31.01.03. Polakkerne
kan godt lide Ukraine, men ikke ukrainerne
31.01.03. Ukraine
får stillet betingelser for at ophæve FATFs sanktioner
30.01.03. Kutjma:
SNG-landene vil oprette en frihandelszone til september
30.01.03. Kutjma
valgt til formand for rådet for SNG-landenes statsoverhoveder
30.01.03. The
killing of a journalist: new book on Heorhii Gongadze
29.01.03. Rusland og
Ukraine underskriver en række vigtige dokumenter
29.01.03. How
Ukrainians view their own history: results of latest poll
29.01.03. Macroeconomic
report on Ukraine: Year end 2002
29.01.03. Official
status for foreign-based Ukrainians
27.01.03. 1.vice-premierminister
aflyser tur til USA p.a. akut sygdom
27.01.03. High-level
Ukrainian economic and finance delegation in Washington -- Jan. 29
27.01.03. Is
Ukraine a member of the CIS?
27.01.03. Tidligere
udenrigsminister kommenterer NATO-Ukraine handlingsplan
24.01.03. Politolog
forudser hård kamp i Kutjmas inderkreds om at blive præsidentkandidat
24.01.03. Draft
law making Russian second state language
24.01.03. Uddrag
af Ukraine-NATO handlingsplan ligner et memorandum fra Europarådet
23.01.03. Serhij
Naboka Dead, Contract Killing Alleged
23.01.03. Hver
anden ukrainer vil gerne være en del af EU
23.01.03. Lettere
fald i ukrainernes tillid til NATO
22.01.03. FATF
har kun hørt om sanktioner fra USA og Canada
22.01.03. Vestlige
lande fortsætter med at indføre sanktioner mod Ukraine
21.01.03. Jusjtjenko
og Tymoshenko profiterer af fortsat faldende tillid til Kutjma og Medvedtjuk
21.01.03. Storbritannien,
Tyskland og Canada indfører sanktioner mod Ukraine
20.01.03. USA-ambassadører:
russisk gennembrud i skyggeprivatiseringen af strategiske objekter
i Ukraine
20.01.03. Ukraine's
Euro-Atlantic choice (Danish
Institute of International Affairs (DUPI) Report 2002/13)
19.01.03. Kendt
journalist fundet død på hotel i Vinnytsa
19.01.03. Litauen
og Polen ønsker Ukraine ind i EU og NATO
17.01.03. Ukrainian
factory makes toys from land mines
17.01.03. The
December 2001 census of Ukraine
17.01.03. Ukraine,
Nauru face U.S. sanctions
16.01.03. Den
ukrainske delegation udeblev fra mødet i Paris
16.01.03. Ukrainerne
er stadig blandt de folk, som polakkerne synes mindst om
15.01.03. USAs
NATO-ambassadør om det fremtidige samarbejde med Ukraine
14.01.03. Højesteret
giver Jusjtjenkos kone medhold
14.01.03. Rukh
beder Kutjma om ikke at afholde et SNG-topmøde i Karpaterne
13.01.03. Kutjma nedsætter
center for euroatlantisk integration
13.01.03. Europarådet
vil se på sagen om Kolomijets
13.01.03. Link til DR-Orienterings udsendelsesrække
om Ukraine - http://www.dr.dk/orientering/siukraine.htm
(Real Player)
13.01.03. USA
undersøger både "Koltjuga"-sagen og sagen om ponton-broerne
13.01.03. Ambassadør
nævner 5 muligheder for en forbedring af forholdet
mellem USA og Ukraine
11.01.03. NATO
har ikke glemt beskyldningerne mod Ukraine
11.01.03.
The
Times om nye beskyldninger mod Ukraine om våbensalg
(eng.)
08.01.03. President
Kuchma's New Year speech
04.01.03. Industrial
productivity in Ukraine
04.01.03. Washington
Post: "Scare Tactics On the Rise In Ukraine"
04.01.03. Ukrainian
Parliament to mull ratification of minority-language charter
04.01.03. Kuchma
seeks Russian support amid Western isolation
04.01.03. Ukrainske
journalister protesterer mod indskrænkning af ytringsfriheden (eng.)
04.01.03. Ukrainian
journalists assess freedom of speech and political censorship
in Ukraine
Yuriy YAKIMENKO and Ihor ZHDANOV
The Twilight of Freedom of Expression
(Expert Assessments of Freed om of Speech and Political Censorship
in Ukraine by Ukrainian Journalists)
If politicians and journalists drew up
annual rating lists of key problems in this country, the
2002 list would be topped by the problem of freedom of expression.
To be more exact - political censorship. Just a few weeks after the
election rage, Ukrainian journalists looked back on those elections
almost as on a triumph of democracy.
The new staff of the Presidential Administration
have made the govenrment's influence on the mass media more
organized, centralized, systemic, methodical, efficacious
We could give many other epithets that would be envied by any
political manager, if it was not for one but - the goals of this influence
and the means of reaching them have nothing to do with democracy,
law or morality.
Talk started brewing among journalists
and other aware people about political censorship in Ukraine
being reanimated by the authorities through their pressure
on the owners and managers of the mass media and journalists.
The issue became the subject of hearings in Parliament, journalists
set up a strike committee and an independent trade union, and now
they are contemplating radical steps in defense of their rights.
But that's only one side of the coin.
On the other, those who are directly
accused of censorship claim that there is no political censorship,
because it is prohibited by the Constitution, because there
is no post of censor as such and because the very term censorship
is not defined in the active legislation. Moreover, Ukrainians
are denied explanations and the right to their own opinion.
S.Vasiliev, a representative of the Presidential Administration,
said that it is not correct to put a professional question to an unprofessional
audience. So the fact that three-fourths of Ukrainians admit to the
existence of censorship doesn't matter.
And what if those three-fourths had answered
in the negative, unlike in October 2002, to the question
Does political censorship exist in Ukraine? In order to leave
no doubts as to the assessments and methods, we turned to those
who are the most competent - journalists. From November 12 to 26
the sociological service of the Razumkov Center, assisted by the
National Association of Journalists, the Charter-4 public organization
and the Telekrytyka Internet newsletter, polled 727 journalists
who represented printed, electronic, state-run, private, central,
regional, district and local mass media, including those published
by enterprises, in all 27 administrative regions of Ukraine. The
poll showed the following:
One. Political censorship does exist
in Ukraine, it has become the everyday reality of journalism.
But it is indirect - the authorities have created a system in
which a journalist himself is afraid to write on forbidden subjects,
censoring himself. For the same reason or obeying directives from
the authorities, his editor alters the political accent of his journalists'
work, instructs them what and who they ought to write (speak)
about and how. Small wonder that the majority of journalists are
sure that the purely Ukrainian phenomenon - temniki [secret instructions
to managers of mass media] from the Presidential Administration -
does exist.
The overwhelming majority of journalists
(86.2%) admit the existence of political censorship in Ukraine.
9.2% do not. The rest gave no definite answer.
Almost two-thirds of respondents (61.6%)
have experienced facts of censorship personally. 38.4% have
not. Most frequently it is self-censorship, for fear of negative
consequences (57.3%); removal of politically undesirable parts
from the original text by the editor, which alters its political
accents (54.8%); the management's ‘recommendations' as to the
way the journalists should cover political events, the leadership's
or political figures' activities (54.5%). More than half the respondents
(50.8%) have experienced cases of a manager or a journalist being
directly instructed by a body of government.
According to the well-known TV journalist
Andriy Shevchenko, who found enough courage to quit his job
with a national channel because of political censorship there,
in the past journalists were told what they must not write, now
they are told what they must write.
So it is very wrong of the authorities
to state that an editorial board's policy is a form of censorship,
political censorship included, and that every editor-in-chief
censors (edits) his journalists' materials before releasing them,
since it is within his competence.
It is all too evident who exactly is
to blame for the political censorship. It is not correct
to substitute the problem of relationships between the government
and the managers of the mass media (where the former censor the
latter) by relationships between managers (owners) of mass media
and journalists (where the latter are allegedly censored by the former).
On the contrary.
If, before releasing news programs or
newspapers, the owners or editors did not receive instructions
from above, they could be liable. But since they are only tools
in someone else's hands, the measure of their responsibility is
different. The one who is to blame is the official who instructs the
mass media who and how they should feature.
These assessments are made by those who
know all too well what political censorship is and who can
even give it their own definition. Although most of these definitions
are evaluative, they demonstrate very clearly the journalists'
attitude to censorship. They speak for themselves and need no comment.
The journalists we polled called censorship death of democracy,
violation of the truth, a noose on democracy's neck, editing of
life. There were more definite description: censorship is what the
Presidential Administration is doing, or when the authorities rape
a journalist's conscience, making him sing their praises and fling
mud at the opposition.
Two. It is dangerous to be a journalist
in Ukraine. Especially to write about the criminal clans, the
President, his administration office and the local authorities.
The most likely result, according to Ukrainian journalists,
is psychological pressure on them and their editors, economic sanctions
on the mass media, physical removal. Nearly half the journalists
we polled knew this from their own experience. In their opinion,
of all the governmental and public institutions, the most negative
influence on the mass media comes from the criminal clans, the Presidential
Administration and the President himself. The bulk of Ukrainians
(almost 80%) consider the profession of a journalist to be dangerous,
and this opinion is strongest in the east of the country - 86.6%.
We are not going to delve into the reasons for this regional specialty
- they are obvious. The worst consequences are expected after publications
about criminal clans (77.1%), about the President (71.7%), about
local authorities (69.4%), about the Presidential Administration (68.4%).
Such a neighborhood would seem shocking in a democratic country,
but we have got used to everything, and we are not surprised. At the
same time, journalists said they were less afraid to criticize the Parliament
and the Cabinet of Ministers - negative consequences were expected
from them by 35.1% and 41.2% of respondents respectively. Moreover,
these institutions are often scapegoats to another structure [the Presidential
Administration office].
Almost every second journalist (48.3%)
has experienced threats, connected with his or her professional
activity. The most widely applied sanctions, according to
them, are psychological pressure (79.2%), economic sanctions
(75.7%), physical action. The general public rated the sanctions
in a different way: physical action was rated first (63.1%), followed
by psychological and economic pressure. Apparently, journalists,
whose dangerous job is their living, take the economic consequences
more seriously than health or life hazards.
Now, the influence on mass media. Respondents
were asked to evaluate the influence of different institutions
on the mass media according to a five-grade scale, where 1 stood
for completely negative and 5 - for completely positive. Surprisingly
enough, they acknowledged financial-economic groups as making
the most positive influence on the mass media (judging from the
number of grades 4 and 5) (19.2%). Apparently, they understand their
economic dependence and hope for Western standards in their relationships
with their employers. Next in that list came the State Committee
for Information Policy (18.2%) and the Parliament (17.4%) - these
are hoped to ensure more freedom of expression in general and provide
guarantees for journalists' professional activity in particular.
The Parliament's third place can be explained by the pluralism
of opinions in the session hall, no matter how narrowly and selectively
they are covered by some of the mass media.
At the bottom of the list (with the largest
number of grades 1 and 2) are the criminal clans (58.1%), the
Presidential Administration (51.2%) and the President (44.1%).
These figures are difficult and even dangerous to comment on
Three. The general level of freedom of
expression in Ukraine is low. So is the level of public access
to information. Ukrainian journalists maintain that the country's
information space is dominated by negative information, which
aggravates the schism within society and compromises the authorities
in the eyes of the people. There is a widespread practice of
ordered articles.
Only 12% of the polled journalists evaluated
positively the status of freedom of expression in Ukraine
(by the number of grades 4 and 5). 44.4% chose the 1 and 2 grades.
42.2% marked it with a 3. 1.4% gave no answer. Thus, freedom of
expression was evaluated at an average 2.6. The level of public access
to information was evaluated a little higher - 2.9, but still lower
than a C. With grades like these, Ukraine's political prospects
- both internal and external - look rather grim. For freedom of expression
and public access to information are key to any nation's democratic
development, they are a laissez-passer to the club of European democracies
which we are so eager to join (as our leaders claim). A significant fact:
in the world rating of freedom of expression, drawn by Reporters Without
Borders, Ukraine was placed 112th among 139 countries. 60.8% of Ukrainian
journalists regard this as justified. Even a representative of the [pro-presidential]
majority in Parliament illustrated the present condition of freedom
of expression in this country with words from a pamphlet, in which
television was called a condom for reality.
Concerning the contents of the information
space, which is a mirror, albeit distorted, of our reality.
More than half the respondents (53.6%) maintain that negative
information prevails in the national mass media. Only 16.4%
disagree. 42.1% are positive about the prevalence of information
which aggravates schism within society (versus 16% who note the
prevalence of information which facilitates its consolidation).
43.3% note the prevalence of information which compromises the
authorities (versus 22.3% who disagree). And of course, it should
be taken into account that some mass media work by the rule: bad
news is good news.
Our journalists ought to be ashamed of
their trade as a whole when it concerns written-to-order
articles, a practice which is admitted to by 87.9% of respondents.
TV journalist Roman Skripin called on his colleagues from
the Parliament's rostrum to apologize to Ukrainians, since, as he
said, journalists themselves have largely helped establish political
censorship in this country.
Above all, such appraisals mirror the
everyday realities of the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians
who are fed with examples proving that not everything's bad
in this house. Subsequently, this situation mirrors the performance
of the authorities - previous and present, which compromises
them even without journalists' help. Besides, some officials,
who are more concerned about self-preservation than the far-reaching
consequences of their steps for the nation, occasionally create
information pretexts that may split society (for instance, by speculating
on the language problem or by trying to picture the opposition as
socially dangerous). So such evaluations of the contents of the national
information space are quite justified - this is exactly the case of
conscience determined by existence.
Four. Ukrainian journalists realize the
need to fight against political censorship. But most of them
have not fought against it yet, largely because of their economic
dependence on their employers. The strike committee, set up
by journalists, enjoys little support so far. A little more than
one-third of journalists are ready to go on a national strike.
The number of journalists who are not ready to testify in court
in a political censorship case is bigger than the number of those
who are. However, almost every journalist realizes that no governmental
structure, courts included, can defend his rights better than he
can.
The question Are you ready to work under
censorship? was answered in the positive by 91.6% of journalists,
while only 2.7% said they were not ready (5.7% gave no answer).
41.5% of journalists said that they fought against censorship,
58.5% did not. Three-quarters of respondents believe that the
biggest obstacle to an effective fight against censorship is their
economic dependence on the owners of the mass media, 48.8% believe
that it is the absence of professional solidarity, 41.2% believe
that the reason lies in their fear of reprisals by the authorities
and criminal structures. That is, censorship actually lives on fear
- of losing the job for good, of the authorities' reprisals, of criminals'
wanton cruelty.
So who can defend the journalist? Here
are some interesting figures: among the governmental institutions
where a journalist could seek protection, a mere 8.3% of respondents
named their mother office - the State Committee for Information
Policy. 10.8% named local authorities and 13.2% named the police.
The highest grade was given to the Security Service (21.2%), most
probably because this body has not been involved in special political
missions, and because it has given journalists the real help they
asked for.
The biggest hope for protection is placed
on the National Association of Journalists (27.6%), bodies
of justice (23.8%) and the recently established Mass Media Trade
Union (22.6%). But even this is well under one-third. It means
that the majority of Ukrainian journalists see no governmental
structure that can defend their rights, have little trust in the
courts and so have to rely on themselves.
But the future success of public structures
in the struggle for journalists' rights depends on the level
of support for their actions and professional solidarity of
journalists. So far, this level is low (which is admitted by journalists
themselves). 46.4% of respondents feel positively towards the
Mass Media Strike Committee, while almost every fourth (23.7%) is
neutral (i.e. indifferent), and almost every tenth (9%) is negative
to it. 37.5% of journalists are ready to take part in a national
strike, should it be announced. 28.4% are not. One-third (34.1%)
are undecided. But two-thirds (66.6%) are ready to contribute to the
Strike Committee's future Journalist Support Fund.
Knowing that the authorities count on
journalists' fear of testifying in court on the facts of political
censorship, the authors of the poll put the question: Are you
ready to testify in court as a witness in a political censorship
case?. The returns were as follows: one-third (33%) of journalists
were ready, a little more (34.1%) were not, the rest 32.9% were
not definite. Of course, this one-third, like those 37.5% who are
ready to go on strike, don't make a majority, and this resolve may
not necessarily go further than words. But it is an obvious fact that
Ukrainian journalists are at boiling point and a considerable number
of them are ready to stand up against censorship. And in this fight
they are going to be backed by nearly half the country's population
- 49.9% of respondents said that they would welcome a strike staged
by journalists, versus 4.4% who were against. (The attitude of 35.6%
was neutral). One-third of Ukrainians (34.3%), despite their material
problems, would be ready to support the strikers financially. So society
is on the journalists' side in their struggle for their professional rights.
Five. Among the immediate measures that
could remove the breeding grounds of political censorship,
the journalists see legislative initiatives toward raising
the economic independence of the mass media and reducing the levers
of economic pressure on them. These measures are expected to
break the economic axis of censorship: owners of mass media dependent
on authorities - journalists dependent on owners.
The overwhelming majority of journalists
(86.4%) insist on lowering the ceiling of moral damage lawsuits
against the mass media. It is a recognized fact that politicians
and government officials use such lawsuits as a means of ruining
disagreeable elements of the mass media. The exorbitant compensation
sums the latter often have to pay (in Ukrainian courts, the stronger
side wins more often than not) actually finish them. A few figures:
in 1999 the Ukrainian mass media were defendants in 2258 libel and
moral damage cases, and were ruled to pay more than UAH 90 billion [$17
billion]. 55% of suits were initiated by public servants. According
to Igor Lubchenko, the Chairman of the National Association of Journalists,
every day such cases are heard in five or six courts. And according
to the Glasnost Foundation, up to 70% of such suits are unfair and
meant to tame the press by financial means.
The most widely supported steps that
would make the mass media economically independent are:
exemption of the national press from VAT on printing services
and paper (92.8%); an open tender for selection of several
companies that would deliver and sell the press (72%); creation
of a public TV channel to be funded through subscription (69%).
However, despite the leadership's declarations
of all-round support for the mass media, there is little
room for optimism. The authorities are not interested in an
independent mass media, since they also claim to be a branch of
power. And who wants to share power in this country? So Telekrytyka
manager Natalia Ligachova is right in saying that until the shadow
mass media business, priced according to loyalty to President &
Co., becomes less profitable than transparent business, maximally
protected from unfair competition and the authorities' arbitrariness,
nothing will really change in this information space. The phrase could
be completed: It won't happen until this country has a system of government,
providing for responsibility before and accountability to society,
and hence - respect of the mass media. The majority of journalists
who took the floor during the December 4 hearings in Parliament agreed
with this idea. We think that most Ukrainian journalists agree with
it, too.
A summary of the poll produces an ambiguous
impression. On the one hand, freedom of expression in Ukraine
is evidently in its twilight. And the history of the 20th century
shows that such a tendency was often fatal.
On the other hand, it is evident that
the bulk of Ukrainian journalists are aware of the seriousness
of the problem and the scale of the threat to them and their country,
posed by political censorship. They are ready to fight, to prevent
freedom of expression from being further curbed, and they urge their
colleagues to join in.
But we must realize: if those who are
standing up today want to succeed, they need something more
than professional solidarity. They need active support from the
public, all those who are not satisfied with the opportunity
to choose between one newspaper and one news program on TV. Such
people make up the majority of Ukraine's population. The journalists
hope for nationwide support. And we want to believe that they
will get it.
The complete returns of the poll are
published in the Razumkov Center's magazine National Security
and Defense(#11, 2002), issued in preparation for the parliament
hearings Society, Mass Media, Authorities: Freedom of Expression
and Censorship in Ukraine.
