Kumy Yushchenka

Свита короля. Часть 1: Кумовья-соратники президента
http://www.podrobnosti.ua/analytics/2005/07/07/225274.html
07 июля 2005 14:50
Алексей Сахно
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Короля делает свита. Кто сегодня делает Ющенко?

Скоро уже полгода как Виктор Андреевич, взойдя на Олимп украинской власти, обустраивает жизнь страны. На протяжении всего этого времени неоднократно можно было услышать, прочитать и даже увидеть, что "Ющенко пытается, но его окружение ему не дает". И это при том, что Ющенко уже первыми своими кадровыми назначениями вроде бы сломал стереотип о своей мягкотелости и подверженности практически любому влиянию. Поэтому меня, например, все это время занимали следующие вопросы: как могла сложиться такая ситуация? На кого опирается Виктор Андреевич в своей нелегкой работе и кто же в новой власти может противопоставить свое влияние инициативам президента?

В окружении Ющенко и на принятие им каких-либо решений видную роль играют люди, так или иначе связанные с ним родственными узами - ситуация, свойственная для украинской власти всех времен. На этом постоянно акцентирует внимание нынешняя оппозиция - а недавно клановая власть, - утверждая, что Ющенко не выполняет свои предвыборные обещания и вообще мало чем отличается от нелюбимого сегодня никем Леонида Кучмы.

С одной стороны, ничего плохого, а тем более хорошего в привлечении родственников во власть нет - надо признать факт, что в Украине это уже давно сложившая и часто применяемая практика. С другой стороны, этого никогда не поймут и не одобрят (но могут смириться) в западных демократиях. Исключение, пожалуй, могут составить разве что США в сегодняшний период их истории (а ведь еще при Клинтоне Конгресс посчитал невозможным назначение на пост шефа ЦРУ отличного профессионала, настоящего знатока своего дела - не припомню, к сожалению, сейчас его имени - только потому, что они когда-то были одноклассниками).

Итак, самый видный деятель, естественно, - Петр Порошенко. Отношения между кумовьями всегда были очень близкими и продуктивными, но нельзя сказать - безоблачными и предельно откровенными. И не последнее тому доказательство - опубликованные вчера пресловутым майором Мельниченко записи разговоров Петра Алексеевича и Леонида Даниловича. Самому Мыколе у меня уже давно веры нет, а вот такое долгое отсутствие реакции Порошенко на публикацию записей (на момент выхода статьи - 14.50 7.07.2005) начинает вызывать серьезные подозрения в их подлинности. Учитывая и так сомнительную репутацию секретаря СНБО в народе, молчание в данном случае - смерти подобно. Однако вряд ли Порошенко сильно волнует его рейтинг в обществе. Намного для него страшнее потерять какое-никакое доверие кума Ющенко. Ведь в записях речь идет не только и не столько о делах политических, сколько о личных - о жене Виктора Андреевича, Екатерине. И если политические "ошибки" президент наверняка сможет куму простить (сам он тоже не ангел), то поддакивание Кучме в оскорблениях самого родного человека - маловероятно (по крайней мере, в личных отношениях).

Кроме недавно открывшихся аспектов, немало омрачали совместную жизнь и работу президента и секретаря СНБО и вражда последнего с Юлией Тимошенко - хоть и не родственником, но стратегически важным и незаменимым союзником Ющенко. Навредила Порошенко и то, что он демонстративно надолго стал в позу (очень, кстати, неудобную для Ющенко) после указа президента о назначении и.о. премьера Юлии Владимировны. А связи и интересы Петра Алексеевича в России, его эсдэкское прошлое, а также его сотрудничество с Борисом Березовским давно уже стали притчей во языцех. В общем, рискнем предположить, что отношения Ющенко и Порошенко потеряли былую крепость и сегодня сохраняются лишь в силу необходимости и очевидной невозможности безболезненно умалить роль секретаря СНБО в современных политических процессах.

И напоследок хотелось бы напомнить, что в период "премьериады" Ольга Дмитричева писала в "Зеркале недели": кто из окружения Ющенко первым обратится к услугам Пиховшека, тот и слабое звено. Первым оказался Порошенко...

Теряя позицию "первого среди равноприближенных", Петр Порошенко уступает это место Екатерине Ющенко. Сама первая леди страны не афиширует своего воздействия на Виктора Ющенко, утверждая, что "влиять на моего мужа невозможно", но эксперты утверждают, что оно - колоссальное. Она вряд ли непосредственно влияет на внутриполитические процессы, зато ее мнение далеко не последнее в вопросе формирования личных симпатий президента. Политолог Кость Бондаренко в одной из своих статей заметил, что влияние Екатерины Ющенко на мужа более сильное, чем влияние Раисы Горбачёвой на президента СССР. Кроме того, считается, что именно благодаря супруге, Виктор Андреевич имеет неплохие выходы на американский истеблишмент.

Важное место в окружении Екатерины Ющенко занимает Оксана Билозир - известная украинская эстрадная певица и по совместительству министр культуры и туризма Украины. Говорят, Екатерина Михайловна - настоящая фанатка творчества Оксаны Владимировны; они также являются кумами. Кумом супруги президента является еще один министр - по делам молодежи и спорта Юрий Павленко.

В отличие от Петра Порошенко, ни Билозир, ни Павленко пока не были и вряд ли будут замечены в стане тех, кто досаждает президенту - уж слишком они не самостоятельны. А отношения с Ющенко супругой могли бы послужить хорошим примером для многих украинских семей.

Ну и наконец не могу я не сказать несколько слов о Петре и Ярославе Ющенко, отце и сыне, брате и племяннике президента. Петр Андреевич - известный харьковский предприниматель, народный депутат и руководителем депутатской группы "Разом". Она известна тем, что в ее состав входят в основном депутаты-предприниматели, которых называют главными финансистами избирательной кампании Виктора Ющенко.

Присутствие Петра Андреевича во власти давало оппозиции достаточно поводов для нападок на новое руководство Украины, в основном в связи с его предпринимательской деятельностью. Но я не об этом. А о том, что можно предположить наличие определенных связей между братом-политиком и братом-бизнесменом, которые не ограничиваются чисто семейными интересами, хотя веских доказательств этого нет. Тем не менее, есть связь - есть влияние, однако о его степени доподлинно ничего не известно. При всем при этом наивно было бы думать, что Петр Ющенко, принимая непосредственное участие в координации всех организационных вопросов блока "Наша Украина" и хотя бы частично курируя его финансы, не принимает активного участия в выработке политических решений. Наверное, он просто выбрал для себя нишу "серого кардинала" при публичном политике Викторе Ющенко.

Что же насчет Ярослава Петровича Ющенко, то этот молодой человек самый удаленный из самых близких к президенту. Скорее всего, это его сознательный выбор, поскольку "президентская" фамилия и так делала, делает и будет делать свое дело. Свое назначение на пост заместителя главы Харьковской облгосадминистрации он воспринимает как шанс, "чтобы прожить жизнь не племянником президента, а какой-то такой самостоятельной боевой единицей". Очевидно, что влияния на Виктора Андреевича он не имеет и иметь не может.

Вот вроде бы и все о кумах-соратниках Ющенко, точнее об их влиянии на президента и принятие им решений. Хотя нет, не все. Вопреки сложившемуся стереотипу, старательно поддерживаемом противниками власти, не каждый кум автоматически попадает в орбиту Ющенко. Яркий тому пример - председатель правления банка "Ажио", Станислав Аржевитин. Он - также кум Ющенко, однако далек от президента как Украина от вступления в ЕС. Видимо, ему хватает забот в бизнесе, и он не заинтересован вступать в конфликты за место в свите короля.

Читайте продолжение статьи "Свита короля. Часть 2: Друзья-помощники президента"

Yuschenko to sign Russian as Official Lang?

Ющенко на днях підпише указ про введення ділової російської мови у східних регіонах України?
http://www.sprotiv.kiev.ua/ [27.03.2005 17:47]
Ющенко на днях підпише указ про введення ділової російської мови у регіонах України, де переважає російськомовне населення?

Джерелом цієї інформації стали повідомлення співробітників деяких міністерства, де проект Указу Президента України начебто лежить на столі.

Надання російській мові офіційного статусу - це і є загострення мовної проблеми, якої де факто не існує.
Зараз на сході України не чутно ніяких нарікань місцевого російськомовного населення на примусову українізацію.

Але схоже новій владі хочеться штучно створити мовну проблему і тут же штучно вирішити на користь російськомовного населення, щоб заробити зайві очки серед цього населення.
Якому насправді завжди було мовне питання байдуже - до того моменту, поки йому не починали нав'язувати думку, що йому потрібен якийсь там "статус російської мови".

* RUSSIA * UKRAINE * POPULATION * POLL * DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS

2004-12-24 13:21

http://en.rian.ru/rian/index.cfm?prd_id=160&msg_id=5248501&startrow=1&date=2004-12-24&do_alert=0

MOSCOW, December 24 (RIA Novosti) - Opinion polls show that there are fewer supporters of democracy in Russia than in Ukraine. Ukrainians and Russians agree that Russians will not become more politically motivated in the foreseeable future, reported Vremya Novostei.

According to the opinion poll conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Center (VTsIOM) in November, 40% of respondents believe democracy is the best form of government in any circumstances. Less people (24%) believe dictatorship can be more effective than democracy in certain circumstances. And a rather large portion (27%) take a relativistic approach saying that "for individuals like me there is not difference between a dictatorship and democracy." The majority of respondents (56%) are not happy with the performance of Russia's democratic institutions.

A survey conducted by DIAS, showed that 64% of Ukrainians prefer the democratic form of government. About the same number (61%) of respondents said they were not satisfied with democratic institutes in their country. Ukrainians did not believe in the effectiveness of the majority of democratic institutes from the beginning and therefore resorted to protests.

According to VTsIOM's December survey, Russians are skeptical about the possibility of a "revolutionary" upturn in Russia.

The sections and groups of society which "propelled" mass protests in Ukraine are the least politically motivated in Russia. The most capable sections of Russian society (middle class, the youth, residents of large industrial cities, above all Moscow and St. Petersburg) apply their energy in areas besides the public and political spheres.

A sharp deterioration of the economic situation accompanied by a decline in living standards for the majority of people could prompt Russians to protest in the streets, 32% of respondents said.

However, the 1998 financial crisis did not lead to mass protests in Russia.

The Orange Revolution Through the Eyes of Kateryna Yuschenko (in Ukrainian)

Dec 23, 2004 Interview with Kateryna Yuschenko published in Vechirni Visti
Ukrainian text follows

Оранжева Україна очима Катерини Ющенко

Ілона Богуш
12:51, 23 грудня 2004 // "Вечірні вісті"

Дружина народного Президента збирається і надалі оздоровлювати дітей, опікуватися дитячими будинками, музеями і театрами

Катерина Ющенко першою з дружин вітчизняних політиків вийшла з тіні свого відомого чоловіка і стала самодостатньою публічною персоною. І відбулося це не тільки і не стільки через її бажання, а в силу різних обставин. Родина Віктора Ющенка стала об’єктом політичного переслідування відтоді, як він – тодішній голова Нацбанку очолив Кабінет Міністрів. Впливові опоненти (Ющенко навіть після отруєння уникає слова вороги) розпочали неоголошену війну проти нього та його родини. Дісталося всім: Ющенку, вихідцю східної Сумщини – за «печерний націоналізм», а самій Катерині Михайлівні, чиї батьки народилися на Київщині та Донбасі, – за «співпрацю» з американським ЦРУ, ізраїльською розвідкою Мосад та Бен Ладеном разом узятими. Всі випробування, а також жахливе отруєння Віктора Ющенка загартували цю жінку. І тепер після відомого шоу з «наколотими апельсинами» та «американськими валянками» ні в кого не має сумнівів, що статус першої леді пасує саме пані Катерині.



«Віктор відчув серцем, що люди готові боротися за свою свободу до кінця»

– Катерино Михайлівно, як змінилося ваше уявлення про Україну за останній час, зокрема після оранжевої революції?

– Думаю, Україна стала прикладом для багатьох країн та націй, які ще не здобули свободи. Ми довели всім, що свободу можна здобути без крові, за допомогою слова, пісні й молитви. Ще кілька тижнів тому я не знала, як саме розвиватимуться події, мала певні сумніви щодо такої рішучості наших людей. Адже українці не завжди у своїй історії могли перебороти у собі традиційний принцип: моя хата з краю. Однак, Віктор відчував серцем, що цього разу люди готові до кінця боротися за свою свободу. Вже наступного ранку після другого туру він запевнив мене, що вся сила в руках у людей і що вони це відчувають.

– Мільйони громадян вважають вашого чоловіка символом нації. Що при цьому ви відчуваєте ви, як дружина?

– Дуже приємно, що цих людей так багато і що вони такі різні. Коли стоїш і чуєш, як сотні тисяч громадян виголошують ім’я твого чоловіка, розумієш, що ці миті закарбуються в пам’яті назавжди. Для мене це надзвичайно зворушливо і відповідально. Ці події особливі і для нашої родини, і для історії усієї країни. Колись я розказуватиму про цю щасливу мить нашого життя своїм внукам. Ви тільки подивіться, який сплеск народного фольклору відбувся за останній місяць! Чого тільки варті хоча б ті «дикі барабанщики», за висловом Руслани, які без усіляких репетицій на морозі вправно вибивали ритм, захищаючи свої права та свободу.

– Одним із основних аргументів прихильників Ющенка є те, що їхній обранець, передусім, моральний. Що, у вашу розумінні, мораль у політиці?

– І в політиці, і в житті мораль має єдині ознаки. Аби бути моральним політиком не потрібно робити щось надзвичайне. Передусім, треба бути чистим перед собою, законом і людьми. Моральний політик має працювати на добробут країни і поважати її громадян.

– Пані Катерино, знаю ви колекціонуєте зображення Божої Матері. Напевно в останні місяці ви особливо до неї зверталися?

– Це справді так. До речі, напередодні останніх подій мені привезли одне з таких зображень із Португалії. Зараз я ношу його на ланцюжку біля серця.

Мені здається українці вже відчули на собі Божу благодать, ставши свідками міжконфесійного миру на Майдані, коли представники багатьох конфесій відстоювали спільну правду. А ще ми з чоловіком щиро раділи за хлопців та дівчат, які поєднали свої долі під час помаранчевої революції на очах всього Майдану Незалежності. Ми обов’язково подаруємо цим подружжям ікони й рушники на згадку від своєї родини.



«Я щодня виходила на площу, спілкувалася з людьми, дізнавалася якої допомоги вони потребують»

– Якою ви особисто побачили помаранчеву революцію? Що вам найбільше запам’яталося?

– Я щодня виходила на площу, спілкувалася з людьми, приносила їжу, дізнавалася якої ще допомоги вони потребують. Пам’ятаю, підходжу до хлопців, цікавлюся, чи не холодно їм на морозі стояти, а вони кажуть, що власну свободу готові виборювати хоч до Нового року. У їдальні, де готували їжу для людей на Майдані, я цікавилася, які продукти треба купити. Але мені говорили, що кухня завалена продуктами і пропонували самій взяти щось додому.

Людей дуже згуртували останні події. Вони щиро допомагали один одному. Мене щиро вразило, коли комендант наметового містечка, якому я запропонувала теплий одяг, протягнув мені у відповідь пакунок зі шкарпетками, який, від імені наметового містечка, попросив передати «польовим командирам» Тимошенко, Томенку і Луценку.

Кожен виявляв свої таланти і робив те, чим міг бути корисним. Музиканти підтримували людей піснями. Політики – влучним словом. 600 лікарів безоплатно працювали в медичних пунктах, розгорнутих на Майдані та навколишніх будівлях. Кияни зігрівали у своїх квартирах приїжджих, причому стояли для цього у чергах. Розказували, як до одного з пунктів розселення прийшли 70-річні чоловік з дружиною і сказали, що у них в однокімнатній квартирі вже живуть шестеро хлопців, але вони готові взяти ще двох.

– Якою була психологічна атмосфера у вашій родині під час останніх подій? Як їх оцінили ваші діти?

– Ми з Віктором просили дітей запам’ятовувати все це, аби колись вони розказували про це своїм дітям. Однак, маленькі сприймають світ інакше, аніж дорослі. Їм, скажімо, дуже сподобалися і запам’яталися слова народного гімну помаранчевої революції. Якось я прокинулася вдома від ритмічного маршу. Відкриваю очі і бачу, як дівчатка навколо мене крокують одна за одною, виспівуючи: „Разом нас багато, нас не подолати!»

Ще одного разу, коли до нас завітала лікарка, Софійка підбігла і запиталася, чи можна їй розказати новий вірш?». Звісно, жіночка дозволила і Софійка почала: „Ми – не бидло, ми – не козли, ми – України доньки і сини!» Мені навіть якось незручно стало, але це було дуже весело і всім сподобалося.

– Як сприйняла революцію на Майдані ваша свекруха Варвара Тимофіївна?

– Вона дуже переживає за свого сина, за нашу родину. Вже четвертий місяць Варвара Тимофіївна знаходиться в лікарні, де відновлюється після інсульту. Телевізор вона не дивиться, адже будь-які емоції можуть зашкодити її здоров’ю, тож про останні події дізнається від нас. До речі, нещодавно у свекрухи був день народження, і до неї приходило багато друзів, знайомих, зокрема, односельчан з Хоружівки, які підтримували Віктора на Майдані.



«Ми з 1992 року разом допомагаємо дитбудинкам. Щороку оздоровлюємо дітей в Карпатах»

– Пані Катерино, якщо Віктор Андрійович переможе, ви отримаєте статус першої леді. Чим на вашу думку має займатися дружина Президента?

– Перша леді, передусім, має займатися корисними для суспільства справами.

Я обов’язково буду продовжувати разом із Всесвітньою благодійною організацією „Приятелі дітей» підтримувати дітей, які потребують допомоги. Ми з 1995 року допомагаємо дитячим будинкам України ліками, одягом тощо. Щороку оздоровлюємо дітей в Карпатах, найбільш талановитим допомагаємо з подальшим вступом до університетів.

Вважаю важливим напрямком діяльності дружини президента підтримку української культури, зокрема музеїв та театрів. Крім того, я намагаюся сприяти дослідженню голодомору, який особисто пережили мої батьки. Чимало моїх рідних загинули в цей трагічний період української історії. Наразі ми започаткували програму, пов’язану з дослідженням цієї теми. Ми хочемо охопити якомога більше людей, свідків голодомору. Звісно, багато часу мені доведеться приділяти і родині, оскільки в нас підростає троє маленьких дітей. Найменшому Тарасику виповнилося лише дев’ять місяців.

– У пресі активно обговорюють питання вашої участі в теледебатах з Людмилою Янукович. Чи готові ви взяти в них участь?

– Мені здається, що погляди дружини президента не є надто важливими для громадян, оскільки вони голосують за певних кандидатів, а не за їхніх жінок.

– Для багатьох людей помаранчева революція залишиться гарним спогадом, який означатиме початок кращої долі. Проте, для вашого чоловіка, після 26 грудня, розпочнеться дуже відповідальний період...

– Як сказав під час свого останнього інтерв’ю Вацлав Гавел: „Розчарування після виборів є неминучим». Громадяни, які вийшли на вулицю вірять у швидкі зміни. І вони безперечно відбудуться. Щоправда, не так швидко, як всім нам хотілося б. Але зобов’язання, які поклала на себе команда мого чоловіка, будуть неодмінно виконані. Новому уряду доведеться дуже багато працювати тільки, щоб вивести економіку з нинішньої кризи і довести, принаймні, до показників 2001-го року.



«У день, коли Віктора отруїли, я відчула на його губах незвичний медичний присмак»

– Вважається, що близькі люди інтуїтивно відчувають небезпеку заздалегідь. Якось ви говорили, що першою зрозуміли, що Віктора Андрійовича отруїли...

– Це дійсно так. Я усвідомлюю, які небезпечні та цинічні люди протистоять моєму чоловіку. Тож мимоволі відчувала, що щось має трапитися.

Я дуже добре пам’ятаю той вечір. В ніч на 6 вересня Віктор повернувся додому з поїздки до Чернігова дуже пізно. Як завжди, я поцілувала його і відчула на губах якийсь незвичний медичний присмак. Навіть запитала чоловіка, чи не приймав він якісь ліки. Віктор відповів, що ні і сказав, що дуже не хотів їхати на цю останню зустріч.

Мені чомусь дуже запам’яталася та розмова і той присмак на його губах. Перші симптоми, що непокоїли чоловіка, не викликали в мене серйозного побоювання. І навіть, коли Віктор занедужав, я свідомо відганяла думки про політичну розправу. Більше того, допоки українські лікарі не сказали, що у Віктора звичайне побутове отруєння та шлунковий грип, вважала, що його недуга викликана перевтомою.

– Багато хто відзначає, що Віктор Ющенко після останніх подій став більш жорстким політиком. Чи помітили ви якісь зміни у своєму чоловікові?

– Мій чоловік завжди був сильною людиною. Але його вихованість не дозволяла йому виставляти це напоказ. До того ж, особливої потреби в цьому Віктор раніше не відчував. Йому властиве бажання бачити в людях лише позитивне. Проте, сьогодні він зрозумів, на що реально здатні його опоненти.

– У вас ніколи не виникало бажання виїхати з дітьми з країни хоча б на час виборів, аби уберегти родину від небезпеки?

– Звісно, нам радили не ризикувати здоров’ям дітей, на адресу яких надходили погрози. Але ми не могли залишити Віктора у такий складний відповідальний момент. Ми – його надійна підтримка та опора. До того ж, багато українців з усього світу мріяли стати учасниками помаранчевої революції, і разом зі своїми земляками захищати спільну свободу. Я пишаюся, що наша родина разом із мільйонами українців брала у ній участь.

– Існує думка, що громадяни, які перемогли у помаранчевій революції, матимуть тепер значно вищі вимоги до новообраного Президента...

– Дай Боже, щоб так сталося. Адже бути президентом вільних свідомих людей набагато почесніше, ніж тих, які відчувають себе рабами.

Переконана, що у людей, які 17 днів відстоювали власні свободи на зимовому Майдані вимоги справді будуть високими. Мені здається, що нова влада має провести курс економічних реформ, завдяки яким всі громадяни, зокрема і зі Сходу, які не настільки активно підтримали Майдан, могли відчути покращення життя, отримали нові робочі місця та високі соціальні гарантії. Тоді вони швидко усвідомлять, що шлях для України один – бути заможною європейською державою.



«Чоловікову я подарувала помаранчевий светр та краватку. А маленькому Тарасику – оранжеву соску»

– Сьогодні вся Україна вбралася в апельсиновий колір. Ви особисто встигли оновили гардероб своєї родини?

– Хочу зізнатися, що спочатку не сприймала цей колір. Більше того, вважала, що він не дуже гармонує зі стилем мого чоловіка. Однак, тепер я цей колір просто обожнюю. Мода на оранжевий поширилася всім світом. Цей колір став символічним не лише для нашої родини. Ви ж бачили, що навіть у Румунії опозиція, яка також перемогла команду чинного прем’єра, йшла під помаранчевими прапорами. Це дуже зворушливо для мене. Сьогодні в крамницях мій погляд підсвідомо зупиняється на оранжевих речах.

Коли Віктор знаходився у лікарні, я завжди приходила до нього з маленьким подаруночком, аби хоч трохи підняти йому настрій. Я подарувала чоловікові оранжевий светр, оранжеву краватку, купувала сувеніри із зображенням бджілки, які нагадували йому улюблену пасіку.

До речі, наші маленькі модники теж віддають данину помаранчевій моді... Віднедавна у маленького Тарасика з’явилася помаранчева соска, а Софійка з Христинкою і Домінічкою взагалі відмовляються вдягати речі іншого кольору. До речі, за кілька днів ми прикрашатимемо родинну новорічну ялинку. Завжди була прихильницею традиційної зеленої ялинки, але цього року, напевно, оберемо оранжеву.

– Які книжки ви читаєте останнім часом?

– Нещодавно придбала всі книжки Оксани Забужко, які знайшла на полицях книжкової крамниці. Подобається проза Юрія Андруховича. Знову перечитала біографію Василя Стуса. Хотілося б, звісно, читати більше. Щоправда, робити це вдається лише перед сном, коли засинає Тарасик. Попри прохання чоловіка вимкнути світло, принаймні двадцять хвилин приділяю українській літературі. Читаю книжки і англійською, особливо романи та історичні повісті. До речі, коли ми їдемо з родиною на відпочинок, половина моєї валізи наповнена книжками. Коли чоловік катається на лижах, я дістаю книжки і в мене починається відпустка...

– До речі, цієї зими ви плануєте відпочивати?

Взимку без Карпат ми вже не можемо. Тому кілька днів обов’язково виділимо для гірського відпочинку. Торік Софія вперше стала на лижі і відтоді щодня запитує, коли ми знову поїдемо кататися. Віктор також любить гори. Коли ми разом побачили, як на Говерлі замайорів помаранчевий прапор, у мене навіть з’явилися сльози.

Vote monitors deploy in Ukraine, Putin sees 'double standards'

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041223/wl_afp/ukrainevote.041223184813

KIEV (AFP) - Western observers deployed in Ukraine to monitor a presidential vote rerun this weekend as Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) again attacked the West's role and motives in the former Soviet republic.


The candidate Putin supported in an earlier and now-discredited attempt to elect a new leader of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich, meanwhile attacked his pro-Western opponent, Viktor Yushchenko, saying he and his supporters were paid by the West to "sell out their homeland."


Election observers from a range of Western institutions and governments including the European parliament, the NATO (news - web sites) parliamentary assembly, the Organization for Security and Cooperation (news - web sites) in Europe, the United States and others were huddling in Kiev preparing to fan out across the country.


Ukrainian officials have said that more than 12,000 people have been registered to monitor the election Sunday, a repeat of a November 21 election that sparked mass street protests, enflamed tensions between Russia and the West and was subsequently invalidated due to widespread fraud.


Laws have been changed, top election officials replaced and mass media coverage that largely favored Yanukovich in the earlier vote has now become balanced, but there were nonetheless concerns that the repeat vote could be tainted by irregularities or violence.


"There's been very, very little time to implement those changes," said Patrick Merloe, director of electoral programs for the US-based National Democratic Institute, who is in Ukraine to observe the vote.


"This country has gone through an amazing process to have an election invalidated," he said, but "at the same time, to be able to implement the reforms is not something that's easily done."


One of the changes limited home voting only to the seriously disabled. "We have a concern that these changes may well disenfranchise some legitimate voters," Merloe said.


Speaking Friday after a campaign rally in the southwest city of Vinnitsya, Yanukovich said he could "not control" talk among some of his supporters of protesting Sunday's election should Yushchenko win as many pundits forecast.


"This is not a question for me," said the 54-year-old Yanukovich, who has taken leave from his post of prime minister during the campaign.


He renewed accusations that Yushchenko and his "orange" opposition movement -- named after the theme color chosen by the candidate's campaign -- had been funded by Western governments through programs and organizations to promote democracy.


"We saw how the oranges have shown their true face," Yanukovich said. "We see how they can fight for power using foreign funds and under orders to sell out their homeland."


Western governments and institutions, the United States and the European Union (news - web sites) in particular, have denied directly funding Yushchenko. Two US congressmen however have called for an investigation into how US foreign aid funds have been used in Ukraine.


The European Union cautioned that the future of its relations with Ukraine would be determined by the conduct of the repeat election.


"The way the electoral process is conducted will set the framework for future relations between Ukraine and the EU," the bloc's foreign affairs chief, Javier Solana, said in a statement released in Brussels.


"I am confident that all sides will work to ensure that these elections are free, fair and transparent," Solana added. "The population of the country has been calling clearly and loudly for this in the past few weeks."


Russian President Vladimir Putin bridled at US and European involvement in the political situation in Ukraine, saying it smacked of hypocrisy and bias and was destabilizing there and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union.





"If you have permanent revolutions you risk plunging the post-Soviet space into endless conflict," Putin said at his annual news conference in Moscow, referring also to the so-called "rose revolution" in neighbouring Georgia in late 2003 that brought US-educated President Mikhail Saakashvili to power.

"I am worried about these double standards," Putin said.

Putin again slammed US-led plans to press ahead with elections next month in Iraq (news - web sites) and said it was the height of hypocrisy for Western governments to criticise Russia for pursuing its interests in neighbouring former Soviet republics.

"Today according to our estimates there are nine cities in Iraq where there are hostilities but they still want to carry out elections," he said, condemning European elections monitors' plans to observe the poll from Jordan as a "farce".

"We do not understand how there can be an election in a country under conditions of total occupation... It's absurd. It's a farce. Everything is upside down."

The Russian leader said it was "complete nonsense" to accuse Moscow of trying to "devour" its smaller neighbours in the former Soviet sphere of influence, referring to countries such as Georgia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan during a wide-ranging annual press conference.

He said "permanent revolutions" such as the so-called "orange revolution" of West-leaning Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko risked plunging the region into "endless conflict".

Even so Putin said Moscow would "respect the will of the Ukrainian people" in Sunday's election.

"We hope that the national interests triumph over the political expediency of some," he said.

"We will work with any leader in Ukraine, but we expect that in the entourage of Viktor Yushchenko there will not be people who build their political ambitions on anti-Russian slogans."

Putin has previously accused the West of pursuing neo-colonialist objectives in eastern Europe and his latest comments mark an escalation in Moscow's rhetoric against perceived Western meddling in traditional Russian affairs.

He said he would raise concerns that the United States is trying to "isolate" Russia when he meets US President George W. Bush (news - web sites) early next year.

But the Russian president otherwise praised the strength of US-Russian relations, especially in the fight against terrorism.

"The United States is one of our high priority partners. We happen to be natural partners in resolving several acute problems these days, especially combating terrorism," he said.

"I would describe our relations not as a partnership but as an alliance."

Major scandal evolves around e-voting machines in Russia

12/22/2004 14:21
http://english.pravda.ru/main/18/88/353/14750_.html
This seems to be the first time Russian electronic system for counting paper ballots has had such major glitch.

On December 19th Russia's Arkhangelsky region hosted local Legislative Assembly elections. Several other major coastal towns were also electing new leaders of administration as well as local delegates at around the same time. The results shocked not only the actual candidates and voters but many members of the elections committee as well.

Apparently, what the electronic system for counting paper ballots had displayed had little to do with reality! Distrustful observers from the majority of candidates preferred to stand in close proximity to the electronic counting devices and counted each ballot manually. Hours later, the elections results were announced.and as it turned out, the results did not match at all! In fact, they weren't even close! Nonetheless, representatives of the elections committee refuse to conduct hand recount of the ballots. "This isn"t America!" they claim in unison.

Here is a real paradox: electronic machine manual FORBIDS hand recount of paper ballots. The situation resembles events in Abkhazia, Georgia and Ukraine. Rumor has it that supporters of the northern electorate intend to go on strike. Members of one of the opposition blocs in Arkhangelsk plan to the piquet local elections committee building. In the Russian town of Severodvinsk, crowds are already gathering by the city hall. Nearly two hundred complaints have been filed to the administration pointing to the severe violations of the elections process. The fact that the elections have been falsified appears clear as day. Usually calm coastal region of Russia is now furious.

The most authoritative regional newspaper "Pravda Severa" has published an interesting article entitled "The power of falsifications" prior to the elections. "In it the author states the following: "Elections scandals connected to the falsification of the final count tend to gain popularity across the globe: in America, Georgia, Abkhazia, Ukraine. Each one of these scandals is caused by strong desire of those at power to keep their power. In this situation the end justifies the means, indeed. Whereas the end symbolizes ultimate power and means - falsification of elections results. In case in 2000 American scandal has lead to a mere hand recount of paper ballots, in 2003, during Georgian elections, opposition forces have first seized the parliament and then the power itself. Ukraine is the most recent and most painful example of such falsification."

"Scandal that has evolved around the elections in Severodvinsk (Arkhangelsk region) is destined to evolve into a major all-Russian issue. According to a reporter from Regions.Ru, on December 19th at approximately 11:00 pm at the polling station #835 noticed that the ballots were removed from the electronic machines taken some place in unsealed containers. The observers followed members of the committee to find out what was happening. As it turned out, the basement of Severodvinsk City Hall had an entire collection filled with voting ballots from all the polling stations. The ballots were left there practically unattended. Nearly fifteen individuals including candidates, members of their pre-elections campaigns have gathered in the basement. Law enforcement authorities were also present. Police soon sealed up the basement. Representatives of the Severodvinsk City hall have not commented the incident yet."

