The West's Moment

Protesters in Ukraine sang a new anthem: Vstavay! Rise up! But Moscow didn't like it, and some warn of a new Cold War. Shades of 1989?

By Michael Meyer
Newsweek International


Dec. 6 issue - It's hard to escape the echo of 1989, the year the Berlin wall fell and oppressed peoples rose up to unseat communist dictators across Eastern Europe. And so it seemed last week in Ukraine, where hundreds of thousands of demonstrators protested the results of a presidential election widely considered to have been rigged. In scenes reminiscent of yester-year's mass uprisings in Leipzig and Berlin, or the joyous Velvet Revolution in Prague, "people power" was once again on the march. Students, pensioners and middle-aged workers braved snow and

freezing temperatures in extraordinary solidarity. They shouted Svoboda, or "freedom," and "We are the people!" They waved the blue-and-yellow flag of their country amid a sea of orange banners and ribbons—the color of the opposition, a symbol of fire within and without. Rock stars sang a pop hit that, overnight, became a national anthem: Vstavay! Rise up!

The lines could not be more clearly drawn, nor could the stakes be much higher—for Ukraine or the West. On one side is the candidate of the country's ruling elite: Viktor Yanukovych, the current prime minister (and protege of the retiring President Leonid Kuchma), heavily backed by Moscow. On the other is the darling of the West: Viktor Yushchenko, who pledges to crack down on corruption and take the country further toward democracy and membership in NATO and the European Union. When the government completed its official count and narrowly awarded the election to hard-line Yanukovych—despite exit polls showing a decisive victory for his liberal rival—the stage was set for confrontation.

It does more than pit an angry people against their unpopular rulers, or threaten civil conflict. It also marks a fundamental geopolitical divide, with Ukraine as a battleground between a resurgent Russia, eager to assert its old sphere of influence, and a United States and Europe equally determined to spread democracy and the rule of law. "We cannot accept this result," said U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. European leaders were no less blunt; their chief observer likened the vote to the sort that might be held in North Korea. Russian President Vladimir Putin, by contrast, called it "open and honest" and congratulated the purported winner on his "convincing victory." Diplomats on both sides muttered darkly of a new cold war, splitting Europe into hostile camps.

Dirty doesn't begin to describe this election. During the campaign, opposition activists were beaten up, rallies were disrupted and state-controlled TV spewed propaganda smearing Yushchenko as an enemy of the people backed by America. Kremlin political advisers openly boasted of how they issued daily instructions—temnyki—to news executives dictating what issues to cover and how. There was vintage Soviet-era thuggery. Earlier this fall Yushchenko was apparently poisoned, falling near fatally ill hours after a private dinner with the head of the SBU, the country's secret service. His face—movie-star handsome before the episode, pockmarked and scarred afterward—is exhibit A for those who say the authorities tried to kill him. Just before last week's vote, Yushchenko's supporters say, a heavily loaded truck tried repeatedly to ram his car.

Fraud was everywhere in evidence. There was nothing subtle about it, perhaps because the government had to go to such extremes to manufacture a plurality. "This election was stolen in broad daylight," says Stephen Sestanovich, a former U.S. ambassador in the region and an election monitor sent to Ukraine by the National Democratic Institute (NDI) in Washington. It's not enough to condemn the ballot as flawed or even illegitimate, as many international organizations have done, he adds. "My preferred word is 'criminal'."

International observers recorded an astounding variety of abuses. Yanukovych loyalists were issued certificates allowing them to cast absentee ballots wherever they wished, then transported by bus or minivan from polling station to polling station where they voted repeatedly. Intimidation was routine. At military institutions, cadets were instructed how to vote. At a state-ownedalcohol refinery in the central Ukraine town of Zhytomyr, Yanukovych representatives came to the company director and told him that he would be fired if his workers did not support their candidate. Similar pressure was applied at state hospitals and universities; many were supplied with ballots already filled out. In Zaporizhzhia, in southern Ukraine, European observers watched as stacks of blank ballots were taken into a back room, then returned after being checked for Yanukovych. When two members of the Ukrainian Parliament objected, the lights mysteriously went out and unknown assailants beat them up.

Turnout was high across the country, nowhere more so than in pro-Yanukovych eastern Ukraine. There, an improbable 96 percent of registered voters cast ballots. At one polling station in Donetsk, observers for the NDI recorded more than twice as many votes as there were people on the official voting list—a not uncommon phenomenon. In pro-Yushchenko districts, the game was to disqualify as many citizens as possible, often by posing technical challenges to the final count that would be resolved by a show of hands on an election committee dominated by government appointees. Early on Election Day in Simferopol, reports Sestanovich, one Yanukovych official proudly pointed out a small narushenia, or "violation," not noticed by his rivals. "Oh, yes," he said. "That will allow us to disqualify the entire ballot," worth some 1,700 votes for Yushchenko. Some of the trickery was almost juvenile. In one pro-Yushchenko district, NDI observers found (and kept as evidence) pens with invisible ink. Mark your ballot and, poof, within six minutes it would record a vote for... no one.