TOP
04.01.03. Kuchma seeks
Russian support amid Western isolation
Agence France-Presse
Dec. 9, 2002
by Miriam Elder
MOSCOW, Dec 9 (AFP) - Cold-shouldered
in the West over alleged arms sales to Iraq, President Leonid
Kuchma pledged closer ties with Ukraine's larger and powerful
neighbour Monday at talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir
Putin.
"We don't have a bigger historical or
economic bond with any country than we do with Russia," Kuchma
said in Moscow after meeting Putin for the eighth time this year
alone. Moscow is Kiev's "most strategic partner", he was quoted
as saying by the Interfax news agency. Putin responded in kind,
saying that Ukraine was "a priority -- a most important and fundamental
partner."
Kuchma's rejection of US accusations
that he personally approved the sale of an early warning
radar system to Baghdad in violation of UN sanctions has further
tarnished the image of a leader long mired in scandal over charges
that he personally orchestrated the murder of an opposition journalist
and heads an administration riddled with corruption. The United
States has already cut its aid to the ex-Soviet country, once Washington's
third largest aid recipient, and has threatened fresh sanctions if
Kiev [Kyiv] continues to refuse to open an investigation. Kuchma has
repeatedly denied the charges, pushing him further into international
isolation and prompting him to turn to Moscow for support. His visit
to Russia came just two weeks after he was given the cold shoulder at
NATO's landmark expansion summit in Prague, where he showed up despite
warnings by NATO leaders that he would not be welcome. Kuchma's arrival
in Moscow coincided with that of NATO Secretary General George Robertson,
in the Russian capital for talks on the war on terror and on cooperation
following the alliance's eastward expansion as far as Russia's borders.
Ukraine's hopes of joining the European
Union were all but squashed by European Commission President
Romano Prodi who recently told a Dutch newspaper that he "saw
no reason" to consider the country's candidacy. Analysts said
that the increasingly severe charges against Kuchma coupled with
Putin's newfound status as a key US ally in the war on terrorism
had contributed to Ukraine's diminishing importance. The country
is no longer needed to serve as a buffer zone between Europe and an
unstable post-Soviet anti-Western Russia, the daily Kiev Post said.
"Since September 11, Ukraine has lost its interest to the West. Letting
go of Leonid Kuchma would never have happened if Russia hadn't joined
the anti-terrorist coalition," a Western diplomat said on condition
of anonymity. Ukraine's newly-appointed Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich
also traveled to Moscow and was set to meet his Russian counterpart
Mikhail Kasyanov for talks on boosting economic ties and the creation
of a free trade zone. Russia is by far Ukraine's main trade partner, accounting
for 26 percent of its export market and 37 percent of imports.
"Together, we will be stronger, I have
no doubt -- but we need concrete steps," Yanukovich said before
meeting Kasyanov, when he said the trade zone would top the agenda.
"I believe over this year Ukraine and Russia have made sure that
we are strategic partners," said the new prime minister, who was
appointed last month.
But Ukrainian analysts warned that Kiev's
rapprochement with Moscow should not come at the price of
Ukraine falling under the domination of its former Soviet master.
"With Poland, Ukraine's main ally in Europe, joining the EU in
2004, the Ukrainians will find themselves more isolated then ever
-- and therefore, at Moscow's mercy," said analyst Igor Zhdanov.
"We were always very close to Russia -- that's not the problem. But
we don't want Ukraine to interact too much with Russia," he said. Welcoming
snubbed leaders is not new to Putin, who last month met Belarus President
Alexander Lukashenko in Moscow after the authoritarian leader was put
on a travel blacklist by most of the European Union and the United States
to protest his shoddy human rights record.
TOP
04.01.03. Ukrainian Parliament
to mull ratification of minority-language charter
RFE/RL Poland, Belarus and Ukraine Report
December 3, 2002
Volume 4, Number 46
by Taras Kuzio
On 29 October, President Leonid Kuchma
again submitted the 1992 European Charter for Regional or
Minority Languages for ratification by the Ukrainian parliament.
The manner in which the charter would be applicable would be important
to Ukraine's largest minority, Russians, as well as to smaller
ethnic groups, such as Romanians, Hungarians, Poles, Tatars, and
Jews. President Kuchma has backed ratification of 42 paragraphs of
the charter, although only 35 are needed for it to be adopted. The 42
paragraphs contain provisions for protecting and promoting the linguistic
and cultural rights of minorities in courts, as well as in cultural,
educational, and state institutions.
Ukraine joined the Council of Europe
in 1995 and promised to ratify the charter within 12 months.
It was finally ratified by the parliament in December 1999, but
the Constitutional Court declared its provisions unconstitutional.
One constitutional clash concerned the question of which languages
could be used by state officials.
One expert in attendance at a Council
of Europe seminar held in Kyiv on 18-19 October tried to dissuade
the fears of Ukrainian speakers that the charter would primarily
promote Russian. According to that expert, Council of Europe
officials claimed at the seminar "that the language charter is
called to protect all languages. The bigger the ethnic group, the
greater protection liabilities the state should assume to protect its
language."
Nevertheless, opposition to the charter
is again likely to come from national democrats who now possess
the largest faction in the Verkhovna Rada: Viktor Yushchenko's
Our Ukraine. Especially as the new presidential push to ratify
the charter follows a move allegedly instigated by the head
of the presidential administration, Viktor Medvedchuk, during the
Council of Europe seminar to make Russian a state language. In
addition, protests will inevitably be submitted to the Constitutional
Court.
Although the Council of Europe seminar
claimed that the Ukrainian language would also benefit from
the charter, this is unlikely. The newly submitted charter
for ratification by Kuchma only refers to non-Ukrainian ethnic
groups, although Ukrainians are designated constitutionally as the
"titular nation." Ukrainophones often feel that they have a minority
status in eastern Ukraine and Crimea where their linguistic rights
are ignored. The Council of Europe and the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe do not apply national-minority and linguistic
rights to the titular nation, assuming that it is the duty of the state
to promote its own dominant ethnic group. This, of course, is true theoretically,
but in the case of Ukraine and, to an even greater extent, Belarus,
this is not always the case.
The charter also promotes the use of
minority languages by state officials, whereas the Constitutional
Court ruled in December 1999 that all state officials should
use only Ukrainian. Official documents produced in Kyiv, including
during elections by the Central Election Commission, are only
in Ukrainian regardless of whether they are sent to Lviv or Crimea.
Ukraine is not alone in debating the
role of the charter as the entire subject of national-minority
and linguistic rights is highly charged both in the West and in
the East. The Council of Europe and the OSCE have de facto adopted
the widely shared assumption that Western, "civic" states are consolidated,
mature democracies and do not require active intervention in minority
and ethnic problems.
The opposite is held to be true of the
East, which is assumed to be less democratically advanced
and more prone to ethnic discrimination and conflict. The EU
has only demanded that postcommunist states that desire EU membership
uphold good minority policies, a demand not made to Western European
states that were invited to join earlier. The OSCE has only intervened
in ethnic conflicts in postcommunist states, despite the fact there
exist more and longer-running conflicts in the West. The United
Kingdom, Spain, and Turkey have refused to sanction intervention
by the OSCE because they have defined their ethnic conflicts as
"terrorism."
Three other problems have rested on the
question of how to define "national minorities" and whether
migrants and linguistic groups also have rights. No common definition
of "national minorities" exists in Europe among states or the
OSCE, and each state has been left to its own devices either to define
them or to deny their existence. The legislation of some states,
such as the United States, France, Germany, the United Kingdom,
Spain, Turkey, and Greece, denies that national minorities exist and
prefers to support only civic rights provided to individuals, rather
than collective rights to ethnic groups.
Most states deny that migrants, especially
economic ones, should be able to claim state assistance to
protect their cultures. Russia has defended the rights of Russian-speaking
"compatriots" in the former Soviet Union, not Russians, although
linguistic groups are not traditionally afforded protection
as a group.
Ukraine is therefore not alone in having
reservations about the Charter for Regional or Minority
Languages. As of July 2001, only 15 states had ratified the
charter. France refused to ratify it because it contradicted its
constitution, which provides rights to individuals, regardless of
ethnicity, language, or religion. Belgium, Greece, Ireland, Portugal,
and Turkey had not even signed the charter while other Western
European states ratified it with heavy revisions.
Most states have opposed any concept
of collective rights, such as separate ethnic universities
(which Albanians have demanded in Macedonia) and have allocated
quotas in parliaments. They have also demanded that all citizens
should learn the official (state) language. Some have opposed
granting provisions to nonterritorial languages, such as Roma, and
some states have insisted that they have a right to define to which
languages the charter applies.
Most states have adopted a compromise
policy of integration, in contrast to the provision of collective
rights through multiculturalism (as in Canada) or full-blown
assimilation, which was the most commonly held policy prior
to the 1960s.
The dividing line between "integration"
and moderate "assimilation" is, however, hazy. Moderate assimilation
"is opposed not to difference but to segregation, ghettoization,
and marginalization," the well-known U.S. scholar Rogers
Brubaker concludes in the July 2001 issue of "Ethnic and Racial
Studies." Integration of minorities into mainstream society,
while providing for their rights, has always been the policy
implemented by Ukraine.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Taras Kuzio is a resident fellow at the
Centre for Russian and East European Studies and adjunct staff
in the Department of Political Science, University of Toronto
04.01.03. Washington
Post: "Scare Tactics On the Rise In Ukraine"
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 17, 2002; Page A20
By Sharon LaFraniere
Scare tactics on the rise in Ukraine
Kuchma government presses critics in legislature, media
KIEV [Kyiv], Ukraine -- Having built
a multimillion-dollar enterprise over the last decade by
making and selling shingles and tar paper, Volodmyr Shandra
knows all there is to know about the business of roofing.
It's in the business of politics -- he
is a new member of parliament and a critic of Ukraine's struggling
president, Leonid Kuchma -- that the roof has come crashing
down around his head.
The 39-year-old businessman was elected
to the legislature in April as a member of the Our Ukraine
faction, the leading opposition to Kuchma's increasingly autocratic
rule. In July, he said, a friend passed along a message from a
top official in Kuchma's government: If Shandra did not join the pro-Kuchma
lawmakers, his factory would find itself in deep trouble.
Within a month, he said, a cadre of masked
officers toting machine guns showed up at the factory in
the western Ukraine city of Slavuta. They seized a dozen computers
and 3,000 pounds of documents.
The factory was all but paralyzed during
the critical summer construction season, he said, wreaking
havoc with its clients and dealers. Now it faces a criminal
investigation for supposed financial improprieties.
"I never imagined these things could
happen," Shandra said.
Muscling legislators is just the most
visible of a variety of hardball tactics that critics say
have intensified here as Kuchma's government sinks deeper into
scandal and loses popular support. Other methods include retaliating
against insufficiently loyal businessmen and independent judges,
and cowing the media.
"You get a sense of sustained pressure,
across the board," said Markian Bilynskyj, director of field
operations for the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation. Democracy in Ukraine,
he said, "has boundaries delineated by the people in power. Democracy
is something that is to be permitted and distributed in doses."
Kuchma, who is scheduled to leave office
in two years, says Ukraine is on its way to becoming a modern
European democracy and just needs time to develop. His aides
deny the government engages in censorship or uses law enforcement
and the courts for political ends.
For the moment, the strong-arm tactics
are helping Kuchma maintain his grip after opposition forces
managed their largest show of strength to date, drawing tens
of thousands of protesters to the streets in September. Following
what critics describe as a campaign of threats and hefty bribes,
a razor-slim majority of legislators last week pledged to work with
the executive branch.
Television news coverage of Kuchma is
now relentlessly positive: When he was humiliated at last
month's NATO summit in Prague, for instance, Ukrainian media painted
it as a diplomatic victory for the 64-year-old leader.
But some analysts say the real beneficiary
of Kuchma's crackdown is its architect: Viktor Medvedchuk,
the president's new and increasingly powerful chief of staff
and one of Ukraine's richest oligarchs.
"There is a real sense that this administration
is being run by Medvedchuk, and that he is performing a kind
of dress rehearsal for when he becomes president," said Bilynskyj.
"I don't think Kuchma is controlling all of this. But he is not
stopping it."
The trend worries Western leaders, who
once dreamed that Ukrainian democracy would flourish. With
nearly 50 million people, a territory the size of France and
an arsenal that includes missile and nuclear technology, Ukraine
was judged worthy of grooming for a democratic future. It has been
one of the top recipients of U.S. aid and political support.
But that may be changing. The United
States has given Kuchma the cold shoulder since determining
this fall that he signed off on a clandestine plan to sell
powerful Kolchuga aircraft tracking stations to Iraq in clear
violation of an international embargo. U.S. Ambassador Carlos
Pascual said last month that the Kolchuga affair and other disagreements
have led to "a crisis of confidence" in Ukraine's top leadership.
Kuchma denies approving the sale.
His administration is powerless to silence
American grumbling. But the growing list of incidents involving
political opponents, businessmen and journalists suggests
domestic critics sometimes pay a steep price.
Take Serhiy Danylov, whose printing house
last February published 900,000 copies of a book about Yulia
Timoshenko, a leader of the opposition to Kuchma. Now on his
press is another book, documenting what he says is the punishment
tax authorities have meted out since then: more than 100 visits
to his office and warnings to his clients. His business nearly
ruined, he has cut his workforce from 304 employees to 25.
"I can say that the [Soviet] KGB [secret
police] in 1988 was much kinder than the tax administration
of Ukraine today," he said.
Or consider Yevhen Chervonenko, a legislator
who spent the last decade building an international trucking
firm. He said his support for Viktor Yushchenko, head of Our
Ukraine and the country's most popular politician, has so far
cost the firm at least $1 million in business after tax police
this year froze bank accounts and seized trucks.
"I was an adviser of the president. I
was a minister," he said. "When I was there, they did not
touch me. But since I began to support Yushchenko . . . I am
being told I will lose everything."
Yushchenko says two dozen companies with
financial links to legislators from his party have been
targeted.
If harassing legislators seems brazen,
however, even some of Kuchma's advisers said they were stunned
when police arrested Konstantin Grigorishin, a 37-year-old
Russian businessman with more than $370 million invested in Ukraine's
energy, metals and machine-building industries.
In an interview in Moscow, Grigorishin
said officers pulled him out of his car after he left a restaurant
in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, on Oct. 12, planted narcotics
in his jacket and stuffed a gun in his back pocket. "They even
buttoned the pocket," he said.
He blamed his arrest on Kuchma's aide,
Medvedchuk, and Hryhory Surkis, who together with Medvedchuk
leads the Social Democratic Party, the political arm of a
business clan that controls much of Ukraine's wealth. For the
previous two years, Grigorishin said, he had been trying to end
a business partnership with the two men because of their financial
demands.
Last summer, he said, they asked for
$50 million to finance the party's parliamentary campaign.
When he refused, he said, the two systematically took over
his Ukrainian companies, one by one.
"I was told, 'We won't let you do business
in the Ukraine,' " he said. "Surkis said, 'We will put you
in the trunk of a car, drive you to the woods and bury you alive.'
Medvedchuk said they would put me in jail."
Medvedchuk has denied any involvement
in the businessman's arrest, saying he never interferes in
law enforcement cases. Surkis dismissed Grigorishin's allegations
as nonsense.
Grigorishin was freed after 10 days in
jail after Viktor Pinchuk, his friend and Kuchma's son-in-law,
intervened. A Kiev court later found his arrest and detention
illegal.
Lawyers who have fought Kuchma's government
in court say that although a fair verdict is possible, judges
increasingly fear they will be penalized for political disloyalty.
Yuriy Vasilenko, an appeals court judge, estimates that only
10 out of about 200 judges in Kiev are truly independent. "As soon
as a judge takes an independent stand, a complaint will be filed with
a judicial directorate or another body," he said.
Former district court judge Mykola Zamkovenko
considers himself a prime example.
In March 2001, he released Yulia Timoshenko
from jail, striking down fraud and bribery charges brought
by Kuchma's prosecutors. Two months later, police illegally raided
his house.
In July, Kuchma fired him for incompetence.
He now faces criminal charges of abusing his position and
forgery.
"When I was making the decisions they
liked, they were silent," Zamkovenko said. Now, he said, "They
are using me to scare off the other judges."
Television journalists say they -- and
their stations, which are mostly controlled by pro-Kuchma
oligarchs -- also face repercussions if they do not follow
the government's increasingly strict line. While certain topics
were always taboo, now opposition leaders such as Yushchenko
are simply banned from the air, said Andriy Shevchenko, a leader
of the new union of journalists.
And for the first time, permitted topics
are now outlined in faxes from the presidential administration.
Kiev Post, an independent, English-language newspaper, published
a copy of the government's media directive from Sept. 13,
three days before a planned opposition protest that turned into
one of the largest ever held here.
"Please cover the day's events in the
following order in all this evening's news bulletins," it
said. High on the list was a judge's ban on holding the protest
in Kiev's center and a union leader's recommendation that workers
not participate.
Serhiy Vasyliev, Kuchma's aide for information,
said the directives are only suggestions. "Some journalists
interpret them as instructions because they come from the president,"
he said recently. "But that is wrong."
Shevchenko said the proof is on the screen.
For instance, he said, no television network has aired a single
minute of now notorious tapes on which hours of Kuchma's private
conversations are purportedly recorded.
That could be why so few Ukrainians know
the story of Alexei Podolsky, a 45-year-old former member
of parliament.
On June 6, 2000, as Podolsky finished
printing a sheaf of anti-Kuchma leaflets here, he said, he
was abducted by three men and driven 78 miles to the rural area
of Sumi, where he was severely beaten.
Before the assailants left him in a grove
of trees, he said, one of them warned him: "If you continue,
you will pay with your life." When he returned to Kiev, he said,
he found his front door burned.
Months later, Podolsky said, he read
about his own abduction and beating in what purports to
be a transcript of yet another secretly taped conversation
in Kuchma's office. The transcript was posted on the Internet site
of Oleksandr Zhyr, a leader of an anti-Kuchma party.
"The day before yesterday, he ended up
all the way in Sumi [Sumy] oblast, the one that distributed.
And they gave it to him there in such a way," said a man whom
Zhyr identified as then-Interior Minister Yuri Kravchenko.
Then Kravchenko told Kuchma about the
burned door, according to the transcript.
"(Both laughing,)" the transcript says.
04.01.03. Industrial
productivity in Ukraine
In November of this year productivity
in Ukraine rose by 9.3%; during the first eleven months of
2002 it rose by 6.3%.
Source:
http://www.interfax.kiev.ua/ukr/
08.01.03. President Kuchma's
New Year speech
Source: Ukrainian Television first programme
Kyiv, Ukraine
31 December 02
Published by BBC Monitoring Service
United Kingdom
January 01, 2003
Ukrainian president Kuchma hails political
responsibility, reform in New Year's speech
BBC Monitoring Service: Ukrainian President
Leonid Kuchma has said in his New Year's address to the nation
that long-awaited political responsibility was finally established
in 2002. Kuchma praised Ukraine's progress towards European
integration and said the political basis has now been set for improved
living standards and reform of the health and pension systems. The
following is the text of the address from Ukrainian television on 31
December:
My dear compatriots! The year of 2003
is on the threshold of our homes. As always at this time,
we recall what the outgoing year has been like for us and hope
that the incoming year will bring joy and happiness to all of
us. We believe that our most cherished dreams will come true. Saying
farewell to the outgoing year is always a bit emotional and a bit
sad. Time cannot be reversed. Each of us has beautiful and unique
moments related to the past year that will never repeat themselves.
For some, it is the joy of moving into a new house. For some, it is
the birth of a child. For some, it is a new love. Someone was employed
for the first time. Joy and sorrow always come hand in hand in
life. So let us remember those who had to endure, against their own
free will, both the pain of loss, hardships and bitter failures.