Our special correspondent has got a hold of a copy of the elections protocol at one of the polling stations in Severodvinsk. 980 voting ballots have been distributed among voters at the polling station #858. Only 701 of those ballots ended up inside the machines. Such mismatch occurred at almost every single polling station across the region. Interestingly, all the ballots still remain in the basement of Severodvinsk City Hall.

It has just come to our knowledge that local elections committee has decided to count the ballots by hand at one of the polling stations. The recount is scheduled to take place this Saturday.

This situation in Severodvinsk closely resembles the US elections of 2000 and 2004. Perhaps, on a slightly smaller scale though. In any case however voters" rights have been violated. In 2000 George Bush managed to win the elections after a hand recount.



Read the original in Russian:
http://www.pravda.ru/politics/2004/1/6/204/18715_Pomopie.html
(Translated by: Anna Ossipova)

Living in the Dead Zone

December 22, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
By MARTIN CRUZ SMITH
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/22/opinion/22cruzsmith.html

OUTSIDE, a hard winter's afternoon settles on the village, but inside their cottage Nikolai and Nastia lay out a spread: apples from their orchard, pickles from their garden, mushrooms from the woods around and full glasses of samogon, otherwise known as Ukrainian moonshine. Samogon, the locals say, offers protection from radioactivity, a consideration since we are in a "black village" written off for human occupation in 1986 after the explosion of Reactor 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power station a mere dozen miles away.

"You grow your own food?" a guest asks.

"All of it," Nastia says.

The guest takes a discreet glance at his dosimeter.

The village is called "black" as in abandoned. But as if to make the name literally true, the neighboring houses have turned black and tilted into a slow slide into the earth. Trees reach in and out the windows. The yards are littered with bureaus, picture frames, chairs. At the beginning of the cleanup, the authorities buried the most radioactive houses, until it dawned on them that they were doing an excellent job of poisoning the groundwater. So the contaminated houses stand. For how long? According to an ecologist at the power station: "In 250 years everything is back to normal. Except for plutonium - that will take 25,000 years."

Nikolai and Nastia's cottage is basically one room around an oven with a built-in shelf to sleep on during the coldest nights.

"It's home," Nastia says. She wears a sweater and shawl permanently. Her smile is bright steel and her blue eyes shine with delight and a certain sense of collusion. Visitors are rare in the 19-mile-radius Zone of Exclusion around the reactors and, of course, she is not supposed to be there at all. Nastia and Nikolai were evacuated like everyone else, but sneaked like partisans back to their cottage in the woods. So much for zone security.

Since then, the authorities have largely let Nastia and Nikolai alone among the zone's phantom population of returnees, scavengers and poachers. Almost perversely, the wildlife there is flourishing; poachers hunt wild boar, served later in the finest restaurants of Kiev and Moscow. Scavengers cut up abandoned radioactive cars and trucks are to sell as parts in the chop shops of Russia.

Nikolai and Nastia aren't on the run, they've just become invisible. They didn't vote in the recent presidential runoff election; there were no polling booths in the black villages. (To vote, they would have had to be bused out of the zone to cast a ballot bearing the address they had been assigned to and escaped from.) Doctors warned Nastia that if she remains in her village, radioactivity will give her cancer in 25 years. Nastia is 75 now. She says she'll take her chances.

Nastia sings a traditional harvest song in a young, birdlike voice. The samogon has brought out a fine sweat on every brow.

What amazes me is not that two elderly peasants have become invisible, but that Chernobyl itself has, as if it were a subject too awful to contemplate. In the rain, the sarcophagus, the 10-story steel-and-concrete box heroically constructed over Reactor 4, leaks like a radioactive sieve into groundwater that drains in the Pripyat River, which feeds the Dnepr, which is the drinking water for Kiev. Ninety percent of the core is still in the reactor, breaking down and heating up, and the station's managers say that the sarcophagus itself could collapse at any time.

How dangerous would that be? Estimates of deaths from the explosion range from 41 to more than 300,000. The Zone of Exclusion is not an area of containment, no more than a circle drawn on the dirt would stop an airborne stream of plutonium, strontium, cesium-137. Seven million people live on contaminated land in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. People around the world carry in their chromosomes the mark of Chernobyl.

We search in Iraq for weapons of mass destruction, while a more likely danger is another explosion at Chernobyl. It may not be a meltdown, but it will be the mother of all dirty bombs. (A better sarcophagus is promised in five years, but at the site there is little sign of activity, let alone urgency.)

And in all the drama of the recent election, the inspiring rallies in Independence Square, the spirited presidential debate on Monday and the apparent triumph of good over evil, the subject of another nuclear disaster rarely came up, and then mostly in nationalist rhetoric: it is an article of faith that the West forced Ukraine in 2000 to close the perfectly good reactors that remained at Chernobyl. The truth is that you have to sympathize with Viktor Yushchenko, the likely winner in the rerun of the presidential runoff on Sunday, because he will have to deal with Chernobyl.

Or not.

So, no wonder we're drinking samogon. The air is yeasty with it. Nastia sings and I picture her and Nikolai plucking apples off their poisoned tree, digging potatoes from their poisoned earth, fishing in their poisoned stream.


Martin Cruz Smith is the author, most recently, of "Wolves Eat Dogs."

Washington keeps close eye on Ukraine vote

Dec 22 '04
http://www.keepmedia.com/pubs/AFP/2004/12/22/689341

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States will keep a close eye on Ukraine's rerun of its disputed presidential runoff election on Sunday, as Washington silently wishes for a victory of Western-leaning candidate Viktor Yushchenko in the former Soviet republic, analysts say.

The United States has maintained the same position since the November 21 runoff was contested as plagued with fraud, saying it wanted democracy to prevail amid an honest and transparent election.

Pro-Russia Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich had been declared the winner of the vote, which was annulled by the Supreme Court following huge street protests led by the opposition.

The disputed election also drove a wedge between Russia and the West.

"As far as the long-term progress of Ukraine toward the Euro-Atlantic community, obviously having a free and stable democracy is a major step in that direction," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told AFP this week.

Former top US presidential adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski said the success of democracy would affect both Ukraine and Russia.

"The issue in Ukraine is not a Russia versus the West issue, it is rather an issue of democracy, both in Ukraine and in Russia, versus no democracy," said Brzezinski, who was President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser.

A westward move in Ukraine -- the second-largest European nation geographically after Russia -- is in the United States' interest, analysts say.

"Of course, the US would have preferred Yushchenko to Yanukovich," said Anders Aslund, director of the Russian and Eurasian Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Aslund noted that Yushchenko met with US Vice President Dick Cheney in February 2003.

But Washington has treaded carefully in Ukraine to avoid angering Russia and creating a new source of international tension, and to ensure it would keep Kiev's support in the war in Iraq, where it has sent 1,600 troops, analysts say.

President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin have good relations, but the Ukrainian crisis sparked mutual accusations of interference in Kiev's national affairs.

On December 9, US Secretary of State Colin Powell rejected Russian claims that the US-based democracy group Freedom House -- which runs education programs for political parties and promotes voter rights in newly democratic states -- had done anything "inappropriate" in Ukraine.

He also denied that the US government or Freedom House had taken sides in Ukraine's election.

The non-governmental organization, which has an office in Kiev and most Eastern European capitals, is headed by former CIA director James Woolsey.

US officials also fear seeing a new conflict in Eastern Europe.

"Instability there would create problems that would make the Balkans look like nothing," a State Department official, who asked not to be named, said late last month.

© 2004 AFP

A poisoned election

THE JERUSALEM POST Dec. 22, 2004
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1103685619986&p=1006953079865

On December 26, the people of Ukraine will again go to the polls, in an election of vital international interest whose impact reaches far beyond that nation's borders.

Ukraine is a nuclear power of 48 million people that occupies a key strategic position between Russia and Europe. Its 300,000 Jews also make it home to one of the largest Diaspora communities, making it of special interest to Israel and the Jewish world.

Its presidential contest features two candidates who espouse and embody radically different political views. Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, like his mentor current President Leonid Kuchma, favors a foreign policy strongly aligned to Russia, and a domestic governing style with noted authoritarian tendencies. Opposition leader Victor Yushchenko espouses democratic reforms, and would prefer to see Ukraine more strongly linked to Europe and the West.

Even under normal circumstances this race would be of global interest - and so far its circumstances have been far from normal, even shockingly so.

During the campaign, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered outspoken support for Yanukovych to the degree that it constituted inappropriate partisan interference in the internal politics of a neighboring country. The first round of balloting last month, in which Yanukovych emerged victorious, was so marked by ballot box intimidation and corruption that it triggered international condemnation (with the notable exception of Putin) and widespread internal protest, so much so that the results were eventually disqualified by the Ukrainian Supreme Court.

Worse still was the subsequent revelation that a dioxin-based poison was the cause of the mysterious disfiguring illness that struck Yushchenko earlier this year. Even before that diagnosis made by Austrian doctors though, there were strong suspicions that he had fallen victim to foul play.

Although no one knows yet who poisoned Yushchenko and how, heavy suspicion has fallen on the security services of Ukraine and Russia. Poisoning of political dissidents was a common KGB practice - and since Putin, that agency's former head, came to power in the Kremlin, its use seems to have reemerged in several mysterious incidents involving politicians, reporters and business figures critical of his government and those of other FSU republics allied to it.

All these factors will undoubtedly play a role when Ukrainians go to the polls on Saturday. It is also worth noting here that in the past month Yushchenko has taken steps to reassure Ukrainian Jews who have been wary over his ties to nationalistic groups, visiting a Kiev synagogue to light Hanukka candles, and talking of strengthening ties to Israel. Still, some Jews are said to be favoring Yanukovych, seeing in him a vote for stability over uncertainty.

It is their choice to make, like the rest of Ukraine. But it is the responsibility of the free world to be vigilant and ensure there is no repeat of last month's travesty of the democratic process. If Yushchenko should emerge victorious, it must also move quickly to provide him with the support he will need to bring reforms to Ukraine and move it closer into the Western sphere.

This should include immediate inclusion in the European Union "action plan" that provides free access of goods, services, people, and capital for countries who want to reach EU membership standards. Consideration should also be given to military linkage with NATO, which would send a strong message to Putin in support of Ukraine's right to a foreign policy independent of the Kremlin.

When Putin came to power, Western governments strained to give him the benefit of the doubt, on the understanding that he inherited a country beset by crime, corruption and confusion, badly in need of strong leadership. In recent years, though, he has gone too far in the direction of authoritarian rule, and a more independent and democratic Ukraine would provide a boost to the greatly diminished and struggling supporters of reform in neighboring Russia.

It is the poison-scarred face of Yushchenko that has been the dominant image of the campaign now reaching its climax in Ukraine. But the most lasting impact of this extraordinary race may be whether or not it has exposed to the world the real face of the leader who sits in the Kremlin.

Tens of thousands rally in Ukraine to demand fair vote rerun

Updated 05:06am (Mla time) Dec 23, 2004
By Agence France-Presse
http://news.inq7.net/world/index.php?index=1&story_id=22099

Tens of thousands of supporters of Ukraine's opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko massed Wednesday in the center of the capital in a fresh show of force to press demands that a repeat presidential election be conducted fairly unlike a discredited poll last month.

"In the past 17 days, we have changed Ukraine peacefully, beautifully, elegantly and without a single drop of blood being shed," Yushchenko, flanked by family and well-known supporters including Ukraine's world heavyweight boxing champ Vitali Klitschko, said in an address to the crowd.

"We have two roads before us: one of corruption and humiliation ... the other, a wider one, the road of truth and justice. We have already set foot down this road," the opposition leader said before the crowd broke into thunderous chants of "Yu-shchen-ko! Yu-shchen-ko!"

The 50-year-old opposition leader, whose face was disfigured during the election campaign earlier this autumn by what experts have said was a poisoning, vowed to work to unite his country badly split over an earlier election ruled fraudulent and thrown out by the supreme court.

"I will be the president of all Ukraine. I will do everything for the unity of Ukraine," he said.

He repeated earlier pledges to pull Ukrainian troops out of Iraq if elected.

He also called on his supporters to return to the square on the day of the vote and remain there "until we celebrate our victory".

Giant television screens were set up on three sides of Kiev's Independence Square which was packed with tens of thousands of demonstrators facing a massive, rock-concert-like stage framed by towering loudspeakers set up on one side of a street that bisects the square.

"I came to defend freedom, to defend my right to choose," said 65-year-old pensioner Nikolai Shevchenko, one of the protesters who braved the freezing nighttime air to attend the rally. "This was a real revolution for real freedom."

Another pro-Yushchenko demonstrator, Tatiana Lysenko, a 45-year-old kindergarten teacher, predicted a victory for the opposition leader.

"If they don't falsify again, he will definitely win on Sunday. It was a revolution for justice, the people wanted to choose a president for a better life," she said.

The protest came four days before voters in this strategic nation of 48 million people return to the polls in a repeat of a presidential vote held November 21 and rekindled the political passions that resulted in the previous election being declared invalid by the supreme court due to fraud.

The rally also marked exactly one month since the start of mass street protests against the official results of the earlier vote which awarded victory to Yushchenko's pro-Moscow opponent, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, who was openly backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The rematch Sunday between Yushchenko and Yanukovich "will be a moment of truth for Ukraine," the opposition leader said.

Speaking to Ukrainian journalists Tuesday, Yushchenko sought to allay Moscow's concerns over the prospect that he will soon be running his country, but said that while Russia was of core interest to Ukraine he would nonetheless focus on building stronger bonds with western Europe.

"Emotion comes and goes. It is more important to understand one thing: Russia is of strategic interest to Ukraine. So we will always have a strategic policy and a political strategy in relations with Russia," Yushchenko said in remarks reported by Interfax.

He told state radio separately that, if elected, his first official visit would be to Russia. And he said the questions of whether to make Russian a second official language and to introduce dual Ukrainian-Russian citizenship, both ideas backed by his rival, warranted discussion.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who openly backed Yanukovich during the campaign, said Tuesday while on a visit to Germany that he would have "no problem" working with either Yushchenko or Yanukovich as Ukraine's leader.

The upcoming rerun election in Ukraine has assumed a major geopolitical significance as the country sits on the East-West fault line between former Soviet republics still dominated by Russia and long-established European and US democracies.

While Yushchenko is strongly backed by the West, and has vowed to build closer bonds between Ukraine and western Europe, Yanukovich favors maintaining deep historical and cultural bonds with Russia and he has as a result been supported by Moscow.

In neighboring Belarus, whose hardline regime also recognised Yanukovich's disputed victory, police on Wednesday detained some 100 independent observers hours before they were due to leave for Ukraine to monitor the presidential poll, human rights defenders said.

Ales Bialiatsky, head of the banned human rights group Viasna, told AFP that special forces detained the observers as they met in a hotel in the capital Minsk, officially to "check their identity documents".



©2004 www.inq7.net all rights reserved

Build on interests, if not on values

Editorial comment

Published: December 23 2004 02:00 Last updated: December 23 2004 02:00
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/348bb902-5487-11d9-8280-00000e2511c8.html

How Russia and the west react to Sunday's rerun presidential election in Ukraine - whichever way it goes - will set the tone for their wider relationship. Both Russia and the west should want at all costs to keep Ukraine together. Neither should want to exercise any exclusive sway over it. And each should want it to have good relations with the other.

These maxims will be harder for Russia, which has centuries-old links to Ukraine, to follow. But President Vladimir Putin now appears to be adjusting to the likelihood that his favoured candidate, Viktor Yanukovich, will lose the rerun to Viktor Yushchenko, whom the Russian leader said he would have no problem working with. After talks with Chancellor Gerhard Schr?der this week, Mr Putin made other conciliatory noises. He said he was ready to accept a dialogue with Germany and its European Union partners on Chechnya, and promised to speed up debt repayment to Germany and other creditor governments.

But the fact that the Russian president chooses to make these concessions to the German chancellor illustrates a hang-up that mars the Kremlin's general relations with the EU. For Russian leaders tend to be power snobs. As the world's biggest country, and nuclear-armed at that, they dislike the EU's post-modernism that stresses the equality of states. If they are to have a relationship with the EU, they want it to be a special one. Leaders of bigger EU states have generally been delighted to reciprocate Russia's cultivation of them.

Fortunately, Ukraine has been a wake-up call in Europe and in the US - where Mr Putin's anti-democratic moves and interference along Russia's borders had seemed to slip below the radar screen of an administration pre-occupied with the Middle East. For Mr Putin's use as an ally in Washington's war on terror is undermined if his policies destabilise Russia's neighbours. This should be especially obvious to Condoleezza Rice, who next month gets the chance to put her extensive academic study of Russia into practice as secretary of state.

The west cannot avoid engaging Russia, but for reasons that are also in Moscow's interest. Europe needs Russia's gas and oil but is so far Russia's only outlet for its pipelines. The west is helping Russia mop up its atomic waste and surplus nuclear weapons, but Russia does not want to be an environmental mess or a nuclear arms bazaar either. The Europeans need Russian support in their diplomatic efforts to prevent Iran going nuclear, but Moscow does not want another proliferator on its southern border.

If Mr Putin can see Russia's interest in co-operating with the west in these areas, he should also realise that the idea of an exclusive Russian sphere of influence no longer serves Moscow's interests, if it ever did. Both Russia and the west will benefit if Ukraine prospers through better relations with east and west.

Record scrutiny of Ukrainian poll

Nick Paton Walsh in Kiev
Thursday December 23, 2004
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/ukraine/story/0,15569,1378902,00.html


More than 12,000 foreign election observers have been registered to monitor the Ukrainian presidential run-off on Boxing Day, the central election committee said yesterday.
"These are all foreigners who will work on monitoring the vote according to their own plans," Tatyana Zaturanova of the committee's international relations department said. The total of 12,271, thought to be a record, does not include the candidates' own observers.

The opposition candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, rejected a proposal by his opponent, the prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich, for a compromise by which he might remain prime minister if Mr Yushchenko wins the presidency.

He told journalists: "We are not considering the possibility of his participation [in government] under any circumstances. That would not be becoming for a man. If you lose, you have to leave," Interfax news agency reported.

Last night, accompanied by the Ukrainian boxing champions Vitaliy and Vladimir Klitschko, he addressed tens of thousands of supporters gathered in Kiev to mark a month since the protests began.

"We peacefully, beautifully, elegantly and without any drops of blood changed Ukraine," he told them.

Meanwhile, a few hundred supporters of Mr Yanukovich who arrived in Kiev on Tuesday could be seen yesterday roaming the city, waving their blue and white flags in protest on Independence Square.

Mr Yanukovich has been trying to portray himself as a man of compromise, keen to prevent the country from breaking up into separate east- and west-inclined states. One fear is that Donetsk, the eastern stronghold of Mr Yanukovich, may refuse to recognise the election and not cast its ballots, causing another legal crisis.

The opposition held out the possibility of giving Mr Yanukovich's business backers an amnesty if they do not try to "interfere" in the election.

Oleg Ribachuk, Mr Yushchenko's chief of staff, said: "I have been asked by [Yushchenko] to look into schemes for capital flight amnesties used in other countries. We have a message for these guys: we are prepared to have an amnesty, to proclaim a new life [in which they pay more taxes] ...but it depends on how the election goes."

He said Mr Yushchenko's first state visit as president would be to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. He added that the foreign policy priority would be "full EU membership within two years".

Ukraine's poisonous politics

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/geted.pl5?ed20041223a1.htm

EDITORIAL

How far will the old order in Ukraine go to safeguard its privileges? News that opposition residential candidate Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned suggests that it is desperate indeed. Three months after the alleged poisoning, questions continue to mount about how Mr. Yushchenko ingested what should have been a fatal dose of dioxin and who was responsible. The incident underlines the stakes in Ukraine's presidential ballot, which will be repeated in the days ahead after the original outcome was contested.

On Sept. 5, Mr. Yushchenko and his campaign manager dined with the head of Ukraine's security service. Within hours, he became gravely ill, but prompt treatment saved his life. While poison was suspected -- he accused the government of masterminding the act to prevent him from campaigning -- proof was not available until this month when doctors confirmed that Mr. Yushchenko had dioxin levels in his blood 6,000 times higher than normal.

With this evidence, Mr. Yushchenko has been able to force the security services to reopen an investigation into the incident, but it will not go forward until after the Dec. 26
ballot.

The list of suspects is long; topping it are his Sept. 5 dinner hosts. They have denied any connection with the attempt, arguing, among other things, that it would make no sense for them to do anything so blatant as to poison a candidate in their own home. Moreover, specialists note that dioxin poisoning usually takes two weeks to have an effect; the onset of symptoms so soon after the meal is unlikely. It suggests that the poisoning occurred some time before.

The Sept. 5 meal itself was intended to discuss death threats received by Mr. Yushchenko. The stakes in the Ukrainian election are extremely high. Mr. Yushchenko and his opponent, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, have vastly different views of their country's future; the challenger wants to align Ukraine more closely with the West, while the prime minister would deepen its integration with Russia. Those decisions will have profound implications for business in Ukraine. In other words, there are many people with a reason to take action against Mr. Yushchenko.

The possibility of Russian involvement gives the tale a twist. The Soviet Union's security services used poison against "enemies." In one notorious case, a Bulgarian dissident in London was killed when injected with ricin, another deadly poison, with the tip of an umbrella supplied by the KGB. There have been other suspected cases since the collapse of the Soviet Union. One, a few months ago, suggests that poison is still a weapon to be used against those who cross Moscow.

While Mr. Yushchenko has survived the attack, it has left him disfigured. Once noted for his movie star looks, the candidate's face is now pockmarked, discolored and swollen. He is racked with pain. While expressing sympathy, Mr. Yanukovych now argues that his opponent is too weak and in too much pain to govern, a charge Mr. Yushchenko denies.

Whoever wins the Dec. 26 ballot will need all his strength. Ukraine was divided before the Nov. 21 election, and the events that followed that vote have deepened the divisions. Mr. Yanukovych won that vote, but the results were condemned internationally and hundreds of thousands of Mr. Yushchenko's supporters took to the streets to demand a new ballot. The country's Supreme Court agreed. But Mr. Yanukovych has said his supporters might not tolerate defeat, warning that they could take to the streets as well "to prevent a coup."

Emotions are running high. Last weekend, a religious procession turned violent when supporters of the two men started taunting each other. There have been reports of assaults on each candidate's supporters and on journalists throughout the country. When the two men squared off in a final televised debate earlier this week, Mr. Yanukovych accused his opponent and outgoing President Leonid Kuchma of selling Ukraine out to foreign interests. He went on to say that foreigners had interfered in the November ballot by funding demonstrations. Finally, he ominously warned that even if Mr. Yushchenko wins the vote "he would be president of only part of Ukraine."

The heat that has been generated will ensure that this election is closely watched at home and abroad. That is unlikely to ensure that the results are not contested, no matter who wins. Ukraine is torn between the authoritarianism of its past and democratic hopes for the future. It is leaning toward Europe, but it is closely tied to Russia. It is a difficult balancing act -- and a potentially deadly one, as Mr. Yushchenko has learned.

The Japan Times: Dec. 23, 2004
(C) All rights reserved

UKRAINE'S YUSHCHENKO NEEDS TO BALANCE RUSSIA, EU

ANALYSIS: By Ron Popeski, Reuters, Kiev, Ukraine, Dec 20, 2004

KIEV - Ukraine's Viktor Yushchenko may be the toast of Western capitals but he will have a tricky balance to maintain between the West and big neighbour Russia if, as expected, he wins the re-run of a rigged election next Sunday.

The would-be president's call of "let's not miss the train for Europe" -- moving Ukraine into the European mainstream and possibly joining the European Union and NATO -- has met with resounding endorsement from many supporters at street rallies.

But the 50-year-old liberal former prime minister, often labelled Western- leaning, has cautiously emphasised that Russia, the former imperial master, remains a "strategic partner."

All the same, Ukraine, long Russia's closest ally in former Soviet territory, seems likely to shift -- however gradually -- towards Brussels and Washington if Yushchenko beats Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich in the Dec. 26 repeat vote.

Moscow openly backed the prime minister in the Nov. 21 run-off between the two men that gave victory to Yanukovich but was later annulled by the Supreme Court on grounds of fraud.

The EU, to which three of Ukraine's neighbours belong, came down heavily in favour of a re-run of the poll, some time before the Supreme Court ruling. And diplomats in NATO have said informally that the U.S.-led alliance is ready to speed Ukraine towards closer ties and membership if Yushchenko wins the new vote.

"UNIQUE PLACE"
All this could be a bitter pill for Russia to swallow after centuries of seeing Ukraine as a "younger brother" -- a role some analysts say Yushchenko would end forever.

Doubts remain over Moscow's likely reaction, with memories fresh of a spat this year in which Russian nationalists refused to accept Ukraine's sovereignty over a Black Sea island. "With Yushchenko, there will be no younger or older brother," said analyst Oleksander Dergachyov.

"There remains the real problem of Russia's irrational position in the construction of Europe. But I believe that Russia will quickly learn that Yushchenko is a far better option as leader of the country next door than Yanukovich."

Yushchenko says much remains to be done before his country of 47 million people, where the average monthly salary is $100, can dream of joining the EU, whose wealth and democracy have been a beacon for the ex-communist states of eastern Europe.

"I personally believe Ukraine has a unique geopolitical place in Europe. A comfortable European home will depend on Ukraine's position and role," Yushchenko has said.

"The European Union should set up a project for Ukraine which will offer a clear road to join the European Union provided proper measures and reforms are undertaken."

Yushchenko, whose power base is mainly in the capital Kiev and in western regions of the country, conspicuously reserves his warmest words about Russia for when he is in his opponent's eastern strongholds.

"If you think in normal terms about Ukraine, Russia will always be our northern neighbour, our strategic partner. This can be a secret for no one," he said while campaigning in the last election.

PRACTICAL TIES
But he also seeks better, more practical ties with Russia, which provides Ukraine with much of its oil imports and gives it gas in payment for transit of Russian energy deliveries across Ukraine territory.

"We will tackle issues still unresolved -- economic policy, trade, customs, jobs, capital," he said. "The main thing is that these issues should not block Ukraine's road to the EU."

Any quick move towards expanding Ukraine's special relationship with NATO into membership would have to manoeuvre carefully around sympathy for Russia in eastern regions as well as take account of the poor state of Ukraine's military.

Ukrainian analysts say a Yushchenko victory offers the EU, and the West at large, a chance to review its policies towards the former Soviet Union.

"The West has a dilemma. Either it keeps seeing Russia as the key actor in the ex-Soviet Union or it makes use of events in Ukraine," said independent analyst Volodymyr Polokhalo.

"A Yushchenko win would give Europe and the West a chance to revise their approach and see Ukraine not as a buffer but as an area in which to extend Western influence in the region."

Yanukovich is irritated by the notion that voters are choosing a pro-European or a pro-Russian option. He tells rallies that he, too, favours a "European choice."

But the premier also derides the "foreign financing" of his rival's campaign. He rails against "interference" by mediators who helped set up the framework for the new vote, singling out President Aleksander Kwasniewski of new EU member Poland.

FIERY OPPOSITION LEADER KEEPS THE HEAT ON UKRAINE'S REGIME

Former millionaire businesswoman Yulia Tymoshenko has a talent for
confrontation.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-tymoshenko20dec20,1,5236336.story?coll=la-headlines-world

By David Holley, Times Staff Writer, Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles, California, Monday, December 20, 2004

KIEV, Ukraine — Tensions over disputed presidential balloting were at a peak when Yulia Tymoshenko, the fiery second-in-command of Ukraine's opposition movement, stepped to the microphone of an outdoor stage during a rally early this month.

The crowd of about 150,000 had gathered to back opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko's bid for the presidency. Tymoshenko's job was to keep the protesters' spirits up and their determination strong after the declaration of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich as winner of the November election.

Speaking to the crowd, she warned President Leonid D. Kuchma that if he did not yield to opposition demands, his activities would be viewed as "a crime against his own people." She called for protesters to mass the next day outside the Supreme Court as it considered the opposition's allegation that fraud had invalidated Yanukovich's victory — a position the court later accepted, setting a rematch for the day after Christmas.

In this battle for Ukraine's future, Yushchenko and Tymoshenko are playing a good-cop, bad-cop routine. Yushchenko, 50, often appears the calm statesman, accepting compromise when it furthers his goals and speaking in recent days about details of the economic policy he would implement.

Tymoshenko, 44, her hair usually braided and wound in a bun on her head in a traditional Ukrainian peasant style, focuses more on emotions. Issuing threats to authorities and warning against complacency, she reminds supporters that a lot can still go wrong for the opposition and fires up the troops. At the same time, she makes no secret of her hope to be prime minister under Yushchenko.

Early in the crisis, television footage showed a telling episode. Tymoshenko was seen conferring with Yushchenko in parliament, then dashing outside, where she helped a demonstrator climb over a barrier. A number of protesters

then tried to storm into parliament, a few making it through the door and into the lobby. There, opposition leaders, including Yushchenko, urged them to retreat. Security guards were then able to push the doors back shut again.

It was never clear in that incident whether Tymoshenko and Yushchenko disagreed over what to do or were staging a show of confrontation and then compromise. But the effect was to display Yushchenko in the peacemaker's role.

The differences between Tymoshenko and Yushchenko sometimes appear very real, although in the nature of disputes between friends. When parliament agreed Dec. 8 to a compromise package of laws strengthening safeguards against electoral fraud while weakening presidential powers, Yushchenko treated it as a major victory that virtually guaranteed him the
presidency.

But Tymoshenko grumbled for days that the opposition had been in such a strong position, there had been no need to trade away the future president's powers in order to ensure an honest election. She warned that members of the political elite associated with Kuchma could remain dominant by bribing members of parliament to do their bidding.

"This is not the kind of political reform that the people of Ukraine need," she declared at a news conference. "Imagine April 1945, when Hitler had lost his campaign. Some people were preparing drugs to kill themselves. Hitler was preparing a gun. Then [imagine if] Churchill and Stalin came and said: 'You'll keep everything you have. You have guarantees and amnesty. Just fix your Nazi legislation a bit.' This isn't the way it should be done."

Although critical of Yushchenko's willingness to compromise, her scenario creates a contrast with Kuchma's faction that is favorable to the opposition leader. A few years ago, Yushchenko and Tymoshenko had a very different partnership:

He was prime minister from 1999 to 2001, and she served as a deputy prime minister responsible for energy issues. She fell out with Kuchma sooner than Yushchenko did, and thus has spent more time than him as an opposition leader.

Tymoshenko first gained prominence as the "gas princess," a businesswoman who maneuvered skillfully in Ukraine's chaotic, corrupt business world after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Her company, United Energy Systems, became one of the largest corporations in mid-1990s Ukraine. Her supporters say that as deputy prime minister, she used her knowledge of scams common in the energy business to crack down on corruption and boost tax collection.

Kuchma ordered her fired from that post in January 2001, shortly after her indictment on charges of smuggling, forgery and tax evasion dating to 1996, when she headed UES. She charged that the accusations were inspired by powerful supporters of Kuchma to end her efforts to root out corruption.

She was briefly detained in 2001, and prosecutors continue to investigate her and her husband, Oleksandr Tymoshenko, who was an officer with the company. Estimates of her personal worth at the time ran into the hundreds of millions of dollars, but she says all her wealth is now gone. Her website says her company was destroyed and "political" charges were pressed against
its officers "by order of President Kuchma, who was maniacally afraid of anything that he could not take under his control."

She also has faced legal charges in Russia, which has strongly backed Yanukovich and long supported the Kuchma government. This year, Russian prosecutors demanded her extradition on charges of bribing Russian defense officials. The Chief Military Prosecutor's Office announced Dec. 8 that it will soon send to court a criminal case involving two officers of the Defense Ministry's Central Logistics Directorate accused of receiving bribes from her.

Tymoshenko and Yushchenko are seen as pro-Western politicians who favor strengthening Ukraine's ties with the European Union and the United States, which raises questions about whether the Russian charges were politically motivated.

After Russian authorities issued a warrant, Tymoshenko was briefly listed as wanted on an Interpol website early this month, but her photo was removed the same day. Interpol reportedly asked for more information on the case. Asked about the Russian allegations at a news conference, Tymoshenko responded with humor.

