Paliashvili, President;
Kiev and Washington, general@rulg.com, www.rulg.com.
6. BAHRIANY FOUNDATION, INC., Dr. Anatol Lysyj, Chairman,
Minneapolis, Minnesota
7. VOLIA SOFTWARE, Software to Fit Your Business, Source your
IT work in Ukraine. Contact: Yuriy Sivitsky, Vice President, Marketing,
Kyiv, Ukraine, yuriy.sivitsky@softline.kiev.ua; Volia Software website:
http://www.volia-software.com/ or Bill Hunter, CEO Volia Software,
Houston, TX 77024; bill.hunter@volia-software.com.
8. ODUM- Association of American Youth of Ukrainian Descent,
Minnesota Chapter, Natalia Yarr, Chairperson
9. UKRAINE-U.S. BUSINESS COUNCIL, Washington, D.C.,
Dr. Susanne Lotarski, President/CEO; E. Morgan Williams,
SigmaBleyzer, Chairman, Executive Committee, Board of Directors;
John Stephens, Cape Point Capital, Secretary/Treasurer
10. UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH OF THE USA, Archbishop
Antony, South Bound Brook, New Jersey, http://www.uocofusa.org
11. UKRAINIAN AMERICAN COORDINATING COUNCIL (UACC),
Ihor Gawdiak, President, Washington, D.C., New York, New York
12. U.S.-UKRAINE FOUNDATION (USUF), Nadia Komarnyckyj
McConnell, President; John Kun, Vice President/COO; Vera
Andruskiw, CPP Wash Project Director, Washington, D.C.; Markian
Bilynskyj, VP/Director of Field Operations; Marta Kolomayets, CPP
Kyiv Project Director, Kyiv, Ukraine. Web: http://www.USUkraine.org
13. WJ GROUP of Ag Companies, Kyiv, Ukraine, David Holpert, Chief
Financial Officer, Chicago, IL; http://www.wjgrain.com/en/links/index.html
14. EUGENIA SAKEVYCH DALLAS, Author, "One Woman, Five
Lives, Five Countries," 'Her life's journey begins with the 1932-1933
genocidal famine in Ukraine.' Hollywood, CA, www.eugeniadallas.com.
15. ALEX AND HELEN WOSKOB, College Station, Pennsylvania
16. SWIFT FOUNDATION, San Luis Obispo, California
17. TRAVEL TO UKRAINE website, http://www.TravelToUkraine.org,
A program of the U.S-Ukraine Foundation, Washington, D.C.
18. BUYUKRAINE.ORG website, http://www.BuyUkraine.org.
A program of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, Washington, D.C.
========================================================
TO BE ON OR OFF THE FREE AUR DISTRIBUTION LIST
If you would like to read the ACTION UKRAINE REPORT- AUR,
around four times a week, please send your name, country of residence,
and e-mail contact information to morganw@patriot.net. Information about
your occupation and your interest in Ukraine is also appreciated.

If you do not wish to read the ACTION UKRAINE REPORT please
contact us immediately by e-mail to morganw@patriot.net. If you are
receiving more than one copy please let us know so this can be corrected.

SPAM & BULK MAIL BLOCKERS ARE A REAL PROBLEM
If you do not receive a copy of the AUR it is probably because of a
SPAM OR BULK MAIL BLOCKER maintained by your server or by
yourself on your computer. Spam and bulk mail blockers are set in very
arbitrary and impersonal ways and block out e-mails because of words
found in many news stories or the way the subject line is organized or
the header or who know what.

Spam blockers also sometimes reject the AUR for other arbitrary reasons
we have not been able to identify. If you do not receive some of the AUR
numbers please let us know and we will send you the missing issues. Please
make sure the spam blocker used by your server and also the one on your
personal computer, if you use a spam blocker, is set properly to receive
the Action Ukraine Report (AUR).
========================================================
PUBLISHER AND EDITOR - AUR
Mr. E. Morgan Williams, Director, Government Affairs
Washington Office, SigmaBleyzer, The Bleyzer Foundation
Emerging Markets Private Equity Investment Group
P.O. Box 2607, Washington, D.C. 20013, Tel: 202 437 4707
Mobile in Kyiv: 8 050 689 2874
mwilliams@SigmaBleyzer.com; www.SigmaBleyzer.com
========================================================
Power Corrupts and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely.
========================================================
return to index [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================