Let us recall wise words: everything passes away, everything has its
own time and its own hour under the sky. This is why we need to look
towards the future with patience and optimism, hoping that bitterness
and loss will pass by and that there will be more joyful events. Let
us believe that the world will become more just and freer, more brotherly
and humane for each and everyone.
Dear compatriots! Seeing the outgoing
year out and the New Year in, it is common practice to sum
up the results and talk about the prospects for each of us,
for our families and for the whole country. Each of you cannot
but be interested in what the coming year will be like for Ukraine,
what can be relied on and what can be expected. I have to say that
I do not pin such great hopes on every year as I am pinning on the
coming year. All the political conditions have been created to improve
the economic life of every Ukrainian, to put it simply, the wellbeing
of each of you.
What are the reasons for this optimism
of mine? For the first time since Ukraine's independence,
a transparent system of power that is understandable to each
of you was finally created during the outgoing year. You elected
people's deputies [in the March 2002 general election]. The
people's deputies created a [pro-presidential] majority. The majority
formed the government. I have to say that we have spent unacceptably
too much time to reach this transparency. But now that we have
finally attained it, I hope that the eternal Ukrainian political
ping pong will finally be over.
Everyone is doing something, but nobody
is responsible for anything. From now on, those whom you
have elected and who have formed the government will no longer
be able to say: we have nothing to do with this government. This
is because it is their government. From now on, the majority and
its government will no longer be able to point to the president and
say that he prevents them from doing their job. The president will
indeed interfere when a political need for this arises. But the main
responsibility rests with the majority and its government. From now
on, you too, by taking a decision on whom to give your vote at elections,
will orient yourselves not to sweet promises but to specific results.
You will definitely know whether the government
and the parliamentarians which formed it did something beneficial
for you. Whether it is worth electing those who were in opposition
to them. And those who are in power, knowing how carefully
you watch them, will do everything to justify your expectations
and improve your wellbeing. Well, they want you to vote for them
in the future too.
I am sure that this political logic is
understood by each and everyone of you. I can only regret that
it is only now that we have managed to achieve such transparency.
The age-old Ukrainian problem of a lack of unity and the lack of
desire to reach sensible compromise. I hope that next year, when parliament
works on political reform and the move towards a parliamentary-presidential
republic, there will be more understanding and compromise. You know
the tasks which I have given to the government. These are ensuring
a large increase in the minimum pension and the minimum wage, reform
of the pension system and the health system and making sure the cost
of medicines and tariffs for housing and utility services does not
rise.
Economic growth allows us to do this.
It allows us to ensure the best possible balance between the
resources of the state and the needs of society. [Break in
transmission due to technical reasons]
Dear fellow countrymen! The year that
is passing consolidated the strategic plans of our country
and confirmed its European choice. Step by step Ukraine moved
towards its goal of integration into the European community. And
this path has turned out to be a very difficult one. There were
enough objective as well as artificially-created obstacles. We spent
great efforts in order to overcome them. Well, to win a worthy place
in the world, and one which our country deserves, is never an easy
task.
In these moments just before the New Year
I want to give a warm mention to all those Ukrainians who
are far from their homeland at the present time. And those
who protect the interests of our state beyond its borders and
those who were forced by a difficult lot to look for their fortunes
abroad. Ukraine appreciates you a great deal.
Dear friends! For us Ukrainians the New
Year is a family holiday. I will also see the New Year in
with my family, as a father and a grandfather. For tradition's
sake, we will now fill our glasses to wish one another all the
best in the New Year! At this very moment, the whole country is
united by a unique feeling which can only be present in a New Year's
eve. The feeling of a real holiday. Our hearts are made to do good
and our thoughts are of a special light and honour.
The New Year will be with us in a few
seconds. I sincerely hope that it will be a happy one for
everyone of you. Dear compatriots, I wish you health, prosperity,
peace in your families and mutual love and respect. Let every
family, on weekdays as well as holidays, have an abundance of everything.
Let children make their parents happy every single day and young
people care about their elders. Peace to you all and success in all
good matters. I raise this glass with you all for everyone of you,
for our Ukraine. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
11.01.03. The Times
om nye beskyldninger mod Ukraine om våbensalg
Ukraine sales 'a problem'
From Elaine Monaghan in Washington
IRAQ is suspected of a fresh breach of
UN sanctions after buying military logistics equipment from
Ukraine, a US official has told The Times. Earlier suspicions
that President Kuchma of Ukraine had authorised the sale of an
aircraft-detection system to Iraq have already infuriated Washington
and prompted a freeze on aid and a policy review.
The US official said that a pontoon bridge
had been transferred and that other Ukrainian transfers to
Iraq were “a continuing problem”.
More evidence emerged of fresh sales on
Monday, he said, but details were scarce. The row over the
radar sale began after a former presidential bodyguard, released
digital recordings he says were made in Mr Kuchma’s office. America
said it had authenticated one section in which a voice like Mr
Kuchma’s gives permission for the radar system to be sold.
11.01.03. NATO
har ikke glemt beskyldningerne mod Ukraine
N ATO er 100% interesseret i at se Ukraine
som medlem, men det er svært at tale om noget fremskridt
i de bilaterale relationer, så længe spørgsmålet
om salget af "Koltjuga"-radarerne til Irak ikke er blevet
opklaret, sagde folkedeputeret Ihor Ostash fra "Vores Ukraine"
under en pressekonference i Kyiv i starten af januar i anledning
af en gruppe ukrainske politikeres besøg i NATOs hovedkvarter.
NATOs holdning i "Koltjuga"-sagen forbliver uændret, oplyste
Ostash..
"Alliancen insisterer
på, at Ukraine ikke har leveret en fyldestgørende
information i "Koltjuga"-sagen. Samtidig sagde deputeret Mykola
Katerynchuk, at man i alliancen trækker en klar skillelinje
mellem Ukraine og "den kriminelle handling, som muligvis har fundet
sted".
Ifølge folkedeputeret
Anatolij Domanskyj fra KPU sagde NATOs generalsekretær,
George Robertson, under mødet med de ukrainske folkevalgte,
at der "er en krise" i relationerne mellem Ukraine og NATO.
"Sålænge der ikke bliver sat et punktum i sagen om
"Koltjuga", vil krisen blive uddybet", - sagde han.
Domanskyj oplyste desuden,
at NATO i den forbindelse "har en række spørgsmål
til præsidenten".
Ifølge den folkedeputerede
påpegede en række højtstående embedsmænd
i NATO, at Ukraine vil kunne træde ind i NATO "måske
om en ti års tid; men snarere om 20 år". "Indtil vi
når op på europæiske standarder, vil de ikke
invitere os", - understregede Domanskyj.
Folkedeputeret Katerynchuk
fra "Vores Ukraine" understregede, at NATO ikke knytter løsningen
af "Koltjuga"-spørgsmålet sammen med det kommende
præsidentvalg, fordi Ukraines præsident tidligere
har erklæret, at han "ikke vil stille op til en tredje periode".
"Dette spørgsmål er forbundet med tillidskrisen i forhold
til statens ledelse, og dette spørgsmål vil være
aktuelt, indtil man har fået svar på alle spørgsmål",
- sagde han.
13.01.03. Ambassadør
nævner 5 muligheder for en forbedring af forholdet
mellem USA og Ukraine
De forenede Stater bevarer "de åbne
døres politik" i forhold til Ukraine og nødvendigheden
af at "genskabe tilliden". Det sagde De forenede Staters ambassadør
i Ukraine, Carlos Pascual, under et møde i Center for strategiske
og internationale studier i Kyiv.
I sit indlæg sagde
Pascual bl.a., at det er uklart, hvad Ukraine vil gøre
i den nuværende situation. Ifølge diplomaten har
visse ledende ukrainere sagt til ham, at "isolationen ikke er
nogen udvej".
Under sit over en time
lange indlæg fremlagde Pascual et detaljeret billede
over opnåede resultater og problemer i Ukraine i de senere
år og kom med en række forslag som har til hensigt
at overvinde de eksisterende vanskeligheder i Ukraines relationer
med de euroatlantiske strukturer og De forenede Stater.
Han påpegede bl.a.,
at man i Kyiv på baggrund af den seneste tids forværringer
har fejlfortolket De forenede Staters hensigter i forhold til
Ukraine: "Adskillige ukrainere mener, at De forenede Stater
forsøger at undergrave Kutjmas autoritet og erstatte ham
med Viktor Jusjtjenko eller en anden repræsentant for
oppositionen. Det er forkert.
De forenede Stater forsøger
hverken at øve indflydelse på eller opnå
ændringer i ukrainsk politik. Vores mål og håb
er at fremme en åben, fri og gennemskuelig valgproces, som
vil give det ukrainske folk mulighed for at vælge dem til
de ledende embeder, som de ønsker. Og denne beslutning er vi
ikke herrer over", - påpegede diplomaten.
Under mødet med
amerikanske eksperter forelagde Pascual 5 preliminære
skridt eller forslag, som ville fremelske en forbedring af de
ukrainsk-amerikanske relationer: "Følgerne af sagen omkring
Koltjuga-radaren er åbenlyse, og det er i dag vanskeligt at
antage, at Washington for slet ikke at nævne Kyiv ville ændre
sin holdning i denne sag, som er koncentreret omkring Ukraines
præsident..." Men det ville i denne kontekst være
til en vis grad et konstruktivt skridt, hvis man etablerede et
bedre samarbejde indenfor eksport-kontrol i Ukraine".
Et andet skridt, som
ville kunne forbedre forholdet, ville være afholdelsen
af forhandlinger på regeringsniveau; nemlig ministerniveau:
"På trods af vanskeligheder på topplan er vi åbne
overfor et samarbejde på det niveau", - sagde den amerikanske
diplomat og tilføjede, at en udbygning af samarbejdet mellem
USAs Kongres og Ukraines Verkhovna Rada i den sammenhæng også
ville være positivt.
Et tredje skridt kunne
være støtten til et demokratisk miljø
og et stærkt civilsamfund, og en forudsætning for
det er en anerkendelse af, oppositionen og uafhængige massemediers
rettigheder anerkendes.
Desuden er det nødvendigt
at fortsætte samarbejdet mellem Ukraines og USAs væbnede
styrker og forsvarsministerier, også indenfor rammerne
af NATO.
Det sidste skridt, som
USAs ambassadør i Ukraine, Carlos Pascual, nævnte
i Washington, var at støtte Ukraine i at blive medlem
af regionale og internationale institutioner, så som NATO
og WTO. UP, Radio Liberty.
13.01.03. USA undersøger
både "Koltjuga"-sagen og sagen om pontonbroerne
George Bush's regering "fortsætter
med at undersøge" spørgsmålet om de mulige
leverancer af ukrainsk våbenudstyr til Irak, sagde det
amerikanske udenrigsministeriums officielle talsmand, Richard Baucher,
i lørdags.
På et pressemøde
i Washington oplyste Baucher, at gruppen af amerikanske eksperter,
som arbejdede i Ukraine og undersøgte spørgsmålet
om leveringen af radaranlægget "Koltjuga" til Irak, "ikke
er blevet mødt med et helhjertet samarbejde fra de ukrainske
myndigheders side". Derfor fortsætter "den tværinstitutionelle
analyse af politikken i forhold til Ukraine, som Bush's regering
gennemfører.
Da han blev spurgt om
den mulige leverance af ukrainske pontonbroer til Irak, sagde
Baucher, at "leverancen af militært udstyr til Irak er et
alvorligt spørgsmål", fordi det er "en overtrædelse
af FNs sanktioner".
"Vi arbejder med disse
spørgsmål", - understregede udenrigsministeriets
talsmand og føjede til, at USA "har forpligtelser" indenfor
bestræbelserne på at undgå spredning, ifølge
hvilken man skal "undersøge disse oplysninger".
13.01.03. Europarådet
vil se på sagen om Kolomijets
Europarådets parlamentariske forsamlings
(PACE) monitoring-komite vil på et møde den 14.
januar i Paris drøfte situationen i Ukraine. Efter planen
skal Hanne Severinsen og Renate Wolwendt holde oplæg.
Europarådets Ukraine-rapporteur,
Hanne Severinsen, oplyser til Deutsche Welle, at hovedemnet
under behandlingen af "det ukrainske spørgsmål"
på monitoring-komiteens møde bliver mordene på
journalisterne Georgij Gongadze, Igor Aleksandrov samt Mikhajlo
Kolomijets død under uopklarede omstændigheder.
Ifølge Severinsen
forventer hun og hendes kolleger, at Kyiv besvarer spørgsmålet
om, hvad man i landet gør for at rette op på de mangler,
som Europarådet har påpeget. Monitoring-komiteen
har for en måned siden sendt den ukrainske ledelse en detaljeret
information om situationen i Ukraine.
Hanne Severinsen antager,
at PACEs januar-session kan behandle spørgsmålet
om ytringsfriheden i de europæiske stater, inklusive
Ukraine, på initiativ af visse ukrainske deputerede.
Severinsen oplyste, at
en finsk parlamentariker allerede har færdiggjort en rapport
om ytringsfrihed i hele Europa, som også indeholder en
omtale af situationen i Ukraine. UP.
13.01.03. Kutjma nedsætter
center for euroatlantisk integration
Ukraines præsident, Leonid Kutjma,
har nedsat et Nationalt center for euroatlantisk integration.
Det oplyser præsidentens pressetjeneste med henvisning
til et dekret, som Kutjma har underskrevet.
Det hedder i præsidentens
pressetjenestes meddelelse, at "Det nationale center for euroatlantisk
integration er nedsat med henblik på en konsekvent realisering
af Ukraines kurs henimod den euroatlantiske integration (en
eufemisme for medlemskab af NATO, red.) og udarbejdelsen af forslag
til koordineringen af den udøvende magts aktiviteter".
Centeret er nedsat som
et konsultativt og rådgivende organ ved præsidenten.
Dekretet udpeger Volodymyr
Horbulin, som er præsidentens sikkerhedspolitiske rådgiver,
til formand for Det nationale Center, og det er ham som skal stå
for opbygningen af centrets apparat.
I slutningen af august
2002 nedsatte Kutjma Det statslige råd for europæisk
og euroatlantisk integration, som skulle stå for koordinationen
af myndighedernes aktiviteter henimod en integration af Ukraine
i Europas politiske, økonomiske og retslige rum.
I november 2002 vedtog
Ukraine og NATO på topmødet i Prag en handlingsplan
og en målplan for 2003. Podrobnosti, Ukrajinski Novyny.
14.01.03. Rukh
beder Kutjma om ikke at afholde et SNG-topmøde i Karpaterne
Det fjerde uformelle topmøde blandt
lederne af SNG-staterne finder sted den 28-29. januar i Ivano-Frankivsk
regionen i præsidentens residens "Synehora", meddelte regionens
guvernør, Mykhajlo Vyshyvanjuk. Samtidig anmodede en repræsentant
for Rukh-partiet UNR præsident Kutjma om at aflyse stedet
for det uformelle møde "uden slips".
Præsidenterne for
de 12 SNG-lande deltager i topmødet i Ivano-Frankivsk.
Ukraines præsidents
pressetjeneste kunne ikke bekræfte informationen om stedet
for topmødets afholdelse, men kunne heller ikke afkræfte
det. Tidligere forlød det fra pressetjenestens side, at stedet
for afholdelsen af topmødet endnu ikke er endegyldig fundet,
meddeler RIA Novosti.
SNGs eksekutivkomite i
Minsk i Hviderusland oplyser imidlertid, at præsident
Leonid Kutjma havde foreslået at afholde et uformelt topmøde
i Ukraine under mødet blandt SNGs statsledere den 7. oktober
2002 i Kishinau. Efter planen skal SNG-præsidenterne i
Karpaterne fortsætte drøftelsen af de spørgsmål,
som vedrører den videre udvikling af SNG-samarbejdet.
Ifølge oplysninger
fra Ukraines regering forventes det, at forbedringen af de økonomiske
og handelsmæssige relationer mellem landene bliver hovedemnet
på topmødet. Ifølge Ivano-Frankivsks guvernør
er det "et yderst vigtigt spørgsmål", eftersom "alle
har brug for at lede efter markeder, hvor de kan afsætte deres
produkter".
Samtidig har folkedeputeret
Oleksandr Hudyma, der er medlem af partiet Ukraines folkebevægelse
(UNR), rettet en appel til præsident Leonid Kutjma om at
flytte stedet for afholdelsen af SNG-topmødet. Efter hans
mening er afholdelsen af et sådant møde i Galicien
(Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk og Ternopil-regionerne, red.) "ikke den bedste
ide", fordi over 90% af områdets indbyggere ifølge
meningsmålinger støtter Ukraines indtræden i NATO
og Den europæiske Union og ikke kan se det formålstjenlige
i eksistensen af en organisation som SNG.
Hudyma påpeger desuden,
at såfremt mødet ikke bliver flyttet "vil de national-demokratiske
partier ikke kunne garantere, at deltagerne får en hjertelig
velkomst", oplyser man i UNRs pressetjeneste.
Der bliver ikke underskrevet
nogen mellemstatslige dokumenter under de uformelle møder
blandt SNGs ledere, ligeså vel som at man ikke har nogen
officiel dagsorden.
Det sidste uformelle møde
af slagsen fandt sted i marts 2002 på initiativ af Kazakhstans
præsident, Nursultan Nazarbajev, på skisportsstedet
Tjymbulak i nærheden af Alma-ata.
Samtlige SNG-landenes præsidenter
kom dengang til Kazakhstan med undtagelse af Azerbajdzhans leder,
Gejdar Alijev, som udeblev af helbredsmæssige årsager.
Som det var ventet, så
handlede det sidste møde om problemet med bekæmpelsen
af international terrorisme, reformen af SNGs organer og det
mellemstatslige samarbejde i et bilateralt og et multilateralt
format.
Kazakhstans, Ruslands,
Turkmenistans og Uzbekistans præsidenter vedtog en fælles
erklæring om et strategisk partnerskab mellem deres landes
gasselskaber med henblik på at sikre stabile gasleverancer
til SNGs og det fjerne udlands markeder. korrespondent.net.
14.01.03. Højesteret
giver Jusjtjenkos kone medhold
Ukraines Højesteret har omstødt
Kyivs Shevtjenko-distriktetsrets afgørelse, som frikendte
Tv-stationen Inter og avisen Kievskie Vedomosti
for ansvaret for at skulle dementere informationer, som de havde
viderebragt om Viktor Jusjtjenkos hustru - Kateryna Tjumatjenko.
Kateryna Tjumatjenkos advokat,
Mykola Poludjonnyj, oplyste, at Højesteret afsagde denne
kendelse den 8. januar, meddeler "Vores Ukraine"s pressetjeneste.
Kateryna Tjumatjenko havde
indgivet et søgsmål mod den russiske journalist
Mykhajlo Leontjev, som efter hendes opfattelse havde krænket
hendes ære og værdighed. Søgsmålet blev
desuden indgivet mod de medier, som havde viderebragt hans udtalelser.
"Ansvaret blev i Shevtjenko-rettens første beslutning udelukkende
placeret hos Leontjev som ophavsmanden til udtalelserne. I stedet
blev Inter og Kievskie Vedomosti, som havde viderebragt
den usandfærdige information, fritaget for ansvaret, dvs.
for forpligtelsen til at dementere og give sagsøgersken
erstatning for tort og æreskrænkelse", - forklarede
advokaten.
Ifølge ham har Højesteret
sendt sagen til en fornyet behandling i Shevtjenko-distriktets
domstol. "1. instans-domstolen skal nu fjerne alle mangler og
tvinge de organisationer, som har udbredt usande oplysninger, der
har krænket Kateryna Tjumatjenkos ære og værdighed
og er en indblanding i privatlivet, til at dementere disse oplysninger",
- sagde Mykola Poludjonnyj.