"As snow melts in the spring, all these charges will disappear as soon as the presidential campaign is over," she said. "I was especially entertained by the international search warrant. If this were true, we'd have to meet at a spy apartment. We'd have to bring the journalists blindfolded. I'd have to come in a long, black coat with a hat, sunglasses and a false mustache.
"Russia uses this to fight the politicians it's afraid of. This actually flatters me, that Russia believes I can stand up for the national interests of Ukraine."

YUSHCHENKO'S FORMIDABLE CHALLENGE

Ukraine 's Opposition Leader Needs to Win Converts In
Russian-Speaking Regions

By Yaroslav Trofimov, Staff Reporter
The Wall Street Journal, New York, NY, Mon, Dec 20, 2004

YALTA, Ukraine -- Pro-Western opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko has a comfortable lead in the opinion polls ahead of Ukraine 's presidential election. But he still faces a formidable task even if he wins on Dec. 26: reassuring the country's Russian speakers that he isn't as bad as they fear.

Confronting fervent anti-Yushchenko sentiment in Ukraine 's Russian-speaking eastern and southern regions -- the base of support of his opponent, Moscow-backed Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych -- has emerged as a central goal of the Yushchenko campaign now that election-law changes have substantially reduced the chance of fraud that marred the Nov. 21 vote, since annulled by the nation's supreme court. If he fails to win at least some support here, Mr. Yushchenko may face big obstacles governing a bitterly divided country, including the prospect of a renewed separatist
movement.

Knowing that the key to success lies in the east, Mr. Yushchenko Friday relaunched the campaign by visiting Harkiv, the biggest city of eastern Ukraine -- the same day Mr. Yanukovych also arrived in town. Mr. Yushchenko used the occasion to pledge during a visit to a Harkiv tank factory that he won't make any moves to restrict the use of Russian language in Ukraine and that he will seek good relations with Moscow.

Mr. Yanukovych had been crisscrossing eastern and southern Ukraine all last week, painting himself as the leader of the real opposition and the only true patriot determined to defend Ukraine from a specter of American domination.

The difficulty of winning converts to Mr. Yushchenko's so-called orange revolution is apparent in the Crimea peninsula city of Yalta, a balmy resort long synonymous with Europe's Cold War divide, sealed at a 1945 conference when U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin agreed to Soviet domination of eastern Europe. Crimea, which Soviet rulers transferred from Russia to Ukraine in 1954, is the only Ukrainian region where ethnic Russians make up a majority of the population -- and where many view a likely Yushchenko victory as a sellout to the still-hated U.S.

At a recent rally on Yalta's beachfront promenade, pro-Yanukovych protester Alla Danchenko shouted, "We want to live in friendship with Russia, and America is paying Yushchenko to break us apart." While Mr. Yanukovych was said to have beaten Mr. Yushchenko by three percentage points nationwide last month, according to now-overturned results, he carried Crimea with 82% of the vote, an edge that even local opposition leaders say was only marginally inflated by falsification.

Mr. Yushchenko's supporters have reasons to be optimistic about the new election. Opinion polls predict he is likely to beat Mr. Yanukovych by a margin of between five and 10 percentage points. The opposition leader has said that he aims to win at least 60% of the nationwide vote -- a landslide that would render irrelevant the precinct-by-precinct legal challenges that Mr. Yanukovych's campaign is preparing.

Ukraine 's Parliament has severely curtailed the two most widespread methods of fraud: the use of absentee ballots and the voting at home, rather than at a precinct. Local election commissions were revamped to provide equal representation for both candidates, and the Central Election Commission member who publicly opposed falsification in the Nov. 21 vote now supervises the body. Also, national TV stations no longer slant their news coverage against Mr. Yushchenko.

Still, in Mr. Yanukovych's strongholds, residents have been subjected for months to a barrage of negative propaganda that distorted Mr. Yushchenko's views. Just a few weeks ago, official newspapers in Crimea published what they described as Mr. Yushchenko's electoral program -- topped by a pledge to turn the country into an American military base. And almost every household in Crimea has received a forged electoral leaflet in which Mr. Yushchenko purportedly promised to expel all ethnic Russians from the peninsula. "I will never get Russian votes, and Russians have no place in our country," the leaflet says. Mr. Yanukovych, by contrast, pledged to make
Russian the second official language and to allow dual citizenship with Russia.

To counter the anti-Yushchenko feeling, last week his campaign launched a motor rally by pop stars and TV personalities who plan to travel across eastern and southern Ukraine , and who reached Crimea during the weekend, after an hours-long standoff with Mr. Yanukovych's supporters who blocked the highway into the peninsula. Mr. Yushchenko recorded some of his latest campaign commercials in Russian.

And in Yalta, Mr. Yushchenko's local campaign chief, Oleg Zubkov, is trying an unorthodox approach. He has turned the local zoo that he owns into a center of the outreach effort, bedecking the cages with orange ribbons, allowing free entry and distributing campaign literature between stunts with lions and tigers.

Seeing a group of visitors to the zoo on a recent morning, he lost no chance to proselytize: "About this election...you are being lied to. Don't believe all these rumors about Yushchenko."

Too polite to argue, the visitors smiled silently. Later, one of them, a retiree named Appolinaria Yakovleva, confided that the free trip to the zoo hasn't quite swayed her views. "I am still for Yanukovych," she said. "I have seen so many nice things about him in newspapers and on TV."

As Mr. Zubkov organized a Yushchenko demonstration under a huge Lenin monument that still dominates Yalta's main square, a counter-demonstration of similar size immediately coalesced nearby, mostly by elderly women outraged that a Yushchenko event could occur in this city at all.

"Americans have a toxic-waste problem," said one of the counter-demonstrators, Vladimir Kostenko. "If Yushchenko wins, they will shut down all our mines, making our people jobless, and will use the mines to store the American toxic waste instead."

Protected by a row of police, Mr. Zubkov concluded the rally after a half-hour of speeches and led his supporters on a march through Yalta's main street, where hostile glares greatly outnumbered welcoming waves. Back under the Lenin monument, local teenagers lined up to pick up Mr. Yushchenko's campaign newsletters at the orange tent -- only to burn them a few feet away.

Mr. Zubkov, himself an ethnic Russian who immigrated to Ukraine only in the 1980s, concedes that efforts to portray Mr. Yushchenko as an enemy of Russian-speaking Ukraine have been effective. "For the government, it was easy to shape people's opinions with all this outlandish lunacy," he says. "And once an opinion is formed, we need 10 times the effort to change it."

"REVOLUTION REDUX"

Watching the uprising in Kiev takes me back to Tehran

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12532-2004Dec19.html

COMMENTARY: By Roya Hakakian
The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.
Monday, December 20, 2004; Page A23

Everyone is serenading Kiev these days. "Magical" and "most valorous" were the words on the morning news. But in my mind, Kiev has never looked more like Tehran -- my capital in 1978. Theirs is an orange revolution. But though I still can't discern the shade of our revolution, the similarities are striking.

Rock stars converged on Independence Square in Kiev. In my time it was poetry, poetry, poetry. Revolutions are ignited by politics, but the fuel that sustains their fire is hardly just that. All of Iran's literati and artistic elite got together that year to stage "Ten Nights of Poetry" at Tehran's Goethe Institute. It rained every night. But, what rain? Thousands gathered to hear the flaming speeches of their beloved authors! Our revolution, too, reached its climax in December. Yet we roamed the streets, unfazed. (Never had the Celsius been so gravely insulted!) On milder days we boasted that it was a sign that God was on our side.

We had no tent cities, but the streets were home. And by January 1979, the revolution had transcended the headlines. It had become something visceral: a paradoxical feeling of drowning in a sea of hundreds, yet never breathing better. Caught in those tides, we became the heroes that the quotidian nature of our days had never permitted us to be. With schools, offices and factories shut down, life and time had come to a halt. Six a.m. was the same as six p.m. Nowhere to be but here. Nothing to do but this. We stood idly like the unemployed, though we'd never been so gainfully occupied. (Imagine my quandary when I was asked, in a college interview after my arrival in the United States, if I'd ever been a cheerleader in high school!) The rest of the world had not vanished, but it had gone from being a place we previously dreamed of discovering to a place that we now demanded discover our dream.

Nearly everything was more than met the eye. A tree was an observation post; the stoops, the place for the ad hoc organizing committee to convene. Even the garbage strewn on the sidewalks -- fliers, bandannas, a bloody sock, a tire on fire -- were the venerable reminders of something grand in the making. And the unknown person who raised his middle and index fingers in the shape of a V was unknown no more.

All the lessons our parents and our civic and religious leaders had been teaching us all our lives sank in overnight. Strangers on the streets seemed familiar, like long-lost family members. The sick or the wounded never made it to the stretchers. They levitated in the air, their bodies passing over the crowds' hands. Drivers yielded to pedestrians. Children, watching the screaming adults, stopped their petulance. Mothers distributed sweets among passersby. Patrons in phone booths cut their conversations short to let others make calls. Even love felt greater on the streets that year. There was more to a kiss, to an embrace amid the throngs. The soldiers lurked about us with apprehension. In Kiev, they send the most beautiful female
protesters to negotiate with them. We put carnations in the barrels of their rifles. Despite the chaos, the value of aesthetics is never lost on revolutionaries.

As vivid as these words are on my monitor, so are the details of those memories in my mind. Everything but the color of our revolution. Perhaps it's because history is black. It absorbs all shades into its oblivion, till the victors paint it as they wish. We were the secular, urban youth who wanted, as do our successors even today, a democratic future. We lost. Our grief turned us against ourselves, even against our own memories.

Now we're remembered as the Don Quixotes who chased a sham. Once, we'd been commended for our vision. Soon we were taunted for not having recognized the "realities." (Warning: The popular wisdom that "The journey is more important than the destination" does not apply to revolutions.) And so our brilliant shade of 25 years ago now conjures only darkness. Today, from a corner of the world where I never thought I'd live, suburbs of Connecticut, USA, I, an Iranian exile, with an ear fixed to the radio, root for Ukraine, and hope that the glory of their revolution will not fade in time but remain as it is today: orange and vibrant.

The writer is co-founder of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center
and the author of "Journey From the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in
Revolutionary Iran."

EUROPE'S THIRD WAVE OF LIBERATION

The world should be alert on December 26, when Ukraine re-runs
its election, and in the years to follow as the enemies of freedom
try to undermine Ukraine's progress

COMMENTARY: By Mikheil Saakashvili, President of Georgia
Financial Times, London, UK, Monday, December 20 2004

For those of us who remained behind the iron curtain during Europe's first great wave of liberation after the demise of Nazi Germany, western European states served as the standard bearers of freedom and liberty, generated by the power and promise of democracy. Growing up, the only contact I had with that distant world was by listening secretly to my shortwave radio.

I belong to the generation whose adulthood coincided with the second wave of European liberation, with Solidarity's triumph in Poland, the Velvet Revolution in Prague and the fall of the Berlin wall. I remember very well the moment I heard on Radio Liberty that the Berlin wall had collapsed. I had tears in my eyes. I was 22 at the time and knew instantly that nothing would ever be the same again and that a new and better life was starting for all of us.

As it turned out, the democratic wave of the early 1990s was limited to eastern Europe and the Baltic states. Although Georgia fought alongside the Balts for independence from Soviet rule, only the Baltic states succeeded in freeing their societies. Freedom, combined with democracy, is what made them successful.

Unfortunately, the other states of the former Soviet Union did not make it and independence for these peoples became synonymous with authoritarianism, kleptocracy and civil war. Instead of real democracy, these coun tries experienced a distorted perversion where elections were held but the rulers never changed, where wealth was intercepted by kleptocratic elites and where average people felt their voice and interests mattered least of all. Power in these regimes did not come from the people - it came at the expense of people, and for many of us these regimes seemed eternal.

Then, late last year, the Georgian people rose up to challenge the legitimacy of an authoritarian regime after my predecessor's government stole the elections. In reaction to overwhelming fraud, we took to the streets in weeks of non-violent protest. Our efforts forced Eduard Shevardnadze, the president, to resign. Since then we have held three sets of elections - presidential, parliamentary and regional, all acknowledged by international observers as "free and fair", a first in the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Following our peaceful revolution, many in the Russian media sought to portray Georgia as a dangerous exception - as impulsive, unpredictable and bound to fail. They explained our revolution away as a strange aberration with roots in the extravagant, perhaps theatrical, nature of Georgian society. Certainly, the detractors claimed, nothing like this could happen in any other CIS country.

Then the Ukrainian presidential elections approached. My education began in Ukraine and there I received my first college degree. Living in Kiev, I learnt Ukrainian and fell in love with the people and I continue to care deeply about what happens in Ukraine. In the months before the elections, I spoke to many national leaders, including Leonid Kuchma, Ukraine's president. I cautioned them that if democracy there was once again defaced, developments similar to those in Georgia could unfold.

Some of my interlocutors openly doubted my concerns, citing the superior state of the Ukrainian economy over Georgia's under Mr Shevardnadze, or stronger Ukrainian government control of the media and law-enforcement agencies. I disagreed. My message was simple: the struggle would be not about the economy or the strength of government but rather about democracy and the fundamental right of citizens freely to choose their future. No matter how strong a grip one might have over the media, a blackout of the truth was not possible.

Subsequent events in Ukraine validated my prognosis. The Ukrainian people stood up peacefully to defend their right to democracy. Like many Georgians, I admired their courage and was proud to see Georgian flags alongside Ukrainian national flags in Kiev's Independence Square. I also enjoyed hearing leaders of the "Orange Revolution" make frequent reference to the Georgian example.

Yet, just as over Georgia, commentators in Russia and elsewhere have started to cry conspiracy, suggesting that mysterious, even shadowy, forces engineered events in both Georgia and Ukraine. As a leader of one of those revolutions and a great fan of the other, I can say that those inventing such theories do not understand the essentials of human nature. No money, tricks or publicity can bring millions out into the streets. Nothing can force the people to brave the cold and risk their lives other than their ultimate instinct to be free.

The citizens of Georgia were not inspired to defend their future by political consultants or other outside influences. Rather, our heroes are people such as Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa. We Georgians believe we are Europeans because our values and culture are deeply European - so too are those of Ukrainians and other post-Soviet citizens. There is no reason why Poles, Germans and Estonians should be free while other Europeans are not. The call initiated by Georgia's Rose Revolution and multiplied by Ukraine's Orange Revolution will spread - as demonstrators chanted in Kiev, freedom cannot be stopped.

Today, events are unfolding rapidly. The world should be alert on December 26, when Ukraine re-runs its election, and in the years to follow as the enemies of freedom will try to undermine Ukraine's progress just as they try in my own country. Ultimately, I believe that revanchist attempts will fail. Reforms can be expected throughout the whole post-Soviet region and they will lead to completion of the third and final wave of the European liberation.

"ORANGE AND AUSCHWITZ"

OP-ED By Bohdan Koczor, Chicago Tribune
Chicago, Illinois, Tue, 21 December 2004

I have a name. I also have a number. My parents gave me my name. It's a good Ukrainian name, and I have always been proud of it, and of my people. It wasn't always good to be a Ukrainian, however.

I was just a teenager in western Ukraine when World War II broke out. The Soviets came claiming they would liberate us. Instead they began liquidating us. The Germans drove them out. They also said they had come to free us from the Bolsheviks.

Then they began to execute us, to exploit us, even to export us as slave laborers to the Third Reich. Too many people still bury Ukraine's losses among those of the Soviet Union or Poland. They pretend Ukrainians did not exist. We proved otherwise. We resisted. Ukraine's anti-Nazi and anti-Soviet movement would carry on an armed struggle for our people's freedom well into the 1950s.

People forget all that. When they speak of Ukrainians and the war, they refer to us only as collaborators or camp guards. I was in a camp, in fact several. But I wasn't there as a guard. In fact, that's where I got my number. It's 154754. The Nazis gave it to me.

They made it easy for me to remember, by tattooing it on my forearm. I was 19 years old when they did that to me at Auschwitz. They brought me there because I was a member of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. I know it has become politically correct to label Ukrainian nationalists as anti-Semitic Nazi collaborators. That is not true.

We fought for a free Ukraine against all those who tried to extinguish our kind. Another Ukrainian there was Andriy Yushchenko, the father of Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine's next president, I hope.

Yes, there were some Ukrainians who collaborated, out of fear, out of greed, out of prejudice. But I saw such scum among every nation represented among those at Auschwitz. I also saw them in the other concentration camps the Nazis carted me off to, including Mathausen, Melk and Ebensee. Many Ukrainian patriots, men and women, perished at the hands of the Nazis. Only a few were lucky enough to survive and to find a new life in the West, even as our homeland fell under Soviet occupation, again.

In 1991 I celebrated the collapse of the Soviet empire and Ukraine's independence. I believed that, finally, Ukraine would rejoin Europe, become a normal country. That did not happen. Ukraine remained under the grip of former communists whose corrupt rule wreaked havoc on the land.

Like many others in our diaspora, I began to despair. Would Ukraine ever be free? And then came our "Orange Revolution." In the last few weeks hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have marched and mobilized to demonstrate that they will have their freedom. I am proud to see my people stand up for liberty, unmistakably showing the whole world that they will not tolerate more of what they have endured in the 13 years since independence supposedly came.

Last month Ukrainians watched in horror as the old guard tried to steal the election from the people. The nation made sure that didn't happen. On Sunday another election will confirm that Ukra ine's people want to be in Europe, not sequestered in some post-Soviet reserve on the margins of civilization. There are some who fear this resurgence of Ukrainian nationalism, who already have begun to slur this movement by pulling out the oldest and dirtiest canard in the book, claiming Ukrainian nationalists are intrinsically anti-Semitic.

We weren't, and the Orange Revolution isn't. I affirm that as a Holocaust survivor imprisoned at Auschwitz because I was a Ukrainian nationalist. Tomorrow's democratic Ukraine will be a home to all who contribute to Ukrainian freedom today.

"'MEDDLING' IN UKRAINE"

Democracy is not an American plot

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15131-2004Dec20.html

OP-ED By Michael McFaul, The Washington Post
Washington, D.C. Tuesday, December 21, 2004; Page A25

Events in Ukraine have inspired most people living in the free world. Ukrainian democrats stood together in the freezing cold to demand from their government what we citizens of democracies take for granted: the right to elect their leaders in free and fair elections. But not all observers of Ukraine's "Orange Revolution" are so elated. Instead of democracy's advance,
some see a U.S.-funded, White House-orchestrated conspiracy to undermine Ukrainian sovereignty, weaken Russia's sphere of influence and expand Washington's imperial reach. These skeptics range from presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela to Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, columnist Patrick
Buchanan, and left-wingers in the Nation and the Guardian. This odd collection of critics is a little bit right and a whole lot wrong.

Did Americans meddle in the internal affairs of Ukraine? Yes. The American agents of influence would prefer different language to describe their activities -- democratic assistance, democracy promotion, civil society support, etc. -- but their work, however labeled, seeks to influence
political change in Ukraine. The U.S. Agency for International Development, the National Endowment for Democracy and a few other foundations sponsored certain U.S. organizations, including Freedom House, the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, the Solidarity Center, the Eurasia Foundation, Internews and several others to
provide small grants and technical assistance to Ukrainian civil society. The European Union, individual European countries and the Soros-funded International Renaissance Foundation did the same.

In the run-up to Ukraine's presidential vote this fall, these American and European organizations concentrated their resources on creating conditions for free and fair elections. Western organizations provided training and some direct assistance to the Committee of Ukrainian Voters, Ukraine's first-rate election-monitoring organization. Western funders pooled resources to sponsor two exit polls. Western foundations also provided assistance to independent media. Freedom House and others supported Znayu and the Freedom of Choice Coalition, whose members included the high-profile Pora student movement. And through their conferences and publications, these American organizations supported the flow of knowledge and contacts between Ukrainian democrats and their counterparts in Slovakia, Croatia, Romania and Serbia. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe coordinated with several other European, U.S. and Canadian organizations to organize a major international monitoring effort of the election process. Formally, this help was nonpartisan, because the aim was to aid the electoral process. Yet most of these groups believed that a free and fair election would mean
victory for Viktor Yushchenko. And they were right.

Did the U.S. government fund the Yushchenko campaign directly? Not to my knowledge. Both the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute conducted training programs for Ukrainian political parties, some of which later joined the Yushchenko coalition. But in the years leading up to the 2004 votes, American ambassadors in Ukraine insisted
that no U.S. government money could be provided to any candidate. Private sources of external funding and expertise aided the Yushchenko campaign. Likewise, U.S. and Russian public relations consultants worked with the Yushchenko campaign, just as U.S. and Russian public relations people were brought in to help his opponent, Viktor Yanukovych. In future elections
Ukrainian officials might enforce more controls on foreign resources. But this kind of private, for-profit campaign advice occurs everywhere now, and Americans no longer control the market.

Did American money bring about the Orange Revolution? Absolutely not. The combination of a weak, divided and corrupt ancien r?gime and a united, mobilized and highly motivated opposition produced Ukraine's democratic breakthrough. Westerners did not create or control the Ukrainian democratic movement but rather supported its cause on the margins. Moreover, democracy promotion groups do not have a recipe for revolution. If the domestic conditions aren't ripe, there will be no democratic breakthrough, no matter how crafted the technical assistance or how strategically invested the small grants. In fact, Western democracy promoters work in most developing democracies in the world, yet democratic transitions are rare.

Do these American democracy assistance groups carry out the will of the Bush administration? Not really. One of the greatest myths about U.S. democracy efforts is that a senior White House official carefully choreographs the efforts of the National Endowment for Democracy or Freedom House. While they are perhaps supportive philosophically, policymakers at the White House and the State Department have had almost nothing to do with the design or implementation of American democracy assistance programs. In some countries, they clash with one another. I witnessed this as the National Democratic Institute's representative in Moscow during the last days of the Soviet Union: "They" -- the U.S. policymakers -- supported Mikhail Gorbachev; "we" worked with Democratic Russia, Gorbachev's opponents. The same divide is
present in many countries today.

Does this kind of intervention violate international norms? Not anymore. There was a time when championing state sovereignty was a progressive idea, since the advance of statehood helped destroy empires. But today those who revere the sovereignty of the state above all else often do so to preserve autocracy, while those who champion the sovereignty of the people are the new progressives. In Ukraine, external actors who helped the people be heard were not violating the sovereignty of the Ukrainian people; they were defending it.

The writer is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and an associate
professor of political science at Stanford University.

YUSHCHENKO LIKELY TO PUSH REFORMS IF ELECTED

Ukraine Opposition Leader Expected to Buoy Economy

EUROPEAN BUSINESS NEWS
By Poul Funder Larsen, Dow Jones Newswires
The Wall Street Journal, NY, NY, Tue, December 21, 2004

KIEV, Ukraine -- Dressed in a dark business suit, Petro Poroshenko hardly looks the part of a revolutionary just back from the barricades. Only a bright orange shirt betrays that this Ukrainian entrepreneur and parliamentary deputy is a fervent supporter of the country's opposition leader, Viktor Yushchenko.

Mr. Poroshenko is quick to project an image of stability and continuity in the sphere of macroeconomics, if Mr. Yushchenko takes power, as widely expected, after Sunday's polls. "The financial system is already stabilizing, and we will manage to stop the drift toward a banking crisis," he says.

As head of the budgetary committee of Verkhovna Rade, Ukraine 's parliament, Mr. Poroshenko is a key economic-policy maker for the opposition, and a likely candidate for one of the main economic portfolios in a new cabinet, if Mr. Yushchenko becomes president.

For his part, Mr. Yushchenko, who advocates closer ties between Ukraine and the European Union, has vowed fiscal prudence, if he is voted president. So far, the candidate and his entourage have been fairly tight-lipped, when it comes to broader economic policy statements, but analysts say Mr. Yushchenko's track record as Ukrainian prime minister in 2000-2001 bodes well for rapid economic reform in the country. A major challenge faced by a new administration will be to decide on whether to reverse a number of dubious privatization deals struck under departing President Leonid Kuchma, observers say.

Mr. Poroshenko is adamant that a new Yushchenko government won't resort to fiscal populism by printing money, or running large budget deficits, to maintain the loyalty of voters. A Yushchenko administration is committed to striving toward a balanced budget, Mr. Poroshenko insists. "I think we ought to be able to adopt a budget with no deficit, or a deficit that is no higher than 0.5%" of gross domestic product, he says.

Fortunately, the economic backdrop to the current political turbulence is relatively benign, analysts say. The Ukrainian economy is headed for 12% annual growth this year, but increased social payouts in the run-up to the elections means price inflation is expected to clock in at more than 11%, up from 8% last year. As a result, the overall economic record of current Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych's government, however, doesn't draw rave reviews from analysts.

"The Yanukovych government has been a very lucky government, benefiting from a favorable pricing situation for exports such as steel and chemicals," says Vladimir Dinul, analyst with Foyil Securities New Europe, a Kiev investment bank.

On Dec. 26, Mr. Yushchenko will again face Mr. Yanukovych, who has been backed by Mr. Kuchma and most of Ukraine 's powerful financial-industrial groups. Latest opinion polls show Mr. Yushchenko in a comfortable lead, but the spectre of vote rigging continues to haunt the electoral process.

While observers expect Mr. Yushchenko to pursue reform of the Ukrainian economy, considerable uncertainty remains as to how Yushchenkonomics will look in practice. The economic campaign message of Mr. Yushchenko has focused on slogans about tax reform and cuts in government bureaucracy, but also on a vague promise to create five million jobs over the next five-year period. "I haven't seen anything that you could describe as a clear program on economic policy," Mr. Dinul says. "At this point we have to judge by what Yushchenko did as a prime minister."

Mr. Yushchenko's term as prime minister was characterized by overhauls of the country's inefficient energy sector and the introduction of open privatization tenders. That record inspires confidence in his continued commitment to liberalization, observers say. "The market pins its hopes on a Yushchenko victory, expecting faster progress with structural reforms, more radical steps to improve corporate transparency and more efficient protection of minority shareholders' rights," Kiev stockbrokers Dragon Capital said in a recent report.

Among the likely priorities for a Yushchenko administration is legal reform, a campaign to combat bureaucracy and corruption in the state apparatus, and a program to improve the situation for Ukraine 's small and midsize enterprises, notably in the sphere of taxation, Mr. Dinul says. Overhauling the tax system is key in both stimulating entrepreneurship and plugging holes in the budget. "We need to broaden the tax base," Mr. Poroshenko says. According to figures from the Yushchenko camp the black economy amounts to 55% of Ukrainian GDP.

Much, however, will depend on the precise realignment of political forces after the Dec. 26 vote. Mr. Yushchenko's candidacy is backed by a loose political coalition consisting of three main components: The candidate's own center-right movement Our Ukraine ; Timoshenko's Bloc, a group of center-right deputies led by Yulia Timoshenko, a former deputy prime minister; and the Socialist Party, a social democratic grouping. If Mr. Yushchenko appoints socialist leader Alexander Moroz as his prime minister, a move seen as likely by some Ukrainian analysts, reforms are likely to be gradual and cautious, while a cabinet led by Mr. Timoshenko, the firebrand of Ukrainian politics, would be expected to move much faster on liberal
reform.

Issues of property redistribution and future privatization could well prove the most controversial aspects of Mr. Yushchenko's economic policies, analysts say. During Mr. Kuchma's years in power a number of financial-industrial groups have gobbled up many prime assets.

YANUKOVICH TURNS ON KUCHMA IN ANTI-WEST OUTBURST

By Tom Warner in Sevastopol, Financial Times
London, UK, Tuesday, December 21 2004

SEVASTOPOL - Viktor Yanukovich, Ukrainian prime minister, yesterday positioned himself as radically anti-western, accusing Leonid Kuchma, the outgoing president who supported him in last month's failed election, of betraying him and Ukraine to foreign interests.

Speaking in a televised debate ahead of fresh presidential elections on Sunday, he told Viktor Yushchenko, the opposition leader: "I'm against you [Mr Yushchenko and Mr Kuchma] uniting and teaching Ukrainians how to live with help from za bugra, he said using a coarse expression for "abroad".

Accused by Mr Yushchenko of mismanaging the economy, Mr Yanukovich also claimed that foreign election observers had interfered in the recent political crisis by funding street demonstrations.

The highly emotional exchange contrasted sharply with a carefully managed "debate" held before the previous election. In that exercise, the two candidates were restricted to taking turns making speeches and were not allowed to ask each other questions. In spite of Mr Yanukovich's hard-hitting tone, it was Mr Yushchenko who appeared the more confident of the two last night.

Mr Yanukovich, who was declared the winner of what was supposed to be the final round of the presidential elections last month, is expected to do significantly less well in this Sunday's repeat vote. The Supreme Court ordered the repeat vote after ruling that last month's election was spoiled by systematic fraud.

The anger expressed by Mr Yanukovich in last night's debate echoed the heightened emotion of campaigning in the southern and eastern regions, which supported him last time but now appear more divided.

In Sevastopol, the Crimean city that hosts the main base of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, a St Nicholas day religious procession turned violent on Sunday. A small group of Mr Yanukovich's supporters who had marched in the procession split off and began waving their blue-and-white Yanukovich banners in front of passing cars. Eyewitnesses said that when a few cars decorated in the orange colour of Mr Yushchenko's campaign approached, they were attacked by Yanukovich supporters.

"Unfortunately, what happened here on Sunday was part of a clear trend," said Timofey Nikityuk, head of the local branch of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, a domestic election observer group. "Campaigning [for the repeat election] has been much more aggressive than it was before previous rounds."

The residents of Sevastopol were among the most disappointed when Mr Yanukovich's win was annulled. According to the official results, Mr Yanukovich won more than 88 per cent of the city's votes, and Mr Yushchenko's campaign team acknowledges that it will lose in the city even if the election is fair.

Likewise, in Mr Yanukovich's native Donbas region, Mr Yushchenko's supporters have been attacked by groups of young men and some have been seriously injured. Journalists covering Yushchenko campaign events have been beaten and their cameras damaged.

In other southern and eastern regions, the campaign has been peaceful but filled with tension. In the Black Sea town of Odessa on Saturday, Mr Yanukovich and a member of Mr Yushchenko's political team, Olexader Moroz, held rival campaign rallies in a central square in close succession.

A couple of hundred supporters of Mr Yanukovich, who appeared first, stayed on to shout taunts and wave blue-and-white banners at Mr Moroz and the orange-bedecked crowd. Lines of police separated the two groups but many Yushchenko and Yanukovich supporters peeled off to argue with each other.

"Go! Get out of here! You have no connection whatsoever with Odessa!" shouted one middle-aged supporter of Mr Yanukovich, her eyes wet with tears. In central and western regions, Mr Yushchenko's supporters are confident of a sweeping victory and the government apparatus, which worked hard to rally support for Mr Yanukovich in last month's vote, has been largely subdued. However, in southern and eastern regions, state organs remain powerful and continue to work for Mr Yanukovich's campaign.

In Sevastopol, according to Mr Nikityuk, it is the mayor, appointed by Mr Kuchma, and the local tax administration chief, appointed by Mr Yanukovich's government, who have done the most for Mr Yanukovich's campaign. In the Donbas, powerful business groups allied to Mr Yanukovich have taken the leading role. Throughout the south and east, elected mayors and city councils have become more active in supporting Mr Yanukovich.

Pavlo Ignatenko, a member of parliament who runs Mr Yushchenko's campaign headquarters in Sevastopol, says these councillors are not so much supporting Mr Yanukovich as "fighting for their personal survival". "Many of them have done things for which they should be punished by a court of law. They are in a state of panic," he said.

YUSHCHENKO ATTACKS, YANUKOVYCH DUCKS

IN TV DEBATE AHEAD OF SUNDAY'S RERUN PRESIDENTIAL VOTE

Agence France Presse (AFP), Kiev, Ukraine, Mon, Dec 20, 2004

KIEV (AFP) - Ukraine opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko hammered his presidential rival for stealing votes as the two men faced off during their sole televised debate days ahead of a historic re-run election.

"There is one reason why we are here -- the election of November 21 was stolen by my opponent and his team," Viktor Yushchenko said, speaking in Ukrainian, in his opening remarks in reference to a vote officially won by his rival but later annulled by the supreme court because of fraud. "You stole three million votes," he told his opponent Viktor Yanukovich, a prime minister who has taken a leave for the campaign.