What happens next? Everyone now looks to Ukraine's Supreme Court, which on Thursday barred the government from inaugurating Yanukovych until the judges hear a legal challenge from the opposition. That could come early this week. "The court has been surprisingly independent in their recent rulings on election matters," says Dmytro Potyekhin of the Ukrainian human-rights group Znayu! But the stakes this time are monumental. Other signs of mounting rebellion: on Saturday the country's Parliament met in emergency session and voted to invalidate the election on the ground that it did not represent the will of the people. On Friday two TV networks that had been unstinting in their support for Yanukovych abruptly changed sides—live on-air—and joined the opposition, declaring they'd had enough of "telling the government's lies."

Meanwhile, President Kuchma has asked the presidents of Lithuania and Poland, Valdas Adamkus and Aleksander Kwasniewski, to help mediate the dispute. It is time to end this "so-called revolution," Kuchma declared on national television, mixing defiance with hints of compromise. Yet it is the opposition that increasingly seems to be controlling the pace of events. After meeting face to face with his rivals last Friday evening, Yushchenko called for a re-vote on Dec. 12—a demand that the government could only counter with silence. Already municipal officials in Kiev and several other western cities including Lviv have declared Yushchenko to be the country's legitimate president and announced they would follow his orders.

Much depends on the staying power of the protesters. After a week on the cold streets, their energy must sooner or later flag—an eventuality the government clearly counts on. Still, the opposition has shown itself to be tough and resourceful. Within hours last week Yushchenko's supporters had erected the infrastructure of powerful civil protest. There was a huge sound stage and a lineup of top Ukrainian musicians and political figures to stir the crowds. There were strobe lights, giant projection screens and a tent city (complete with kitchens and portable toilets) so that protesters could maintain their round-the-clock presence. How long can they hold out? "As long as it takes," answers Maryanna, a young student organizer, pulling a thick orange scarf more tightly around her head.

Perhaps as much also depends on the staying power of the West. Behind the scenes, diplomacy plays out. U.S. and European officials furiously coordinated strategy throughout the week. "There's no daylight between us," says one senior American official. The European Union is categorical about the importance of what's at stake in Ukraine, he adds. "Especially after Iraq, it's great to have an issue on which we can work without any tensions." That united front was evident at the EU-Russia summit in Brussels. Putin, defensive and visibly angry, reiterated that the result of Ukraine's election was "absolutely clear" and that Europe has no business meddling. But Europeans would have none of that. "The EU is not able to accept these results," said the union's president, Netherlands Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, echoing Powell. He then dispatched the EU's foreign-policy czar, Javier Solana, to Kiev, where he immediately began trying to broker a deal for yet another—and this time honest—round of elections.

Putin is in a difficult position. Since coming to power in 2000, he has recognized the value of bringing Russia closer to Europe. Yet relations have come under increasing strain over issues ranging from Iraq to Chechnya to Russia's rollback of democracy. Both Washington and Europe worry about Russia's new aggressiveness in what Moscow calls the "near abroad," particularly its claims to a sphere of influence in Ukraine and quasi-Stalinist Belarus. Putin twice traveled to Kiev before the election to support Yanukovych, whom he is said to personally dislike for his criminal past but strenuously prefers to Yushchenko for strategic reasons—the Kremlin's abiding fear of Western "encirclement," highlighted in recent years by the enlargement of the European Union, NATO expansion and the stationing of U.S. troops in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Kremlin hawks are pushing hard to hold onto Ukraine at all costs, and Putin himself has lobbied to get formerly Soviet countries, as well as China and India, to recognize Yanukovych as president. Says Sergei Markov, the Russian president's adviser in Ukraine: "Putin is absolutely convinced that the West wants Yushchenko as president for one reason: to blockade Russia."

With the United States and Europe pushing back, ties will suffer whatever the outcome—but especially if Yanukovych takes office or there is bloodshed. Europe and the United States have signaled that they would take retaliatory measures. Those might range from refusing to recognize Yanukovych to freezing assets and barring visas for top Ukrainian government and business officials, downgrading diplomatic relations or imposing trade sanctions. "We won't sit by and do nothing," says a senior official in Washington. "The international community is watching very carefully," said President George W. Bush from his Texas ranch. Events could yet go either way, but if the West is united and triumphs, the revolutions of '89 will have taken a giant leap forward, enveloping yet another once communist land into the fold of the modern world. Vstavay, indeed.

With Frank Brown in Kiev, Stryker Mcguire in London and Eve Conant in Washington

© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6597105/site/newsweek/