15.01.03. USAs NATO-ambassadør
om det fremtidige samarbejde med Ukraine
Rusland, Ukraine og staterne i Centralasien
og Kaukasus-regionen har ikke "udsigt til at blive medlemmer
af alliancen i en forudsigelig fremtid", - sagde USAs permantente
repræsentant i NATO, Nicholas Berns.
Ambassadør Nicholas
Berns understregede under et møde med amerikanske eksperter
i John Hopkins universitetet i Washington, at landene øst
for NATO er af afgørende betydning for den europæiske
sikkerhed og stabilitet. Det gælder først og fremmest
staterne i Centralasien, Kaukasus-regionen samt Rusland og Ukraine.
Som Berns påpeger
har Rusland ikke ytret noget ønske om at træde
ind i NATO, men har takket være de meget gode relationer
mellem præsidenterne Vladimir Putin og George Bush iværksat
et samarbejde med alliancen i et hidtil uset omfang.
De samme planer havde man
for Ukraine, fremhæver Nicholas Berns. Men her kom NATO
til at stå overfor problemet med den videre udbygning af
forholdet til Kiev: "Vi havde de samme høje mål med
hensyn til at løfte forholdet til ukrainerne til et lignende
niveau. Men i forholdet til Ukraine er vi i løbet af 2002
havnet i en vanskelig situation".
"Vi mener, at præsident
Kutjma har godkendt beslutningen om at sælge radaranlægget
"Koltjuga" til Irak, hvilket i realiteten betød en opbremsning
af relationerne mellem Ukraine og NATO. For vi kunne ikke se nogen
muligheder for at hæve relationerne mellem NATO og Ukraine
til et nyt niveau og give dem en ny status, når Ukraine havde en
så ansvarsløs holdning til sin egen våbeneksportpolitik
overfor et land, som er den vigtigste destabilisator i Mellemøsten",
- sagde Nicholas Berns.
Ifølge Berns er der
stadig et håb om, at det i en ikke fjern fremtid vil lykkes
at arbejde sammen med Ukraine for at nå op på de relevante
rammer for samarbejdet med NATO med henblik på at bevare stabiliteten
i Europa.
USAs repræsentant
i NATO sagde endvidere, at NATO fortsætter et tæt
samarbejde med Kiev; men at det ikke foregår på allerhøjeste
niveau, men på ministerniveau. Det samme gælder Washingtons
forhold til Kiev. Og det er et resultat af Ukraines præsidents
handlinger, som med sin opførsel har undergravet tilliden
til sig selv og har isoleret sig selv. For som Carlos Pasqual, USAs
ambassadør i Ukraine, påpegede forleden dag, så
er det nu ønskeligt for De forenede Stater, at de ukrainsk-amerikanske
relationer udfolder sig på ministerniveau, og ikke på
statsoverhoved-niveau.
Ifølge Nicholas Berns
vil NATO i 2003 arbejde i tre retninger for så vidt angår
omdannelsen af forsvarsalliancen med henblik på bevarelsen
af stabiliteten: for det første er der tale om en styrkelse
af det eksisterende potentiale, for det andet - om en fuldstændig
tilslutning af kandidatlandene, som blev inviteret på Prag-topmødet,
og for det tredje - om en udbygning af relationerne med landene
øst for det nye NATO. Radio Liberty, UP.
16.01.03. Ukrainerne
er stadig blandt de folk, som polakkerne synes mindst om
Det polske center for undersøgelser af
den offentlige mening "Cebos" (CBOS) har offentliggjort resultatet
af endnu en undersøgelse af, hvilke andre folkeslag polakkerne
henholdsvis elsker eller ikke bryder sig om.
Cebos har gennemført
undersøgelsen næsten hvert eneste år siden
1993. Amerikanerne, italienerne, franskmændene og englænderne
fortsætter med at toppe listen over de folkeslag, som polakkerne
holder allermest af. Samtidig er polakkerne konsekvente i deres antipatier
overfor sigøjnere og rumænere. Hvad ukrainerne angår,
så er polakkernes holdning snarere negativ, og den ændres
meget langsomt, oplyser Radio Liberty.
I løbet af 1993-99
har ukrainerne indtaget en stabil tredjesidsteplads i polakkernes
sympatier, idet de kun blev overhalet af rumænere og sigøjnere.
Traditionelt har næsten 60% af de adspurgte givet udtryk for
en antipati imod ukrainerne, mens ca.10% nærede en sympati.
I løbet af de senere
år har undersøgerne bemærket en tendens til
mindskningen af antallet af respondenter, som havde en fjendtlig
indstilling til ukrainerne, uden at der kom en stigning i antallet
af sympatisører, mens antallet af ligegyldige og ubeslutsomme
steg.
Årets undersøgelse
bragte omsider et nyt resultat. Procenten af de adspurgte, som
indrømmede, at de sympatiserede med ukrainerne, er nærmest
blevet fordoblet - til 22%, mens antallet af fjendtligt indstillede
polakker mindskedes med 10% sammenlignet med 1999.
Det har betydet, at ukrainerne
er steget et trin i det polske sympatibarometer og har overhalet
araberne. Nu ligger ukrainerne lige under jøderne og lige
over araberne, sigøjnerne og rumænerne.
Men ikke alle er tilbøjelige
til at stole blindt på disse meningsmålinger. Historiker
og tidligere leder af Sammenslutningen af Polens Ukrainere Jurij
Rejt er enig i, at araberne i denne meningsmåling har hjulpet
ukrainerne med at tage et skridt op i barometeret, fordi holdningen
til dem er blevet stærkt forværret efter begivenhederne
den 11. september.
Ifølge hr. Rejt sker
den virkelige ændring i den polske holdning til ukrainerne
overvejende på eliteplan, mens denne proces kun langsomt
finder sted hos den gennemsnitlige polske borger. UP.
16.01.03. Den ukrainske
delegation udeblev fra mødet i Paris
Tirsdag den 14. januar blev der afholdt et møde
i PACEs monitoring-komite i Paris, hvor Ukraine-rapporteur Hanne
Severinsen endnu engang understregede, at Europarådet er
bekymret over forholdene for ytringsfriheden i Ukraine og udtrykte
beklagelse over, at repræsentanterne for den ukrainske delegation
ikke tog del i mødet.
"Ellers ville det, sandsynligvis,
gøre det nemmere for os at vurdere situationen i Ukraine",
- sagde Hanne Severinsen i et interview med Radio Libertys ukrainske
afdeling, hvor hun blev bedt om at kommentere fraværet af
Ukraines repræsentanter under behandlingen af det ukrainske
spørgsmål på komiteens møde.
"Jeg har modtaget mange breve
fra Præsidentens administration, men jeg hører også
meget tit journalisters klager, som føler, at det er farligt
at gå imod myndighederne. Og derfor mener vi også
fremdeles, at der er et problem her. Vi i den parlamentariske forsamling
agter at analysere forholdene for ytringsfriheden i Europa i slutningen
af januar, og jeg tror, at det vil være en god anledning til
at diskutere Ukraine", - påpegede Severinsen.
Hanne Severinsen fortalte
opså, at de oppositionelle deputerede fra Ukraine foreslog
at tage det ukrainske spørgsmål op særskilt
på Europaparlamentets januarsession, men at denne organisations
bureau besluttede, at det ikke var nødvendigt.
Det er meningen, at journalist
Georgij Gongadzes enke skal komme til sessionen i Strasbourg,
hvor hun vil få mulighed for at mødes med de europæiske
parlamentsmedlemmer. Europarådet sendte sidste år
sin særlige repræsentant Hans-Christian Krüger
til Ukraine med henblik på at afklare, hvilken ukrainsk
myndighed er i gang med at undersøge denne meget omtalte sag.
Hanne Severinsen håber på, at han vil offentliggøre
sine første konklusioner på baggrund af de ukrainske
rets-og ordensmyndigheders arbejde i slutningen af januar.
I Strasbourg venter man stadig
på en officiel reaktion fra Kyiv på Europarådets
sidste rapport, og derfor finder en detaljeret undersøgelse
af situationen i Ukraine først sted tidligst til sommer.
UP.
17.01.03. Ukraine, Nauru
face U.S. sanctions
The Washington Post
Washington, D.C.
Friday, December 20, 2002; Page A06
By Mike Allen
Countries' Banks Targeted in Terror War
The Bush administration plans to announce today
that it has begun taking punitive steps against two countries
that have been found to be doing too little to deter terrorists
from using their banking systems. The Treasury Department plans to
announce that Ukraine, a democracy that was part of the former Soviet
Union, and Nauru, an island in the South Pacific Ocean, are "primary
money-laundering concerns." The announcement was delayed by disputes
within the administration, and follows prodding from both parties in
Congress.
Nigeria had been a candidate for the list but
has made progress and so will not suffer the countermeasures,
which make it harder or impossible for U.S. financial institutions
to do business with the countries, officials said. Officials said
Ukraine and Nauru will be the first two countries singled out for
financial countermeasures under the provisions of the U.S.A. Patriot
Act, the antiterrorism legislation President Bush signed the month
after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "This is perhaps the
most muscular financial tool in the Patriot Act toolbox," an administration
official said. "This will send the message to the international financial
community that they need to get their act together."
The decision comes as the White House comes under
increasing pressure to show results in its financial war on terrorism.
A United Nations report this summer concluded that efforts to
cripple the finances of the al Qaeda network had stalled, allowing
the terrorists to preserve money and move it around the globe in
preparation for future attacks. Senate Banking Committee Chairman
Paul S. Sarbanes (D-Md.) had repeatedly asked the administration why
that part of the terrorism law, known as section 311, had not been used.
Deputy Treasury Secretary Kenneth W. Dam acknowledged to Sarbanes at
a hearing in October that debates within the administration had delayed
use of the tool.
A Treasury official said that since then, Dam
has held a series of internal meetings in which he called for
aggressive use of the provision, pointedly asking at one of them,
"Why have we not used section 311?'' Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa),
ranking Republican on the Finance Committee, praised the action and
said it will help "eliminate financial safe havens for drug traffickers,
terrorists and tax cheats." The Treasury Department is imposing different
sanctions on the two nations, with Nauru facing much tougher action.
An official said that when the special measure is fully in place,
it "will formally cut Nauru off from the U.S. financial sector." There
are few transactions between the countries now, but officials hope
the publication of a list of suspect Nauru banks will prevent money
launderers there from using U.S. institutions. The official called
this "the first time that the U.S. has legally instructed its financial
institutions to cut off an entire jurisdiction for anti-money laundering
concerns."
In the case of Ukraine, U.S. banks will face additional
requirements for doing business there, with the details to be
worked out with financial institutions. Possibilities include
disclosure to the government of all accountholders with a Ukraine
address, as well as reporting of transactions in which $50,000 or
more is wired between the United States and Ukraine. Treasury officials
did not say when the final decisions would be made.
17.01.03. The December
2001 census of Ukraine
The Web site http://ukr.for-ua.com has reported
some interesting results from the latest census of Ukraine.
Ukrainians now constitute 77.8% of Ukraine's population (which
is about 5% better than in 1989). There were 37,541,700 in December
2001. The number of Russians has decreased by about 3,000,000 since
1989. There are now some 8,334,100 (17.3% of the total, a diminution
of 5%). The number of people, irrespective of ethnicity, who consider
Ukrainian their mother tongue is 67.5% of the entire population (an increase
of 2.8% since 1989). Russian is the declared mother tongue of 29.6% of
the population (a decrease of 3.2% since 1989).
17.01.03. Ukrainian
factory makes toys from land mines
"The project is based at the formerly top-secret
Donetsk State Chemical Plant in eastern Ukraine, where workers
packed explosives into artillery shells and missiles that the Soviet
military targeted at the West." Associated Press Writer,
AP Europe
Monday, Dec 16, 2002, 9:39 AM ET
By Tom Vickery
DONETSK, Ukraine - Next holiday season, Ukrainian
children will find something new under their trees: plastic toy
pelicans and sandbox tools. The toys themselves are unremarkable:
scoop-billed birds the size of a shoebox and mini shovel-and-pail
sets. But their history is something else: In their former incarnation,
these toys were casings for anti-personnel land mines.
The mines-to-toys project evolved from an $800,000
NATO-sponsored program to help demilitarize this Texas-sized country
of 48 million people. It aims to reduce Ukraine's stockpile of
some 6.4 million anti-personnel mines - the fourth largest arsenal
in the world after China, Russia and the United States - and help the
country's massive defense complex retool for peaceful production.
The project is based at the formerly top-secret
Donetsk State Chemical Plant in eastern Ukraine, where workers
packed explosives into artillery shells and missiles that the
Soviet military targeted at the West.
"I always used to ask myself, 'What can I tell
my kids about my job?'" said Lena Kazakova, a 14-year veteran of
the plant whose twins were born the same year she started working.
"I used to just make something up. But now I can
tell my girls something positive - 'We're saving people's lives'
- and that makes me happy." Kazakova is one of nine women who have
been trained to shuck open mines and remove the explosives.
The mines are taken from a storage shed to a workroom,
where a young woman carefully counts the boxes, checks that the
mines haven't been destabilized in transit and removes the detonator.
They then pass to a reassembly table where several women in lab
coats and headscarves pry open the mines and remove the mechanical
components.
The mine bodies, still armed, are then loaded
into a pneumatic press that punches out the explosives. Two
women then take the empty plastic mine bodies and explosive material
off to be washed and recycled. The whole process takes about 10 minutes
per mine.
"I never imagined I'd be doing this," said Natalia
Voloulina, an explosives handler who's spent 23 years at the plant,
adding that her new work was "the most satisfying job I've had."
All the mines stored at the plant, some 400,000
in all, are expected to be dismantled by September 2003. The Donetsk
plant's Soviet experience working with explosives made it a good
fit for NATO's project; so did its toy-making history. In addition
to its weapons production, the plant manufactured toys until Ukraine
split from the Soviet Union in 1991, but then lost state subsidies
and couldn't find plastic cheap enough to compete with China.
The NATO mine destruction project prompted the
plant's staff to use the mine bodies, mixed with higher-grade
plastic, to resurrect its toy production.
Factory management plans to sell the toys, but
will also donate many to the region's orphanages and kindergartens
that struggle to survive on an ever-fraying shoestring after wrenching
post-Soviet budget cuts.
"We have to think about social issues (and) what
we can do ... kids need help," said Nikolai Potapchuk, the plant's
director.
The plant's engineers also designed innovations
to make the sticks of TNT that coal miners use in Ukraine's methane-infused
mines safer and cheaper, reusing explosives from the disarmed
land mines and other munitions. The region's coal miners need all
the help they can get. More than 3,700 have died on the job in Ukraine
since 1991 and some 240 have been killed this year alone. Safer industrial
explosives are a big part of the factory's work, and are a natural
complement for their toys.
"We need to save the lives of fathers (miners)
so that they can buy toys for their kids," Potapchuk said, half
jokingly. Project workers see the NATO project as a chance to position
the plant to win work in what they hope will be a growing market.
"Who knows? Soon we may be helping America destroy
its mines," chief engineer Grigoriy Volodchenko mused.
19.01.03. Litauen
og Polen ønsker Ukraine ind i EU og NATO
Litauens nyvalgte præsident Rolandas Paksas
siger, at han støtter Ukraines fulde medlemskab af Den
europæiske Union og NATO og, at vejen til opfyldelsen af
dette mål ligger i en styrkelse af samarbejdet indenfor
trekanten Polen-Litauen-Ukraine.
Rolandas Paksas, som tiltræder
i embedet i næste måned efter Valdas Adamskus'
afgang fra posten, siger i et interview med BBCs ukrainske
afdeling, at hans første møde efter hans edsaflæggelse
bliver med Aleksander Kwasniewski (Polens præsident, red.)
"Ukraine er et alt for vigtigt
land for Europa til at man kan efterlade det i en bufferzone.
Landet skal være fuldgyldigt medlem af såvel EU som
NATO", - sagde Rolandas Paksas. "De kan spørge mig, hvad
Litauen får ud af det? Sagen er den, at vores sikkerhed vil
være tilstrækkelig, når Ukraine træder ind
i disse organisationer. De må give mig ret i, at det er en vigtig
faktor for os".
Jeg mener, at det arbejde vil
være endnu mere frugtbart, hvis vi agerer samlet - Litauen,
Polen og Ukraine", - sagde Paksas til BBC.
Han tilføjede, at han
under møder med Aleksandr Kwasniewski ville foreslå
et møde mellem de tre præsidenter for Litauen, Polen
og Ukraine med henblik på at "drøfte fælles
praktiske skridt for at sikre, at Kiev opfylder det strategiske mål
- medlemskab af det europæiske fællesskab". UP
19.01.03. Kendt journalist
fundet død på hotel i Vinnytsa
Den kendte Kyiv-journalist Serhij Naboka er fundet
død på et hotel i Vinnytsa. Den regionale afdeling
af indenrigsministeriet MVS (politiet, red.) siger til UP,
at "den pludselige død indtraf ved 1-tiden natten til søndag".
Ifølge ambulancelægernes
foreløbige bedømmelse af dødsårsagen
døde Serhij Naboka som følge en blodprop, fortæller
den vagthavende hos politiet. Journalisten befandt sig på
det tidspunkt på et hotel i Vinnytsa. Ifølge den vagthavende
er der tale om et "tjenestehotel" som hører under et af fængslerne
ІВ 301/176.
Serhij Nabokas lig er blevet
sendt til obduktion. Chefen for politiets regionale afdeling og
regionens statsanklager begav sig kort tid efter ud til gerningsstedet.
Den vagthavende i indenrigsministeriet kunne ikke sige til UP,
om der i forbindelse med Nabokas død ville blive rejst en
sigtelse efter straffeloven.
Serhij Naboka har i lang tid
arbejdet på Radio Liberty, hvor han blandt andet producerede
politiske udsendelser og en serie af udsendelser om betingelserne
for indsatte i ukrainske fængsler. UP.
20.01.03. Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic
choice
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine,
a country of 50 million people, was seen as a crucial bulwark
against any resurgence of Russian territorial expansionism. That
honeymoon period was short-lived. In November, following the apparent
sale of "Kolchuga" radar systems to Iraq and other scandals, President
Leonid Kuchma was ostracized at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's
Prague Summit. A month later, the Bush administration accused Ukraine
of being a "primary money-laundering concern" and--for the first time--moved
to impose sanctions under the provisions of the anti-terrorist USA
Patriot Act. According to James Sherr, however, Ukraine is far from being
a disaster; recent troubles could give the West leverage to force reforms.
Is this the moment to draw Ukraine closer to Europe?
Danish Institute of International Affairs (DUPI)
Report 2002/13
By James Sherr
"Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic Choice: Is Failure Inevitable?"
Since 1991 Ukraine's independence has been predicated
on the 'strategic course of entering Europe'. The first and only
governments of a modern, independent Ukraine have placed such strong
emphasis on 'integration with European and Euro-Atlantic structures'
that setbacks and failures have naturally been seen as setbacks for the
state. This is true despite the fact that Ukraine has also pursued a
'multi-vector' policy since President Leonid Kuchma was first elected
to office in 1994. Convincingly or otherwise, the state leadership has
been publicly adamant that 'strategic partnership' with Russia is designed
to complement, rather than qualify this paramount objective.
Well before the latest setback to relations brought
about by the Kolchuga affair, it had become depressingly clear
that Ukraine's state leadership lacked both the convictions and abilities
required to bring their Euro-Atlantic declarations to fruition. Despite
the depth and momentum of Ukraine's relationship with NATO, it cannot
seriously be claimed that Ukraine is drawing closer to Europe, let
alone the European Union, in any meaningful or beneficial sense. Whilst
many feared that Russia would block Ukraine's progress in the post-independence
period, today Russia is blocking nothing. Instead, under the 'pragmatic'
stewardship of President Putin, it is providing 'brotherly' support
for all the 'negative phenomena' in Ukraine 's economy and polity. It
is cashing in on dependencies which the country has done little to diminish,
reaping the benefits of the leadership's own blunders and profiting from
the recriminations which the state authorities have brought upon themselves.