The phrase set the tone for the rest of the nearly two-hour debate -- Yushchenko, confident and on steady moral ground, challenging a Yanukovich who often rambled and at times seemed resigned to defeat. "Yushchenko was 100 percent sure that he will win the election and Yanukovich was 90 percent sure that he is going to lose," said Kostyantyn Kvurt, an analyst in Kiev.

The prime-time exchange came days ahead of their December 26 rematch, which was set after the earlier vote embroiled Ukraine in its worst political crisis in 13 years of independence and enflamed tensions between Russia and the West.

Throughout the debate Yushchenko, wearing a tie in the orange color of his campaign, reminded people of the "orange revolution" that the opposition organized to protest fraud after the November poll. "They tried to steal our future," he said.

Yanukovich, wearing a tie in the blue color of his campaign and speaking mostly in Russian, tried to distance himself from the government he headed for two years and appealed to Yushchenko to join efforts, warning him that his presidency would otherwise lack legitimacy. "Those on (Kiev's central Independence) Square lived this revolution with their souls and I agree with them," Yanukovich said. "We have de facto divided Ukraine," Yanukovich said. "We have to sit down to discuss how to live after the election."

The two men should unite "to send this old regime into retirement," otherwise "one of us will be elected president of one part of the country," he said. But Yushchenko was unrelenting. "You are the candidate of the regime," he said.

With less than a week to go before a December 26 rerun election, the two rivals are in very different positions than ahead of their November contest -- the pro-Western Yushchenko is now seen as the frontrunner while the Moscow-friendly prime minister is casting himself as an outsider fighting the ruling regime.

The crisis over the November vote split the country in two deeply polarized camps, with the Ukrainian-speaking, nationalist west and north supporting Yushchenko, 50, and the Russian-speaking, industrial south and east backing Yanukovich, 54.

It also echoed on the world stage, with the European Union and the United States backing Yushchenko's claims of fraud while Russia backed Yanukovich. Both candidates mentioned the international dimension to their contest Monday night. "It is high time that the president of an independent Ukraine not be elected by Moscow," Yushchenko said. "The Ukrainian people can chose its president of their own free will."

When Yanukovich made a half-hearted attempt to question the source of financing of Yushchenko's campaign, asking him if he would be in favor oflimiting foreign non-government organizations in Ukraine, the opposition leader parried: "I thought you were going to ask me directly whether I was financed by Russian or American money," he said.

"I have to tell you truthfully, my hands are clean, I have never stolen anything in my life... I have never been convicted, I lead an honest life," Yushchenko said, in a thinly-veiled reference to Yanukovich's two criminal convictions as a youth that he would repeat several times.

At times Yanukovich seemed to nearly admit defeat. When Yushchenko demanded why Yanukovich had once called his supporters "assholes" and "orange rats," the prime minister replied meekly: "If I've used emotional words, I beg your pardon." And in his closing remarks Yanukovich said: "I want to apologize to you all that we had irregularities in our campaign."

VIKTOR YUSHCHENKO TELLS TV AUDIENCE:'PM TRIED TO STEAL THE ELECTION'

Askold Krushelnycky in Kiev, The Independent
London, United Kingdom; Tuesday, Dec 21, 2004

KIEV - UKRAINE'S BITTER presidential rivals clashed last night on live television in their first face-to-face encounter since the massive street protests that propelled the country into the international spotlight and overturned the election result. The eagerly awaited debate lived up to its billing as the West-leaning Viktor Yushchenko accused the Russian-backed Prime Minister, Viktor Yanukovych, of trying to steal the November run-off.

The pair's only previous television appearance was a strictly choreographed affair with the subjects agreed upon beforehand and no room for real debate. The old format was at the insistence of the Yanukovych camp. This time it was played out under Yushchenko's rules in the only debate before the Boxing Day rerun of last month's presidential election.

The opposition, backed by international observers, declared that the original election had been rigged in favour of the government candidate, Mr Yanukovych, a view upheld by Ukraine's Supreme Court, which ordered a repeat election for next Sunday.

Mr Yushchenko, not known for aggressive rhetoric, came out fighting, saying: "You the viewers may be asking why we two guys are back here again. It's because Mr Yanukovych and his team tried to steal the election."

Mr Yanukovych was declared the winner in the 21 November election by a narrow margin. But the opposition maintain that cheating, mostly by people provided with fake documents who voted for Mr Yanukovych multiple times at different polling stations, filched three million votes.

However, Mr Yanukovych warned Mr Yushchenko that nearly half the country voted for each of them and if they do not come to some agreement whoever wins will represent only part of the country. Mr Yanukovych also warned of a possible break-up of Ukraine, an echo of warnings made by his allies, governors of the eastern regions where the country's large ethnic Russian minority predominantly live. The opposition has said that if it comes to power, as most opinion polls now predict, it will charge those officials with treason. Referring to separatist threats, Mr Yushchenko said: "We should all ensure that the Ukraine's integrity is sacred and agree that
nobody should run off to eastern or southern Ukraine and try to break it up."

Mr Yanukovych, who has been heavily backed by the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, accused his opponent of being sponsored by the West. He has said many times that the hundreds of thousands of opposition demonstrators who forced the fresh election had been paid money for their weeks of protests. His wife said they had all been drugged by narcotics administered in oranges given to them.

Mr Yushchenko said: "Those people out on the streets are not being paid by anyone. You can see that by looking in their eyes." He said they were motivated by a desire to see a government installed by their vote and not by the sort of sleight of hand used since Ukraine's independence 13 years ago.

He said: "They don't want the president of Ukraine to be elected in Russia." Referring to his opponent's two prison stretches for assault and robbery, Mr Yushchenko said: "I have not taken money from anyone. I have never stolen anything and I have never been convicted of any crime."

"WE USED TO KNEEL BEFORE THE PEOPLE IN POWER"

UKRAINE HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED BY THE POLITICAL TURMOIL OF RECENT MONTHS
If Viktor Yushchenko does win the presidency in next week's rerun election he faces huge challenges, write Stefan Wagstyl and Tom Warner

By Stefan Wagstyl and Tom Warner
Financial Times, London, UK, Tue, December 21 2004

Viktor Yanukovich, Ukraine's prime minister, and Viktor Yushchenko, the opposition leader, last night confronted each other in a television debate, their only face-to-face meeting before Sunday's rerun of the country's disputed presidential election. The atmosphere was formal, but there was no disguising the tensions in Europe's most important political drama of 2004.

Mr Yushchenko has emerged from weeks of crisis as the favourite to win. But the tough-talking Mr Yanukovich is not giving up. And if he loses, he is likely to appeal to the courts, as Mr Yushchenko did last time. Whatever happens on December 26, Ukraine's biggest political crisis since it won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 will rumble on into 2005.

If Mr Yushchenko wins he faces big challenges, including building a genuine democracy, developing a free market economy and uniting a divided country. He must cope with the legacy of the decade-long authoritarian rule of President Leonid Kuchma. Abroad, he must deal with Russia, which has openly backed Mr Yanukovich, and try to fulfil his hopes of better ties with the west, especially the European Union.

Russia and the west will have to decide how to engage with a new Ukraine. If Mr Yushchenko wins and consolidates his victory, the "Orange Revolution" could set a powerful democratic precedent for neighbouring states, including Russia. But if Mr Yanukovich wins or if a Yushchenko presidency runs into trouble, it could be Russian-style "managed democracy" that triumphs in the region.

Kalman Mizsei, regional director for the United Nations Development Programme for Europe and the former Soviet Union, says: "This country really has to fight for its identity. But I think that [events in] Ukraine will have an effect on the whole region."

The country that the election winner will govern will be quite different from the one that went into the presidential election campaign this summer. Most Ukrainians expected that Mr Kuchma would end his 10 years in power by ensuring the succession of his hand-picked successor, Mr Yanukovich. The administrative machine was organised to manipulate television and dragoon managers into bullying their staff to back the prime minister. Russian and Ukrainian business were encouraged to provide support.

When this failed to win enough votes, the authorities rigged the ballot and Mr Yanukovich was officially declared winner in the November 21 poll. But he had underestimated Mr Yushchenko and the extent of public discontent. The opposition leader, who had served Mr Kuchma as central bank governor and prime minister before striking out on his own in politics, prepared carefully for the election by building a broad coalition. The campaign suffered a big setback when Mr Yushchenko was poisoned, allegedly while dining with Ukrainian secret police chiefs. The 50-year-old opposition leader was left badly disfigured. But he became even more determined to overthrow Mr Kuchma.

When Mr Yushchenko realised the election was being stolen he called out his supporters. They came in their tens of thousands and did not leave until the poll had been declared invalid, a new date set and a package of reforms enacted to try to prevent frauds. A few thousand remain in place in central Kiev.

This was the "Orange Revolution" that has changed Ukraine. To an extent it was pre-planned, as Mr Yushchenko's campaign managers had made contingencies for a fraudulent result. But mostly the protests were spontaneous: so large that they surprised even Mr Yushchenko's supporters. At their peak, 500,000 crowded into central Kiev, creating a rolling carnival of orange hats, scarves and banners.

Mr Kuchma had insisted there would be no "Georgian scenario". His officials argued that Mr Kuchma was much more secure than Eduard Shevardnadze, Georgia's former president, and that Ukrainians were more passive than Georgians.

They were wrong. A nation battered into submission by war and oppression in the 20th century threw off its mental shackles. As Nadia Berezovska, a middle-aged postmistress who joined the protests, said: "We used to go down on our knees before the people in power, but now we have got to our feet."

Whatever happens in the election, Ukraine has been transformed. Any attempt to re-impose authoritarian rule would face serious resistance. People are already trying to institutionalise the change. For example, in the provinces local leaders are demanding administrative decentralisation. It is easy to see this as a danger, especially with the political division of the country between a Russia-oriented east that has supported Mr Yanukovich and central and western regions that mostly back Mr Yushchenko.

However, east and west share a belief that Mr Kuchma has concentrated too much power in Kiev. Hryhory Nemyrya , chairman of the Renaissance Foundation, a west-oriented Kiev think tank, says that in this proliferation of local initiatives "civil society is being born". his wave of popular enthusiasm creates political challenges. Expectations are running high and disappointments are almost inevitable. As the likely election winner, Mr Yushchenko faces many hurdles.

The first is the poll itself. Everything points to a much more honest vote than last time, but one that will still not be completely fair. The will of the Kuchma government to resist popular support for Mr Yushchenko has been broken. Most officials in Kiev, governors and lower-level administrators in central and western regions have likewise given up the game.

The key organisers of election fraud and of unfair tactics have left the scene, including the prosecutor general, the interior minister and the central election commission chairman. Other senior figures in Mr Kuchma's administration have deserted Mr Yanukovich: they are headed by Viktor Pinchuk, a business oligarch and Mr Kuchma's son-in-law. But the prime minister has retained the support of business leaders in the eastern Donbas industrial region, including Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine's richest man, and Viktor Medvedchuk, the head of the presidential administration and a
powerful businessman. Mr Kuchma himself seems to be oscillating between the two groups.

Safeguards against fraud have been dramatically improved. Electoral reforms passed earlier this month limit the scope for cheating. The Central Election Commission and local election commissions are being reconstituted. International observers are coming in even larger numbers than last month (see above).

It is therefore unlikely that there will be large-scale cheating anywhere except in the Donbas region. Mr Yanukovich's strategy is not to win but to confirm himself as the political leader of Donetsk and Luhansk regions and establish himself as the head of the national opposition to Mr Yushchenko. He expects big wins in Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine's far east, where he scored more than 90 per cent last time. The test will be how much support he wins in the centre and south.

Mr Yanukovich will also want to undermine the validity of the result by seizing on any evidence of wrongdoing by Mr Yushchenko's supporters, so he can later claim he was cheated.

Assuming Mr Yushchenko wins, his next challenge will be forming his government. His coalition was largely formed to overthrow Mr Kuchma and, once Mr Kuchma has gone, tensions will inevitably emerge. Mr Yushchenko's allies include Olexander Moroz, the Socialist party leader, Anatoliy Kinakh, a former prime minister and an important defector from the Kuchma camp, and Yulia Tymoshenko, a former deputy prime minister in Mr Yushchenko's reformist government of 1999-2001.

Ms Tymoshenko is a controversial figure, having made a fortune in the early 1990s trading in the state-controlled gas market. With her firebrand speeches she has played a big role in the "Orange Revolution". But her radical views - she has called for a wholesale review of past privatisations - clash with Mr Yushchenko's conciliatory approach. She is also tainted by corruption claims dating back to the mid-1990s, which she dismisses as political attacks. Building a government around Ms Tymoshenko will be difficult. Building one without her might be even harder.

To make matters worse Mr Yushchenko will have only a few months before constitutional changes take effect. Agreed with Mr Kuchma earlier this month, these involve transferring power from the presidency to parliament, starting later this year and ending in the spring of 2006, just after the next parliamentary election.

In principle, Mr Yushchenko supports the reforms because they make any return to authoritarianism more difficult. But in practice, the changes will greatly complicate political life.

The job will be made tougher by Mr Yushchenko's determination to allow prosecutors to investigate crimes of the Kuchma era - notably his own poisoning and the murder in 2000 of opposition journalist Georgy Gongadze. How fast the investigators work and whom they target could easily cause arguments among the coalition partners.

Ukraine's east-west tensions will require careful handling. During the current crisis, leaders in the Donbas have made separatist threats but they are not a serious danger. The division between a nationalist Ukrainian-speaking west and a Russia-oriented Russian-speaking east has declined since independence, largely as a result of Mr Kuchma's efforts to build a single nation. Mr Yushchenko hopes planned administrative devolution will satisfy the demands for regional autonomy.

The economy will require rapid remedial action. After coming close to economic collapse in the 1990s, Ukraine has recently staged a strong recovery, with 12 per cent gross domestic product growth expected this year. However, even Mr Kuchma's ministers are predicting a sharp slowdown next year, cutting a forecast 8.6 per cent growth to 6.5 per cent. Boosted by a pre-election public spending spree, inflation and government borrowing are rising.

Yushchenko also faces serious structural economic questions. He has promised to resist calls for the wholesale revision of privatisation, saying he wants to concentrate on the future. But he plans to review the state's $800m sale of the Kryvorizhstal steel mill, acquired this year by Mr Pinchuk and Mr Akhmetov. Drawing a line between this deal and others, while encouraging new investment, will be tricky.

International relations will require urgent action. Mr Yushchenko wants better ties with the west, which have suffered from the reluctance of the US and the EU to engage with Mr Kuchma's regime. Ukrainians will hope for rapid change, especially in relations with Brussels.

But the EU has ruled out what Ukrainians most want - an early promise of eventual membership. At this month's EU summit, leaders rejected Poland's proposals for a special relationship with a democratic Ukraine. Instead, Kiev may secure modest aid increases, quicker recognition of market economy status and support for joining the World Trade Organisation.

Mr Yushchenko may make more progress with Nato, which has run a partnership programme with Kiev for some time. Mr Yushchenko's colleagues hope for entry in two years, but the obstacles are formidable - not least Russia's likely opposition.

Mr Yushchenko says he wants good ties with Moscow. But the difficulties are immense. President Vladimir Putin's officials see the former Soviet Union as Russia's sphere of influence and regard western involvement as an intrusion. They are furious at what they see as "losing" Ukraine to Mr Yushchenko and seem certain to continue backing Mr Yanukovich. At their disposal they have powerful weapons, including political and economic ties and security service links.

The Baltic states offer examples of how Russia interferes in the politics of former Soviet republics. In Lithuania, Rolandas Paksas, a populist politician backed by Russian money, last year won the presidency. He was impeached and replaced this year because of alleged links with Russian intelligence and Russian organised crime. In Latvia and Estonia, Russian ministers exploit the difficulties of ethnic Russian minorities. Ukraine, which was ruled from Moscow for centuries, seems even more open to manipulation.

Coming from a small village not far from the Ukrainian-Russian border, Mr Yushchenko understands the challenge Russia represents. Nothing will help more in his dealings with the Kremlin than an emphatic victory on Sunday.

Petro Poroshenko, the 39-year-old owner of Ukraine's largest confectionery company who played a leading role in the "Orange Revolution", says he is determined to prove that business and politics in his country do not have to be intimately intertwined.

As one of the top figures in Viktor Yushchenko's team, Mr Poroshenko is expected to get an important job - possibly the post of prime minister - if the opposition leader wins the presidency. That is putting Mr Poroshenko and his business holdings in the limelight. "I think we will have an opportunity to prove that we did not go to the government just for positions. We really want to create a democratic system," says Mr Poroshenko, the chairman of the parliamentary budget committee.

Supporters of Viktor Yanukovich, the incumbent prime minister and Mr Yushchenko's opponent, say the elections are a contest between two "clans" of business people, some of whom were satisfied with their relationship with the current government and others who were jealous. Mr Yushchenko' supporters reject that view and say a new generation of business leaders has accepted the principles of free-market democracy, such as a level playing field and the rule of law.

Mr Poroshenko says he is not involved in managing his own businesses, having put his shares into trust after he was first elected to parliament in 1998. However, he remains chairman of the non-executive "public council" of his television channel, Channel 5. Although its broadcasts reach only parts of the country, Channel 5 has emerged during the election campaign as one of Ukraine's three most-watched television channels. It broadcast live coverage of the protests in downtown Kiev, which were initially ignored by almost all other channels. "Before these elections, only 3 to 6 per cent of people were interested in political news. Today the figure is around 50 per cent," Mr Poroshenko says.

One obvious difference between the businessmen around Mr Yushchenko and those close to Mr Yanukovich and Leonid Kuchma, the outgoing president, is in the scale of their holdings. Ukraine's richest men - including Mr Kuchma's son-in-law, Viktor Pinchuk, and Rinat Akhmetov, a coal and steel baron allied to Mr Yanukovich - control business empires with annual sales in the billions of dollars. The business people behind Mr Yanukovich are involved mainly in heavy industry or commodities, while Mr Yushchenko's supporters in business are more likely to be involved in consumer goods and services.

Roshen, Mr Poroshenko's confectionery company, recorded $274m of sales last year. The figures for his other companies - including a bank, a shipyard, a small car plant and a brewery - are relatively modest.

Mr Poroshenko says the new cabinet should set clear rules for all businesses. His priority is to collect more taxes from big businesses, including the private empires that emerged under Mr Kuchma and the remaining big state companies - such as the national railways and Naftogaz, the oil and gas company - which he alleges have become vehicles for diverting state funds.

Another financial challenge is the state pension fund, which is being quickly drained by a huge pension increase that Mr Yanukovich pushed through just before the elections. The Mr Poroshenko says the solution is to follow up with increases to state salaries in order to boost the pension fund's income, although he acknowledges that the strategy will spur inflation to some extent.

Mr Poroshenko is known as a moderate with an eye for strategic compromises. He pushed strongly for the agreement with Mr Kuchma earlier this month that ended public protests in Kiev. The resulting constitutional changes - giving more power to the parliament and the cabinet - could become crucial after parliamentary elections in 2006. Mr Poroshenko says: "We have at least a year to prove ourselves."

Ukraine poll contenders in charged debate

by Tom Warner in Sevastopol
Financial Times, 20 December 2004
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/acbf0e2c-52b8-11d9-8845-00000e2511c8.html


The contenders in this Sunday's Ukrainian presidential election faced each other head-to-head in their first open debate on Monday night in an emotional exchange in which Viktor Yanukovich, prime minister, and opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, fired accusations at each other over last month's rigged poll and on the economy.

Mr Yushchenko accused Mr Yanukovich of handling the economy "unprofessionally" while Mr Yanukovich shot back with charges that foreign election observers had interfered by helping to fund street demonstrations.

The exchanges contrasted sharply with a carefully managed "debate" held before the presidential elections in November, in which the two candidates were restricted to taking turns making speeches and were not allowed to ask each other questions.

Mr Yanukovich performed better than expected in that meeting, but it was Mr Yushchenko who appeared most confident on Monday night.

Mr Yanukovich positioned himself as a radically anti-western politician, accusing even Leonid Kuchma, the outgoing president who strongly supported him in last month's election, of betraying him and Ukraine to foreign interests.

"I'm against you [Mr Yushchenko and Mr Kuchma] uniting and teaching Ukrainians how to live with help from bugor," using a slang word meaning "abroad".

Mr Yanukovich was initially declared the winner of what was supposed to be the final round of the presidential elections last month, but he is expected to do significantly less well in this Sunday's repeat vote.

The Supreme Court ordered the repeat vote after ruling that last month's election was spoiled by systematic fraud. Hundreds of thousands of Yushchenko supporters had already drawn the same conclusions, which they showed by holding protests that filled central Kiev for more than two weeks.

The emotion of last night's debate echoes the increasingly emotional campaigning around the country, especially in southern and eastern regions which supported Mr Yanukovich in the previous vote.

In Sevastopol, the Crimean city that hosts the main base of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, a St Nicholas day religious procession turned violent on Sunday.

A small group of Mr Yanukovich's supporters who had marched in the procession split off and began waving their blue-and-white Yanukovich banners in front of cars passing by. When a few cars approached decorated in the orange colour of Mr Yushchenko's campaign, according to eyewitnesses, the Yanukovich supporters attacked, kicking dents in the cars' bodies, smashing in windows, and injuring people inside with broken glass.

"Unfortunately, what happened here Sunday was part of a clear trend," said Timofey Nikityuk, head of the local branch of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, a domestic election observer group. "Campaigning (for the repeat election) has been much more aggressive than it was before previous rounds".

The residents of Sevastopol were among the most disappointed when Mr Yanukovich's victory was annulled. According to the official results, Mr Yanukovich won more than 88 per cent of the city's votes, and even Mr Yushchenko's campaign team acknowledges that they will lose in the city even if the election is completely fair.

Likewise, in Mr Yanukovich's native Donbas region, Mr Yushchenko's supporters have been attacked by groups of well-built young men and some have been seriously injured. Even journalists covering Yushchenko campaign events have been beaten and their cameras ruined.

In other southern and eastern regions, the campaign has been peaceful but filled with tension. In Odessa on Saturday, Mr Yanukovich and a member of Mr Yushchenko's political team, Olexader Moroz, held rival campaign rallies in a central square in close succession. A couple hundred supporters of Mr Yanukovich, who appeared first, stayed on to shout taunts and wave blue-and-white at Mr Moroz and the orange-bedecked crowd he had gathered.

Lines of police separated the two groups but many Yushchenko and Yanukovich supporters peeled off to argue with each other.

"Go! Get out of here! You have no connection whatsoever with Odessa!" shouted one middle-aged woman Yanukovich supporter, her eyes wet with tears.

In central and western regions, Mr Yushchenko's supporters are confident of a sweeping victory and the government apparatus, which worked hard to rally support for Mr Yanukovich in last month's vote, has been largely subdued.

However, in southern and eastern regions, state organs remain powerful and contine to work for Mr Yanukovich's campaign.

In Sevastopol, according to Mr Nikityuk, it is the mayor, appointed by the outgoing president, Leonid Kuchma, and the local tax administration chief, appointed by Mr Yanukovich's government, who have done the most for Mr Yanukovich's campaign. In the Donbas, powerful business groups alllied to Mr Yanukovich have taken the leading role.

Throughout the south and east, elected mayors and city councils have become more active in supporting Mr Yanukovich. Pavlo Ignatenko, a member of parliament who runs Mr Yushchenko's campaign headquarters in Sevastopol, says these councillors are not so much supporting Mr Yanukovich as "fighting for their personal survival".

"Many of them have done things for which they should be punished by a court of law. They are in a state of panic," he said.

SBU Officer Reveals Insurrection Plans

by Peter Byrne
Kyiv Post, 20 December 2004

Hryhoriy Omelchenko, a ranking State Secret Services (SBU) officer and a deputy belonging to Yulia Tymoshenko's eponymous parliament faction on Dec. 19 asked the presidents of Russia and Ukraine to stop supplying weapons to gangs supporting Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych.

Omelchenko spoke in Russian during the Dec. 19 address, which was aired live on the pro-opposition TV station Era, so that Russian President Vladimir Putin and the commander of the Russian forces based in Sevastopol understood him without translation. They will receive the footage of his address on Dec. 20.

Omelchenko alleged that weapons belonging to the Russian Black Sea Fleet based in Sevastopol have been transferred to Donetsk in order to arm groups of men who are to arrive in Kyiv Dec. 27 or 28 to incite violence.

Kuchma would then declare a state of emergency, the election results would be cancelled, and the new election would be postponed for as long as half a year, thus allowing Kuchma to stay in power until the recently adopted constitutional amendments come into force.

Omelchenko went on to say that top Russian and Ukrainian officials know about the group's plans, and added that Putin and Kuchma have personally approved of the plan, but Yanukovych remains reluctant to proceed. Donetsk-based businessman Rinat Akhmetov and Deputy Prime Minister Andriy Klyuev, who support the prime minister financially, are forcing him to go along, he said.

According to Omelchenko, 30 groups of 30 men have already been formed and an unnamed Berkut (elite police force) officer will command the group of 900 men, which has been formed using former convicts, sportsmen and other irregulars. They will be armed with 100 rifles, 90 hand grenades and 25 kilograms of the explosive trotyl, Omelchenko said.

The sensational announcement came as SBU deputy chief Volodymyr Satsyuk announced on ICTV, a pro-government channel, that he should not be blamed for poisoning Yanukovych's rival, Viktor Yushchenko, in September.

In a rare interview published on Dec. 19 by the Stolichenye Novosti tabloid, Satsyuk made the statement and confirmed his intention to leave the SBU and reclaim his status as a parliament deputy. Satsyuk was elected to parliament in March 2002 from Zhytomyr and belonged the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united) faction, headed by Presidential Administration chief Viktor Medvedchuk.

Satsyuk said Yushchenko and David Zhvanya, an influential businessman and parliament deputy managing Yushchenko's campaign, ate fresh crayfish, a salad of tomatoes, cucumbers and corn, and drank beer, vodka and cognac during the meeting, which lasted from 9:45 p.m. on Sept. 5 to 2:45 a.m. on Sept. 6.

Yushchenko almost died after ingesting dioxin poisons in September during a dinner with SBU chief Ihor Smeshko and Satsyuk at the former's dacha outside of Kyiv.

Catherine Chumachenko, Yushchenko's wife, said she tasted "something metallic" on her husband's breath after he came home.

New tests ordered by the Austrian clinic that treated Yushchenko revealed on Dec. 11 that the opposition figure has more than 6,000 times the normal level of dioxin poison in his blood. That amount is the second-highest concentration ever recorded, according to the scientist who analyzed the samples.

Yushchenko, who fell ill on Sept. 6, was evacuated on Sept. 9 to the Vienna-based Rudolfinerhaus Clinic in Austria where he spent weeks recovering. Dr. Mykola Korpan, one of the dozen physicians who treated him said that the candidate was not of ordinary food poisoning but that "certain special agents" - not normally found in food or beverages - were to blame for the decline in Yushchenko's health.

Zhvanya, interviewed for a 2,000-word article about the poisoning case which appeared in the Dec. 20 edition of the New York Times, said it was premature to conclude that Yushchenko had been poisoned at the dinner.

"The poisoning could have happened at any moment. He was always touring," Zhvanya told the New York Times. "He met hundreds of people in hundreds of places. To link it to that evening can be called only paranoia."

Excerpt of the Omelchenko Interview on UT-1 "Era"

19 December 2004
[translated by BBC Monitoring]

The following is an excerpt from Omelchenko's interview with private Era TV broadcast via the Ukrainian state-owned television UT1 on 19 December, monitored in progress:

(Omelchenko) I have information from reliable sources, to be absolutely frank, from an FSB (Russian intelligence) officer. I have known him since the early 1990s. The second piece of information is from an officer of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry. Strange as it is, the top officials of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry know about preparations for this operation, but they follow Yanukovych's order to assume an observing role, and they are not trying to stop what is going to happen on Monday, 27 and 28 December, after the presidential election.
As of today, 30 groups of 30 people each have been formed in Donetsk. These are the self-defence groups that Yanukovych was talking about. They consist of ex-convicts and those released during last year's amnesty, former special forces and a small group of sportsmen, martial arts specialists. Each group is headed by an officer of Donetsk's Berkut (special police task force) in order to coordinate these actions. This group is 30 per cent equipped with weapons. As of today, about 1,000 firearms have been brought into Donetsk, handguns and assault rifles, 90 F-1 hand grenades, 25 kg of TNT and 100 electrical fuses. The groups have already received 15 kg of explosives and 75 fuses. The specialists understand this, but to clarify for everyone, TNT comes in blocks of 200 g each. When exploded, this amount of TNT can overturn a loaded lorry and cause insane destruction. Yanukovych knows about this operation, but he is afraid to give it a go-ahead. Maybe some moral principles are holding him back. I heard today that he visited a monastery, the (Svyatohirsk) Lavra, and spoke of some things, but his close entourage, (Donetsk businessman Rinat) Akhmetov and (Deputy Prime Minister Andriy) Klyuyev, are forcing him to implement this violent scenario. The money to buy weapons came from Akhmetov. I emphasize that the weapons were purchased at arms depots of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The fleet's commander knows about it. The Russian president himself, Vladimir Putin, knows about this operation. Putin is hesitating on moral grounds, what the consequences may be. But he knows that the weapons have been sold.
Why do I emphasize this? Because this video tape will be on Putin's desk tonight or tomorrow morning. Mr Putin, I appeal to you for the third time, as intelligence officer to a fellow intelligence officer, as colonel to a fellow colonel. Stop further sales of weapons, give an order to the commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet to stop it and take measures to return weapons back to the Russian depots. Finally, stop blatant meddling in Ukraine's internal affairs. I saw you on television today speaking at some international forum, and you said it was immoral to permit bloodshed and violence in Ukraine. Mr Putin, you have two daughters, and I have two sons. I already have grandchildren and I wish you the same. But it is up to you now to stop these processes in Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma also knows about this operation, but his position is similar to the one he took concerning the decree on printing ballots. He is just observing. But it is in Kuchma's interests that the election be disrupted or voided under various pretexts in order for him to prolong his stay in office by three or six months, or maybe even till the next autumn when the (amendments to) constitution come in effect. Since the top officials at the Interior Ministry have assumed this criminal position, I want to point out another thing. Even though the commander of the Ukrainian Interior Troops, Lt-Gen (Serhiy) Popkov, had in effect given a criminal order (to put troops on alert during opposition protests), this information has been officially received in response to my parliamentary query to the Security Service of Ukraine, instead of dismissing him and launching criminal proceedings, Kuchma issued a decree appointing Popkov deputy interior minister. After the second round of the election (21 November), when a peaceful, democratic, orange revolution began in Ukraine, Yanukovych spent several nights at Popkov's military base of the Interior Troops. Popkov, who has an alcohol problem, swore that he would carry out any order by Yanukovych in order to ensure his victory in the presidential election.

The Interior Ministry's operatives reported to their superiors about a large amount of weapons being brought into Donetsk and that those groups received them. But the Interior Ministry's top officials assumed this position.

(Passage omitted: Omelchenko calls on top security officials to prevent a violent scenario.)
Tomorrow I will try using the government phone line to call the presidential administration chief, Viktor Medvedchuk. I have many questions to him, and I have a moral right to ask questions, because I have known Medvedchuk since 1972, we went to Kiev State University together. No-one knows Medvedchuk's strengths and weaknesses and moral principles better than I do. I will discuss the situation with him.

Also, I will try calling Yanukovych before the end of the day tomorrow, I know it is the day of the presidential debate, I will try talking to him not as an MP to a presidential candidate, I hope he does not get offended, but as a security service colonel to a former archive agent of the 9th directorate of the KGB USSR. I will ask him to say live on air during the debate, to tell his self-defence groups, these 300,000 that he plans to bring to Kiev, to stay in Donetsk, to return weapons, the bats, metal rods and so on. Because he will be responsible for what happens.

Neither Kuchma nor Yanukovych nor Putin nor the Interior Ministry can now say that they did not know about the preparations for this operation. If, God forbid, anything happens in Kiev, some explosions, shootings or violence, Kuchma, Yanukovych and his entourage will face not only moral responsibility, but also criminal responsibility and the highest responsibility before God.

The Command was not Obeyed

by Konrad Schuller
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 20 November 2004
[translated by Nykolai Bilaniuk for UKL]

During the night from the 27th to the 28th of November, Ukrainian Ministry of the Interior troops were supposed to suppress the Demonstration in Kyiv.