Such is the dominant view of Western policy makers, and with good reason.
Nevertheless, it is an incomplete view. For people who claim to be concerned
about the role of citizens and society, the view of these policy makers
is surprisingly top-down: excessively focused on the deficiencies of
Ukraine's leaders, insufficiently encouraged by the standing of their
domestic critics, the inroads they have made and the support they have
received from the country at large. By comparison with the post-Soviet
norm, civil society is becoming a reality in Ukraine. By comparison with
Belarus, with which Ukraine is now ominously and wrongly compared, its
politics are vigorous, pluralistic and very much alive. By comparison
with the Russian Federation, with which Ukraine is almost always contrasted
unfavourably, its citizens place a value on democracy and resent the unaccountability
of the authorities; they are learning how to resist manipulation, and
they attach more importance to the decency of the state than its 'effectiveness'
or strength.
Where security is concerned, the Western perspective
is equally short-sighted. Lip service is paid to the value of
the NATO-Ukraine relationship, whilst its real value is routinely
overlooked. Today this relationship is transforming a significant
part of the country's security culture away from the pathological
post-Soviet norm to one which provides genuine security. For a country
whose armed forces, intelligence services, security and law enforcement
structures were inherited from the USSR, expectations cannot be defined
according to a NATO template. The NATO-Ukraine relationship is not primarily
about geopolitics, peace-keeping contributions or the technicalities
of 'interoperability' and budgeting. It is about bringing the security
of the regime into balance with the security of the state and country.
Finally, the West continues to draw a simplistic
distinction between internal and external affairs, neglecting
the fact that in 'post-Soviet space', economic networks are power
networks that remain tenaciously trans-national. Ukraine's internal
affairs do not develop in a vacuum.
Western passivity will not be reciprocated by Ukraine's
eastern partners, state or 'private'. Those who wait on events
will not only fail to influence events; they will ensure that history
is made by others at the expense of Western values and hopes.
Challenges, Obstacles and Changes: Politics
The overwhelming challenge for Ukraine is to escape
from the political, security, administrative and economic culture
of the former USSR. Ignorance and cynicism have produced more attention
to the mechanics and 'technology' of democracy than the values
of it. Unless this changes, 'Euro-Atlantic integration' will remain
no more than a slogan. The obstacles to such a transformation are great
in Ukraine, but they need to be understood in comparison to realities
elsewhere in the former Soviet Union. The observations of Dmitriy
Furman, a senior analyst in Moscow's Institute of Europe, about Russia's
political system shed light on Ukraine's.
[O]ur [Russian] system, with its multiple external
similarities to the Western one is based on the diametrically
opposite principle: the principle of the inalterability of power.
(It is alterable, but in the purely legal sense used by the elite
[vlasti] to adhere to the 'rules of the game'). This very transition
to a system of the Western type (affording the possibility of victory
to some form of opposition) cannot be envisaged even as a distant prospect.
And this is the most formidable obstacle on our path to the West.[1]
In Ukraine it cannot be said that 'the possibility
of victory' of 'some form of opposition cannot be envisaged', even
if it is far from certain. If there were 'no democracy' in Ukraine,
as is widely alleged, the composition of the current parliament, elected
in March 2002, let alone the heavily left-wing parliament elected
in March 1998, would be inexplicable. Almost equally inexplicable would
be the breakout of the reformists from a regional to a national force
over the past four years.[2] Nevertheless, it is all too obvious that
Ukraine is a new and flawed democracy with an inbred, opaque and authoritarian
administrative culture.
In this democracy, business, power and the state
collude comfortably, covertly and without fear of sanction. In
spite of political and historical differences between Ukraine and
Russia, in both countries the Soviet mentality is the gum that fouls
every machine. No one should underestimate the suppleness and cunning
of the current regime in Ukraine or its ability to rescue itself.
The fact remains that a dynamic of change is present. Civil society
is not only becoming a factor, but in the Marxist sense, becoming
'conscious' of itself: participating not so much in the established
order as against it. Whilst at one level the growth of civic instincts
is sharpening the divide between state and society, it is also creating
points of friction within the state and hence, a process of evolution
inside it.
This evolution of the state is another reality which
Westerners, obsessed with presidential capers, tend to overlook.
Not only in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Armed Forces, but
the Cabinet of Ministers, the National Security and Defence Council
and other state structures, there is a growing number of officials
who understand why change is needed and what type of change is required.
Today, they are stymied by the political framework. But for how long?
Security
Defence reform is no longer a slogan in Ukraine but
a fact. The fact reflects two critical strengths: the will of the
Armed Forces to reform and the will of NATO to support them. Yet
there is a considerable possibility that these efforts will come
to nought. Without a steady increase in budgetary allocations, Ukraine
could witness an uncontrolled disintegration of its national defences.
The country already possesses a schizophrenic security culture.
Unless the spirit and substance of reform are extended to military
structures outside the Ministry of Defence, this condition will deepen.
Although Ukraine inherited 30 per cent of the military
personnel of the former USSR, it did not inherit an army, let
alone a Ministry of Defence or General Staff. It inherited powerful
force groupings, equipped and trained for strategic offensive operations,
incapable of providing national defence and largely ignorant of
the non-military dimension of security. It faced--and will continue
to face--the burden of converting, 'privatising' and dismantling
a military-industrial complex of 1,840 enterprises organised on principles
antithetical to the market. It also inherited 700,000 militarised forces
of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and KGB. All of these establishments--centralised,
compartmented and opaque--were subordinated to a scheme of 'civilian'
(Party) control designed to confine authority and knowledge to very
small circles of people. It is this against this template, not NATO's,
that progress needs to be measured. Where defence is concerned, several
important thresholds have been crossed.
In January 1997 Ukraine adopted a National Security
Concept, which marked a radical break from the Soviet era. The
authors of the Concept recognised that state and society were weak
in Ukraine. They warned that the country was threatened not by hostile
coalitions and blocs, but internal vulnerability, mistrust between
state and society and the de facto privatisation of the state. They
focused attention on the risk that political actors--internal or external--might
be able to transform these vulnerabilities into emergencies and conflicts
that could threaten the integrity of the state, and they called for
the creation of an integrated security system to address these challenges.
The State Programme of Armed Forces Reform and Development 2001-2005
is the first programme to emerge which is broadly consistent with
this Concept. The adoption of this programme and more recent ones has
produced a subtle but highly significant change of emphasis in Ukraine's
programme of cooperation with NATO. Previously, Ukraine's main motivation
in strengthening cooperation had been geopolitical: to restrain Russia
and support Ukraine's integration into Europe. Today it is military-political
and military-technical: in the words of former Minister of Defence
Oleksandr Kuzmuk, 'to support defence reform in the country'.
No one of significance in Ukraine's military establishment
believes that Russia could 'support' this reform. In all the areas
where progress is sought--low-intensity operations, joint operations,
professionalisation, planning and budgetary transparency, civil-military
collaboration--NATO is seen as a repository of experience and expertise.
In contrast, Russia's inconsistent and internally contested reforms
are a poor model, and the performance of Russian combat forces
in Chechnya does not lend itself to imitation. In addition, Russia's
aims are mistrusted and its methods regarded with suspicion. As noted
by Leonid Polyakov, Director of Military
Programmes of the Razumkov Centre
So far, Russian officials, unlike NATO's, have never
voiced their concern about the weakness of Ukraine's defence or
the slow pace of its military reform. One might infer that Ukraine's
problems in building its Armed Forces are simply more acceptable to
Moscow than Ukraine's success in that area.[3]
Since the State Programme was approved by President
Kuchma in July 2000, NATO-Ukraine cooperation has been transformed
into a structured and institutionalised process of audit and consultation.
Moreover, the Armed Forces are doing everything that can be done
without money to bring these programmes to fruition. But without
money, reform, not to say the forces themselves will be unsustainable.
Nevertheless, a genuine cultural change is taking place inside the
country's armed forces. To date, the same cannot be said of the
interior, security and law enforcement establishments outside the jurisdiction
of the Ministry of Defence.
Economics and Administration
The post-Communist business culture which dominates
Ukraine's economy is not an extension of Communist economic culture,
but a mutation of it. The mutation was well under way before the
Soviet system collapsed. The Soviet 'command-administrative system',
which officially denied any legitimacy to private interests, always
camouflaged a tension between sectoral and clan rivalries, bureaucratic
centralisation and Party authority. As perestroyka and decentralisation
proceeded, clannish networks became the dominant stakeholders in the
system, as well as powerful engines of its disintegration. Under the post-Communist
banners of 'capitalism' and 'market reform', these networks have transformed
bureaucratic into financial power, privatising not only the economy,
but the state itself. Today it is generally recognised that the 'subjective'
interests of state structures at best compromise, and at worst take
over their official roles and their public responsibilities. Before
their dissolution, the anti-corruption commissions established by Yeltsin
and Kuchma provided abundant documentation of these trends.
Despite the 'capitalist' label, the post-Communist
economy is based primarily on networks, rather than markets. It
is a producer rather than a consumer orientated economy. Its 'new
class' is predatory rather than entrepreneurial, more skillful
at extracting wealth than creating it--and until recently exporting
it. (It is estimated that $25 billion was illegally exported from
Ukraine between 1991 and 1997). It benefits from a confusing and convoluted
legal 'order' that confines competition to a closed circle and shuts
out those who lack the connections and resources to buy immunity
from it. Ties to security services, tax authorities and local officials
are potent assets in this world, where success depends upon finansovaya-informatsionnaya
bor'ba (financial-informational struggle) and where the norms of
business are little different from the norms of conspiracy.
It is also a trans-national world. Trans-national
(and Russian dominated) networks--in energy, banking, defence industry,
security and intelligence--can give powerful reinforcement to local
actors and undermine efforts to introduce transparent business practices,
legal regulation and contract enforcement. Supporters of former Deputy
Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko believe that her efforts to extend
regulation and transparency to the energy sector were instrumental
in her dismissal, arrest and (with Russian help) her prosecution.
It is often claimed that President Putin understands
that this business culture is an obstacle to Russia's integration
with Europe. Perhaps. But however critical he might be of this culture
in Russia, he relies upon it in his efforts to create 'a good-neighbourly
belt along the perimeter of Russia's borders'.[4] This duality is a contradiction
at the heart of Putin's policy. Yet no such contradiction is perceived
or admitted by Putin. In his relations with Ukraine, as with all former
Soviet states, he has repeatedly tied economic concessions to the resolution
of political disputes and vice versa. Prior to the first Putin-Kuchma
summit in April 2000, he linked the lifting of Russia's oil embargo
to the acquisition of 30 energy facilities by Russian entities, and there
is some evidence that in August 2000, he linked other concessions to the
dismissal of Ukraine's Foreign Minister, Borys Tarasyuk and several
other 'unhelpful' officials.[5]
In February 2001 14 presidential agreements were
concluded in Dnepropetrovsk on modalities of Russian energy supply
and the privatisation of Ukraine's energy infrastructure--all of
them unpublished. How do the proponents of an open economy, accountable
government and European integration benefit from this policy? As Oleksandr
Sushko has concluded, they don't, and they are not meant to. The culture
of business is a powerful factor maintaining the linkage between Ukraine's
dependency on Russia, its isolation from Europe and the 'dominance
of authoritarian tendencies in the system of [Ukrainian] political
power'.[6]
The European Union: Protagonist or Spectator?
Within a very few years, Ukraine will be the European
Union's principal neighbour, its 'back yard' no less than Russia's.
Has the EU behaved accordingly? The answer depends on the Union's
aim: does it wish to be a magnet or a barrier? To this question it has
given no clear answer. In the Common Strategy on Ukraine adopted at Helsinki
in December 1999 and at the European Council at Göteborg in June
2001, the EU came close to defining itself as a magnet. At Göteborg
the EU came enticingly close to accepting the possibility of Ukraine's eventual
membership, placing its declarations on Ukraine under the heading, 'The
Future of Europe', whilst pointedly consigning its commentary on Russia
to the less intimate realm of 'External Relations'. It is not difficult
to see why. For the Russian Federation, unlike Ukraine, EU membership has
never been an official goal. Moreover, by 2001 Putin's 'far tougher' and
more 'pragmatic' policy was raising anxieties that the EU might 'lose' Ukraine.
Today the EU seems resigned to losing Ukraine. The
first clear demonstration of this change in attitude came at
the European Council in Luxembourg (April 2002), which adopted
the 'Special Neighbour' policy: a policy which groups Ukraine together
with Moldova--a state with European aspirations but almost no capacity
to realise them--and Belarus--a state (and society) with a fundamentally
different set of aspirations from those of Ukraine. The second and
apparently conclusive demonstration was provided on 15 October by
EU Commission President, Romano Prodi, who asked 'Do we stop, or don't
we stop?' The 'ultimate border' of the future European Union had become
'quite clear', and it would not include Ukraine.[7] Sushko is not exaggerating
when he describes this as: worthy of being marked as the first public allowance
made by a high official in favour of a principled institutional isolation
of Eastern Europe from the European political process. The absence of
reasoning here looks like an attempt to proffer such a position as an
axiomatic one that needs no proof. (author's emphasis) [8]
EU discontent with President Kuchma and his supporters
is certainly well founded, and in the wake of the Honhadze and
Kolchuga affairs, so is anger. But resignation expresses an attitude
about the future, rather than the present. If Ukraine's population responded
to the behaviour of the authorities with resignation, then a resigned
attitude about Ukraine's future would not be so puzzling. But instead
of moot apathy, there has been ferment in the country. Inexplicably, the
EU is treating this ferment as a sign of regression, rather than change.
Even the 'lessons' drawn from real reverses such as Yushchenko's dismissal
in April 2001 seem to be one-sided and superficial. Had Yushchenko failed
because he failed--because he lost popularity, because his policies
didn't eliminate debts, pay pensions, open markets and stimulate economic
growth--then his dismissal would be a commentary on the intractability
of Ukraine's economic problems. Instead, they are a commentary on something
that is not intractable: the political correlation of forces. Is the
EU taking positive steps to influence this correlation? Once again, Sushko
is right. Instead of encouraging the EU's natural allies, Mr. Prodi
has offered 'a priceless gift to anti-democratic, anti-European forces
in Ukraine'. Well before the Prodi declaration, these forces were profiting
from two reinforcing factors: a profound misunderstanding of the European
Union on the part of Ukraine and a depressing imbalance between European
and Russian engagement. Ukrainians broadly confuse the EU with 'Europe',
which to many in Central and Eastern Europe represents a 'great' ethno-cultural
civilisation united by a common heritage. Yet today's European Union has
become a multi-cultural entity united less by heritage than by adherence
to common values, principles, standards, procedures and institutions. After
70 years of Soviet socialism, Ukrainians are belatedly seeking to realise
the modern, twentieth century ambitions which were denied to them: nationhood
and 'membership of European civilisation'. Yet this 'modern' Europe no
longer exists. The European Union is in large part a post-modernist project
created by those determined to 'move beyond' the political building blocks
of the modern world: the nation and the nation state. In essence, Ukraine
and the EU perceive one another through different coordinates of time, and
as a result, their dialogue is often a dialogue des sourdes.
The imbalance between the behaviour of an apolitical
and often procedure bound EU and an emphatically geopolitical
Russia is stark. The EU has limited interest in Ukraine's foreign
policy, still less its 'aspirations'. Its focus is on Ukraine's internal
policy, for it is internal changes which will define Ukraine's credentials
as a 'European' (i.e. EU) state. Thus, when Ukraine speaks of integration
with Europe, the EU erects 'conditionality' and standards. It does
little to suggest that it regards Ukraine's 'return to Europe' as
either welcome or natural. But when Ukraine seeks better relations
with Russia, the Russian Federation responds with evident warmth, castigating
the West for intruding in the internal affairs of 'brotherly Ukraine'
and erecting no standards except 'firm good neighbourliness'. In addition,
Russia assiduously cultivates Ukraine--not only at the state-to-state
level--but at transnational level, by strengthening networks between
a wide range of 'private' and very powerful interests enjoying privileged
connections with the two states. By summer 2000, all of these asymmetries
were pulling Ukraine east. Yet this fact, too, is somewhat misinterpreted.
President Kuchma does not understand the West, and he is exasperated
by it. He understands Russia, and he fears it. In his dealings with
Russia, as with political forces at home, Kuchma is a man who seeks
counterpoises and compensations, lines of retreat and room for manoeuvre.
Then and since he has treated the NATO-Ukraine relationship as the
final line of retreat, irrespective of Russian pressure, not to say
NATO's decision to snub him at the Prague summit. What is more, most
members of the movement 'To Europe with Russia' appear wedded to the
multi-vector policy--a Western counterbalance to Russia--and apprehensive
about events taking a course which turn their preferred 'primary' vector,
Russia, into the only vector and leave Ukraine to confront Russian
interests and ambitions alone.
The paradox is that the shocks and outrages which
have undermined Ukraine's standing probably give the West and its
institutions greater leverage today than they have had at any time
since Kuchma first came to office. The reverberations of the Honhadze
and Kolchuga affairs and the unsettled condition of the country have
created apprehensions right across the Ukrainian political establishment.
It is an uncertainty magnified by the events of 11 September 2001,
the new NATO-Russia relationship, the change of strategic focus by
the United States and the very real possibility of war with Iraq. The
23 May declaration identifying NATO membership as the 'ultimate goal'
of Euro-Atlantic integration is the direct result of these apprehensions.
The eclipse of this declaration by Kolchuga and the dispatch of Ukraine to
the margins of the Prague summit have in some quarters transformed uncertainty
to panic. State and society are not only changing in Ukraine, they are changing
quickly. The moment needs to be exploited with delicacy and deliberation
by the West. But it needs to be exploited.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Internet roundtable hosted by the internet programme
of Moscow News [Vremya MN], 26 July 2002.
[2] For an analysis of the 31 March 2002 parliamentary
elections, see James Sherr, 'Ukraine's Parliamentary Elections:
The Limits of Manipulation ', CSRC Occasional Brief, April 2002.
[3] Leonid Polyakov, National Security and Defence,
No 12 2000, pg 15.
[4] This is the objective defined in Russia's Concepts
of Foreign Policy, signed by President Putin on 28 June 2000.
[5] James Sherr, 'The Dismissal of Borys Tarasyuk',
CSRC Occasional Brief OB79, October 2000.
[6] Oleksandr Sushko, Monitoring: Occasional Report
no. 3 (Centre for Peace, Conversion and Foreign Policy of Ukraine),
February 2001.
[7] 'The Balkans, whatever the timetable is, are
destined to become part of the European family. They are a region
we have to look after,,, As far as Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and
countries of the Southern Mediterranean are concerned, including
Israel, you can link together many things - but not institutions,"
La Stampa, 15 October (www.lastampa.it/redazione/Interni/prodi2.asp)
[8] Monitor, no 42 (Centre for Peace, Conversion
and Foreign Policy of Ukraine), 10-14 October 2002.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. James Sherr has been a Fellow of the Conflict
Studies Research Centre at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
since 1995 and Lecturer at Lincoln College Oxford since 1986. He
is a Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Defence Committee,
and a former Director of Services at the Royal United Services Institute.
20.01.03. USA-ambassadører:
russisk gennembrud i skyggeprivatiseringen af strategiske objekter
i Ukraine
USA vil sandsynligvis afslutte en revision af den
amerikanske politik i forhold til Ukraine og præsident Leonid
Kutjma inden udgangen af januar. Det meddeler Radio Liberty
fra Washington med henvisning til "troværdige kilder".