KYIV, 19 December. Lodgers have nested themselves in the late-Soviet lobby of the Trade Union building at Independence Square. To the left there's an exchange kiosk together with chickencoup chatter and cashiers wearing make-up, and also a sales booth for film, wire, and batteries. To the right is a makeshift post office. The porter's desk with its mighty telephones has survived from the old days. Passersby, people asking questions, and sentries with earmuffs hurry accross the stone floor, or just hang out.

Three weeks ago, during the night from the 27th to the 28th of November, this building - at the time the headquarters of the Ukrainian opposition under Viktor Yushchenko - played host to one of the dramatic situations of the "Orange Revolution." Borys Tarasiuk, the leader of the National Movement of Ukraine and a member of the executive committee of Yushchenko's Committee for National Salvation which guided the Revolution, remembers it well. It was ten o'clock at night. Tarasiuk, an old-school diplomat and until his retirement in September 2000 the Foreign Minister of Ukraine, had given the diplomatic corps in Kyiv a briefing about Yushchenko's future foreign policy, and then returned to this headquarters. As always on those nights, outside the main door to the "Maidan," that Independence Square, there was a dense, euphoric sea of people in orange: with flags and horns, laughter and waving, shouting and music from the stage.

However, shortly after ten, the mood inside the building suddenly turned. A telephone rang. It brought the news that everyone had feared: the X hour had arrived. Somebody who was "on the side of the people," a soldier or officer in the service of the authorities, had grabbed his cell phone and given the alarm: The "Interior troops," the feared special forces answering to the Minister of the Interior Bilokon', himself one of the toughest-minded men in the regime and a hardliner, had been given the command to go into action. They were to assemble, take on live munitions, and get ready to march: 13,000 men, who had been pulled together weeks earlier in various places around the capital city, the last available force of the regime, were to restore what Prime Minister Yanukovych today calls "order." The orders were distributed. While the people celebrated on the "Maidan," in the trade union building there began a race against time.

It should be noted that Tarasiuk's report on this is not some sailor's tall tale, nor a flight of revolutionary rhetoric from a the soul of a people prone to producing myths. To this day Kyiv is full of wild stories about the cocked & primed assault weapons of the regime, and scepticism is in order. However, this time the source of the stories is different. It isn't just Tarasiuk and the opposition, but also people in certain quiet circles, for whom to even mention anything is an indiscretion, and who are normally immune to the stories of ordinary Ukrainian folks. Their reports distinguish the rumours of 27 November from commonplace "Tatar sightings." One hears it whispered from off-stage: "That night was the last time when the regime tried to use force to end the revolution." The order was given to end the blockades of the presidential and administrative buildings, and to remove the revolutionaries' tent city from the main street, Khreshchatyk. "We know this with certainty. The next morning, as it were, we could still see the tire tracks."

How serious was the situation? Despite the night hour, there were tens of thousands of people on the streets. In the view of experts, the entities that were "to restore order" were neither equipped nor trained for peaceful deployment. They carried no batons or water cannon, but fully loaded Kalashnikovs - this was dead serious. "As we received the news, the troops were right in the middle of boarding trucks. Their engines were running" recalls Tarasiuk. "The country was on the brink of civil war."

In the Trade Union building people reacted with concentrated haste. They had long since established ties to the government apparatus. At the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the thread led to the very top, to Lieutenant-General Smeshko. Among the military officer's corps, many treated dealings with Prime Minister Yanukovych as a personal affront, since he was a criminal convicted of assault, and one who had never served in the forces. Serving admirals had previously stood beside Yushchenko on the podium. Entire detachments of the Police academy had appeared in full uniform and orange ribbons on the "Maidan." They also had friends in foreign governments, and those they now called also.

We can only guess who worked on whom that night. In the opinion of the people in the shadows, Yulia Tymoshenko, Yushchenko's combative woman sidekick, took on the army for herself. In any case Tarasiuk reports that some units of the regular combat forces were even ready to "place themselves in between" in case the Interior Ministry troops were to march. Another witness, Yushchenko's old confidant Oleh Rybachuk, reported that even in the Interior Ministry of the grim Bilokon' and his equally grim deputy Popkov, there was open unwillingness to follow orders. In the closest circles around the minister, the leadership made it quite clear that "no one" would follow the orders that had been given to achieve a solution by force. In the early morning, the punitive expedition finally collapsed like a bicycle inner tube that had rolled over a thumbtack. "By two o'clock we had the situation under control" remembers Tarasiuk. What remains unclear is by whom the orders of that night were issued, although Popkov has admitted to passing them along further. The troops had collected their ammunition and had readied themselves for action, but perhaps thought it was only an exercise. Who stood behind Popkov, that is nebulous. Several originators of the orders can be imagined: Prime Minister Yanukovych, President Kuchma, or his feared chief of staff Medvedchuk. The sources in the shadows run dry on this point: "We don't know from whom the order came. We only know that it wasn't followed" says the voice offstage.

In Yushchenko's camp people lean to the view that two men above all others wanted to resort to force: the head of government, Yanukovych, and Kuchma's chief of staff Medvedchuk. The role of the President himself is thereby left unclear. He is neither defended nor directly attacked. Seemingly Kuchma did not endorse the recommendation to use force, conjectures Rybachuk. Here emerges a hairline crack in the camp of the authorities, that could have grown into the hatred between Yanukovych and his erstwhile mentor Kuchma.

It is therefore only an opinion to say that Yanukovych and Medvedchuk were behind the drama of that November night, and less so the president. All the same, this theory is plausible.Yanukovych has in the meantime denied that he urged a reluctant Kuchma to opt for the use of force. However, he does not disavow speaking to the President about "the restoration of order." The cleavage between the hesitant Kuchma and the hot-tempered Yanukovych has since grown into an open fusillade of insults. After so bitterly disappointing Yanukovych, Kuchma cut a compromise with the opposition. Immediately thereafter the Prime Minister took a short break and went angrily back to his eastern strongholds, the grumpy Malochian cities around Donetsk and Luhansk.

Today the revolutionary stage on the "Maidan" stands still in the winter air. The masses have gone home, and on Khreshchatyk only a few stragglers are waiting around at oildrum ovens. Everyone is awaiting the repeat vote on the 26th of December. The staff of the movement has largely cleaned up the Trade Union building. Only one sandwich counter remains for the last campers. Around a table full of crums, paper cups and teabags, freezing teenagers hang their heads in the plush chairs that were once green, and sleep. It smells of campaigning, tension, and wet socks. The revolution is taking a break.

The West’s Growing Disillusionment With Vladimir Putin

By Carol Devine-Molin (12/21/04)
http://www.americandaily.com/article/6085

President Vladimir Putin is now viewed as an enigma by most Americans. Oh, what a difference a few years can make in this rapidly changing geopolitical landscape! When President Bush first met with Russian President Putin in 2001, Bush was tremendously impressed with him – Bush stated: “I looked the man in the eye. I was able to get a sense of his soul", which certainly conveyed hopeful expectations of a Vladimir Putin as democratic reformer and ally of the US. President Bush quickly dubbed the Russian President “Pootie Poot”, and thought that he had found a man with whom he could forge a cooperative relationship.

And, at first, there was reason for optimism about Putin. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 – in a show of solidarity - Putin was exceedingly helpful to the US in the fight against international terrorism. Unfortunately, things have gone terribly awry. Although Putin has generated impressive economic changes in Russia, his overall progress in support of democratization has been lacking.

The Bush-Putin relationship is now strained by the Kremlin's proclivity to enact political repression, both at home and in former Soviet states. Let’s focus on the Ukraine which has become the center of worldwide attention in recent weeks. Two competing groups are now vying for power in the Ukraine – the reformists of the “orange revolution” and those seeking to maintain the status-quo with Russia. The former, the pro-democracy faction spearheading Ukrainian self-determination, free elections and clean government, clearly has the momentum among the populace. In any event, the recent election results for the presidency were apparently rigged and subsequently tossed out by the Ukraine’s Supreme Court, with an attending order to repeat the runoff on December 26. To make matters so much worse, the Kremlin seems to have very dirty hands in this entire matter.

It’s widely believed that Putin and his surrogates involved themselves in atrocious behaviors vis-?-vis the recent presidential election in the Ukraine. The Kremlin is not only implicated in election fraud, but in attempts to assassinate Viktor Yushchenko, the “orange revolution” candidate. Yushchenko was poisoned with a pure form of dioxin found in TCDD, an element of Agent Orange. The amount of dioxin in Yushchenko’s blood is the second highest on record, and very well could have been deadly. At the very least, the poisoning has disfigured a once handsome man, and shortened his lifespan by years. As a result of the poisoning, Yushchenko experienced severe and disfiguring skin lesions, in addition to considerable internal damage and pain.

Needless to say these entire circumstances have infuriated the free world. The poisoning of Yushchenko was almost certainly perpetrated by his opponent’s camp, which was working in collusion with the Kremlin. Many believe that the poisoning would not have been carried-out unless Putin himself granted approval. It would be fair to say that the Kremlin’s little plan to destroy Yushchenko backfired big-time. Yushchenko is now even more popular having survived the Kremlin’s unconscionable actions. And his “orange revolution” continues to garner an increasing number of proponents. Putin’s man, presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych, will in all probability lose the upcoming election that will be closely monitored. Because of Russia’s shenanigans, the Ukraine will undoubtedly be more eager to align itself with the EU and NATO in a pro-western mode.

Putin is beginning to act out in a very nasty and unseemly way on the world stage. Only a few weeks ago, Putin had the unmitigated gall to refer to America as a “dictatorship” in the realm of foreign policy, and he further compared our nation to a “kind but strict uncle in a pith helmet”. Why? In short, Putin is miffed because the Bush administration had the audacity to ask Russia to stop meddling in the affairs of former Soviet states including the Ukraine. Conversely, Putin believes that it’s actually the US that is inappropriately “interfering” in the Russian-Ukrainian relationship. Essentially, Putin wants to abuse his Ukrainian political opponents without criticism. Because of myriad cultural, historical and economic reasons, Putin is intent on holding the Ukraine firmly within the orbit of Russian influence, whether by hook or crook. Any thinking person would surmise that Putin is developing imperialistic designs, somewhat akin to those seen during the prior Soviet epoch. This spells trouble.

According to Russian scholar Michael McFaul, associate professor of political science and a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University, Putin is of a dual-mind when it comes to implementing much needed reforms: “Since becoming Russia's President in 2000, Vladimir Putin has simultaneously pushed forward a positive agenda of economic reform and a negative agenda of political repression. It's a sad story of one step forward, two steps back, and if it continues it will threaten the existence of a free Russian society…The list of Putin's attacks on democracy is striking in both its range and depth. He has conducted an inhumane war in Chechnya, seized control of all national television networks, emasculated the power of the Federation Council, tamed regional barons who once served as a powerful balance to Yeltsin's presidential rule, arbitrarily used the law to jail or chase away political foes, removed candidates from electoral ballots, harassed and arrested NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) leaders and weakened Russia's independent political parties” (Center for American Progress website, 6/24/04).

In a recent article by McFaul at the Weekly Standard magazine, he writes: “In the Ukraine, Putin made his first aggressive attempt to consolidate ‘managed democracy’ -- his advisers' term for Russia's new regime-type in another country. Hoping to prevent a democratic breakthrough like those in Serbia in 2000 and Georgia in 2003, Putin's administration orchestrated a giant effort, first to aid Yanukovych's electoral campaign, then after the vote to blur the world's understanding of the results”.

Incredibly, Putin refers to his awful manipulations and oppressive behaviors as “managed democracy”? Clearly, Putin really doesn’t grasp what freedom is all about.

President Putin is now exhibiting his true colors. Today’s Russia reflects a new-styled autocratic rule, somewhat reminiscent of the former Soviet era but tolerant of select economic reforms. Moreover, this Russian crackdown on freedom is distasteful to the West, particularly in this age of democratization. Although it’s an often cited clich?, “past is prologue” seems very apropos of the emerging circumstances in Russia. It’s almost impossible to forget that Putin was a bigwig in the KGB not that many years ago. The KGB apparatchiks were extremely dedicated to the Soviet cause. As for Putin, I suppose an entrenched mindset that seeks to sustain and grow an empire, and suppress human rights, is difficult to cast aside.

One salient question for America to ponder is this: Could Russia’s autocratic ways conceivably lead to another version of the Cold War? Sure, it’s possible, considering some of Putin’s recent remarks that were an assault upon America and indicative of his hard-line mentality. I think it would be fair to say that Putin’s failure to enact democratic reforms is beginning to sour the West on his governance. Who knows? In protest of Putin, maybe I will even have to revive my impression of Natasha’s famous lines, “Yes, Fearless Leader” and “Boris, kill moose and squirrel”.


Carol Devine-Molin has a BA in psychology from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and an MA in forensic psychology (social psychology) from John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) in New York City.She resides in Westchester County, New York. Devine-Molin is a regular contributor to several online magazines.

Monitors pour in to Ukraine for election rerun

By Jan Cienski in Kiev
Published: December 20 2004 18:03 Last updated: December 20 2004 18:03

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/c104ac96-52b0-11d9-8845-00000e2511c8.html

Ukraine's December 26 rerun of its presidential election promises to be one of the most closely monitored votes ever, with 8,295 election observers already registered to make sure that the fraud that accompanied the November 21 vote is not repeated.

The observers come from across the world, some from as far away as Australia, but many more from Europe, particularly Poland, Ukraine's western neighbour.

About 5,000 monitors were on hand for the November 21 vote, and most concluded that the election was severely flawed. Their judgment helped lend weight to complaints from Viktor Yushchenko, the opposition leader, that he had been cheated out of victory by government intervention and fraud on behalf of Viktor Yanukovich, the prime minister.

The preliminary results of that vote, later invalidated by the Ukrainian supreme court, gave Mr Yanukovich 49.46 per cent to 46.61 per cent for Mr Yushchenko.

The orange revolution that then gripped Kiev persuaded Ukrainian authorities to restage the election and also revamped voting rules to make fraud more difficult.

On December 26 there will be many fewer absentee ballots and travelling ballot boxes. Observers have also been given more authority to ensure they have access to polling stations. The most influential missions for monitoring the vote will be led by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and by the Council of Europe.

OSCE was supplying more than 1,000 observers, which made it the organisation's largest undertaking, said spokeswoman Urdur Gunnarsdottir. The observers will fan out in teams of two across the country. A preliminary report is expected the day after the election.

Another large mission is the more than 1,000 monitors from the European Network of Election Monitoring Organisation, an umbrella group for non-governmental organisations from 16 countries in central Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Canada, which has a large Ukrainian minority, is sending a mission headed by John Turner, a former prime minister. About 100 observers are attached to the OSCE mission with another 400 official delegates.

A further 500 or so are expected from Ukrainian ?migr? groups. Perhaps the largest delegation will come from Poland. Ukraine and Poland have a difficult and sometimes bloody past and many older Poles are still resentful over the post-war shift in borders that gave Ukraine a large slice of territory that had belonged to prewar Poland.

But the wave of people power that has swept Ukraine has found an echo in Poland, where orange is almost as popular as in Ukraine. Thousands of people protested in front of the Ukrainian embassy in Warsaw in early December and Aleksander Kwasniewski, Poland's president, helped to defuse the conflict after the November 21 vote.

"This could create a revolution in relations between our two countries," said Adam Lipinski, deputy head of Poland's Law and Justice centre-right opposition party, which is sending at least 1,000 observers.

Polish non-governmental organisations are sending about 500 more observers. For Poles, the Ukrainian protests bring to mind their own uprising against communism during the Solidarity movement in 1980.

There is an added impetus to help Ukraine break free of Russian influence, a longstanding goal of Polish foreign policy.

Ukraine and Europe: A shotgun wedding is bound to fail

Anatol Lieven International Herald Tribune
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/12/20/opinion/edlieven.html

WASHINGTON There is a right reason and a wrong reason for the West to support the camp of the presidential challenger Viktor Yushchenko in Ukraine, just as there is a right way and a wrong way to set about integrating Ukraine into the West.

The right reason for supporting Yushchenko and the mass movement that has gathered behind his candidacy is that these people are protesting not only a blatantly rigged election but also a thoroughly rotten regime. Quite apart from the rigging and the apparent assassination attempt against Yushchenko, the personal history of the officially backed candidate for president, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, makes him quite unfit for senior office in Ukraine or any other decent state. This is also why the West must oppose Russian pressure in support of Yanukovich.

The wrong reason to support Yushchenko and his followers is out of a desire to continue the cold war, "roll back" Russian influence, and turn Ukraine into a Western buffer state against Russia. This is wrong because close ties to Russia are cherished not only by the 10 million ethnic Russians in Ukraine, but also by very many ethnic Ukrainians - insofar as one can distinguish between the two, since across large parts of the south and east of Ukraine, Russians and Ukrainians speak the same language, share the same culture and are thoroughly intermarried.

Even if a majority of Ukrainians decides that it wishes to end the special relationship with Russia, this is a decision which any wise Ukrainian government will have to approach with great care. We have learned from the recent history of the Balkans, the Caucasus and other parts of the world that in deeply divided societies, the fate of states cannot and should not simply be decided by numerical majorities. Careful national consensus-building is also essential, even if this takes a long time.

Many Ukrainians are attached to Russia not only because of shared culture and history, but also because economic ties between Ukraine and Russia considerably outweigh those between Ukraine and the West. Millions of Ukrainians work legally in Russia and send back vitally important remittances, while only a handful are allowed to work legally in the West.

There is also a right way and a wrong way to promote Ukraine's integration with the West. The right way is through the European Union, as part of a transformation of both Ukraine and the EU itself over the next generation.

This process is appropriate because it is organic. As economies, societies and political systems develop in a West European direction and away from their Communist past, so they naturally draw closer to membership of the EU. But this is not a one-way process. If the EU succeeds in admitting Turkey and the Balkan countries over the next 15 years, it will be impossible to deny membership to a reformed Ukraine. But if the EU does admit these states, then it will be fundamentally transformed as an institution.

The EU may have to become a much looser grouping, in which eastern and southern members are no longer so sharply divided from non-EU states. This in turn would permit the forging of a new relationship between the EU and Russia that would diminish Russian fears of being essentially expelled from Europe by EU expansion.

The wrong way to try to integrate Ukraine with the West is through early membership of NATO. Such a move would infuriate and terrify Russia, and risk a severe Russian reaction. And if NATO membership long preceded Ukraine's actual economic and social integration into the West, then the close ties between Russia and Ukraine, and the strong support of many Ukrainians, could give Moscow dangerous opportunities to make its anger felt.

Those who warn of such a reaction from Moscow are often accused of crying wolf, given Russia's failure to react against NATO membership for the Baltic states. But Ukraine is much more important to Russia from every point of view. And there is also a famous proverb about camels and last straws.

Taking Ukraine into NATO long before it is ready to join the EU would fail a basic test of realpolitik. Rather than a strong and stable buffer state, the West would acquire a weak and divided one - in other words, no true buffer state at all. That could be a recipe for disaster if, at any point in the future, America's military commitment to Europe were to falter.

(Anatol Lieven is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His latest book is ‘‘America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism.’’)

INVASION VS. PERSUASION

COMMENTARY: by George Packer
The Talk of the Town, The New Yorker magazine
New York, NY, Issue of December 20, 2004
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?041220ta_talk_packer

President Bush has put the idea of spreading democracy around the world at the rhetorical heart of American foreign policy. No one should doubt that he and his surviving senior advisers believe in what they call the “forward strategy of freedom,” even if they’ve had to talk themselves into it. Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and Bush himself are late-comers to the idea; in earlier incarnations, they sounded a lot more like Henry Kissinger than like Woodrow Wilson. By now, though, it’s clear that, however clumsy and selective the execution, Bush wants democratization to be his legacy.

So when his critics, here and abroad, claim that his rhetoric merely provides cynical cover for an American power grab, they misjudge his sincerity and tend to sound like defenders of the status quo. And when the Administration tries to wring every last sweet drop of partisan gain from its foreign policy (sincerity is not the same thing as honesty), critics are driven to conclude that “democracy” is just another word for “neoconservatism.”

This is not a good position for the opposition to be in, either morally or politically. The best role for critics in the President’s second term will be not to scoff at the idea of spreading freedom but to take it seriously—to hold him to his own talk. The hard question isn’t whether America should try to enlarge the democratic order but how. It’s a question that the Administration seems to have thought about very little, yet it makes a big difference. Look at the two examples from the week’s front pages: where the approach has been subtle and collective, the outcome seems hopeful; where it has been noisy and unilateralist, it does not.

The popular uprising in Ukraine has now secured a new Presidential election, the previous vote having been discredited by huge fraud. There’s a quiet American story behind that achievement. For years, beginning in the nineteen-nineties, governmental and non-governmental organizations poured millions of dollars into Ukraine’s politics, building up the parties, training civil-society groups and journalists, establishing election monitors. These efforts helped strengthen the opposition against a corrupt government, but they were nonpartisan: technical support was given to all parties.

The work in Ukraine built on earlier experiences in Serbia and Georgia, where groups like the National Endowment for Democracy and the Open Society Institute contributed, behind the scenes, to popular movements that eventually seized the moment to overthrow strongmen. Three peaceful democratic revolutions in ex-Communist countries in four years—a tremendous success, and few Americans even know that part of the credit belongs to this country.

Not surprisingly, the outgoing President of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma, and the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, have complained about American meddling. So has an unlikely tandem in this country. “Ukraine has been turned into a geostrategic matter not by Moscow but by Washington, which refuses to abandon its Cold War policy of encircling Russia and seeking to pull every former Soviet Republic into its orbit,”The Nation claimed, once again taking the Russian side of the Cold War. And Pat Buchanan declared, “Congress should investigate N.E.D. and any organization that used clandestine cash or agents to fix the Ukrainian election, as the U.S. media appear to have gone into the tank for global democracy.”

But in Ukraine the meddlers have done nothing worse than help guarantee a people’s right to choose a government freely. The effort succeeded for two reasons: there was a democratic movement already in place; and outside support did not come with a “Made in America” label, because the Organization for Security and Co?peration in Europe also played an important part. “The thrust of the campaign is to oblige Ukraine to have a free and fair election,” Thomas Carothers, a democracy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says. “This is a human right. It’s not American. It’s not unilateralist.”

In other words, the United States did in Ukraine exactly what it failed to do in Iraq: it upheld international standards in conjunction with democratic allies. The consequences of this failure in Iraq will always haunt the American effort there. The war has grown so destructive that Afghanistan, where Hamid Karzai was just inaugurated as the first democratically elected President, has become the Administration’s success story almost by default. But Karzai’s victory only ratified a political consensus that had been hammered out by anti-Taliban parties, under United Nations auspices, in Bonn in 2001, and had won immediate international recognition. In Iraq, the United States has tried to stage-manage the political transition alone, and has seen every plan overtaken and nullified by events.

Lacking legitimacy in the eyes of both Iraq and the rest of the world, defying international standards and declaring its own, the Administration has had to base its claim on good intentions. But in the war of perception between that claim and the daily stories of tortured prisoners and civilian deaths America is losing. According to Carothers, who has just co-edited the first technical book on democracy promotion in the Middle East, the Iraq model has set back the cause of Arab reformers.

At this point, the Administration seems ready to hold an election and declare victory. Meanwhile, the insurgency looks increasingly like a civil war. An election, though politically necessary, might only worsen the conflict. Shiite politicians and clerics are organizing a unified ballot that will guarantee the majority Shiites a vast share of next month’s election spoils at the expense of the country’s alienated Sunnis. The elected parliament, which will write a constitution, isn’t likely to be
truly representative, or to create a political consensus out of this violent
polarization.

More probably, the losers will opt out and the civil war will intensify. The alternative of delaying elections, advocated by some Sunni and Kurdish politicians and, privately, by some Administration officials, would only antagonize the leading Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the one indispensable man in Iraq today. Delay would also perpetuate the occupation. As always in Iraq, America is faced with bad choices.

Not every country is lucky enough to be Ukraine, where internal opposition and quiet outside help will likely succeed in replacing a bad regime. But the ordeal in Iraq has shown that a war of liberation is a crude instrument for setting a country free. Democracy is not the absence of tyranny. It has to grow from within over time, and it requires far more care and feeding than Washington seems able to give

Yushchenko's Formidable Challenge

Ukraine's Opposition Leader Needs to Win Converts In Russian-Speaking Regions
By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV
Wall Street Journal, 20 December 2004

YALTA, Ukraine -- Pro-Western opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko has a comfortable lead in the opinion polls ahead of Ukraine's presidential election. But he still faces a formidable task even if he wins on Dec. 26: reassuring the country's Russian speakers that he isn't as bad as they fear.

Confronting fervent anti-Yushchenko sentiment in Ukraine's Russian-speaking eastern and southern regions -- the base of support of his opponent, Moscow-backed Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych -- has emerged as a central goal of the Yushchenko campaign now that election-law changes have substantially reduced the chance of fraud that marred the Nov. 21 vote, since annulled by the nation's supreme court. If he fails to win at least some support here, Mr. Yushchenko may face big obstacles governing a bitterly divided country, including the prospect of a renewed separatist movement.

Knowing that the key to success lies in the east, Mr. Yushchenko Friday relaunched the campaign by visiting Harkiv, the biggest city of eastern Ukraine -- the same day Mr. Yanukovych also arrived in town. Mr. Yushchenko used the occasion to pledge during a visit to a Harkiv tank factory that he won't make any moves to restrict the use of Russian language in Ukraine and that he will seek good relations with Moscow.

Mr. Yanukovych had been crisscrossing eastern and southern Ukraine all last week, painting himself as the leader of the real opposition and the only true patriot determined to defend Ukraine from a specter of American domination.

The difficulty of winning converts to Mr. Yushchenko's so-called orange revolution is apparent in the Crimea peninsula city of Yalta, a balmy resort long synonymous with Europe's Cold War divide, sealed at a 1945 conference when U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin agreed to Soviet domination of eastern Europe. Crimea, which Soviet rulers transferred from Russia to Ukraine in 1954, is the only Ukrainian region where ethnic Russians make up a majority of the population -- and where many view a likely Yushchenko victory as a sellout to the still-hated U.S.

At a recent rally on Yalta's beachfront promenade, pro-Yanukovych protester Alla Danchenko shouted, "We want to live in friendship with Russia , and America is paying Yushchenko to break us apart."

While Mr. Yanukovych was said to have beaten Mr. Yushchenko by three percentage points nationwide last month, according to now-overturned results, he carried Crimea with 82% of the vote, an edge that even local opposition leaders say was only marginally inflated by falsification.

Mr. Yushchenko's supporters have reasons to be optimistic about the new election. Opinion polls predict he is likely to beat Mr. Yanukovych by a margin of between five and 10 percentage points. The opposition leader has said that he aims to win at least 60% of the nationwide vote -- a landslide that would render irrelevant the precinct-by-precinct legal challenges that Mr. Yanukovych's campaign is preparing.

Ukraine's Parliament has severely curtailed the two most widespread methods of fraud: the use of absentee ballots and the voting at home, rather than at a precinct. Local election commissions were revamped to provide equal representation for both candidates, and the Central Election Commission member who publicly opposed falsification in the Nov. 21 vote now supervises the body. Also, national TV stations no longer slant their news coverage against Mr. Yushchenko.

Still, in Mr. Yanukovych's strongholds, residents have been subjected for months to a barrage of negative propaganda that distorted Mr. Yushchenko's views. Just a few weeks ago, official newspapers in Crimea published what they described as Mr. Yushchenko's electoral program -- topped by a pledge to turn the country into an American military base. And almost every household in Crimea has received a forged electoral leaflet in which Mr. Yushchenko purportedly promised to expel all ethnic Russians from the peninsula. "I will never get Russian votes, and Russians have no place in our country," the leaflet says. Mr. Yanukovych, by contrast, pledged to make Russian the second official language and to allow dual citizenship with Russia .

To counter the anti-Yushchenko feeling, last week his campaign launched a motor rally by pop stars and TV personalities who plan to travel across eastern and southern Ukraine, and who reached Crimea during the weekend, after an hours-long standoff with Mr. Yanukovych's supporters who blocked the highway into the peninsula. Mr. Yushchenko recorded some of his latest campaign commercials in Russian.

And in Yalta, Mr. Yushchenko's local campaign chief, Oleg Zubkov, is trying an unorthodox approach. He has turned the local zoo that he owns into a center of the outreach effort, bedecking the cages with orange ribbons, allowing free entry and distributing campaign literature between stunts with lions and tigers.

Seeing a group of visitors to the zoo on a recent morning, he lost no chance to proselytize: "About this election...you are being lied to. Don't believe all these rumors about Yushchenko."

Too polite to argue, the visitors smiled silently. Later, one of them, a retiree named Appolinaria Yakovleva, confided that the free trip to the zoo hasn't quite swayed her views. "I am still for Yanukovych," she said. "I have seen so many nice things about him in newspapers and on TV."

As Mr. Zubkov organized a Yushchenko demonstration under a huge Lenin monument that still dominates Yalta's main square, a counter-demonstration of similar size immediately coalesced nearby, mostly by elderly women outraged that a Yushchenko event could occur in this city at all.

"Americans have a toxic-waste problem," said one of the counter-demonstrators, Vladimir Kostenko. "If Yushchenko wins, they will shut down all our mines, making our people jobless, and will use the mines to store the American toxic waste instead."

Protected by a row of police, Mr. Zubkov concluded the rally after a half-hour of speeches and led his supporters on a march through Yalta's main street, where hostile glares greatly outnumbered welcoming waves. Back under the Lenin monument, local teenagers lined up to pick up Mr. Yushchenko's campaign newsletters at the orange tent -- only to burn them a few feet away.

Mr. Zubkov, himself an ethnic Russian who immigrated to Ukraine only in the 1980s, concedes that efforts to portray Mr. Yushchenko as an enemy of Russian-speaking Ukraine have been effective. "For the government, it was easy to shape people's opinions with all this outlandish lunacy," he says. "And once an opinion is formed, we need 10 times the effort to change it."

What I saw at the orange revolution

From the December 27, 2004 issue:
by Anders ?slund
12/27/2004, Volume 010, Issue 15

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=5053&R=A103391D0

Donetsk, Ukraine
ON THE FIFTEENTH DAY of Ukraine's orange revolution, I arrived in Kiev. My car got stuck in a traffic jam caused by a demonstration at the parliament. I abandoned the car and joined the rally. The demonstrators' determination was stunning. The sea of people was perfectly orderly and calm. Two slogans predominated: "Yushchenko is our President" and "Do not stop our Freedom!" A third line ran "East and West together!"

This was a call for law and order, freedom, and national unity. Some groups marched under Ukrainian flags, some under the orange flags of opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko emblazoned with the name of their town or village. The demonstration didn't seem to have any class identity at all. Hardly any names of businesses, parties, or organizations were to be seen. No one talked about social or economic issues. This was pure politics. Ukraine's orange revolution is a classical liberal revolution, like 1848, or the Velvet Revolution in Prague in 1989. This rising against lawlessness and repression, for democracy and freedom, is a true bourgeois revolution.

Half in jest, people call it a revolt of the millionaires against the billionaires. Three of the revolutionary leaders are very wealthy businessmen (Yulia Tymoshenko, Oleksandr Zinchenko, and Petro Poroshenko). They criticize not big business, but "bandits." The incumbent candidate, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, gets his key support from the three most prominent oligarchic groups, which between them reportedly put up $300 million for his campaign. But overwhelmingly the Ukrainian business community supports the challenger, Yushchenko, in protest against the capture of the state by these three.

Ukraine's presidential election also reflected a sharp regional divide. Yushchenko won big in 17 western and central districts. They are predominantly Ukrainian-speaking, though several are Russian-speaking. Yanukovich won equally massively in 10 Russian-speaking eastern and southern districts, scaring voters with the specter of western Ukrainian nationalism.

To get a better idea of what was going on, I traveled to Donetsk, Prime Minister
Yanukovich's stronghold in the east, to talk to business leaders, especially some of the steel barons. I was impressed. These self-made billionaires are as smart as they are dynamic. To them, politics is a means of advancing their business. They have bought up old Soviet steelworks and turned them around. One has opted for upstream vertical integration in raw materials (iron ore and coal), while another has concentrated on downstream purchases of steelworks in New Europe.

At present, they sell most of their steel to China and quite a lot to the Middle East, but they are painfully aware that the Chinese bonanza won't last long. Then they will have to sell more to Europe, which protects itself against Ukrainian steel. In order to break down that barrier, they want to buy downstream companies in Europe, have Ukraine join the World Trade Organization, and develop a free trade agreement with Europe.

I asked them about their business interests in Russia. Nobody seemed to own any significant assets there. Nor do they have any real Russian partners, though they sell a bit to their big neighbor. Energy they acquire on a free market, whereas the Russian steel companies are their severest competitors. However geographically close they are to Russia, the Donetsk steel barons long for Europe.

One had been a major supporter of Yanukovich. Another had maintained his neutrality, but appeared to prefer Yushchenko as a way of leveling the playing field with his bigger competitor. Not even big businessmen dare speak their minds in the authoritarian eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Lugansk. My interlocutors spoke with great respect of Yushchenko, who has carefully avoided insulting the east. Now all they want from the election is a clear result--contrary to President Leonid Kuchma, who appears to be working for a prolonged political crisis, which would destabilize the Ukrainian economy and thus hurt the opposition.

But what about the calls for separatism coming from some eastern officials? All my
interlocutors got excited when I asked about secession, and declared this idea absolutely intolerable. The business leaders in eastern Ukraine had told their regional officials that they had no right to talk secession, and the officials had shut up. Separatism was no threat, I was told, nor would the business community allow it to develop.

Pleased by all this, I went back to Kiev. If they meant what they told me, the big
Ukrainian businessmen are not prepared to accept a protracted political crisis, because it would cost them too much. They are willing to accept a Yushchenko presidency, and they are concerned about their reputation in the West so that they can purchase more companies in Europe. They are adamantly in favor of keeping Ukraine intact, because any breakup would disrupt their business empires. Their prime contacts are in the Ukrainian elite.

The political crisis in Ukraine is a natural result of President Kuchma's policies. On the positive side of the ledger, he has allowed a dynamic and competitive market economy to develop, but on the negative side, a handful of companies have been unfairly favored. Now, the very rich want to level the playing field with the super-rich, while ordinary Ukrainians are fed up with corruption, lawlessness, and repression. The east-west tension seems to be a secondary issue.

Russia's extensive meddling in the Ukrainian election is curious, considering that eastern Ukraine is already longing for Europe. The best explanation seems to be President Putin's dislike for democracy, and his fear that democracy could spread from Ukraine to Russia. It is also possible that President Kuchma used Putin for his own purposes, as he schemes to play everybody off everybody else.

Ukraine is knocking on the door of the European Union. It needs help as it endeavors to clean up corruption and lawlessness. But most of all it needs access to travel, markets,and education in its beloved Europe--and the prospect of membership in the European Union. For the E.U., it will be no small challenge to welcome the Ukrainian nation that is finally being born.


Anders ?slund is director of the Russian and European program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

© Copyright 2004, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.

Why the Fever in Ukraine? A Few Not-So Easy Answers

December 22, 2004
LETTER FROM EUROPE

By STEVEN LEE MYERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/22/international/europe/22letter.html

KIEV, Ukraine, Dec. 21 - Ukraine's "orange revolution" was either a mass outpouring of popular will or the collapse of an enfeebled authoritarian power.

Or maybe it was the political and judicial maturation of a teenage democracy. Or it was a Western plot concocted in the corridors of American power and carried out with cunning by subversive forces like the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. (The latter is the theory favored in parts north and east of here, particularly in the Kremlin.)

In reality, the political upheaval and mass demonstrations that ultimately overturned Ukraine's fraudulent presidential runoff last month probably resulted from a mixture of all those things. And by all accounts, Ukraine, alone among the former Soviet republics, had several essential ingredients for democracy that had managed to survive the turmoil of 13 years of halting transition: political competition, judicial independence and, of course, the political activism of voters in a vast swath of the world where apathy typically rules.

For those optimists who would like to export Ukraine's experience - and in Russia, Belarus and other former Soviet republics, there are many - those conditions might take years to develop elsewhere, if ever.

"The political trend here is different than in Russia or Belarus," said Kalman Mizsei, regional director of the United Nations Development Program, who has worked extensively in Ukraine and other post-Communist nations in Eastern Europe. "Maybe it's the difference in the fabric of civil society in different countries. Maybe it is hidden, and only emerges in times of extraordinary events."

Ukraine holds a new runoff on Sunday, and if the opposition leader, Viktor A. Yushchenko, wins, as expected, it might be tempting to view his triumph as simply the inexorable march of democracy. But there was nothing inevitable about what unfolded after two rounds of voting led to the disputed victory for Prime Minister Viktor F. Yanukovich.

It might well have turned out differently if President Leonid D. Kuchma, like Eduard A. Shevardnadze in Georgia a year before, had decided to risk bloodshed and international opprobrium by crushing the demonstrations.

Mr. Kuchma, whose popularity evaporated after 10 years of economic gains marred by scandal and, at the end, vote fraud, is unlikely to be seen as a hero by many here. Still, faced with protests and uncertain support among the security services, Mr. Kuchma gave up, negotiating a compromise that left Mr. Yanukovich isolated.

"I think the explanation is quite simple," Mikhail B. Pogrebinsky, the director of the Kiev Center for Political and Conflict Studies who has worked closely with Mr. Kuchma's government, said in an interview on Tuesday. "A revolution like this would not happen if the power had not decided to leave."

The power, however, was given a shove. And the groundwork for that took shape years ago.

Mr. Yushchenko, a former central banker, served as prime minister under Mr. Kuchma, but after breaking with him, found a political base from which to challenge him. Ukraine's Parliament is hardly a model of legislative ideals, but its rancorous sessions reflected the country's vigorous political blocs.

The Parliaments in Russia and Belarus, by contrast, have turned into rubber stamps for the executive branch. And the lack of political competition in those countries extends to their presidencies, as well.

President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus won the right to remain in power indefinitely in a referendum in October. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia won a second term in March against a diminished field of opponents who, like Mr. Yushchenko, faced the overwhelming resources of the state and suffered a lack of coverage on state television.

The moral and financial support of Europe and the United States has become a lightning rod for criticism here and in Moscow (which spent much more than the Western nations, according to published accounts in Russian newspapers). The Bush administration spent $58 million during the past year on programs intended to cultivate democratic values, but not specifically, United States officials said, the candidacy of Mr. Yushchenko.

How decisive those grants were is debatable, but one involved, indirectly, what was arguably the most pivotal event in the "orange revolution," and one seemingly unlikely to be repeated in courts elsewhere in the former Soviet Union any time soon.

The Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative of the American Bar Association, which trains lawyers and judges across the region, spent $400,000 of American money to conduct a series of sessions tutoring Ukraine's judges in election law.

Among those who took part in the training program were five judges of the Supreme Court, including Anatoly Yarema, who presided over the extraordinary five days of hearings into Mr. Yushchenko's complaint of electoral fraud. On Dec. 3, the Supreme Court overturned Mr. Yanukovich's victory and ordered the new election.

"This is the most dramatic example of judicial independence that we've seen in the developing countries" of Eastern Europe, Homer E. Moyer Jr., a senior partner in the law firm Miller & Chevalier in Washington and a co-founder of the association's program, said in a telephone interview, referring to the court's ruling.

Opposition leaders in Russia and Belarus, some of whom traveled to Kiev to witness the revolution, have looked at Ukraine's experience longingly, seeking lessons to adapt to their own struggle. Ultimately, however, beyond politics and the judiciary, everything depends on the people themselves.

"It is a ragged, uneven process," Mr. Moyer said when asked what was necessary for a revolution like Ukraine's. "One of the things that becomes evident is that it's a lot more than adopting new laws and constitutions. We're talking about pretty basic changes in thinking, changes in public expectations, a decrease in public cynicism about its own role."

Sergei V. Mitrokhin, a leader of Russia's liberal party, Yabloko, said last week that while Mr. Putin's Kremlin was creating the conditions for a popular uprising, Russians might not yet be suited for a repeat of events here in Kiev.

"Instead of an organized protest," he said at a news conference in Moscow, "we will get a traditional Russian riot."

Ukrainians train, hopefully not in vain, as monitors

Volume 74, Number 33 December 22 - 28, 2004

http://www.thevillager.com/villager_86/ukrainianstrainhopefully.html

By Justin Rocket Silverman

Wanted: Men and women in good health to travel in politically turbulent nation of Ukraine for purpose of election monitoring. Participants will be responsible for their own airfare, as well as personal housing and food costs. Ground transportation deep into the anti-Western regions of Ukraine provided free of charge. Average temperatures are well below freezing. Some Ukrainian language ability is helpful, but not required.

Any travel agency that tried to lure tourists with an advertisement like this wouldn’t be in business long. But when that agency is the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America and the tourists it wants to recruit are passionate about the future of Ukrainian independence, the trip ends up being oversubscribed.

As of last week, the U.C.C.A.’s national headquarters on Second Ave. in the East Village had received more than 600 applications to serve as international election monitors in the Ukrainian presidential election scheduled for Dec. 26.

About 400 Americans will actually fly to Kiev in the coming days as part of a U.C.C.A. delegation. Most of the volunteers are going because they are outraged at reports of widespread irregularities in the Nov. 21 elections, said U.C.C.A.’s executive director, Tamara Gallo Olexy. Seventy of the election monitors are from New York City, home to one of the largest Ukrainian ethnic communities in North America.

“Two of our observers testified before the Ukrainian Supreme Court and were an important part of the ruling that made this next election possible,” said Olexy. “This time around we are sending many more election monitors to ensure there is no repeat of Nov. 21.”

In addition to U.C.C.A. volunteers, the upcoming election will be closely watched by representatives of foreign governments and the international press corps. More than 8,000 election monitors from around the world have already registered to monitor the upcoming election. With so many eyes on Ukraine, Olexy said, it is unlikely that foreign poll monitors will be in any danger. But that didn’t stop the U.C.C.A. from including basic safety precautions as part of its election monitor-training course in the East Village.

“My parents and grandparents sacrificed so much so that I could have this life in New York,” said 35-year-old Walter Zinych, an East Village resident. “I owe it to them to deal with whatever risks there might be in order to safeguard free and democratic elections in Ukraine.”

Zinych will board a plane this week for the 10-hour flight to Kiev. He said that most of the seats on the plane are booked by U.C.C.A. election monitors like himself. The group will spend a few days in Kiev, making sure equipment like cameras and video recorders are in good working order and visiting with student protesters who have been living for weeks in a tent city outside the presidential offices. The protesters are credited with forcing the results of the Nov. 21 election to be annulled and paving the way for a new election the day after Christmas.

“This is the first time I’ve been away from my family for the holidays,” said Zinych. “But this is my chance to give people an opportunity to have a fair election.”

After preparations in Kiev are finished, Zinych and about 20 other U.C.C.A. monitors will drive to Odessa, a large port city on the Black Sea. As election monitors, Zinych and his colleagues will not have the right to intervene if they witness unscrupulous activity like ballot box tampering or voter intimidation. Instead, they will document the violations and report them back to the U.C.C.A.

Zinych stressed that he and other monitors are going to help ensure a fair election and are not traveling for the purpose of promoting the popular opposition candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, against the current prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich, who has received obvious backing and support from Moscow.

Yushchenko and his supporters have captured the sympathy of the world with their ongoing “Orange Revolution,” and orange flags and banners can be seen displayed throughout the East Village. Yanukovich’s supporters are accused of stealing the election from Yushchenko, who is being predicted as the winner in the new election this month. But even international sympathy and the watchful eyes of election monitors may not be enough to bring Yushchenko to power.

“Ukraine has been under Russian control for most of the last 300 to 400 years,” said Zinych. “Although we all expect Yushchenko to win, we are not sure that the corrupt government currently in power will give it up so easily.”

East Village goes orange, as Ukrainians show colors

Volume 74, Number 32 December 15 - 21, 2004

http://www.thevillager.com/villager_85/eastvillagegoesorange.html

By Justin Rocket Silverman


Villager photos by Anna Sawaryn

At Kurowycky butcher shop on First Ave., an orange ribbon hangs above a popular shopping bag, which reads: “I believe. I know. We can. Yes. Yushchenko.”


The line at the Self Reliance Federal Credit Union in the East Village has been a little longer than usual lately, as residents of all five boroughs come in to deposit money — in someone else’s account.

That someone is the Philadelphia-based United Ukrainian American Relief Committee, a 60-year-old organization that has lately focused its energy on supporting Ukraine’s opposition presidential candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, and his populist “Orange Revolution.” The ongoing political upheaval in the Ukraine that caused nearly a million people to surge through the streets of Kiev last month has stirred the hearts of first-, second- and even third-generation Ukrainian immigrants living in New York City.


“We’ve seen plenty of older people, seniors who live on a fixed pension, come in and make very generous donations,” said Genya Kuzmowycz Blahy, C.E.O. of the Self Reliance Federal Credit Union. “It’s like what’s going on now in Ukraine is the chance these older people have been waiting on for 50 years.”


Blahy said donations through the account at her credit union recently exceeded $100,000 — money that is used to help protesters living in a spontaneous tent city outside government offices in Ukraine.


The East Village is home to one of the largest and longest-standing Ukrainian populations in the United States. St. George’s Ukrainian Catholic Church on E. Seventh St. has been a neighborhood fixture since 1911, and its majestic cathedral still serves as the community’s unofficial capital. After demonstrations broke out in Kiev and other Ukrainian cities, orange ribbons went up in the neighborhood to show solidarity with protestors and condemn the widespread voter fraud that overshadowed Yushchenko’s defeat on Nov. 21.


“The community of immigrants that arrived recently is taking this very seriously, as their identity is at stake,” said Reverend Bernard Panczuk of St. George’s. “But it’s also an awakening for members of the community who were born here that they need to stand up for their country if they want it to be free.”


Panczuk called this a window of opportunity for Ukraine, a chance for the nation to assert itself after a long history of repression and control at the hands of Russia. Yushchenko is widely favored among the more liberal demographic in Ukraine that wants a closer relationship to the West instead of the traditional close ties with Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stated his support for Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, Yushchenko’s opponent who was declared the winner in last month’s election by the current Ukrainian president, Leonid Kuchma.


“Kuchma does not even speak Ukrainian very well,” said Jerry Kurowyckyj of Kurowycky Meat Products on First Ave. in the East Village. “His wife does not speak Ukrainian at all, she only speaks Russian. Yushchenko and the Orange Revolution is our first and last chance for true democracy and independence from Russia.”


In addition to monetary donations, East Village Ukrainians are organizing petition drives and phone lists to lobby elected officials in Washington, D.C., on behalf of the Orange Revolution. Some New Yorkers are even planning to fly back to Ukraine in the coming weeks to volunteer as poll monitors on Dec. 26, the date of a new election after the previous vote was declared invalid by the nation’s Supreme Court. Considering the reports of violence and intimidation that marred the first election, the volunteer poll monitors may be putting themselves at risk. Training sessions for those planning to travel to Ukraine later in the month are scheduled at the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, also in the East Village.


One Ukrainian who has already returned home is Vitali Klitschko, who said he considered canceling a heavyweight title fight in Las Vegas last Saturday. Instead he used the fight, and his resounding victory, to promote the Orange Revolution by wearing an orange flag during the match. It is the same flag that now flies off bars, restaurants and homes throughout the Ukrainian community in the East Village.


“I support Klitschko because he supports Yushchenko,” said Nazar Stryhun, 32, outside the Ukrainian Sports Club on Second Ave. Saturday night. Stryhun was wearing an orange shirt with the word “Tak” emblazoned across the front. Tak is Ukrainian for “yes,” and is a rallying cry for Yushchenko supporters.


“Yushchenko won in the first and second round of voting. He will also win in the third round and then he will be champion, just like in boxing,” said Stryhun. (The first round included about 80 candidates.) An all-night vigil is planned at St. George’s Ukrainian Catholic Church on the night of Dec. 26, when the former Soviet republic of Ukraine makes another attempt at holding free and fair elections.

Ukraine separatists given Russian arms, warns opposition

By Askold Krushelnycky in Kiev
22 December 2004

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=595343

Fears are mounting that Boxing Day elections in Ukraine will be wrecked by an orchestrated campaign of violence after reports that pro-government "thugs" were being supplied with weaponry from a Russian naval base in Crimea.

Hryhoriy Omelchenko, an opposition MP, claims to have evidence that up to 300 AK-47 automatic rifles, as well as grenades and explosives, have been handed over to groups linked to separatist politicians in eastern Ukraine.

A spokesman for the Russian Black Sea fleet, based in the Ukrainian peninsula of Sevastopol, denied the allegations.

Mr Omelchenko, a former Soviet-era KGB officer who also served as a colonel in the Ukrainian intelligence service after independence, said he received his information from serving officers. "The intention is to use bloodshed to disrupt the election so badly that it is declared invalid," he told The Independent. Separatist politicians in east Ukraine threatened to declare the region autonomous and create "self- defence units" after the presidential election victory of their Kremlin-backed candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, the Prime Minister, was quashed and a new election ordered.

"[After the violence] they will argue that any new election should have neither [Viktor] Yushchenko nor Yanukovych as candidates and fix it for one of their people to win," he said.

Mr Omelchenko, the deputy chief of the parliamentary committee on organised crime and corruption, said the plan calls for police officers loyal to Mr Yanukovych from his eastern Ukrainian fiefdom of Donetsk, to lead "small groups of criminals" given guarantees of immunity.

"They will be in civilian cars, in convoys of about 10 cars with five people in each one," he said. "Their job will be to cause as much violence and mayhem as possible so the government declares the election invalid.

"I hope that if these people know their plans are no longer secret they will think twice about them and they will throw all these weapons down a well or an old mine shaft."

Volodymyr Lytvyn, the speaker of the parliament, said parliament would ask the prosecutor general's office and the SBU (Security Service of Ukraine) to investigate.

The pro-Western opposition leader, Mr Yushchenko, advocates Nato and European Union membership, and Vladimir Putin, Russia's President, has worked hard to prevent him becoming president.

Mr Putin visited Ukraine on the eve of both previous presidential election rounds, in October and November, to boost Mr Yanukovych's popularity among Ukraine's large Russian ethnic minority, and has been chastised by the West for unseemly interference.

There have also been reports that Russian special forces have been present in the country. Many of Mr Yushchenko's colleagues suspect Russia was involved in the poisoning, last September, of the opposition leader, which left him hideously scarred.

The opposition claims that as part of the scheme to use violence, the government has attempted to replace the chief of the civilian and paramilitary police in Kiev, the capital, with Vladimir Vorobyov, a general from Donetsk.

Yuriy Pavlenko, an opposition MP and Yushchenko ally, said government plans to unleash heavily armed paramilitary forces against pro-democracy protesters last month were only blocked by senior Kiev police officers who vowed to defend the protesters. He said the same people foiled the attempt to install General Vorobyov at a meeting last Friday night. Mr Pavlenko said: "I think they want bloodshed to start and for the police and special forces to stand by initially, and then to go in and attack the opposition supporters under the pretext of restoring peace."

The MP said that as part of an opposition compromise with the government last month, Leonid Kuchma, the outgoing President, was to fire the Minister for Internal Affairs, Mykola Bilokon, who has been accused of colluding in massive electoral fraud and of abusing his powers on many other occasions. Instead he was allowed to take leave. Mr Pavlenko believes General Bilokon may soon be reinstated.

"General Bilokon has proved in the past that he is ruthless and he knows that if Mr Yushchenko becomes president, he will be prosecuted. He has nothing to lose and the danger is that many of these people feel they have nothing to lose," Mr Pavlenko said.

Putin and the Rising Tide of Paranoia

By Ira Straus Friday, December 17, 2004

http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/printStoryId.aspx?StoryId=4300

From President Putin on down, Russians have reacted with outrage at recent events in Ukraine. Ira Strauss takes a closer look at the current hysteria over alleged foreign conspiracies aimed at Russian interests. He finds that Russians need to overcome their paranoia — and offers a few pointers on how the West can help this process along.

Russians give an impression of being quite fearful these days. Most of them, it seems, cannot imagine that the Ukrainian people have spoken freely.

Is Russia next?

Instead, they conjure up the image of a big, bad American political technology steamroller that first ran over Serbia, then Georgia — and now is running over Ukraine.

And next, these Russians fear, it might run over Russia itself. The newspaper Izvestia titled its December 1, 2004, article on this subject: “Next Stop: Russia.”

Some of these comments have made it into the Western press. What Westerners are probably not aware of is that it is a mass phenomenon. In a radio poll, fully 52% of listeners told Ekho Moskvy that the “Ukrainian scenario” could be repeated in Russia.

And it’s not just the Russian public that is running scared of the supposed American revolutionary steamroller. A number of high-ranking politicians and strategists, many of them closely allied with the Kremlin, are doing the same.


Russian overreaction

They are using the fear as an argument for "tightening the screws" further, even for "counter-revolution," in the words of Gleb Pavlovsky, a Kremlin advisor.

Such a Russian overreaction, Russian liberals say is just what could finally bring on Ukrainian-style events in Moscow, by severing the last honest links between government and people — and between media discourse and truth.

The past as future

During similar hysterias in the past — such as during the Kosovo conflict in 1999, when it was considered normal and correct in Russia to say that “America is bombing Belgrade today, Moscow tomorrow” — President Putin and his “political technologists” played a moderating role.
They restored Russia's sense of stability and rebuilt relations with the West. Nevertheless, the general argument for paranoia was never eliminated — only suppressed. Russia regained confidence after 1999, thanks to a strengthening of the central government and the use of authoritarianism to project an image of strong leadership.

Fast forward to 2004. Russia seems thrown back on its 1999 sense of insecurity. The Kremlin helped create the mess in Ukraine by overplaying its hand and trying to pit the pro-Russian majority of Ukrainians against the pro-Western minority.

Blame game

But the unintended result was that in the November 2004 election, a majority of Ukrainians united against this policy of divisiveness.


Faced with such an outcome, it was easier for Russians to blame their failure to get the pro-Russian candidate elected on a conspiracy rather than on the free will of the Ukrainian people.


The crucial difference

And that is why the situation in 2004 could play out differently from that in 1999. Instead of moderating the national hysteria, as they did in 1999, the Kremlin and its supporters have now joined it — blaming everything on America and the West.

President Putin, too, has been unusually slow in regaining his composure. He backed off from his very outspoken pro-Yanukovych posture, but proceeded to plot openly with outgoing Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma.

In addition, Mr. Putin complained loudly about the “foreign interference” by the West. But while there has been some open and transparent Western support for the opposition, Russia proceeded in the most brazen fashion with its own covert interference, which at times was genuinely conspiratorial.

Double standard

Mr. Putin’s people complained of a Yushchenko “coup d’etat,” while the Kremlin itself actually plotted with Mr. Kuchma in his attempted coup against Ukraine’s constitutional order.

In 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev counted it as his greatest success that the Russian people had formed enough of a civil society that they could stand up to the August 1991 coup by Soviet hardliners.

A sad development

In 2004, Mr. Putin complains of conspiracy and subversion when the fledgling Ukrainian civil society stands up against Mr. Kuchma’s attempted coup.

This change in how the emergence of civil society is viewed by the Kremlin is sad — a truly negative evolution in Russian state thinking.

Most ominously, Mr. Putin has combined the paranoia of 2004 with the paranoia of 1999. "This sort of development," he said on a trip to Turkey on December 7, 2004, would mean “dividing Europe into westerners and easterners, into first-class and second-class people."

Mr. Putin added that the latter would be subjected to “a nice but stern man in a colonial helmet who will show them under what political understanding they must live. And if, God forbid, the ungrateful foreigner resists, he will be punished with bombs and missiles, as it was in Belgrade.”


Taking a stand

Beliefs like these have dangerous consequences. Westerners should not let them pass unchallenged. They should refute them, as Colin Powell did, when he rebutted the Russian foreign minister's charges at the December 7, 2004, OSCE meetings in Sofia.

Mr. Powell rightly pointed out that the Western support of democratic elections is not the same thing as interference in democratic elections.


Don’t feed the paranoia

It is tedious — but necessary — to patiently remind Russians of some elementary distinctions and some basic facts of recent history.

At the same time, the West should not feed the phobias by its other policies. It does so when it combines its promotion of democracy with demands for Russian geopolitical withdrawals.

So while Mr. Powell was right in defending Western involvement in Ukraine as fair-minded promotion of democracy, he undermined his case when he coupled it with demands for Russian withdrawal from Georgia and Moldova.

“Next,” Russians will say, “America will be demanding our withdrawal from Sevastopol,” the strategically important Black Sea port.


Conspiracy theory

Such demands would look to Russians like clear proof of their belief that the United States was promoting the Ukrainian opposition candidate Yushchenko all along as part of a geopolitical master plan for driving Russia out of Ukraine — along with the rest of the CIS.

What the West should be talking about instead is finding a constructive compromise on Sevastopol, so that the Russian navy can stay there. For example, this could happen by putting the base under the auspices of the NATO-Russia Council.


Balancing the NATO issue

It would have been better to avoid any talk of Ukrainian entry into NATO until after Russia calms down, but already the talk has begun.

It needs to be balanced by talk of upgrading the NATO-Russia Council — and eventual full Russian membership in the alliance.

The implementation of such a balanced approach will depend, of course, on a return to common sense in Russia as well as on Western willingness to innovate.

The EU should make the effort to reconcile its EU-Russia and EU-Ukraine common space projects — and to reconcile them both with a Russia-Ukraine common economic space.


No disconnect intended

Otherwise, it could cause Yushchenko’s EU orientation to disrupt the organic connections between the Ukrainian and Russian economies — connections that are necessary both for the economic success of Ukraine under Yushchenko and for the Russian economy.

In the past, Russia has come out of its paranoid moments and adapted to reality, even if retaining a residue of the phobias and resentments. However, there are no guarantees.

Russia’s mental health

Today, Russia is once again teetering on the edge. If a nuclear superpower becomes mentally unsound, it will be extremely dangerous — more so than in the relatively stable Cold War era.

The West should pay attention and avoid feeding the frenzy. But in the end, Russia must bear the primary responsibility for its own mental stability.

It is time for Russians to notice, when looking across the border, the existence of a large population of Ukrainians, whose will cannot be wished away by media lies or police manipulations.

Russians also have to stop pointing fingers westward to explain their own failure in Ukraine.

Can Putin be trusted?

But what should worry Russians the most as they are whipping themselves into a frenzy against the West is that the rest of the world has quietly drawn two conclusions.

First, that the fault lies with the Russian side — and second, that it has started asking whether it can trust the Putin regime at all.

Establishment club in fear of Ukraine's protesters

By Simon Kuper
Published: December 17 2004 20:58 Last updated: December 17 2004 20:58

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/01c3dfec-506b-11d9-b551-00000e2511c8.html

When I visited Ukraine in 1992, I ate every day in the canteen of Dynamo Kiev football club. It was one of the only restaurants in Kiev.

Admittedly it was lacking in Michelin stars: when the club president's secretary passed through one day carrying an electric kettle, it felt like the difference between Them and Us. But at no other football club have I felt closer to a nation's centre of power. The stadium's forecourt, scene of a famous recent murder, was always full of Mercedes and skinheads wearing tracksuits. One day a club official told me over a beer at Hotel Intourist: "Dynamo have licences to export nuclear missile parts, two tons of gold per annum, and metals including platinum." How did it get the licences? Friends in high places, the official explained. He showed me the list of guests accompanying Dynamo to a game in Vienna two weeks later. It read like a Ukrainian Who's Who: a leading banker, the son of a leading government official etc. This was the establishment that the orange-clad protesters in Independence Square now want to oust.

The clan running Dynamo was replaced soon after my visit but the club remained just as close to power. It is now the fief of Hryhoriy Surkis, an oligarch and politician who was recently denied an American visa because the US suspects him of corruption and electoral fraud. Dynamo's main rivals, Shakhtar Donetsk, belong to Ukraine's richest oligarch, Rinat Akhmetov.

In short, the people who run Ukrainian sport also run Ukraine but that may soon change. Akhmetov and Surkis have been backing Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian candidate for president and beneficiary of last month's rigged election. But now Yanukovych is in trouble, Ukraine's supreme court having annulled the vote. On December 26, he will probably lose the re-run to his pro-western rival, Viktor Yushchenko.

This is partly thanks to Ukraine's sportsmen, who are at last peeling away from the sitting power. The boxing Klitschko brothers deserve credit, though the footballer Andriy Shevchenko doesn't.

In Soviet tradition, athletes are part of the state apparatus. Like the army, they fight for the Motherland, which essentially means the government. Hence Serhii Bubka, Ukraine's legendary pole vaulter, said recently: "Thanks to [Yanukovych], Ukrainian athletes received a 100 per cent increase in financing for the first time since Ukraine's independence." Ukrainian athletes have always said things like that.

A statement in this genre came last month from Oleh Blokhin, Ukraine's football manager, who sits in parliament for Surkis's party. After Ukraine won in Turkey, Blokhin dedicated the victory to Yanukovych, who enjoyed, the coach assured Ukrainians, the entire team's support.

Blokhin is an incorrigible apparatchik. However, other sportsmen are switching sides. Serhii Rebrov has played for West Ham United wearing an orange wristband to support Yushchenko. Also in London, his former team-mate Oleh Luzhny addressed Yushchenko supporters.

Vitali Klitschko, preparing for the world heavyweight title fight in Las Vegas, addressed the world. "I'm really proud of the people in Ukraine," he said. "This game they are playing is very dangerous." Klitschko nearly abandoned his fight to fly home to campaign but Yushchenko asked him to use the boxing ring as a bully pulpit. So Klitschko thrashed Danny Williams wearing an orange ribbon on his shorts, and then posed before a flag reading "Tak! [Yes] Yushchenko."

The point is not that the Klitschkos will sway many votes. Rather, by showing it is possible to campaign for Yushchenko and live, they encourage other public figures and journalists to do likewise. Several journalists and politicians critical of the regime have been murdered in recent years, while Yushchenko was poisoned so severely that he was found to have the second highest concentration of dioxin ever recorded in a human being.A number of television channels have stopped making propaganda for the government.

Shevchenko has been less brave. On November 18 he appeared on the pro-Yanukovych channel 1+1 to endorse him. Barely lifting his eyes from a prepared text, he looked like a hostage reading his own ransom note. It looks as though Shevchenko was leaned on to do this. Few viewers took "Sheva"'s endorsement seriously: he has always been a strictly sporting hero, not a leader like Luzhny. Nonetheless, it did seem spineless. Shevchenko lives in Milan, has an American wife and is rich. What did he have to lose? "Your choice made the nation weep," said a banner at the recent Milan-Shakhtar Donetsk match in the Champions League.

On Monday Shevchenko was named European footballer of the year. Told the news, he said he had "barely slept" for three days for worry that the Ukrainian conflict would turn bloody. He has since tried edging away from his broadcast. "People in Ukraine deserve democracy," he said on receiving his award. He spoke to Yushchenko and reported that "it was very pleasant to hear warm words from the presidential candidate".

If Yushchenko wins next week, Ukrainian sport may change. Surkis could lose his protected status. Already his former business partner Konstantin Grigorishyn is preparing lawsuits to regain control of Dynamo. Uefa, the European football authority, should consider following the US's lead and drop Surkis from its executive committee.

Generally, if Ukraine becomes less oligarch-ridden, its football clubs will decline. Today a disproportionate share of national wealth goes to sport. Thanks to the oligarchs, who spend their riches on Brazilian stars, Ukraine had two clubs in this season's Champions League: as many as all other eastern European countries put together.

Yushchenko, asked once whether he liked football, said he used to. "Now football, in its worst manifestation, has become a political game in Ukraine. It pains me to see what it has brought to my people." The game is a symptom of Ukraine's sickness, as is Shevchenko.

"HOW I LOOK AT THE CHALLENGES FACING UKRAINE"

STATEMENT: U.S. Congressman Rep. Sander Levin (D-MI)
Representing the 12th Congressional District of Michigan
Conference On "Ukraine's Choice: Europe or Russia?"
The New Atlantic Initiative of the American Enterprise Institute
Washington, D.C., Friday, December 10, 2004

INTRODUCTION

Thank you for inviting me to join you today. When I first received the invitation last week, I approached it with both enthusiasm and some trepidation. Enthusiasm, because I like so many others have been focused every day on the exciting news coming out of Ukraine and I welcomed the opportunity to join the debate. Some trepidation, because I am not an expert on Ukraine.