"Det bør påpeges,
at USAs præsident i begyndelsen af februar skal fremlægge
sit finanslovsforslag for næste år i Kongressen, der
som det har været tilfældet de senere år, også
omfatter den amerikanske regerings hjælp til Ukraine", - fortæller
Radio Liberty.
Washington har i forbindelse med
ændringen af politikken i forhold til Ukraine udtrykt sin
bekymring for den ukrainske præsidents handlinger som salg
af våben til Makedonien og især Irak, problemet med pressefriheden
og de demokratiske og markedsmæssige forandringer. "Forleden
dag er denne liste blevet udvidet med bekymringen for Ukraines stigende
økonomiske, herunder energimæssige, afhængighed
af Rusland", - oplyser radiostationen.
I en tale til den indflydelsesrige
amerikanske institution - Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace - sagde USAs ambassadør i Rusland, Aleksander Vershbou:
"Rusland har til en vis grad opfattet de nuværende spændinger
i de amerikansk-ukrainske relationer som et påskud til en øget
styrkelse af forbindelserne mellem Rusland og Ukraine. I Rusland
opfatter man fremdeles Ukraine som en del af det såkaldte nære
udland, og man har allerede, inden spændingerne dukkede op, arbejdet
på at styrke positionerne, overvejende ved hjælp af økonomiske
instrumenter", - sagde den amerikanske diplomat.
Han mindede desuden om, at der
eksisterer meget tætte forbindelser mellem præsidentadministrationerne
i Moskva og i Kyiv, og har ville ikke udelukke, at "Rusland ikke
vil forholde sig helt passiv i forhold til den kommende ukrainske
valgkamp".
Vershbou antager, at russerne
"vil koncentere opmærksomheden om økonomiske virkemidler
som middel til at bevare og styrke deres indflydelse".
"De forenede Stater betragter
ikke et tæt russisk-ukrainsk samarbejde som et problem,
hvis det baserer sig på den forudsætning, at Ukraine
er en suveræn stat og at russerne respekterer den", - sagde
USAs ambassadør i Rusland.
USAs ambassadør i Ukraine,
Carlos Pascual, var i sit indlæg i Washington noget mere
bekymret i forhold til de mulige følger af Ruslands øgede
økonomiske indflydelse i Ukraine.
Ifølge ham har præsident
Kutjma brug for præsident Putin, som han mødes med
næsten hver tredje uge. Kyivs afhængighed af Moskva er
vokset støt de seneste år. "Den politiske afhængighed
er blevet en anledning til at skabe økonomiske muligheder for
de russiske virksomheder. Hvis man ser på de officielle data
for investeringer, så indtager de russiske selskaber tredje eller
fjerdepladsen og har investeret ca. 400 millioner dollars. Men dem, som
har haft mulighed for at være i Ukraine, forstår udmærket,
at sådan forholder det sig ikke, at det ikke er i overensstemmelse
med sandheden - den russiske økonomiske tilstedeværelse er
jo meget større".
Den amerikanske diplomat påpegede
i denne forbindelse, at USA ikke er imod direkte russiske kapitaltilførsler
i de ukrainske virksomheder. Men ifølge ham er visse af
det ukrainske styres skridt ikke til fordel for Ukraine i strategisk
forstand - og her drejer det sig først og fremmest om oliesektoren.
I denne kontekst henviste Pascual
til to aftaler, som er blevet underskrevet fornylig. For det første
er der tale om den nylige hemmelige aftale mellem det russiske "Gazprom"
og det ukrainske "Naftohaz", som har et punkt "om fælles beslutning
omkring ændringer i ledelsen af det internationale konsortium",
som skal kontrolere den ukrainske del af det internationale gastransportsystem.
Med andre ord har det russiske "Gazprom" fået vetoretten i
forhold til den ukrainske del af gasrørledningen. Ifølge
Pascual kan Gazprom ikke være mere lykkelig - for russerne
har forsøgt at opnå dette allerede siden 1992.
Ifølge ambassadør
Pascuals vurdering har den ukrainske part lavet lignende fejl
indenfor olierørledningssektoren. Man har således
givet det russiske selskab "Transneft'" samtlige rettigheder til
kontrollen med transitten gennem ukrainsk territorium. Det er sket
indenfor rammerne af forhandlingerne om den rørledning, som
løber i adriatisk retning. Det skaber en potentiel trussel mod
hele eksistensen af olierørledningen Odesa-Brody: "I løbet
af de sidste tre måneder har Ukraine således gjort nogle
radikale indrømmelser, som har øget den russiske indflydelse
i Ukraine i olie-og gassfæren utrolig meget og kan potentielt
berøve Ukraine muligheden for at få nye oliekilder i Det
kaspiske Hav, som ikke er afhængige af Rusland", - sagde Pascual.
Radio Liberty. UP.
21.01.03. Storbritannien,
Tyskland og Canada indfører sanktioner mod Ukraine
Tre lande har på samme tidspunkt indført
sanktioner mod Ukraine på grund af landets utilfredsstillende
bekæmpelse af hvidvaskning af penge, der er skaffet ad kriminel
vej. For en måned siden indførte den internationale
organisation FATF sanktioner mod Ukraine, og samtidig med det forpligtede
USA sine banker til nøje at overvåge operationer, der
involverer Ukraine.
Fra nu af vil samtlige ukrainske
transaktioner med tyske banker anses for at være mistænkelige.
Overførsler til mere end 15.000 Euro, hvor kundens navn,
adresse eller banknummer ikke fremgår, er underlagt særlig
steng kontrol.
Storbritanniens finansministerium
gik et skridt videre, idet man har pålagt banker at stille
informationer til rådighed for Den nationale efterretningstjeneste
om mistænkelige operationer der involverer Ukraine. De britiske
bankfolk er advaret om risikoen i forbindelse med betjeningen af ukrainske
finansinstitutioners korrespondent-konti. Desuden vil samtlige kontrakter
med private også blive revideret.
Canadas myndigheder har i det hele
taget anbefalet sine finansfolk at afholde sig fra pengeoperationer
med ukrainske partnere. Nu er det i praksis blevet umuligt for
ukrainske selskaber at åbne en bankfilial eller en repræsentation
i disse lande. Vanskeliggørelsen af betalingsprocessen kan
meget vel ende med brudte kontrakter og tilbageholdelser af lønninger.
Det ser ud til, at den lov "om
bekæmpelse af hvidvaskningen af sorte penge", som Verkhovna
Rada vedtog i slutningen af november, ikke har ændret situationen.
Det har heller ikke hjulpet, at man efter FATFs henstilling har
indført ændringer, som opererer med tilvejebringelsen
af fyldestgørende informationer og ændringer i retsplejeloven.
Men i regeringen har man ikke mistet
håbet. Økonomiminister Valerij Khoroshkovskyj siger,
at de vigtigste spørgsmål, som Kyiv vil søge
at fremme under det næste møde i den ukrainsk-amerikanske
kommission for økonomisk samarbejde, vil være indtræden
i WTO, ophævelse af sanktioner og tildelingen af status som et
land med markedsøkonomi.
Mødet i kommissionen finder
sted i Washington i slutningen af januar. Men selv hvis sanktionerne
bliver hævet, vil en tjeneste under navn Egmont Group, som
er finansverdenens analog til Interpol, endnu i lang tid holde øje
med Kyiv. Indtil videre vil eksperter ikke påtage sig at komme
med prognoser omkring, hvor stort et tab ukrainsk økonomi vil
lide.
Regeringschefen, Viktor Janukovytj,
har også en mening om emnet, og hans opfattelse er, at samtlige
spørgsmål i forhold til FATF og de lande, som har annonceret
santktioner, vil blive klaret.
Viktor Janukovytj, Ukraines premierminister:
"Vi vil arbejde på dette spørgsmål med andre
stater, som nu skal til at træffe alle disse forholdsregler.
Men vi har nu aftalt med FATFs ekspertgruppe, at vores ukrainske
specialister vil arbejde sammen allerede i januar, og fra starten
af februar, for den 20. februar er der møde i FATF. Vi håber
på, at vi i den nærmeste fremtid vil have behandlet disse
spørgsmål med FATF, og at de vil blive løftet".
Premierministeren
kommenterede også spørgsmålene til budgettet.
Ifølge Viktor Janukovytj vil den af parlamentet planlagte
forhøjelse af mindstelønnen tidligst kunne blive
ført ud i livet af regeringen i andet halvår.
Viktor Janukovytj, Ukraines premierminister:
"Vi vil gøre alt, vil nedskære udgifterne, vi vil
nu se på hver eneste styrelse, hvert eneste ministerium, for
at nedbringe udgifterne og overføre dem til en forhøjelse
af lønningerne. Men disse skridt vil blive trinvise".
Mandag mødtes premierministeren
med en delegation fra Vietnams folkeforsamling, Nguen Van Anom.
Kyiv erklærede sin interesse i to store projekter i dette asiatiske
land - det er byggeriet af et vandkraftværk samt etableringen
af et sattelitsystem til Vietnam. Podrobnosti.
21.01.03. Jusjtjenko
og Tymoshenko profiterer af fortsat faldende tillid til Kutjma og
Medvedtjuk
Den national-liberale leder Viktor Jusjtjenko fastholder
positionen som den politiker, der nyder størst tillid i
den ukrainske befolkning. 26,8% af de adspurgte har fuld tillid
til ham ifølge en meningsmåling fra januar 2003. På
2. pladsen kommer den radikale Julia Tymoshenko, som nyder fuld tillid
blandt 18,4% af befolkningen, efterfulgt af kommunisten Petro Symonenko,
som har 16,7% af de adspurgtes fulde tillid.
Tallene stammer fra en meningsmåling
fra fonden "Demokratiske initiativer", som blev præsenteret
på en pressekonference i Kyiv i mandags. Ifølge sociologerne
fra "Demokratiske initiativer" har samtlige ukrainske politikere en
negativ saldo på tillidbarometret.
Den mest negative balance på
tillidsbarometeret har Ukraines præsident Leonid Kutjma (-
48%), hans stabschef Viktor Medvedtjuk (- 39%) og lederen af Det
proggressive socialistiske parti Natalia Vitrenko. Disse politikere
må stå model til, at henholdsvis 56,6%, 44,8% og 57,1%
af de adspurgte overhovedet ingen tilllid har til dem.
Ifølge meningsmålingerme
oplevede Medvedtjuk, Vitrenko og Verkhovna Radas formand, Volodymyr
Lytvyn, den største nedgang i tilliden på mellem -
19% og - 30%.
Lederen af fraktionen BjUT, Julia
Tymoshenko har en negativ tillidssaldo på - 32% (50% har ingen
tillid til hende), sekretæren for Det nationale sikkerheds-
og forsvarsråd, Jevhen Martjuk har en negativ saldo på
- 31% (37,8% har ingen tillid til ham), lederen af socialistpartiet,
Oleksandr Moroz, har - 27%, lederen af nationalbankens bestyrelse,
Serhij Tihipko, står til en negativ saldo på - 27%, og
det samme har lederen af kommunistpartiet, Petro Symonenko, mens premierminister
Viktor Janukovytj har en negativ saldo på - 24%, udenrigsminister
Anatolij Zlenko - 13%, og Viktor Jusjtjenko har den mindste negative
tillidssaldo på - 6%.
Samtidig påpeger videnskabelig
leder af fonden "Demokratiske initiativer", Iryna Bekeshkina, at
Tymoshenkos balance blevet væsentlig forbedret i løbet
af den sidste måned (fra - 41% til - 32%). Det samme gælder
Symonenko (fra - 32% til - 27%) og til en vis grad Moroz (fra - 30% til
- 27%) og Jusjtjenko - fra - 9% til - 6%.
Vitrenko har oplevet det største
fald i tillidsbarometeret fra - 46% til - 51%.
Ifølge sociologerne stoler
Ukraines borgere nu meget mindre på præsidenten, De
væbnede Styrker og Verkhovna Rada end de gjorde sidste år.
Præsident Leonid Kutjmas negative tillidssaldo er faldet fra
- 33% i januar 2002 til - 48% i januar 2003. De tilsvarende tal for
De væbnede Styrker er fra + 10% til - 1% og parlamentets - fra
- 44% til - 54%.
Samtidig er Julia Tymoshenkos negative
saldo skrumpet væsentligt ind - fra - 56% til -32%. Det samme
gælder socialisternes leder Oleksandr Moroz, som er gået
fra -39% til -27%.
Ifølge meningsmålingerne
kan man konstatere en vis forværring i tilliden til sikkerhedstjenesten
SBU (fra + 6% til 0%), massemedierne (fra + 6% til 0%) samt de vestlige
massemedier (fra 0% til - 5%).
Ifølge videnskabelig leder
af fonden "Demokratiske initiativer", Iryna Bekeshkina, hænger
faldet i tilliden til landets øverste ledelse med en række
skandaler, som den sættes i forbindelse med.
Meningsmålingen blev gennemført
af fonden "Demokratiske initiativer" mellem den 27.12.2002 og 05.01.2003.
1200 personer fra samtlige ukrainske regioner tog del i meningsmålingen.
Fejlmargenen er højst 3%. Interfaks-Ukrajina. UP.
22.01.03. Vestlige lande fortsætter
med at indføre sanktioner mod Ukraine
Tyrkiet og Finland har truffet modforholdsregler overfor
Ukraine for at forhindre hvidvask af penge, mens Japan og Danmark
endnu ikke har truffet en sådan beslutning, oplyste lederen
af det ukrainske udenrigsministeriums pressetjeneste, Serhij Borodenkov,
tirsdag.
Borodenkov oplyste, at "Danmark indenfor
den nærmeste fremtid også planlægger at indføre
en procedure for styrket kontrol med finansielle operationer, som
ukrainske personer og juridiske entiteter står for".
Samtidig sagde Danmarks repræsentanter
ifølge ham, at de i betragtning af de informationer, som
den stedlige ukrainske ambassade havde givet dem omkring de forholdsregler,
som Ukraines regering træffer for at få løftet
FATFs beslutning om at indføre sanktioner, vil disse modforholdsregler
ikke vare længe, og vil ikke have nogen negative følger
for Ukraine.
"Efter af Finland havde modtaget
udførlig information fra vores lokale ambassade om Ukraines
regerings skridt i retning af en ophævelse af sanktionerne,
udtrykte Finland håb om, at Ukraine inden det næste møde
i FATF i februar vil rette op på manglerne i sin lovgivning omkring
hvidvask af penge og vil fastlægge, hvilke forholdsregler, der bliver
truffet i en monitoreringsperiode", - sagde Borodenkov.
Samtidig sagde han, at "Japan endnu
ikke har truffet nogen konkret beslutning, men at holdningen hos
dette lands ledelse vil basere sig på FATFs europæiske kontrolgruppes
anbefalinger", mens "Tyrkiet har oplyst, at landet ikke kan undlade
at opfylde FATFs beslutninger som et medlem af denne organisation, men
at Tyrkiet ikke vil indføre total monitorering af ukrainske deltagere
i finansielle operationer".
Borodekov oplyste endvidere, at "Tyskland
i løbet af konsultationerne understregede, at man ikke havde
regnet med vedtagelsen af en så hård beslutning fra FATFs
side, som anbefalede at der indføres sanktioner mod Ukraine".
Som tidligere oplyst vil Den europæiske
gruppe indenfor rammerne af Den internationale gruppe til modvirken
af hvidvask af kriminelle indtægter (FATF - Financial Action
Task Force on Money Laundering) den 12. februar i Paris bestemme, hvorvidt
Ukraine har rettet op på manglerne i sin lovgivning omkring bekæmpelsen
af hvidvask af "sorte" penge til at det kan begrunde en ophævelse
af de sanktioner, som blev anbefalet i slutningen af sidste år.
USA, Storbritannien, Tyskland og
Canada har allerede bekræftet, at de indfører sanktioner.
Interfaks-Ukrajina. UP.
22.01.03. FATF har kun hørt
om sanktioner fra USA og Canada
FATF har kun modtaget bekræftelser på indførelse
af sanktioner mod Ukraine fra USAs og Canadas side. Det sagde repræsentant
for FATFs presseafdeling, Helen Fischer, i en interview med Hromadske
Radio.
"Desværre har FATF truffet
en beslutning om at kontrollere alle finansielle transaktioner med
Ukraine. Men jeg har kun kendskab til, at FATFs medlemslande lige
er på nippet til at gøre det. Jeg ved intet om Tyskland
og Danmark", - kommenterede Fischer informationerne om disse landes
beslutninger om at træffe modforholdsregler overfor Ukraine
for at forhindre hvidvask af penge.
Omvendt anser Fischer de nylige oplysninger
om indførelse af sanktioner mod Ukraine fra FATF-landenes
side for at være helt naturlige. Ifølge hende bør
medlemsorganisationerne gøre det efter, at FATF har anbefalet
af indføre sanktioner mod Ukraine fra den 20. december 2002.
UP.
23.01.03. Lettere fald i ukrainernes
tillid til NATO
Tilliden til NATO er faldet fra 39% i juni 2002 til 28%
i november 2002. Det er resultatet af en meningsmåling gennemført
af centret "Socialnyj monitoring" og Ukraines institut for meningsmålinger
(UISD).
Resultatet af undersøgelsen
blev fremlagt onsdag på en pressekonference i Kyiv af lederen
af UISD, Oleksandr Jeremenko. Ifølge ham havde 34% af ukrainerne
ingen tillid til NATO i juni sidste år. Dette tal var i november
samme år steget til 44%. Ifølge meningsmålingen
udgøres størstedelen af dem, som ikke har tillid til
Alliancen, af respondenter i alderen 50+ år (50%), mens den aldersgruppe,
hvor mistilliden til NATO er mindst, udgøres af de unge mellem
18 og 28 år. Samtidig har hver tredje unge ukrainer ifølge
Jeremenko ikke besluttet sig, hvad de skal mene i denne sag.
Ifølge undersøgelsen
er situationen i Ukraines vestlige regioner den, at her dominerer
de respondenter, der stoler på blokken, mens Krims indbyggere med
55% og borgerne i Ukraines østlige og centrale del (henholdsvis
48% og 47%) har mindst tillid til NATO.
Jaremenko forklarer dette fald i tilliden
til NATO på et halvt år blandt andet med, at der opstod
problemer omkring Ukraines præsident Leonid Kutjmas rejse til
Alliancens topmøde, som fandt sted i Prag i november sidste år.
På trods af Ukraines præsidents Kutjmas ret lave popularitet
hos Ukraines befolkning, forbinder man ikke desto mindre statens image
med Kutjma, og heraf følger, at befolkningen ret ofte opfatter
en negativ holdning til statsoverhovedet på internationalt niveau
som en negativ holdning til selve Ukraine, siger Jaremenko.
Adspurgt om, hvad NATO er for noget
(respondenterne havde højst tre mulige svar), svarede 29%
(mod 26% i juni 2002), at NATO er den stærkeste og mest indflydelsesrige
militær-politiske struktur i verden i dag; 22% (mod 20% i juni
2002) sagde, at NATO er en aggressiv militær-politisk blok, 22%
(mod 17% i juni 2002) sagde, at NATO er "en verdens gendarm, som beskytter
de rigeste vestlige landes interesser"; 18% (mod 19% i juni 2002) sagde,
at NATO er en forsvarsunion, mens 17% (mod 20% i juni 2002) sagde,
at NATO er en fredsskabende (fredsbevarende, red.) organisation.
Samtidig påpeger Jaremenko, at
undersøgelsens resultat viser, at den positive holdning til
Ukraines indtræden i NATO ikke er ændret væsentligt.
I juni gik 39% af de adspurgte ind for Ukraines indtræden i
NATO, mens tallet i november var 37%. Andelen af de respondenter, som
støtter ideen om en indtræden i blokken, er større
i næsten alle regioner, og kun på Krim er der en betydelig
og i Kyiv er der en mindre betydelig overvægt af dem, som mener,
at Ukraine ikke bør træde ind i NATO.
På spørgsmålet om,
hvornår Ukraine kan blive medlem af NATO svarede 40% (ved ikke),
16% (som ifølge Jaremenko kan betegnes som "ukvalificerede
optimister") svarede, at Ukraine bliver medlem af NATO i løbet
af 5 år, 17% svarede, at det vil ske i løbet af 6-10 år,
8% svarede, at det ville tage mellem 11 og 15 år, mens 6% svarede
- over 20 år. 9% af de adspurgte mener, at Ukraine aldrig bliver
medlem af NATO. UNIAN, UP.
23.01.03. Hver anden ukrainer vil
gerne være en del af EU
Over halvdelen af Ukraines borgere mener, at landet bør
stræbe mod at blive medlem af Den europæiske Union.
Herom vidner resultatet af en meningsmåling, som Centret "Socialnyj
monitoryng" og Ukraines institut for sociale studier (UISD) med støtte
fra FNs udviklingsprogram i Ukraine har gennemført.
Ifølge undersøgelsen er
59% af de adspurgte i større eller mindre grad enige i påstanden
om, at "det ville være bedst for Ukraine at være medlem
af EU". Kun 10% af ukrainerne er aldeles imod et medlemsskab af EU.
Et ukrainsk medlemsskab af EU opnår
allermest støtte i regionerne Ternopil (82%), Tjernivtsi
(81%), Kherson (80%), Vinnytsa (79%), Zakarpatska (77%), Ivano-Frankivska
(76%) og Kirovohrad (70%).
Det er aldersgruppen mellem 25 og 28
år der rummer det største antal tilhængere af et
EU-medlemsskab (70%), derefter kommer personer med en videregående
uddannelse (68%), personer der er velstående (72%) samt personer,
som forventer, at det vil betyde forbedringer (71%).
Meningsmålingen blev gennemført
i november-december 2002 af Centret "Socialnyj monitoryng" og UISD
med støtte fra FNs udviklingsprogram i Ukraine. Undersøgelsens
resultat blev præsenteret onsdag i Kyiv. 3063 personer fra alle
ukrainske regioner deltog i undersøgelsen. Fejlmargenen var på
højst 2%. Interfaks-Ukrajina. UP.
23.01.03. Serhij Naboka Dead, Contract
Killing Alleged
maidan.org.ua
January 18, 2003
http://maidan.org.ua/n/news/1042901612
On Saturday morning, about 5 a.m., journalists Okhrymovich
and Sherstiuk of Radio Liberty found their colleague, a prominent
Ukrainian journalist on human rights and democracy, Serhiy Naboka, dead
on government premises of a penentiary institution in Vinnycia. He
was one in a group of journalist investigators who were engaged in
making of a series of radio broadcasts about life conditions for prisoners
in Ukraine's penentiary institutions in Vinnycia and Poltava. Mr. Naboka
was in his 40s.
Mr. Naboka was a prisoner of consience during the rule of
communists in Ukraine. He was also an active member of the Ukrainian
Helsinki Group, a Ukrainian human rights protection group in 1980s
and 1990s.
The "hotel" of the Vinnycia penentiary institution in about
20 kilometers away from the City of Vinnycia, without a permanent
telephone or cell connection. According to the government's milicia
investigators who search the place, Mr. Naboka dies because of "heart
insufficiency".
Mr. Naboka was a prominent journalist who reported on human
rights abuses and democracy in Ukraine. He was also a founder of
UNIAR information agency. He was a frequent guest on TV and radio.
He was a manager of a cultural project called Babuin. Serhij Naboka
was reportedly a healthy person.
Sources: CupolNews, Mig-News.
24.01.03. Uddrag af Ukraine-NATO handlingsplan
minder om memorandum fra Europarådet
Denne plan blev udarbejdet i henhold til en beslutning truffet
af kommissionen Ukraine-NATO med henblik på at udbygge og udvide
relationerne Ukraine-NATO; den afspejler strategien i Ukraines relationer
til Den Nordatlantiske Aftaleorganisation. Den baserer sig på
Charteret om det særlige partnerskab, som blev underskrevet i
Madrid den 9. juli 1997, og som fortsat er grundlaget for relationerne
mellem Ukraine og NATO.
Formålet med handlingsplanen er
at få en klar fastlæggelse af Ukraines strategiske mål
og prioriteringer for at opnå dets mål om en fuld integration
i de euroatlantiske sikkerhedsstrukturer og for at skabe strategiske
rammer for det eksisterende og kommende samarbejde mellem Ukraine og
NATO i henhold til Charteret. I denne kontekst vil den blive løbende
revideret.
Handlingsplanen indeholder fælles
afstemte principper og mål. Med henblik på at sikre en
opnåelse af disse mål og principper i overensstemmelse
med Afsnit V vil der blive udarbejdet Årlige Målplaner,
som vil indbefatte Ukraines konkrete interne aktiviteter og relevante
fælles aktiviteter mellem Ukraine og NATO.
Afsnit 1
De indenrigspolitiske spørgsmål
Principper
Med henblik på en tættere euroatlantisk integration
fortsætter Ukraine med at gennemføre en indenrigspolitik,
som baserer sig på styrkelsen af demokratiet og retsstaten, respekten
for menneskerettigheder, princippet om magtens deling og dommernes
uafhængighed, demokratiske valg i henhold til OSCEs normer, politisk
pluralisme, ytringsfrihed, respekten for nationale og etniske mindretals
rettigheder og fravær af diskrimination udfra politiske, religiøse
eller etniske kendetegn. Det indbefatter sikringen af tilpasningen
af gældende lovgivning til implementeringen af den anførte
politik.
I betragtning af Ukraines udenrigspolitiske
orientering henimod den europæiske og euroatlantiske integration,
herunder landets fremtidige mål om at blive medlem af NATO, vil
Ukraine fortsætte udviklingen af lovgivning, som baserer sig på
de almindelige principper for demokrati og folkeretten.
En vigtig del af reformeringen af retssystemet
er deltagelsen i Europarådets konventer, som fastlægger
fælles standarder for europæiske lande. Bestræbelserne
bør rettes mod en reformering af de rets-og ordenshåndhævende
strukturer, forbedringen af de mekanismer som skal sikre, at alle statslige
og civile strukturer overholder og eksekverer princippet om rettens overhøjhed
og styrkelsen af de strukturer, som beskytter civile borgerrettigheder.
Mål:
І.1.А.1 styrkelsen af demokratiske institutioner og valginstitutioner;
І.1.А.2 styrkelsen af den dømmende magts beføjelser
og uafhængighed;
І.1.А.3 medvirken til en vedvarende udvikling og styrkelse
af det civile samfund, rettens overhøjhed, beskyttelsen af de
grundlæggende menneskerettigheder og borgerlige frihedsrettigheder;
І.1.А.4 sikringen af religionsfriheden;
І.1.А.5 sikringen af forsamlingsfriheden;
І.1.А.6 afslutningen af den administrative reform;
І.1.А.7 styrkelsen af den civile demokratiske kontrol med
De væbnede Styrker og sikkerhedssektoren som helhed;
І.1.А.8 bekæmpelse af korruption, hvidvask af penge
og ulovlig økonomisk virksomhed gennem økonomiske, retslige,
organisatoriske og retshåndhævende tiltag;
gennemførelsen af nødvendige tiltag for at blive
strøget fra FATFs liste, herunder vedtagelsen og implementeringen
af en lov, som svarer til FATFs standarder;
І.1.А.9 sikringen af en balance mellem de tre magtgrene - den
lovgivende, udøvende og dømmende magt - via forfatningsmæssige
og administrative reformer og sikringen af deres effektive samarbejde.
24.01.03. Draft law making Russian
second state language
The bill was sponsored by Leonid Hrach,leader of Crimea's
communists, the Communist Party, and the three main oligarchic groups
- Labour Ukraine, Regions of Ukraine, and Viktor Medvedchuk-Leonid Kravchuk's
Social Democratic Party united.
The 235 pro-Kuchma Rada majority could be joined by the 80
CPU and SPU deputies to ensure a 300+ majority to change Ukraine's
constitution. The Rada pro-Kuchma majority have sufficient votes
to change the 1989 law on languages which made Ukrainian sole state
language (226+).
24.01.03. Politolog forudser hård
kamp i Kutjmas inderkreds om at blive præsidentkandidat
"Hovedintrigen i den kommende præsidentvalgkamp i Ukraine
bliver Leonid Kutjmas valg af en samlet kandidat fra styrets side",
- sagde lederen af parlamentets udvalg for ytrings- og informationsfrihed,
Mykola Tomenko, på en pressekonference i Tjernivtsi i går.
Ifølge ham vil der foregå en
"alvorlig kamp" i præsidentens inderkreds. Efter politologens
opfattelse vil hovedkonkurrenterne om Kutjmas gunst være den
nuværende stabschef for præsidenten Viktor Medvedtjuk og
premierminister Viktor Janukovytj. Ifølge Tomenko vil tvekampen
mellem Medvedtjuk og Janukovytj få en afgørende betydning
for præsidentens valg.
Den folkedeputerede er overbevist om, at
SDPU (o)s fraktion i parlamentet af samme grund vil gøre alt for
at forhindre, at Janukovytj-regeringens arbejdsprogram bliver godkendt
i Verkhovna Rada, eftersom Medvedtjuk, "som helt sikkert vil tage del i
valgkampen", ikke er interesseret i en styrkelse af den nuværende
premierministers positioner.
Tomenko mener desuden, at "præsidentens
stabschef er meget foruroliget over, at han på trods af at have
brugt et svimlende beløb på at gøre sit navn populært,
ikke har mere end 5% af befolkningens tillid, mens Janukovytj, som
kun lige er kommet i regering, allerede har 3,5-4% af befolkningens
tillid".
I en kommentar til Verkhovna Radas formands,
Volodymyr Lytvyns, udmelding om de kommende kandidater til præsidentposten,
sagde Tomenko, at man udover Janukovytj og Medvedtjuk heller ikke bør
stryge fra listen personer som Nationalbankens formand, Serhij Tihipko,
og Lytvyn selv, hvis inderkreds ifølge politologen "seriøst
regner på den mulighed, at han deltager i valget". UNIAN, UP.
27.01.03. Tidligere udenrigsminister
kommenterer NATO-Ukraine handlingsplan
"Handlingsplanen Ukraine-NATO er et positivt
skridt i relationerne mellem Ukraine og Den nordatlantiske Alliance,
- mener formanden for parlamentets udvalg for Europæisk integration
og tidligere udenrigsminister Borys Tarasyuk.
"Efter min mening blev vedtagelsen af denne
plan sammen med Målplanen for 2003 en af de få udenrigspolitiske
succeser for Ukraine i den seneste tid. At man fra ukrainsk side var
tilbageholdende med hensyn til at offentliggøre dokumentet har
kun været med til at øge spændingen omkring dets indhold.
I virkeligheden var der ikke noget at skjule", - sagde den folkedeputerede.
Han mener, at frygten fra den udøvende
magts side øjensynligt blev begrundet med "det manglende ønske
om at fortælle offentligheden om de forpligtelser, som det ukrainske
styre har påtaget sig overfor NATOs medlemslande".
"Der er tale om løsningen af Ukraines
interne problemer, som er en hindring for virkeliggørelsen af
Handlingsplanen fra ukrainsk side. Det er spørgsmål som
økonomiens åbenhed i henhold til WTOs standarder og kravene
for at træde, beskyttelse af ophavsretten, energisikkerhed, ytringsfrihed,
fri udbredelse af information, styrkelse af demokratiet, retsstaten, princippet
om en deling af magten, dommernes uafhængighed, demokratiske valg,
ytringsfrihed", - understregede Tarasyuk.
Efter hans mening er det de problemer, som
er "helt centrale i opståelsen og fortsættelsen af den nuværende
indenrigspolitiske krise i det ukrainske samfund". Samtidig understregede
Tarasyuk, at "man i dag desværre ikke kan konstatere, at Ukraine
opfylder alle de forpligtelser, som man har påtaget sig".
Ifølge ham springer det i øjnene,
at "Ukraine på trods af den praksis der eksisterer for udarbejdelsen
af de såkaldte Medlemskabsplaner for kandidatlande til NATO kun
har fået tilbudt en kvasi-plan for medlemskab, som har fået
betegnelsen Handlingsplan".
"Det er sådan set det, der kendetegner
det særlige i relationerne mellem Ukraine og NATO, i modsætning
til relationerne med andre lande. Alt i alt er handlingsplanen et positivt
dokument, som skal stimulere det ukrainske styre til ikke blot at forbedre
den militære sektor, men først og fremmest at forbedre
sig i den politiske og økonomiske sektor", - sagde Borys Tarasyuk.
"Vores Ukraines" pressetjeneste, UP.
27.01.03. Is Ukraine a member of the CIS?
RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 7, No. 11, Part I
RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
17 January 2003
By Taras Kuzio
Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma offered a novel response to
a question posed to him at a 28 December press conference in Chernihiv,
a town located near the Belarus-Russian border. Eleven years after the
CIS was created by the three eastern Slavic states to replace the USSR,
Kuchma disagreed with the description of Ukraine as merely an "associate
member" of the CIS. Throughout the 1990s, Ukrainian diplomats and officials
had routinely employed that formulation to demonstrate that Ukraine was
opposed to the integration within the CIS that then Russian President Boris
Yeltsin assiduously promoted. The logic of the Ukrainian argument was based
on the assumption that, as the Ukrainian parliament had never ratified the
1994 CIS Charter, Ukraine was not a full member of the CIS. It was therefore
only an "associate member." The only problem, as Kuchma has now finally
pointed out, is that the CIS Charter makes no mention of any "associate
member" status with respect to the CIS.
Unfortunately, Kuchma failed to bring his point to its logical
conclusion -- namely, how could a nonmember (Ukraine) have participated
in so many CIS institutions and signed countless CIS documents? At the
November CIS summit in Chisinau, Russian President Vladimir Putin even
proposed that this nonmember head the CIS Heads of State Council. Luckily,
the proposal was opposed by three other CIS states and therefore failed
to pass.
At the upcoming CIS summit on 28 January, Ukraine will again be
proposed for that position. But as Ukraine's Hromadske Radio pointed
out on 15 January, Ukraine's "bid for chairmanship is legally vulnerable."
Ukraine's de jure nonmembership of the CIS reflects three factors. First,
there is the general widespread legal nihilism that pervades the CIS.
It has long been pointed out that documents signed by CIS members (and
"nonmembers" like Ukraine) are rarely implemented. A legal, contractual,
and political culture that would guarantee the implementation of interstate
documents, whether signed within the CIS or internationally in general,
is simply absent within CIS states.
The same is true of the yawning gap between domestic legislation
and government-executive policies. Second, there is the very nature of
the CIS. The CIS is often criticized for being a moribund and ineffective
structure. Why then does it still exist, when it was created in December
1991, according to then Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk, for the sole
purpose of facilitating a "civilized divorce" among the then-Soviet republics?
One answer to that question was given by two Russian authors writing
in "Izvestiya" in November 2000 on the ninth anniversary of the formation
of the CIS. CIS members and nonmembers "are not so much friends as compelled
to co-exist with one another, like divorced spouses who cannot make
the final break." "The CIS is a communal apartment for people who are
tired of one another, who no longer live together, but do not yet live
apart," the authors continued. For most CIS states, neither option -- living
within the CIS or outside it -- is preferable.
At the same time, living together in the CIS "communal apartment"
provides psychological support to CIS leaders, most of whom hail from
the same Communist Party or KGB background and have similar political
cultures and understandings of the outside world. Although the phrase
"near abroad," used by Russia to denote the CIS as distinct from the "far
abroad," has fallen into disuse, it still reflects the general tendency
to view the CIS as a family club. This shared perception can become vitally
important during periods of international isolation, such as that Ukraine
has experienced since late 2000, when the "Kuchmagate" crisis began. At
such times, Russia and the CIS become vitally important to Kuchma's survival.
Russian State Duma Speaker Gennadii Seleznev said on a visit to Ukraine
last month, "Ukraine has realized that the West is not going to open its
embrace. There is a far more reliable partner and ally it should stay side
by side with [i.e. Russia]."
Russia has preferred not to formalize its Soviet-era frontiers
with neighboring CIS states, agreeing only to delimit them on maps but
not to demarcate them. The Antiterrorist Center of the CIS, established
in June 2000, is headed by Major General Boris Mylnikov, who served in the
KGB from 1975-91 and was the first deputy head of the Federal Security
Service (FSB) department responsible for the "protection of constitutional
order and the struggle against terrorism." Pointedly, the center is headed
and staffed by the FSB, Russia's internal intelligence agency, not the
external intelligence body, the Foreign-Intelligence Service (SVR).
During his December visit to Ukraine, Seleznev contrasted the
actions of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Carlos Pascual, with those
of Russian Ambassador to Ukraine Viktor Chernomyrdin. When Pascual (or
the U.S. Congress, as in the March 2002 elections) talks about democratization,
human rights, free elections, and reform in Ukraine, this is understood
by Ukraine and Russia as "interference" (just as in the Soviet era).
When Chernomyrdin tells Ukrainians whom not to vote for and demands the
upgrading of Russian to a second state language, this is seen as brotherly
advice, Seleznev claimed. Third, Ukraine's multivector foreign policy
is a reflection of the country's history and competing identities. Ukraine
has jealously guarded its sovereignty since the disintegration of the
USSR. It has therefore declined to join Russian-led supranational institutions,
such as the Eurasian Economic Community (EEC), which Ukrainian leaders believe
could undermine its sovereignty. By contrast, it was a founding member in
1997 of the GUAM alignment, which also includes Georgia, Azerbaijan, and
Moldova but not Russia.
Similarly, Ukraine never acceded to the CIS Collective Security
Treaty (signed in Tashkent in June 1992), although even before 11 September
2001, full membership of the CIS Antiterrorist Center was deemed compatible
with Ukraine's sovereignty. Ukraine's involvement in the various CIS sub-organizations
is as confusing and selective as is its membership (or nonmembership)
of that structure. In 1995, Ukraine joined the CIS Air Defense Agreement
as an "associate member," even though no such status formally exists and
no other CIS state has claimed it. In 1998, Ukraine joined the CIS Interparliamentary
Assembly, which seeks to harmonize legislation across the CIS. (It remains
unclear why membership of this body does not conflict with membership
of the Council of Europe.) While refusing to join the EEC, Ukraine has
also agreed to"observer" status in that body. Ukrainian officials argue
that full membership of the EEC conflicts with Ukraine's steps toward
Euro-Atlantic integration. Chernomyrdin, however, disagrees because
he knows full well that none of the six members of the EEC seeks EU membership.
Meanwhile, the EU has not voiced any opinion, as Ukraine's hypothetical
future membership of the EU is not in the cards.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Taras Kuzio is a resident fellow at the Centre for Russian
and East European Studies and adjunct professor, Department of Political
Science, University of Toronto.
27.01.03. High-level Ukrainian economic
and finance delegation in Washington -- Jan. 29
ArtUkraine.com Information Service
Washington, D.C.
January 24, 2003
By E. Morgan Williams
Washington, D.C..January 24, 2003 -- First Vice Prime Minister and
Minister of Finance of Ukraine Mykola Azarov will lead a high level Ukrainian
economic and finance delegation in Washington, D.C. next week for a series
of very important meetings with the U.S. government, the International
Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and other Washington based governmental
and international institutions.
The Ukrainian delegation is reported by several organizations in
Washington to include, in addition to VPM Azarov, Valery Khoroshkovsky,
Minister of Economics and European Integration Issues; Serhiy Yermilov,
Minister of Energy; Yuri Luzan, First Deputy State Secretary, Ministry of
Agricultural Policy; Serhiy Tyhypko, newly appointed Governor of the Central
Bank; Anatoly Matsiuta, State Secretary, Ministry of Finance; Andriy Goncharuk,
State Secretary for Trade, Ministry of Finance; Mrs. Oleksandra Kuzhel,
Chair, State Committee of Ukraine; and Andriy Gurzhiy, First Deputy State
Secretary, Ministry of Science.