My interest in Ukraine heightened when I began to represent 12 years ago an active Ukrainian community at home in Michigan. New relationships for which I am grateful spawned my participation the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus as a co-chair and sponsorship of legislative initiatives such as a bill to construct a memorial in Washington, DC to honor the victims of the Famine- Genocide of 1932/33, resolutions commemorating the Famine-Genocide, a bill to grant a federal charter to the Ukrainian American Veterans, Inc, and legislation extending permanent normal trade relations to Ukraine.

Most recently I participated on the day before Thanksgiving in a demonstration in front of Ukraine's Embassy in Georgetown. Ukrainian Americans from across the country came to Washington to protest the widespread election fraud in Ukraine. We gathered together in the rain just as the AP Wire announced that Ukraine's Election Commission had certified the election of Victor Yanukovych. Ukraine has come such a long way since then.

During the last few weeks the Ukrainian people have crossed what history hopefully will record as a milestone. One reflecting the will of the Ukrainian people, to stand-up for democracy and genuine liberty for their country. It has been stirring to watch the hundreds of thousands braving the bitter cold and snow in Independence Square in Kyiv and throughout the country, demanding to have their voices heard and their just demands met, namely, free and fair elections.

It also was encouraging how quickly and resolutely critically important elements of the government have joined in supporting the protesters demands, including the formerly government controlled media and the police and security services. The media is now increasingly reporting honestly about developments and the police, by and large, are truly performing admirably.

The single most important act was by Ukraine's Supreme Court, which unanimously determined that the November 21 election was irrevocably flawed and called for the second runoff election on the 26th of this month. This was a watershed decision that truly put the country on the right course for rectifying the gross injustice perpetrated on October 31 and November 21.

In recent years, I have focused on the challenges of international trade and globalization. On these issues my aim has been to find within an active internationalism a creative and consistent approach reflecting broadly-based American interests. Within that same screen, let me indicate how I look at the challenges facing Ukraine. I group them as to, in my view, what are NOT the issues and what ARE the issues.

WHAT THE ISSUES ARE NOT
A. East vs. West Ukraine
As a non-expert on Ukraine, I have read reports in recent days about the divisions within the country and I have talked with knowledgeable people about the demographic divisions within Ukraine. Having just completed an election in our own nation where there were significant geographical divisions, we should not lightly dismiss their existence. But as is true in our nation where the common bonds remain strong, I think we should be wary of those in Ukraine who magnify differences and minimize common heritage for their own short term political purposes. I believe that Ukraine as a whole prefers to look to Kyiv, not Moscow. Further, it is hard to believe that the Russian Government does not understand what would be the consequences of
a break-up, in terms of resulting turbulence, both for Ukraine and for Russia.

B. Ukraine's choice is between Europe and Russia I know this is the title of this meeting and I would surmise that people more knowledgeable than I am have earlier today commented on this as a theme.

There clearly is truth to it. Ukraine has strived for ages, surely in the Soviet era, to throw off the yoke of its neighbor. Memories remain vivid and emotions appropriately remain very deep about the Soviet repression, about the horrendous horrors and loss of life from the Famine/Genocide. Ukraine has long been part of Europe, and we want to encourage further integration. At the same time, because of its geographical position and its economic and cultural relationships with Russia, Ukraine hopefully can both help provide some constructive bridging between Russia and the rest of Europe, and as Ukraine evolves further as a free society, help move and pressure Russia to follow a similar path toward full democracy and freedoms.

C. An example of a new era for the use of American unilateral rather than multilateral action The story of the unfolding of democracy in Ukraine remains being written, and clearly the outcome to date was shaped more by internal forces than
external action. But it does seem clear that, if not determinative, there surely was a significant impact from the collaborative, common response and pressures from the U.S. and the E.U. acting in consonance. When it came to Ukraine's steps towards real democracy, rekindling of America's traditionally common bonds with Europe and other democracies was a major asset. Recent American relationships with President Putin that were driven substantially by our approach to Iraq, and search for support of that approach may have led President Putin to miscalculate how far he could interfere and the reactions which would come from democratic nations about his heavy interference with democratic forces within Ukraine.

The collaborative international response to the attempt to rig the Ukrainian election should serve as a clear sign to all nations, including Russia, that the vital war against terrorism requires more not less concern about the development of democracy everywhere

WHAT THE ISSUES ARE
A. Will a momentous step be pursued?
On the heels of the landmark Supreme Court decision, the Ukrainian Parliament adopted, by an overwhelming majority, changes to the election law, including the appointment of a new Central Election Commission that includes in equal numbers representatives of both candidates. The changes will help prevent the more egregious forms of tampering and fraud that marred the first two rounds of the election. The Ukrainian Parliament is to be commended for taking this important step in regaining the confidence of the Ukrainian electorate that the vote on the 26th will be fair and
transparent.

There must also be a substantial increase in the number of international observers at the 33,000 polling sites across Ukraine. It is important for the Ukrainian people to see that the international community, particularly the United States, not only provides declaratory statements encouraging fair and free elections, but actively participates in the elections as observers. The U.S. State Department has announced it will seek a $3 million obligation for observation of the run-off election.

With some regions reporting voter turnout as high as 96 percent, as in the Donetsk district, there must be strict controls in place to manage ballot production and distribution. Observers noted people being bused from one district to another and repeatedly casting ballots with the use of absentee voting certificates. Observers should be allowed to view the ballot printing, and a record needs to be kept of the number of ballots printed and distributed to the polling sites.

In addition, both candidates must have an equal opportunity to express their views in the media, and the media, in turn, needs to be protected from the intimidation and coercion that has marred previous election coverage.

B. Will the U.S. and other nations provide consistent support for evolving democratic institutions?
In large measure the scenes of thousands taking to the streets for democracy is the result of a civil society taking hold in the country - the nurturing of a sense of personal responsibility and social awareness. Institutions like NDI, IRI, NED and so many others, including the UCCA on behalf of the Ukrainian American community, have been working in Ukraine over the course of the past decade and a half, helping to develop civic organizations and institutions that are the wellspring of a democratic society.

United States financial assistance to Ukraine and these institutions has been steadily declining over the past several years. From 2001 to 2004, U.S. aid to Ukraine dropped 42 percent, from $183 million to $106 million, and even less will be provided in 2005. These funds are not only used for democracy initiatives, they also go toward small business development, cultural exchange programs and nuclear safety efforts.

The U.S. should be doing more, not less, to help build a civil society in Ukraine. There needs to be a more consistent, persistent structure of support.

In the event that international observers deem the election on the 26th fair, the US and Europe should make available to the new government of Ukraine additional assistance in implementing the long pending democratic and economic reforms.

Based on my discussions with the Ukrainian-American community over now many years, an effective structure of support also needs to include more systematic involvement of the Ukrainian-American diaspora, with all of its skilled personnel in so many fields. Many would like to help and surely initiatives by individuals are vital. But it cannot work well enough if it is helter skelter. To be organized and effective, it takes continuing attention and resources.

c. Will Ukraine build a democratic society blessed with justice and pluralism?
In the years that I have represented Ukrainian-American constituents, we have shared many cultural and important commemorative events. We also have discussed Ukraine's past and their fervent hopes for the future of their nation of origin about which there remain strong feelings of concern, pride and identity. This interaction has intensified these last few weeks as all of us American have witnessed the incessant outcry, including among the youth of Ukraine, for democratic rights.

This would seem to provide, in terms of the shape of its evolving society, a chance for Ukraine to combine a fresh start along with its long history. Victor Yushchenko in a recent Op Ed said: "The people of Ukraine recognize that an economically prosperous nation-state tolerant of its bilingualism and multiethnic society, and respectful of all religious confession, is Ukraine's strength and not her weakness".

May Ukraine live up to these words in the days ahead. Its doing so is vital for Ukraine; it also would will send an important message to all the world, including to the people of our nation.

EU leaders eye "enhanced" ties with Ukraine after new poll

17/12/2004

http://www.eubusiness.com/afp/041217084454.j2sif4wf

EU leaders hope to reinforce their relations with Ukraine after next week's rerun presidential vote, which must be free and fair, according to a draft text Friday of their conclusions at a Brussels summit.

The European Union, which sent mediators to help resolve a crisis caused by mass street protests over a flawed November 21 presidential poll, said it was looking for an "enhanced and distinctive relationship."

The draft text said the December 26 rerun, ordered after the supreme court annulled the November election, must enable voters to "freely decide."

It went on: "It is now of utmost importance that the positive developments are sustained, and that the Ukrainian electorate can now freely decide on the candidate of its own choice."

The vote is widely expected to be won by Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, a pro-Western candidate who has said he wants to bring his nation closer to NATO and the EU.

His supporters took to the streets in their tens of thousands after claims that the November poll -- officially won by pro-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich -- was massively flawed.

The supreme court eventually ordered a second runoff ballot.

The draft EU text stressed Ukraine's strategic importance and said Brussels had a common interest with Kiev in deepening political, economic and cultural ties.
The leaders also offered their support in monitoring the December 26 vote, notably by sending international observers.

Senior Democrat on House Oversight Panel Demands Accounting

for U.S. Government Funds Funneled to Back Yushchenko-Led 'Orange Revolution' in Ukraine, Despite Official White House Denials

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/12-16-2004/0002636908&EDATE

WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Rising concerns over an estimated $65
million in U.S. taxpayer money used to influence the outcome of the Ukrainian
presidential election, despite denial from the White House, have prompted
United States Representative Edolphus Towns (D-NY) to request an
investigation. Specifically, evidence is mounting that U.S. official funds
were funneled to the support of organizations with a known preference for
candidate Viktor Yushchenko, and that these organizations were key elements in
mobilizing Ukraine's "orange revolution" that sprung up election eve with
tents, equipment and huge plasma screens "spontaneously."
"Information in the public domain indicates that a significant portion of
the reportedly $65 million spent during the past two years, for such programs
in Ukraine, may have been given to organizations with a known partisan agenda
in support of one of the presidential candidates," wrote Representative Towns,
Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on Government Efficiency and
Financial Management, in a Dec. 14, 2004 letter to Andrew Natsios,
Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development
(USAID), believed to be the agency responsible for most of the funding for
pro-Yushchenko forces. "Such a bias would be inconsistent with public claims
by the Administration that the United States is impartial in the Ukrainian
election, and this would contribute to a negative image of the United States
for unwarranted interference in that country's domestic affairs."
In his letter to Administrator Natsios, Representative Towns asks for 1)
the total amount of funds provided by USAID to nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs) for fiscal years 2003, 2004, and 2005 to support ostensible "democracy"
and "civil society" programs in Ukraine; 2) the names of organizations
receiving these funds and the amounts received by each; 3) the programs for
which the funds were intended for use and how they actually were used; and 4)
an accounting of how much of the funds were used to support or oppose a
particular Ukrainian political party or candidate. Representative Towns
notes, as an example, that USAID funds the Poland-America-Ukraine Cooperation
Initiative (PAUCI), which in turn distributed sub-grants to numerous NGOs that
clearly display their partisan support for Viktor Yushchenko on their Web
sites -- and which some have sought to conceal when such funding became a
matter for official scrutiny. Numerous other PAUCI sub-grantees are also
believed to have such an agenda but do so covertly.
Representative Towns specifically asked about the "questionable
expenditure" of U.S. taxpayer funds by USAID to fund an organization with a
known pro-Yushchenko agenda, the US-Ukraine Foundation (USUF). USUF, co-
founded by Viktor Yushchenko's wife Kateryna Chumacheko (who also served on
USUF's board in the past), co-sponsored several election observation missions
to Ukraine in 2004 with the Association of Former Members of Congress. The
observations of supposedly "objective" monitors sponsored by transparently
biased organizations like USUF were a major factor in setting into motion the
Yushchenko camp's efforts to seize power based on one-sided claims of
electoral fraud. "The funding of this or any biased organization, for
sponsoring election observers from the United States, appears particularly
ill-advised give the decisive impact reports from such observers have had on
perceptions of Ukraine's electoral process," wrote Representative Towns.
For example, one of the delegates serving as on USUF's election
observation missions was former U.S. Representative John Conlan, who on at
least two separate occasions offered Viktor Yushchenko political support in a
March 18, 2004 Kyiv Post oped "Viktor Yushchenko: Victor or Vanquished? Help
is Needed, and Fast," and at a February 7, 2003 Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace symposium, "Current Political Situation in Ukraine." In
the Kyiv Post oped, Conlan offers a list of "steps" that Mr. Yushchenko should
take in order to turn his campaign around including recommending that "winners
get a professional audit done of their campaign organizations. An audit would
include preparation and plans by a highly experienced western campaign
manager, preferably one who knows Ukraine." At the end of the oped, Conlan
states that he has managed 25 political campaigns and lives in Kyiv. At the
February 7, 2003 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace symposium,
Representative Conlan tells Mr. Yushchenko, "I have [an offer] of help for
him, if he and [Yushchenko for President Chief of Staff] Mr. [Oleh] Rybachuk
are interested ... I can show you how to get one of the top TV networks and
one of the top radio networks on your side." But because Mr. Conlan's
preferences coincided with those of USUF, that foundation evidently saw no
obstacle to his serving on their USAID-funded observer mission.

This material is distributed by DBC Public Relations Experts on behalf of
Viktor F. Yanukovych, candidate for the office of President of Ukraine.
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SOURCE Viktor F. Yanukovych, candidate for the office of
President of Ukraine

Doctors identify poison used on Yushchenko

Jeremy Page
December 18, 2004

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11720359%255E2703,00.html

MEDICAL experts have identified the type of dioxin used to poison Ukraine opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko in a significant breakthrough in his efforts to pinpoint the culprit.

Mr Yushchenko has forbidden them from revealing the results to avoid influencing the repeat of his presidential run-off with Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich on Boxing Day.

Mr Yushchenko, a Western-leaning former central banker, said yesterday his opponent was planning unspecified "provocations" that could jeopardise the vote. He also said for the first time he was sure he was poisoned at a dinner with Ukrainian Security Service head Igor Smeshko and his deputy, Volodymyr Satsyuk, on September 5, the night he fell ill.

The test results are expected to provide compelling evidence to back up his claim and further incriminate Mr Yanukovich's Government and his powerful supporters in Ukraine and Russia.

Mr Yushchenko's supporters have suggested Russia ordered the poisoning to prevent the opposition leader, who advocates joining the European Union and NATO, from winning the election.

Last week, doctors confirmed that Mr Yushchenko was poisoned with dioxin, probably given to him in a creamy soup, but they could not say what type of dioxin or prove that it was an assassination attempt. Further tests at three laboratories identified the precise type of dioxin - the crucial fingerprint that could prove it was administered deliberately and reveal its origin, as well as its long-term effects on his health.

The head of one of the laboratories, BioDetection Systems in Amsterdam, said all three laboratories had identified the same dioxin, but he refused to reveal the name. He said Mr Yushchenko's wife had called Michael Zimpfer, the head of the Rudolfinerhaus clinic in Vienna where her husband was treated, to ask that the results be kept secret until after the election.

However, several top toxicologists said they believed the dioxin was the compound 2,3,7,8- tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) - a component of Agent Orange, a defoliant used in the Vietnam War.

"It's the best known and it's pretty toxic. In the old Soviet Union they would have studied these chemicals in detail. They may know more about the acute effects of dioxin poisoning than we do," British toxicologist John Henry said.

Tests this week showed Mr Yushchenko had 6000 times the normal level of dioxin in his system - the second-highest level recorded in a human being.

The lab results could reveal exactly where the dioxin came from by identifying the isomers of the chemicals, Dr Henry said.

"You could pinpoint it to a certain country, even a certain laboratory," he said. The results will be handed to Ukrainian prosecutors and legislators who have reopened an investigation.

Mr Yushchenko has vowed to prosecute the culprits.

The Times

Report: French PR firm linked to poisoning

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20041217-070555-7473r.htm

Kiev, Ukraine, Dec. 17 (UPI) -- The extent of an apparent plot to poison Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine's opposition leader, and then cover up the evidence now reaches across Europe.

Yushchenko, who said he was poisoned with dioxin at a dinner with Ukraine's secret police, was found to have ingested 6,000 times the level of dioxin healthy people have, the Financial Times reported Friday.

Soon after Yushchenko first claimed he had been poisoned, President Leonid Kuchma's son-in-law engaged a French public relations team to initiate a media campaign, centered on a Vienna clinic, calculated to disparage the poisoning accusations, the newspaper said.

Yffic Nouvellon of EuroRSCG and his public relations team arranged a press conference where Lothar Wicke, general manager of Vienna's Rudolfinerhaus Clinic, contradicted Yushchenko's poisoning allegations.

Nouvellon also contacted international media offering "evidence" Yushchenko had not been poisoned. When asked during the media campaign, Nouvellon denied any connections to Kuchma's family.

The clinic's president has since cut its ties to Nouvellon and EuroRSCG and confirmed that Yushchenko was poisoned with the most powerful form of dioxin, TCDD, notorious from its use by U.S. forces in the Vietnam War in the defoliant Agent Orange, Sky News said.

What They Believe

The religious dimensions to Ukraine's protests and passions.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110006041

BY ADRIAN KARATNYCKY
Friday, December 17, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST

Ukraine's Orange Revolution (named for the color adopted by the country's reformist opposition), is a broad-based movement that brought millions of citizens into the streets to press for free and fair elections. Now it is on the verge of a dramatic victory. In just nine days, on Dec. 26, this nonviolent people-power movement will likely make pro-Western reformer Viktor Yushchenko the country's next president.

On the surface, the Orange Revolution has had a secular look, with students, members of the middle class and workers rising up against corrupt rule.The movement has on its side the sexy Ukrainian girl group Via Gra, Eurovision song-contest winner Ruslana and the Klitschkos, Ukraine's boxing brothers. Not to mention Sting and Gerard Depardieu.

But there is another side to Ukraine's peaceful revolution. Interspersed with earnest youths, families and grandmothers who braved subzero temperatures at daily rallies for Mr. Yushchenko were nuns bearing orange sashes, proto-deacons and priest-monks.

The scene at Kiev's Independence Square was part political rally, part rock concert and part fireworks display. But it was also a religious experience. Each day's protest opened with prayer. On weekends, religious leaders held liturgies and prayer services for Orthodox Christians (whose adherents represent more than 60% of the population), Eastern Rite Catholics (10%), Protestants, evangelicals, Jews and Muslims. (Some 25% of Ukrainians say they are nonreligious.)

Mr. Yushchenko, who typically ends his speeches with "Glory to Ukraine, Glory to the Ukrainian People, and Glory to the Lord, Our God," is a devout Orthodox Christian from northeastern Ukraine who regularly takes confession and communion. His faith is reinforced by his American-born wife, Katya Chumachenko, who last week told the Chicago Tribune: "We're strong believers in God, and we strongly believe that God has a place for each one of us in this world, and that he has put us in this place for a reason."
Such sentiments echo the way that President Bush has spoken of his own faith. And like Mr. Bush, Mr. Yushchenko is careful to sound an ecumenical tone in his public remarks. At a Dec. 6 interfaith gathering, Mr. Yushchenko observed that "the spiritual harmony that rules among religious leaders on the platform is an image of the spiritual harmony present in Independence Square."

As a result of such careful balancing, Mr. Yushchenko's cause has strong backing from two influential religious leaders: Patriarch Filaret of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and Cardinal Lubomyr Husar of the Ukrainian Eastern Rite Catholic Church, who on Dec. 6 declared that "at the root of the crisis is an immoral regime which has deprived Ukrainian people of their legitimate rights and dignity." A leader of Kiev's Jewish community, Anatoly Shyhai, has told pro-Yushchenko protesters that Jews see the Ukrainian state as "an independent, democratic and European country at the apex of rights and interfaith amity." Thus religious values have become an important part of Mr. Yushchenko's moral appeal and his campaign to cleanse Ukraine of high-level corruption and crime.

Supporters of the government-backed candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, have also sounded a religious note. Moscow did its part to boost Mr. Yanukovych's standing by influencing the Kiev branch of the Orthodox Church to support the prime minister. Mr. Yanukovych, who served two terms in prison while in his late teens and early 20s, has presented himself as a man of faith to allay concerns about his criminal past and current links to shady oligarchs. In rounds one and two of the presidential race, the Moscow-linked Orthodox Church engaged in active campaigning by distributing campaign literature and by delivering sermons that would make Jerry Falwell or Jesse Jackson look nonpartisan.

The role of faith in Ukraine's Orange Revolution is hardly surprising. Religion has been on an upswing in Ukraine since the collapse of communism, not least among the young. While both candidates have sought to identify themselves with faith-based values, Mr. Yushchenko's emphasis on ethical principles, dignity and clean government is trumping Mr. Yanukovych's claims to piety and the outreach efforts of his Moscow-backed clerics.

Mr. Karatnycky is a scholar at Freedom House, which has helped to fund Ukraine's nonpartisan election monitors.

The Media Thaw

By MARTA DYCZOK
December 17, 2004
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB110323736951402615-IRje4NmlaJ3mpyqa3qHbayJm4,00.html

KIEV -- Once again, Ukrainians are preparing to go to the polls to elect a new president. But this time, on Dec. 26, they have something that was lacking in the previous two rounds of voting: a relatively independent media.

Four days into the Orange Revolution, heavy-handed censorship was lifted -- and this suggests that a change of the status quo has already begun. Power brokers are repositioning themselves in response to the protests, renegotiating their relations with society and modifying their international image.

Until recently, most TV stations were reporting that the opposition candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, got seriously ill earlier in the campaign from eating bad sushi, drinking too much cognac or that his facial disfigurement was caused by a herpes virus. After the Orange Revolution, however, all of them broadcast the press conference last week where Viennese doctors from the Rudolfinerhaus Clinic told the world that Mr. Yushchenko had been poisoned with dioxin.


Media manipulation was not only one of the main problems in Ukraine's election. It has also been an obstacle to developing democracy, an open society and a respectable international standing. Yet when falsified presidential election results in November triggered an unexpected, massive reaction -- hundreds of thousands of people poured into the streets -- large numbers of journalists simply refused to report untruthful news any longer. The international community strongly denounced the election falsifications. The strength of the protests made Ukraine's establishment realize that power was shifting and they needed to respond. One thing they did was free up the media to report in a more honest way.

It is no secret that there has been little freedom of speech in Ukraine for some time. After the collapse of Communism, Ukraine's media landscape underwent a radical transformation. State censorship was lifted and ownership was diversified. However, by the late 1990s the oligarchs had established control over the main mass-media outlets in the country. Before that, they had seized the country's main resources and assets through privatization and created a banking system to finance their operations. These three pillars reinforced each other and guaranteed their power, mirroring patterns in Russia and contributing to Ukraine's international isolation.

The respected Ukrainian journalist Iryna Pohorelova described the situation as an attempt to create an "information vacuum," so that people would not know what was really going on and the corrupt establishment could maneuver easily, out of the public eye. Public opinion polls consistently showed low levels of trust towards the mass media, and Ukraine's elites believed that censorship would disempower society and keep it passive.

During the first two rounds of the presidential election campaign this fall, the mass media were used not so much to promote the establishment candidate, Viktor Yanukovych -- but rather to create a distorted image of Mr. Yushchenko. One widely broadcast ad was a cartoon image of U.S. President George W. Bush, dressed in a cowboy outfit, riding a map of Ukraine which was stylized to look like a horse. It used colors and logos from the Yushchenko campaign. But the subsequent Orange Revolution showed that this approach had backfired, and that made power brokers reconsider their media strategy.

These media changes provide a window on the power realignments which are occurring behind the scenes. Ukraine watchers have known for a while that oligarchs in the country are not a monolithic group but rather a cluster of competing clans.

The loosening of censorship four days into the protests was the first clear indicator that the wind had started to shift and that outgoing President Leonid Kuchma no longer fully controlled the levers of power. The rich and powerful have started moving to position themselves well in the face of change. They want to preserve their power in Ukraine and maintain good relations with Russia, but they also want to be open to the world.

Some have wanted change for a while and already put their support behind Mr. Yushchenko. An example is sugar magnate Petro Poroshenko, who began financing the alternative TV station Channel 5 over a year ago. Others, such as Mr. Kuchma's son-in-law, Viktor Pinchuk, who owns three channels -- ICTV, STV and New Channel -- represent the new-generation oligarchs who crave international acceptance and expanded business influence. While thousands were protesting in Kiev, Mr. Pinchuk gave an interview to the New York Times, saying that he, too, visited the crowds.


Donetsk magnate and media owner Rinat Akhmetev's TV station TRK Ukraina continues to be partisan. But rumor has it that he has quietly cut off funds to Mr. Yanukovych's campaign. The really significant change is that Ukraine's most influential channels, 1+1, INTER and state-owned UT1, now report activities of both candidates. One counterbalance to these shifts is that Yanukovych supporters now prefer to watch the Russian channels broadcasting into Ukraine.

The lifting of censorship also suggests that Ukraine's oligarchs are increasingly realizing that old, mid-20th century thinking no longer works in the era of globalization. Despite their best efforts, they were unable to create a complete "information vacuum."

During the entire Orange Revolution the Internet, sometimes called Ukraine's modern samizdat, was humming -- news was getting around. My e-mail box overflowed regularly. Internet usage in Ukraine has increased from 1% of the population to 8% in the last three years and continues to grow rapidly.

To borrow a phrase from futurist Alvin Toffler, Ukraine's elites "collided with the future." They realized that they need to change their attitude towards information and power, since Ukrainians stood up and said a loud, Enough! And there is no putting the genie back in the bottle.

Absolute freedom of speech does not exist anywhere, nor will it exist in Ukraine. However, as Ukrainians head to the polls on Dec. 26, they now have access to fuller and less biased information, which will, it is to be hoped, enable them to make an informed choice for their new president. All of this bodes well for Ukraine.

Ms. Dyczok, associate professor of history and political science at the University of Western Ontario, is the author of "The Grand Alliance and Ukrainian Refugees" (Macmillan, 2000). She has been conducting research on mass media in post-Communist Ukraine for several years.

INSIDE UKRAINE'S FREEDOM FIGHT

BY DICK MORRIS

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/36541.htm

December 16, 2004 -- So very much hangs in the balance when Ukraine goes back to the polls to vote for a president on Dec. 26. It would be a major blow for freedom, and a wonderful Christmas present to the world, if Viktor Yushchenko - and the runoff, before the government stole both - becomes president of this key nation.

It has been my honor to serve as a consultant to Yushchenko during this campaign. His battle is not only an important one for freedom throughout the world, it also represents a key stand against the rekindling of an imperial Russia — the major foreign policy goal of that country's President Vladimir Putin.

In both previous elections, Yushchenko actually got upward of 60 percent of the vote, only to have the government falsify the results. Fortunately, he adopted a technique I had found useful when fighting against the PRI, the party that controlled Mexico's government for decades: using exit polls to establish the real winner, and so expose the government's count of the votes as rigged.

Working with a combination of old KGB operatives, hardline and unreconstructed Communists, oil barons and Russian mafia, Putin is trying to take over the states that comprised the former Soviet Union and to assimilate them into a new Russian sphere of influence.

His strategy is to use the ethnic Russian minorities in these former Soviet "republics" as an electoral base for taking power. But, because they are minorities, he must add healthy doses of vote-rigging, intimidation, control of the media and attempted murder to the mix to have a shot at achieving control.

In Ukraine, the first step was to deny Yushchenko any coverage on state-controlled television and other news outlets. Only smear stories ran — and we weren't allowed to buy advertising time to rebut them.

It was so impossible to communicate with the voters that the campaign was reduced to printing leaflets which were stuffed, three times each week, under every door in the country.

When it became clear that the Ukrainian people would not be fooled by the phony state-controlled media and Yushchenko continued to lead by 15 points in the polls, the ex-KGB types in the opposition campaign resorted to attempted assassination, once running Yushchenko's car off the road and then poisoning him with dioxin.

At first, we thought Yushchenko had a stroke. The entire right side of his face and body was paralyzed. A Ukrainian hospital diagnosed it as a stroke. Then Yushchenko went to Vienna, where they unearthed the poisoning. By then, the candidate had regained use of his face and limbs, but a horrible rash distorted and discolored his entire face.

The campaign faced a tough decision as to whether or not to show the candidate, once handsome and charismatic, on TV. Risking it, they did — and that face soon became a symbol of the lengths to which the old communists would go to stop Yushchenko and a badge of honor that underscored why it was crucial to elect him.

To do the massive leafleting, to communicate over the head of the controlled media, the campaign needed to recruit hundreds of thousands of volunteers from around the nation — the very same men and women who later took to the streets after the phony vote count was announced and refused to leave until a new election was scheduled.

In Russia itself, Putin has taken the first step to end democracy by using his majority in the Duma to eliminate locally elected congressmen and to change the constitution to elect the entire body elected by proportional representation from party lists. Because Putin can control the nominations and the order of their selection on party lists, he will have a rubber stamp Duma.

But it is abroad, in the former Soviet republics, that Putin is doing his worst work. The first effort was in Georgia, where an alert populace revolted and insisted on an honest vote count. Now, in Ukraine, he is trying to impose his will on the electorate.

The stakes for global liberty couldn't be higher. In Russia's bid to come back as an imperial power, the Ukraine struggle is the equivalent of Hitler's bid to remilitarize the Rhineland. A determined stand here will keep Russia (145 million) and Ukraine (50 million) separate and cripple Putin's imperial ambitions. With Ukraine inevitably drawing closer to the EU and further away from Moscow, its chances for prosperity and freedom will increase.

But all depends on forcing the country's powers-that-be to count the votes accurately.

Morris: Yushchenko Enemies Offered $1 Million Bribe

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/12/16/92346.shtml

Top political consultant Dick Morris, who worked on the campaign would-be Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko, revealed this week that he was offered a bribe from supporters of Yushchenko's Kremlin-backed opponent, Viktor Yanukovich.

"I got an email on Friday from a former Republican congressman who said he was passing on an offer from Yanukovich to pay me $1 million is cash to switch sides," Morris told ABC Radio Network host Sean Hannity. "And the email said, 'This would just be a down payment.'"

The attempt to get Morris to defect was just the latest attempt to undermine Yushchenko's support. A new election, which he is expected to win, is scheduled for Dec. 26.
Yushchenko and his backers believe that Dioxin was slipped into his food by KGB operatives working for Russian President Vladimir Putin, resulting in temporary facial disfigurement.

"When he began to move ahead in the polls by 10 or 15 points, the authorities tried to kill him," Morris said, noting that the poisoning was, in fact, the second attempt to murder his client during the campaign.

"First they tried to run him off the road while he was driving," Morris told Hannity. "His car was totaled but he walked away."

The former White House political consultant said that when he first signed on to Yushchenko's campaign he was warned, "If you go to Kiev to work for this guy, there is no risk of assassination - you will be killed."

Yushchenko 'record' poison level

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4098945.stm


Tests show the level of poison in the blood of Ukraine's Viktor Yushchenko is more than 6,000 times higher than normal, an academic has said.
Prof Abraham Brouwer at the Free University in Amsterdam, who carried out the tests, said it was the second highest level ever recorded in humans.

The presidential candidate, who faces PM Viktor Yanukovych in a repeat poll on 26 December, fell ill in September.

Doctors in Vienna said last week dioxin poison disfigured Mr Yushchenko's face.

Blood samples taken last week in the Austrian capital were sent to the Dutch capital, Amsterdam, for further analysis.

Mr Brouwer, a professor of environmental toxicology, said the record concentration found in Mr Yushchenko's blood was about 100,000 units per gram of blood fat.

He is hoping to identify the exact form of the poison by the end of the week.

"The labs will... try to find out whether it matches any of the batches of dioxins that are around, so that maybe you can trace it back to where it was ordered or where it came from," he told the Associated Press news agency.

The highest level ever is thought to have been found in two women in Vienna in the 1990s, Prof Brouwer told the BBC News website, but said he did not have any more information on the case.

The two women worked at a textile institute and had levels of dioxin in their systems thousands of times higher than normally found, Olaf Paepke, a scientist at a Hamburg institute who conducted chemical analysis for the investigation, is reported as saying by the Washington Post newspaper.

It was never determined how the employees, who survived, had been poisoned.

The Ukraine Reality Show

Thursday, December 16, 2004

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/12/16/008-print.html

By Boris Kagarlitsky The state-run television channels were in hysterics reminiscent of the Cold War. Bewildered viewers discovered that next door in Ukraine, a coup was under way, allegedly planned by foreign secret service agents. The goal of these enemies, state television reported, was to bring a pro-Western president, Viktor Yushchenko, to power instead of pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych. At the same time, liberals in Russia dreamed of repeating Kiev's Orange Revolution at home.

Average Russians are taking a far more cynical view of events. They don't really buy the propaganda but are watching their neighbors to the south closely. The Ukrainian elections have become a kind of reality show for many Muscovites, complete with a cast of millions and unprecedented prizes.

The theories that a pro-American opposition is battling with a pro-Moscow political elite do not hold water. Yushchenko is without a doubt pro-American. But the same can be said for all the current leaders in Ukraine. After all, it was current Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma and his prime minister, Yanukovych, who sent troops to Iraq. They created an absurd crisis in Russian-Ukrainian relations over a dam near the tiny island of Tuzla in straits between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. In contrast, right at the height of the confrontation in Kiev, the Verkhovnaya Rada resolved to withdraw Ukraine's troops from Iraq. Communists and socialists were joined in their support of the measure by a significant number of Yushchenko supporters.

The attempts to divide Ukrainian society along language lines have also failed. Kiev, where Russian reigns supreme, is the backbone of the opposition's strength. Protests were held in Kharkiv, the center of Russian culture in Ukraine. The events in favor of the current authorities held in Donetsk and other industrial cities resembled the Soviet rallies where attendance was mandatory. Most of the speakers were labor union functionaries and civil servants, while the workers did their best to get home as quickly as possible. The ruling oligarchy still has the ability to control the industrial regions of eastern Ukraine using Soviet methods, but it cannot mobilize mass public support.

It is difficult to call Russia's leadership anti-American or anti-Western. None other than President Vladimir Putin himself publicly announced his support of George W. Bush during the recent U.S. presidential elections. And while the Moscow television channels were condemning American involvement in Ukraine, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told journalists about possible plans to arm local forces in Iraq under U.S. control, as well as to send military specialists to Iraq.

The Cold War was a confrontation of two economic and political systems. But now Russia and the West share the same system, capitalism. The real axis of confrontation in world politics is no longer the standoff between NATO and the long-defunct Eastern Bloc, but the standoff between the dollar and the euro blocs. The Kremlin can't seem to make up its mind which side to take in this rivalry, dodging back and forth between Brussels and Washington and dooming itself to a whole string of unilateral concessions to both competing sides.

If the whole point was to undermine Russia's position in Ukraine, it is hard to imagine a more successful move than the Kremlin collaboration with Yanukovych. The Kremlin not only shocked everyone with its crude tactics and open meddling in the affairs of a sovereign state; most importantly, it also managed to do so effectively and to its own detriment.

The stakes in the political battle in Ukraine are indeed high for the Kremlin. But they do not have anything in common with national interests or the long-gone conflict between the communist East and the bourgeois West. Privatization in Ukraine is being rolled back. Oligarch clans, both Russian and Ukrainian, are locked into a battle for assets. Everyone understands that political influence is the main collateral needed to conclude privatization deals and the best guarantee they will not be overturned later.

Whoever does win in the end, Putin will remain one of the main victims of the Ukraine crisis. Even if Yanukovych wins, his main concern will be improving relations with the West. Putin will lose the last remnants of his political authority. He will have demonstrated his weakness once again to Russia, to his people and to the siloviki. And in Russia, this is a very dangerous thing indeed.


Boris Kagarlitsky is director of the Institute for Globalization Studies.

'Never Say Never'

The Ukrainian revolution and the renaissance of democracy.

BY CLAUDIA ROSETT
Wednesday, December 15, 2004 12:01 a.m.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/cRosett/?id=110006028

Orange, rose, yellow. These are the colors not just of sunrise, but of a few of the many "people power" revolutions that over the past generation have been by increments changing the world. Yellow was the Philippines in 1986. Rose was the former Soviet republic of Georgia last year. Now we see an exuberant orange in Ukraine, where despite election fraud, poisoning and the displeasure of the Kremlin, democratic candidate Viktor Yushchenko looks poised to win a revote Dec. 26.

I'll get to the caveats in a minute. But first, despite the perils of our time, despite the terrorists and bombs and war, despite the inevitable erosion of high ideals and disappointments of daily political practice, I will hazard the prediction that if we of the free world stick to our principles--and, where necessary, defend them with our guns--we stand on the verge of a global renaissance.

This was driven home in an interview Sunday with Mr. Yushchenko's close aide, Ukrainian legislator Oleh Rybachuk, who has just completed a whirlwind trip to the U.S. A tall, athletic-looking man, Mr. Rybachuk reportedly radiates energy at the worst of times. Right now, he is surfing a tidal wave of hope. To sit down with him over coffee in New York is to catch a whiff of the vitality with which the people of Ukraine have stood up to demand government of, by and for the people.

Fluent in English, and sporting the same kind of bright orange scarf that has become Mr. Yushchenko's trademark, Mr. Rybachuk had a great deal to say about his party's plans. He stressed such gritty basics as monetary stability, unhooking Ukraine from Big Brother in Moscow, and joining the European Union. He described the inspiration Ukraine's democratic opposition has drawn from Poland--once a Soviet vassal state, now a member of the EU.

All these matters are important, and if Mr. Yushchenko becomes president, there will no doubt be plenty of devil in the details. But what came through most clearly in Mr. Rybachuk's conversation, the point to which he returned again and again, was his pride that the people of Ukraine have stood up for their freedom. Not so long ago, there were few believers that this could happen. Ukraine achieved independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, only to be written off in short order as a basket case. The country has been run for the past 10 years by a former Soviet party boss, President Leonid Kuchma; sunk in corruption and lamed by generations of subservience to Moscow. When Mr. Yushchenko set out upon his campaign for the presidency, says Mr. Rybachuk, there were people "laughing in my face, saying we are idiotic, or romantic, or naive."

As it turned out, the voters of Ukraine thought otherwise, and when Mr. Kuchma tried to steal the election, they spoke up. With their flags and vigils and calls for fellowship from the democratic nations of the world, they have been insisting on their right to choose freely and fairly who will govern their country. "This is real independence day," Mr. Rybachuk told me, "because we have kids who will never be slaves again."

In such statements is a world of promise for the people of nations where the moment of democratic truth has not yet arrived. Ukraine is telegraphing around the globe a reminder that freedom brings with it the great gift of dignity. That is precisely why it is so stirring to watch such revolutions. They speak to the best part of the human spirit, because we are witnessing people, often against big odds and at great risk, recovering their self-respect.
And right there is the basic remedy for the miseries of the Middle East. There has been plenty of debate about the humiliations of the Muslim world, and how to redress or contain the rage and hate this breeds. There have been endless disquisitions on the complicated politics, the complex cultural and religious divides, and the--how did Mr. Rybachuk put it?--the idiocy, romanticism and naivet? of the idea, put forward as policy by President Bush, that living under the rule of some of the world's most corrupt thugs are vast silent majorities who given any room to maneuver would prefer to create free societies.

The bottom line is simple, and universal. Freedom brings with it a degree of dignity that repression can never confer. No amount of handouts from the likes of the Saudi royals, or Libya's terrorist tycoon, Moammar Gadhafi, or United Nations-sanctioned rations under a Saddam Hussein, can make up for the self-respect that comes with the self-determination of free people.

The caveats are obvious. People-power revolutions do not always succeed with a first try. In some cases--Nazi Germany, say, or Iraq--democrats stand no chance at all unless someone wages war to remove the tyrant. And democracy depends on institutions that need time to evolve. They cannot be unpacked overnight from a kit. The Philippines in 1986 got rid of Ferdinand Marcos, but has yet to live up to the full hopes that swept the country when he left. In Burma in 1988, thousands died in protests that led to the election of democratic leaders who were never allowed by the junta to take power. In China in 1989, the Tiananmen uprising ended with army gunfire. In Russia, the great moment in 1991 of Boris Yeltsin atop an armored personnel carrier, waving the red-white-and-blue Russian flag, has given way to a rough 13 years marred most recently by President Vladimir Putin's increasingly authoritarian rule. Ukraine itself is now in round two of the contest for liberty and justice, and from there may yet face round three or four.

But even with the setbacks, the general direction is progress. One heroic act encourages the next. Every time people stand up for their rights, they send the kind of message we are now hearing from Ukraine. Freedom matters. Democratic rule matters. The Philippine revolution may have fallen short of the mark, but the country is freer today than under Marcos, and that uprising 18 years ago became a shot heard round the world. Within the decade, Taiwan and South Korea went democratic. The people of Burma and China flashed the message that they desire the same. The Baltics broke free; the Berlin wall fell; Eastern Europe shook loose. Russia today may be a deeply troubled country, but it's a big step up from the Soviet Union. And I would place my bet that there are plenty of people in Russia--and in dismally repressed neighboring Belarus--watching quietly but intently right now Ukraine's second run at the democratic prize.

Likewise, in Iraq, even in a society still suffering a violent Baathist hangover, there is finally room for voters in January to choose something other than a 99.9% show for Saddam--and there begins the real recovery. Afghanistan is already embarked on the democratic trail. From Ukraine comes this latest beacon, and I promise you, it is being observed not only with applause in America, but with yearning in places such as China, Cuba and Iran.
Before saying goodbye to Mr. Rybachuk, I asked if he had any advice for people living in nations where rule of liberty and law still seems a dream beyond hope. He answered, "Never say never."

Ms. Rosett is a fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the Hudson Institute. Her column appears here and in The Wall Street Journal Europe on alternate Wednesdays.


Copyright © 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

In Ukraine, they know how to respond to a rigged election.

Politics: Winning in the Streets
http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/printme.php3?eid=59288


by Geov Parrish
While disgruntled Kerry supporters are still muttering about Ohio recounts, touch-screen voting machines, and all manner of perceived electoral corruption, and while Democrats of all stripes still fume over the stolen election of 2000, the chosen course of action has been to do nothing.

In Ukraine this month, we learned what's possible if a wronged electoral candidate actually does something about it.

The wronged candidate was Viktor Yushchenko, who lost a Nov. 21 presidential election to Viktor Yanukovich, the candidate supported by the current president and government and by neighboring Russia. The election was widely condemned as marred by voter fraud, and Yushchenko's supporters took to the streets, protesting in cities across the country and clogging the main square in the capital city of Kiev with an estimated quarter-million demonstrators. Many of those demonstrators camped out for days, withstanding cold and snow to demand a new election and a new government.

They got their wish. On Dec. 3, Ukraine's highest court threw out the tainted election and ordered a runoff between Yushchenko and Yanukovich on Dec. 26. Negotiators for Yushchenko and the current president, Leonid Kuchma, ushered through parliament and into law a sweeping set of constitutional changes that will expand parliamentary power and rein in the power of Ukraine's president.

None of it would have been possible without the crowds, which effectively nullified a declared Yanukovich victory and changed the government. In the process, they also triggered an international crisis, with Western governments echoing the claims of electoral malfeasance and Russia favoring the current Moscow-backed government. Talk even arose of the country splitting, with the more nationalist areas in the country's west aligning themselves with Yushchenko and the Russian-speaking areas in the east with Yanukovich.

In the end, the crowds and the threat of an ungovernable country led to a court decision and the sweeping constitutional changes. Yushchenko's "Orange Revolution" will now almost certainly win the Dec. 26 revote, and it will be seen as a popular repudiation of the strong-armed government of Kuchma. The government, essentially, will have been overthrown, and it will have been done without a single shot being fired.

It all makes me wonder what would have to happen to trigger such a popular uprising here. What level of irrefutable voting fraud would have to be proven to drive people into the streets? One of the unlikely heroes of the Ukraine uprising is a state television sign-language interpreter, who began signing on the air that the telecast was lies and that she wouldn't go along with it any longer. Inspired by her actions, 200 journalists for state-run TV and radio vowed to no longer act as the government's mouthpiece. How many bland White House assertions that the sky is green and the grass is blue would it take to drive someone at Fox News to denounce the status quo like that?

The difference, of course, is history. After hundreds of years of rule by Moscow, independence is a cherished thing in Ukraine. After 80 years of communist rule, most Ukrainians well understand the dangers of autocratic government or state-controlled media lies. Democracy is not taken for granted.

In America, by contrast, we have no such history, and instead of skepticism about authority, our heads are swelled from birth with jingoistic bilge about how perfect American democracy is, how great and infallible our country is, how righteous is our form of government. For all the decades of conservatives bashing big government, we have surprisingly little skepticism, and for all the triumph of our popular will, we have a surprisingly widespread belief that there's nothing ordinary people here can do to change things.

But the demonstrators on that Ukrainian plaza were also ordinary people. They took time off from their jobs and their studies to protest, because in the face of a corrupt government, they believed that their voices could make a difference.

The unaccountable governments of the 21st century are those bloated by corporate influence, and in recent years a series of popular uprisings across South America has replaced such governments with ones skeptical of American corporate policy. As with Ukraine, it's ordinary people who made the difference. What would it take—how many wars, how much fiscal recklessness, how much bald corruption and crass redistricting, how many increases in state influence—for Americans to discover our own power?

Here in the self-styled exporter of democracy to the world, we ordinary people have forgotten our power. That's why episodes like Ukraine matter. They remind us of what democracy can be.

gparrish@seattleweekly.com



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Yushchenko's dioxin levels 6,000 times normal

Experts seek clues to aid probe into Ukraine candidate's poisoning
The Associated Press
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6697752/

Updated: 8:42 a.m. ET Dec. 15, 2004

LONDON - New tests reveal the level of dioxin in the blood of Ukrainian presidential candidate Victor Yushchenko is more than 6,000 times higher than normal, according to the expert analyzing the samples.

The concentration, about 100,000 units per gram of blood fat, is the second highest ever recorded in human history, said Abraham Brouwer, professor of environmental toxicology at the Free University in Amsterdam, where blood samples taken last weekend in Vienna were sent for analysis.

A normal level of dioxin is between 15 and 45 units. Almost everyone has some level of dioxins because the toxic chemical is widespread in the environment — mainly from its industrial usages — and accumulates in the food chain.

In the case of Yushchenko, Brouwer’s team has narrowed the search from more than 400 dioxins to about 29 and is confident they will identify the poison by week’s end. That, in turn, could provide clues for the investigation of the alleged poisoning.

“From a (chemical) fingerprint, at least you can deduce what kind of sources might have been involved,” Brouwer told The Associated Press. “The labs will ... try to find out whether it matches any of the batches of dioxins that are around, so that maybe you can trace it back to where it was ordered or where it came from.”

Gradual recovery
Experts say Yushchenko, whose face has been pockmarked and disfigured, has probably experienced the worst effects already and should gradually recover, with no impairment to his working ability.

The reformist candidate, who faces Kremlin-backed Viktor Yanukovych in a repeat runoff on Dec. 26, first fell ill in September. The repeat election was ordered by the Supreme Court after their earlier second-round election, which authorities awarded to Yanukovych, was ruled fraudulent.

Russian agents involved?
On Tuesday, pro-Yushchenko lawmaker Yuriy Pavlenko speculated that Russian agents may have been involved in the candidates poisoning — a popular local theory stemming from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s backing of Yanukovych.

Many of the ruling political and business elite faced the loss of lucrative contracts made possible by high level connections if Yanukovych — Kuchma’s hand-picked successor — lost the race, analysts said.

Many of those contracts involve Russia. All but one of Russia’s major infrastructure links and natural gas exports to Europe pass through Ukraine.

The Ukrainian port of Odessa is a key regional trading outlet to the Black Sea and Middle East, while the naval base in Sevastopol is Russia’s only deep-water port on the entire Black Sea coast. Russia also imports food from Ukraine and, in return, the country of 48 million is a key consumer of Russian goods.

Taras Chornovil, Yanukovych’s campaign manager, said it was possible that someone connected to Kuchma might have had a role. Or, it could have been someone from Yushchenko’s own entourage looking to manipulate a sick president, he said.

Lawmakers from Yushchenko’s party have said the Austrian clinic’s findings confirmed that his opponents wanted to assassinate him rather than take the risk he would defeat Yanukovych. But some analysts, such as Markian Bilynskyj, suggest that the point of the attack was to sideline Yushchenko just long enough for him to drop from the public eye and lose support.

“The idea wasn’t to kill him, to assassinate him,” Bilynskyj said. “That would have turned Kuchma into a pariah. That would have been too obvious.”

Suspicious deaths
Government opponents have faced attack before. More than two dozen Ukrainian politicians, high-ranking businessmen and journalists have died under suspicious circumstances during Kuchma’s decade in power. All investigations into the deaths have proved inconclusive.

For his part, Yanukovych said he sympathized with his rival and that he wished him “no evil.”

In an interview with The Associated Press, he demanded a thorough investigation and promised not to interfere in it. But he stressed that the impact of the dioxin could hamper Yushchenko’s performance should he be elected in this month’s rerun.

“The fact of the matter is that Yushchenko is seriously ill,” he said. “We can all see it.”

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the U.S. administration wanted “a full and complete transparent investigation into that matter, into how it happened, who did it, what the cause was.”

Preparing for new elections
Meanwhile, supporters of Yushchenko expanded their “Orange Revolution” beyond Ukraine’s capital on Tuesday, organizing a convoy that will visit 15 cities in the coming days — including in eastern provinces that have been hostile to the candidate.

More than 50 supporters of the Pora (It’s Time) youth movement will head to the pro-Russian eastern provinces, hoping to win over voters in areas where support for Yushchenko’s opponent Yanukovych has been strong.

Meantime, election officials are preparing for the third round of voting as state authorities allotted airtime to the candidates. Each candidate will receive two 30-minute segments in prime time on state-run UT1 TV between Dec. 21 and Dec. 24 to explain their platforms, Ukraine’s Central Election Commission said.

The two candidates have also each been allotted an entire page in two official newspapers.

Commission official Serhiy Dubovyk warned that the Dec. 26 election was in jeopardy because the only company licensed to print the ballots can’t produce them fast enough. The commission urged the parliament to either allow another company to print ballots or extend a Dec. 23 deadline set for when the printing must be completed.

© 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Ukraine's Yushchenko warns vote is in jeopardy

Opposition leader says his opponent is planning 'provocations'

The Associated Press
Updated: 9:12 a.m. ET Dec. 16, 2004


KIEV, Ukraine - Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko charged Thursday that his opponent was planning provocations that could jeopardize the presidential vote scheduled at the end of December.

Yushchenko did not say what kind of provocations, but said they were being planned in eastern Ukraine, a largely Russian-speaking region where people support his opponent, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych.

"There is not a 100 percent guarantee that the election will take place," he told reporters at a news conference in the capital Kiev. "I know of provocations being prepared in the eastern regions."

The Western-leaning Yushchenko has been working hard in recent days to expand his base of support from western parts of the country, where Ukrainian nationalism is strong, to the eastern areas.

The two men face a presidential contest Dec. 26. Ukraine's Supreme Court ordered a rerun to be held on that date after ruling that a Nov. 21 presidential runoff election was flawed by fraud.

Yanukovych's campaign manager Taras Chornovyl has said in the past that the prime minister's allies were prepared to go to Kiev after the rerun vote "to protect the people's choice." Although he said that some 300 non-governmental organizations were ready to stage street protests, he said that the campaign doesn't want "conflicts and clashes."

Campaign to secure votes in east
Late Wednesday, Yushchenko announced his intention to visit the eastern industrial cities of Kharkiv and Zaporhizhia starting Friday "to meet representatives of large and small businesses," according to a report posted on his Web site.

He said he intended to "explain our views on budgetary and fiscal policies" ahead of the Dec. 26 vote.

Yushchenko needs the backing of magnates to secure more votes in eastern provinces, the political and financial stronghold of his rival, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych.

Wealthy businessmen have backed each of the candidates, many hoping to get closer to lucrative government contracts. Yushchenko enjoys the support of some financiers such as Petro Poroshenko, a confectionary tycoon and a key legislator; Yanukovych is reputed to have the backing of coal and steel magnate Rinat Akhmetov.

Demonstrating confidence in his victory, Yushchenko also said that "meeting voters at rallies is not so effective" due to frigid weather.

"The majority (of voters) have already made up their minds," he said at a meeting with Ukrainian media.

Revelations of dioxin poisoning
The campaign has been roiled by revelations that Yushchenko was poisoned by dioxin — an attack his supporters say was meant to assassinate or sideline him.

New tests indicate the level of dioxin in his blood is more than 6,000 times higher than normal and is the second highest ever recorded in human history, said Abraham Brouwer, professor of environmental toxicology at the Free University in Amsterdam, where blood samples taken last weekend in Vienna were sent for analysis.

Brouwer's team has narrowed the search from more than 400 dioxins to about 29 and is confident they will identify the poison by week's end.

Friedrich Forsthuber, a spokesman for the Vienna regional court, said Thursday that Austrian authorities had sent a file to Ukraine containing Yushchenko's medical records and the results of interviews with witnesses from the Rudolfinerhaus hospital, where he was treated. He said the file was sent "about a month ago."

© 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6697752/

Election in a Homeland Leaves Ukrainians in an Orange State

December 12, 2004
EAST VILLAGE

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/nyregion/thecity/12ukra.html?fta=y

By JENNIFER BLEYER

t the Ukrainian National Home on lower Second Avenue, the auditorium was so saturated with orange on Wednesday that it looked as if Halloween had come late this year. There were orange balloons and orange tablecloths. Women wore orange scarves, and men donned bright orange ties. The few people who walked in without any orange promptly had a swatch of it pinned to their clothing.

They were there to raise money for Viktor A. Yushchenko, the Ukrainian opposition leader whose campaign is symbolized by the color orange, and whose contentious defeat in the Nov. 21 presidential election has prompted thousands to protest. Members of New York's Ukrainian community have been just as jittery and exuberant, and obsessed with every bit of news from Kiev.

The buzz at the party was all about traveling to Ukraine to volunteer as international observers during the new runoff election on Dec. 26; about 60 New Yorkers had already signed up. Zenia Helbig, a Columbia University graduate student, elatedly explained that even those who could not go were helping finance others' trips. "My godmother is sponsoring my friend," she said. "My dentist and his wife are sponsoring another friend. And this is just in the last 24 hours."

Yurko Pylyp, 24, who has signed up to go, noted with a worried expression that election observers were told they might have to travel to areas where previous observers had reported violence and voter intimidation. "It's exciting, and it's scary," he said. "This is basically a cultural draft for us. We have to go back."

Most of the 20-somethings chattering excitedly about events unfolding in their motherland were, in fact, born in the United States. But having been raised within a tight network of Ukrainian-American summer camps, scouting troops and language schools, they have developed a strong cultural identity, and it was that identity that has flared up in recent weeks.

Onstage, a woman performed an anti-Communist anthem over a perky Europop beat. A high school teacher offered CD's of a song he had written, called "Freedom Isn't Free," and, in another room, a dozen teenage girls from a local Ukrainian folk choir got ready for their appearance, wearing traditionally embroidered blouses and chunky black platform shoes.

Maya Lev, 29, darted around in a stylish scoop-necked orange shirt, offering raffle tickets (orange, of course) for sale. "I'm more alive than I ever have been in my whole life," she said. The previous week, she and a few dozen friends had tied orange ribbons to the trees along Second Avenue.

Having exhausted the orange already in her wardrobe, Ms. Lev has recently bought a few new pieces. "I've been wearing orange for two weeks straight," she said with a shrug. "I will wear it until Yushchenko is president."

Poison's Use as Political Tool: Ukraine Is Not Exceptional

December 15, 2004

By SCOTT SHANE

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/15/international/europe/15poison.html?ex=1103691600&en=14c2548690293669&ei=5006&partner=ALTAVISTA1

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 - With speculation running rampant in Ukraine over who was behind the mysterious dioxin poisoning of the presidential candidate Viktor A. Yushchenko, the use of poisons as a sinister tool of statecraft has again entered the public arena in a former Soviet republic. Some former officers of the Russian security services argue that it never left.

On several occasions in the past decade, the successor agencies to the K.G.B. in Russia and other countries once in the Soviet sphere have come under suspicion of giving drugs or poisons to prominent critics. And while the authorities have repeatedly denied ordering such actions, the former intelligence officials say they find many of the allegations credible.

"The view inside our agency was that poison is just a weapon, like a pistol," said Alexander V. Litvinenko, who served in the K.G.B. and its Russian successor, the Federal Security Service, from 1988 to 1999 and now lives in London. "It's not seen that way in the West, but it was just viewed as an ordinary tool."

Mr. Litvinenko said a secret K.G.B. laboratory in Moscow, still operated by the Federal Security Service, which is known by its Russian initials F.S.B., specializes in the study of poisons.

In analyzing Mr. Yushchenko's case, Oleg D. Kalugin, a former K.G.B. general who now lives outside Washington, said it appeared to be "certainly an attempt to remove him from the political scene."

Mr. Kalugin speaks from unusually direct experience. In 1978, he passed along orders directing Soviet agents to supply the Bulgarian secret service with a spring-loaded umbrella that was later used to deliver a dose of the poison ricin, killing the Bulgarian dissident Georgi I. Markov in London.

Mr. Litvinenko and Mr. Kalugin both said they believed that Mr. Yushchenko had been poisoned with the involvement of the Ukrainian security service, which has maintained close relations with the F.S.B., and they suspect that Russian security services may even have been involved. Mr. Yushchenko fell ill after having a meal on Sept. 5 with the head of Ukraine's security service, Gen. Ihor P. Smeshko.

Russian and Ukrainian authorities have vehemently denied being involved. In Washington, a spokesman for the Russian Embassy, Yevgeny Khorishko, said, "There is no evidence to support such claims."

In making their cases, Mr. Litvinenko and Mr. Kalugin describe cases in recent years in which Russian authorities have come under suspicion of drugging or poisoning people.

A Russian banker, Ivan Kivelidi, and his secretary, who died in 1995 after using a telephone apparently dosed with poison. In 2002, a Saudi militant known as Khattab who fought with Chechen rebels against Russian forces died after opening a poisoned letter. And a former speaker of the Russian Parliament, Ivan Rybkin, who disappeared for several days in February during his race against President Vladimir V. Putin, later accused the F.S.B. of drugging him.

On Sept. 1, in an incident that received widespread media attention in Russia and Britain, Anna Politkovskaya, a prominent Russian journalist with the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, lost consciousness after drinking tea aboard a flight to Beslan, in the Caucasus, where militants had seized a school. She later said she thought F.S.B. agents on the plane had poisoned the tea. When she regained consciousness in the hospital, she wrote in The Guardian, a nurse whispered to her, "My dear, they tried to poison you."

There are other theories about who was behind Mr. Yushchenko's illness, of course. Milton Leitenberg, an expert on Russian biological weapons at the University of Maryland, said that although "intelligence agencies are the first possibility," Mr. Yushchenko might have been poisoned by a political enemy or a criminal group.

On Saturday, doctors in Vienna confirmed that Mr. Yushchenko had ingested dioxin, producing a severely disfiguring skin condition. The level of dioxin in his blood was more than 1,000 times normal, the doctors said. In response, Ukraine's prosecutor general, Svyatoslav Piskun, announced that a criminal investigation into the poisoning was being reopened.

Western experts say the dioxin findings all but prove that Mr. Yushchenko was deliberately poisoned. Dioxin is the name for a class of chemicals produced as a byproduct of the burning of refuse, the manufacture of pesticides and other industrial processes.

Alastair Hay, professor of environmental toxicology at the University of Leeds, said dioxin was an unlikely choice for assassination, but if the attacker's motive was to drive Mr. Yushchenko from the race, dioxin might make sense. "It's fat-soluble, so you would want to put it in a fatty medium such as a soup," Dr. Hay said.

Vil S. Mirzayanov, a onetime dissident Russian scientist who lives in New Jersey, said a secret unit inside a Moscow chemical institute studied dioxin for many years while developing defoliants for the military.

He said he had never heard of dioxin being studied as a weapon in the former Soviet Union, but Dr. Paul M. Wax, vice president of the American College of Medical Toxicology, said that at a 2002 conference in Volgograd, Russian scientists told him such research had been conducted.

There have been similar cases around the world in the past few decades. The South African authorities were accused of using clothing impregnated with organophosphates to try to poison antiapartheid activists. In 1997, Israeli agents in Jordan injected a poison into a Hamas leader, Khaled Meshal, later delivering an antidote under international pressure to save his life.

In the 1950's and 60's, a secret United States Army program, working with the Central Intelligence Agency, developed weapons designed to use toxins to kill and leave no trace. C.I.A. plots to poison Patrice Lumumba, the prime minister of Congo, and Fidel Castro of Cuba failed, but were later exposed by Congressional investigators.

The Poison Puzzle

December 15, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/15/opinion/15kristof.html?ex=1103691600&en=8a643837f29861d9&ei=5006&partner=ALTAVISTA1
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
OP-ED COLUMNIST
IGA, Latvia — In these long winter nights, a headless horseman is roaming Russia's "near abroad," threatening independent countries and raising fears of a renewed cold war.

This specter is Vladimir Putin. Let's hope he finds his head soon.

In traveling around Eastern Europe lately, I kept hearing from people who told me what a menace Mr. Putin was becoming, and they're right. There are plenty of examples of Mr. Putin's bullying neighboring countries, from Georgia and Estonia to this lovely little Baltic nation, Latvia, but the most egregious example was Mr. Putin's recent plotting to install a pro-Russian stooge in Ukraine.

If the pro-reform candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, does not die in a "car accident" before the new Ukrainian election on Dec. 26 (vehicle accidents are a preferred method for disposing of Ukrainian democrats), we may find out who poisoned him with dioxin.

On the night before he showed his first symptoms, Mr. Yushchenko dined with the head of the S.B.U., Ukraine's secret service. Hmm. The director himself has seemed to be a reformer, so was the large nonreformist wing of the S.B.U. up to its old tricks? Maybe. And did Russian agents, who have close ties with that nonreformist wing of the S.B.U., offer their expertise in toxins?

There's no evidence that Russia was involved in the poisoning, or even that he was poisoned at that dinner. But Russia managed to insert itself into every other aspect of the campaign, so it's a possibility that Ukrainians are murmuring about.

It's clear that Russia doesn't blanch at murder. Two Russian secret agents assassinated a former president of Chechnya (whom Moscow considered a terrorist) in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar in February by blowing up his car as he left a mosque. "The Russian leadership issued an order to assassinate the former Chechen leader," the Qatari judge said after examining all the evidence and convicting the two men.

The bottom line is that the West has been suckered by Mr. Putin. He is not a sober version of Boris Yeltsin. Rather, he's a Russified Pinochet or Franco. And he is not guiding Russia toward free-market democracy, but into fascism.

In effect, Mr. Putin has steered Russia from a dictatorship of the left to a dictatorship of the right (Chinese leaders have done much the same thing). Mussolini, Franco, Pinochet, Park Chung Hee and Putin all emerged in societies suffering from economic and political chaos. All consolidated power in part because they established order and made the trains - or planes - run on time.

That's why Mr. Putin still has 70 percent approval ratings in Russia: he has done well economically, presiding over growth rates of 5 to 10 percent. Polls by the Pew Research Center suggest that Russia is fertile soil for such a Putinocracy: Russians say, by a margin of 70 to 21, that a strong leader can solve their problems better than a democratic form of government.

Still, a fascist Russia is a much better thing than a Communist Russia. Communism was a failed economic system, while Franco's Spain, General Pinochet's Chile and the others generated solid economic growth, a middle class and international contacts - ultimately laying the groundwork for democracy. Eventually we'll see pro-democracy demonstrations in Moscow like those in Kiev.

We need to engage Russia and encourage economic development to nurture that political evolution - and reduce the risk that Russia, embittered and humiliated, will spiral into the kind of conspiratorial xenophobia found in parts of the Arab world. And, frankly, we need to engage Russia for our own purposes - such as fighting nuclear proliferation. But we also must stay on the right side of history.

So we need to speak out much more forcefully against brutality in Chechnya, the continued Russian military interference in Georgia and Moldova, the suppression of the news media in Russia, and lately the pillaging of companies that don't bow deeply enough to Mr. Putin.

It was good to see that Colin Powell didn't let Mr. Putin push us around over Ukraine. We need to stop letting him bully us on other issues - and help him find his head again. If the Baltic citizens and those brave Ukrainians can stand up to Mr. Putin, so can we.

(For a multimedia look at Mr. Putin's menace to the region, click here.)



In my last column, I misspelled the name of the Latvian president. She's Vaira Vike-Freiberga.