In addition to the many official meetings VPM Azarov will be the
featured speaker at a private breakfast meeting on Wednesday, January
29, hosted by Anders Aslund, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace (CEIP). The Ambassador of Ukraine to the United
States, Kostyantyn Gryshchenko, is hosting a private reception in honor
of the Ukraine government team, at the historic Embassy of Ukraine building
in Georgetown on Wednesday evening.
On Thursday morning Kempton Jenkins, President of the Ukraine-U.S.
Business Council, is hosting the entire delegation at a private working
breakfast with the members of the Business Council. Topics to be discussed
at the Council's breakfast include money laundering legislation, intellectual
property rights, investment procedures and regulation, tax policy including
VAT tax developments, the recently passed Civil and Economic Codes, agricultural
developments and energy policy. Gary Litman, Vice President for Europe
and Eurasia, at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will host a private Roundtable
Discussion with VPM Azarov and the other top Ukrainian officials at the
U.S. Chambers headquarters in Washington on Thursday, January 30, starting
at 4:00 p.m.
According to the announcement from the U.S. Chamber the officials
will be available to answer specific questions on a wide range of issues,
including Ukraine's WTO accession efforts, the development of a commercially-based
agricultural market and credit system, the transit of energy resources
across Ukrainian territory, tax policy initiatives related to VAT and customs
duties, and the outcome of the latest CIS summit on energy, transportation,
and agriculture. VPM Azarov has long been one of Ukraine's leading politicians
and parliamentarians. He has served as Chairman of the State Tax Administration.
In November of 2002 he became the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister
of Finance.
27.01.03. 1.vice-premierminister
aflyser tur til USA p.a. akut sygdom
Ukraines 1. vice-premierminister og finansminister, Mykola Azarov,
måtte i går aflyse sit officielle besøg i USA grundet
sygdom, oplyste hans kontor i går til nyhedsbureauet Interfaks-Ukrajina.
Efter planen skulle den ukrainske delegation
på officielt besøg i USA den 27. januar - 3. februar udover
Azarov bestå af næstformand for Nationalbanken Oleksandr Shlapak,
økonomiminister Valerij Khoroshkovskyj samt energi- og brændselsminister,
Serhij Jermylov.
De skulle efter planen deltage i den ukrainsk-amerikanske
komites møde vedrørende det økonomiske samarbejde
og føre forhandlinger i Verdensbanken og Den internationale Valutafond.
Azarov har tidligere sagt, at den ukrainske delegations
hovedopgave ved de kommende forhandlinger med Den internationale Valutafond
og Verdensbanken ville være at overbevise dem om, at den nye regering
vil være konsekvent i sit arbejde for at fremskynde markedsreformerne
og fremme demokratiseringsprocessen i landet. UP.
29.01.03. Official status for foreign-based
Ukrainians
From: ArtUkraine Information Service <ArtUkraine.com@starpower.net>
PUBLIC RADIO Online
Kyiv, Ukraine
17 January 2003, Fri, 12:47
Verkhovna Rada is on track for awarding official status to 12 million
Ukrainians, nationals of other countries, with the appropriate bill slated
for approval Thursday. In addition, VR will allow free entry in Ukraine
to ethnic Ukrainians. The bill provides for identity cards for "foreign-based
Ukrainians" to be issued by Ukraine's consular offices, following applications
and submission of documents confirming the Ukrainian origin of applicants.
Identity cards will be valid for 10 years.
Foreign-based Ukrainians will be able to enter and stay in Ukraine
for four months without written invitations and visas. There will be
other benefits. Our Ukraine representative Taras Chornovil says the bill,
when enacted, will facilitate links between Ukraine and diaspora. "Establishing
the status for foreign-based Ukrainians will make it possible to influence
the states where the rights of such Ukrainians have been infringed," he
believes. Meanwhile, some politicians are skeptical about this initiative.
Deputy head of the non-governmental association "The Road of the
Orthodox" and former VR deputy Yury Boldyriev says that a clear definition
of a Ukrainian citizen is first needed.
-
29.01.03. Macroeconomic report on
Ukraine: Year end 2002
Key Achievements and Shortfalls in 2002
SigmaBleyzer, Investment Bankers
Kyiv Office
By Dr. Edilberto L. Segura, Chief Economist and Director
Manager of the UGF/Ukrainian Growth Funds
Kyiv, Ukraine, January 15, 2003
In year 2002, Ukraine had both negative as well as positive results.
In particular, negative political developments overshadowed relatively
good economic performance. From the economic point of view, the economy
performed better than anticipated by most analysts. Although the pace of
GDP growth slowed down from the high level of 9.1% achieved in 2001, at
about 4.2% for the year, GDP growth would be better than the rates achieved
by most countries of the world, which are still facing economic slow-down.
On the other hand, negative political news during the year affected business
confidence and led a number of international rating agencies to express
doubts on the future economic situation of the country. These negative
political developments included international issues, in particular the
accusations that Ukraine sold illegal advanced radar systems to Iraq. This
issue led the US to suspend a portion of its financial assistance to Ukraine.
But in addition, there were also domestic political uncertainties, such as
the dismissal of the Cabinet, the dismissal of the President of the NBU,
and the lack of a clear and solid working majority in Parliament.
Following the dismissal of the Cabinet and the Chairman of the NBU,
the President appointed a new Cabinet (led by Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovitch)
and a new NBU Chairman (Mr. Sergey Tygypko). As noted in a previous issue,
the ultimate performance of the new Government will depend less on the
qualifications of its individual members and much more on its ability to
work effectively with a majority in Parliament and secure approval of key
pending legislation. In fact, over the last two years, very important pieces
of key economic legislation have been drafted, with the assistance of international
agencies. If this legislation were to be enacted now, it would yield a remarkable
improvement in Ukraine's business environment. [..]
Economic Growth
GDP growth in 2002 is likely to reach about 4.2%. In November 2002
the pace of GDP growth accelerated to a rate of 4.6% compared to November
last year, bringing GDP growth for the eleven month period to about 4.1%.
The economy activity of the country continues to be driven by the growth
of domestic demand, particularly wholesale and retail trade (which increased
by 9.6% in the last eleven months compared to last year), by the processing
industry (which increased by 8.1% during the same period), and by agriculture
(which increased by 3.9%). [..] As noted earlier, for year 2003, most economic
agencies anticipate that GDP growth in 2003 would range between 3.5% (ICPS)
to 5.0% (IMF). EBRD forecasts a GDP growth rate of 4.5% for 2003. The Government's
own "conservative" GDP forecast for the 2003 fiscal budget is 4%.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Segura is the Director and Chief Economist of the Office of SigmaBleyzer
in Kiev and the Chairman of the Advisory Board of The Bleyzer Foundation.
He is also a Fellow and Visiting Professor at the Said Business School
of the University of Oxford in the UK, where he lectures on Emerging Capital
Markets. Before joining SigmaBleyzer, for 27 years Dr. Segura worked
at the World Bank, where he became the Country Director for Mexico, Central
America, Venezuela and part of the Caribbean. Before retiring from the
World Bank in 1998, for three years he was the Head of the World Bank's
Office in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Dr. Segura holds a PhD degree (Finance and Economic) and an MA degree
(Economics) from Columbia University in New York; an MBA degree from Stanford
University in California, and an Industrial Engineering degree from Peru.
He also attended the Advanced Management Program of Harvard University.
To read the full report, click on the PDF file:
Ukraine: Macroeconomic Situation
Dr. Edilberto L. Segura
Chief Economist and Director Kyiv Office
SigmaBleyzer
21, Pushkinskaya Street
Suite 40
Kyiv 01004, Ukraine
Tel: (380-44) 244-9487
Fax: (380-44) 244-9488
esegura@sigmableyzer.com
29.01.03. How Ukrainians view their
own history: results of latest poll
According to the results of a sociological survey carried out
late last year to determine whether Ukraine is a nation with values and
symbols that truly unite the country, Bohdan Khmelnytsky is the greatest
political figure of all time, named by 26.7% of respondents. The hetman
is also the most popular (almost 83%). The second most popular historical
figure is...Tsar Peter the Great. Hetman Ivan Mazepa was named by 45% of
respondents, followed by Vladimir Lenin (40%). Ukraine is symbolized best
by its state symbols (flag, hymn), with bread and wheat taking second place.
The most popular cultural figure of Ukraine is Taras Shevchenko (42.2%).
Ukrainians' views on their country's historical destiny are interesting: 40%
of the population of Ukraine still identifies with the Soviet Union, while
less than half of all respondents (47.7%) identify with Ukraine.
Read the full story (carried by Ukrainska Pravda) at:
www.pravda.com.ua/archive/2003/january/14/2.shtml
29.01.03. Rusland og Ukraine underskriver
en række vigtige dokumenter
Ukraine og Rusland bekræftede i går officielt, at de ikke
har nogen territoriale krav mod hinanden og agter at bygge deres relationer
på grundlag af partnerskab og ligeberettigelse. De to staters ledere
underskrev i går i Kyiv en aftale om fastlandsgrænsen. Den
russiske Statsduma har allerede lovet at ratificere denne aftale uden forsinkelser.
Verkhovna Rada vil næppe heller stå i vejen for aftalen.
Af andre vigtige dokumenter underskrevet under
topmødet i går var de, som tillader russiske statsborgere
at modtage ukrainske diplomer og omvendt. Eksamensbeviser fra videregående
uddannelser, som allerede er udstedt, vil herefter blive anerkendt i begge
stater.
Præsidenterne glemte heller ikke de projekter,
som i den nærmeste fremtid vil regulere de økonomiske relationer
mellem Kyiv og Moskva. Som f.eks. dokumentet om gastransport-konsortiet.
Moskva og Kyiv, som også gerne vil inddrage
Tyskland i konsortiet, har allerede etableret fælles virksomheder.
De vil indgå i en bredere struktur, som vil beskæftige sig
med leverancer af brændsel fra Sibirien og Centralasien til Europa.
Og nu skal man ikke tænke så meget over løsningen af organisatoriske
spørgsmål som om at finansiere moderniseringen af infrastrukturen.
Et særlig vigtigt spørgsmål er i den forbindelse nedlæggelsen
af toldgrænser, men det vil man først kunne løse efter
etableringen af en frihandels-zone. Anstødstenen for etableringen
af en sådan frihandels-zone i hele SNG er en uenighed mellem Kyiv og
Moskva om, hvorvidt momsen på gastransitten skal havne i Kyiv eller
i Moskva. Rusland er desuden betænkelig ved at blive oversvømmet
af de billige og relativt gode ukrainske industriprodukter. Men alle disse
afsavn vil Rusland gerne acceptere, hvis bare Ukraine går med til at
blive fuldgyldigt medlem af Den euroasiatiske Økonomiske Union (EAES)
i stedet for kun at være observatør. podrobnosti, reporter.
30.01.03. The killing of a journalist:
new book on Heorhii Gongadze
Beheaded
The Killing of a Journalist
by JV Koshiw
www.artemiapress.co.uk/
Introduction to the Preface from the book Beheaded by JV Koshiw
The headless body of the Ukrainian journalist Georgi Gongadze was discovered
in the year 2000. The chief suspect for the crime turned out to be President
Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine, who was secretly recorded by his guard, Mykola
Melnychenko, ordering the interior minister Yuri Kravchenko to have Gongadze
kidnapped by criminals and taken to Chechnya.
The book Beheadedby JV Koshiw examines the evidence that the president
was responsible for Gongadze's killing. The author carried out his own
investigation in Ukraine for a period of eight months, interviewing some
of the key witnesses.
This is the third current affairs book by JV Koshiw, a former deputy
editor of Kyiv Post.
PREFACE
Why I wrote the book.
On the eve of the year 2000, pundits predicted doomsday scenarios for
much of the world especially Ukraine. Millions of old computer chips that
could not read 2000 would cause planes to fall from the sky and nuclear
power stations to shut down, or even worse. Nothing like that happened in
Ukraine.
But something awful did happen in Ukraine in the year 2000 to a bright,
young, energetic and relatively prominent broadcasting journalist. Georgi
Gongadze disappeared on September 16 and was found beheaded on November
3.
Soon afterwards recordings appeared implicating the president of Ukraine
in ordering Gongadze's kidnapping. One of his guards had secretly recorded
the president saying this, before fleeing the country on November 25,
first to Europe and then to America.
Since his departure, the whistle blower Mykola Melnychenko has drip-fed
excerpts from his vast collection of recordings to the internet. They showed
the president, Leonid Kuchma, issuing orders to punish his critics - journalists,
politicians, and businessmen - with imprisonments, beatings and kidnappings.
They revealed the spying by his security service on everyone of interest
to him - from political allies to opponents. His international reputation
slid even further when a recording showed him approving the sale of military
radar to Iraq in violation of UN embargoes.
Despite this mountain of evidence, no legal measures have been taken
against Kuchma. He simply denies the crimes and claims the recordings
have been fabricated. Furthermore, he doesn't allow a credible investigation
to take place and instead has created a cover-up where every tiny event has
multiple explanations, like a gigantic hall of mirrors. The only institution
empowered by Ukraine's constitution to investigate him - parliament - is
under his control. Demonstrations, some violent, have failed to dislodge
him.
The purpose of this book is to present the evidence in the disappearence
and murder of Gongadze in order that justice may be done. I have chosen
first to introduce the three key individuals involved - Gongadze, Kuchma
and Melnychenko - and then to present in chronological order the evidence
and analysis.
Gongadze was not the first politically motivated disappearance. In
my many trips to Ukraine, I had met two people who had also disappeared
for similar reasons.
I first met Mykhaylo Boychyshyn in August 1989. He was a leading activist
of Rukh (Movement for the reconstruction of Ukraine), then involved in
transforming Ukraine from a Soviet republic to an independent state. I
saw him again in 1991, when he was managing the presidential campaign for
the former Soviet political prisoner Vyacheslav Chornovil, and I joined
them in a mini-van on their campaign trail across Ukraine. On a shoestring
budget, Boychyshyn took on the might of the former Soviet state machine,
which was batting for the former communist party ideologue, Leonid Kravchuk.
The excommunist boss won, but Chornovil came second with 26 per cent of
the vote.
In 1994 Boychyshyn disappeared from the center of Kyiv. Despite what
the government claimed was its biggest ever man hunt, he was never found.
In 1999, Chornovil died in an accident that his supporters alleged was
organized by a government death squad. In February 1998, Ihor Svoboda -
whom Boychyshyn had introduced me to - was seized by armed men and never
seen again. He was an assistant to Odesa's mayor, Edward Hurvits, whom
Kuchma ousted from office later that year.
After Gongadze disappeared, I decided to write a book, as this time
there was evidence of who was behind this ghastly crime. I did not know
Gongadze personally, but I knew about him, as did most people who followed
closely the 1999 presidential elections.
Readers will have to decide for themselves whether the book does justice
to Gongadze as well as to Kuchma.
JV Koshiw, November 2002
30.01.03. Kutjma valgt til formand
for rådet for SNG-landenes statsoverhoveder
Ukraines præsident, Leonid Kutjma, blev i går valgt til formand
for SNGs statsråd - et forum der samler SNG-landenes statsoverhoveder
- oplyste Ruslands præsident, Volodymyr Putin, på en pressekonference.
På en pressekonference efter afslutningen af
mødet for SNGs statsoverhoveder i Kyiv onsdag oplyste Putin, at Kutjma
er blevet enstemmigt valgt på et møde mellem statsoverhovederne
i SNG.
Putin oplyste overfor journalisterne, at initiativet
til valget af Kutjma udgik fra den russiske delegation. Den russiske leder
forklarede sit lands forslag om at vælge Kutjma med, at det havde han
foreslået at gøre tilbage i oktober, under topmødet i
Kishinau, men at ikke alle på det tidspunkt var enige.
"For det første fremsatte jeg dette forslag
uden at have afstemt det med andre statsoverhoveder, og de var bange for,
at dette skridt ville føre til en svækkelse af SNG. Jeg har
en anden logik. Ukraine er en stor stat i SNG med den næststørste
økonomi. Desuden er der indskrevet et rotationsprincip i statuterne.
Det skete ikke, og det var en fejl fra Ruslands side. Hvis vi ønsker,
at alle SNG-landene skal føle et medansvar, så bør
de også se muligheden for en direkte og effektiv indflydelse", -
sagde Ruslands præsident.
Inden valget af Kutjma til formand for SNG-statsrådet
har kun Ruslands to præsidenter - først Boris Jeltsin og siden
Vladimir Putin - været formænd.
Ukraines præsident, Leonid Kutjma, oplyste,
at han takkede for valget og sagde, at han "ville forholde sig ansvarligt
overfor sine forpligtelser som formand for SNG-rådet".
Ifølge den ukrainske leder hænger hans
valg sammen med, at han under det forrige SNG-topmøde i Kishinau
"havde fremsat en række principielle forslag med hensyn til at reformere
den økonomiske bestanddel af samarbejdet" indenfor rammerne af SNG-samkvemmet.
Mødet i SNG-rådet varede i næsten
2 timer over den afsatte time. UP.
30.01.03. Kutjma: SNG-landene vil oprette
en frihandelszone til september
Sammenslutningen af Uafhængige Stater (SNG) planlægger at
etablere en frihandelszone i september 2003. "Alle var enige i planen for
afslutningen af arbejdet med at skabe en frihandelszone. Vi bør
have en fuldstændig afstemt beslutning ved det næste topmøde
i Jalta til september, som vi bør underskrive", - sagde Ukraines
præsident, Leonid Kutjma, oplyser Ukrajinski Novyny.
Den ukrainske leder fremhævede, at man under
SNG-topmødet havde drøftet spørgsmål, der vedrørte
det økonomiske samarbejde. Her betegnede Leonid Kutjma brændsels-og
energikomplekset og transportbranchen som de vigtigste prioriteter i organisationens
arbejde.
Ukraines præsident talte om nødvendigheden
af at skabe transnationale korporationer for de højst prioriterede
samarbejdsområder mellem de lande, som indgår i SNG.
Leonid Kutjma betegnede topmødet i Kyiv som
en fortsættelse af drøftelsen af spørgsmål, som
blev behandlet under topmødet i Kishinau i oktober 2002.
"Dette topmøde var fortsættelsen af de
problemer, som vi drøftede i Kishinau", - sagde han.
Det uofficielle topmøde for SNG-landenes statsoverhoveder
fandt sted i Kyiv fra tirsdag den 28. januar.
Ukraine har under hvert eneste af møderne i
SNG søgt at få truffet en beslutning om indførelsen af
en frihandelszone.
Under det seneste SNG-topmøde i Kishinau,
som fandt sted i oktober 2002, underskrev Ukraine og Rusland en aftale
om fælles administration af Ukraines gastransportsystem.
31.01.03. Ukraine får stillet
betingelser for at ophæve FATFs sanktioner
En af de de vigtige betingelser for at ophæve FATFs sanktioner mod
Ukraine er, at Ukraines Finanstilsyn er fuldstændigt apolitisk i sit
arbejde.
Denne holdning blev formuleret fra amerikansk side under
et møde i Washington i den ukrainsk-amerikanske Komite for økonomisk
samarbejde, oplyser Ukraines ministerium for økonomi og europæisk
integration.
Andre betingelser for at amerikanerne vil medvirke til
at hæve sanktionerne mod Ukraine er ifølge USA, at man ændrer
Straffeloven (loven er allerede vedtaget, men endnu ikke underskrevet af
præsidenten), loven om bankvirksomhed (lovforslaget er vedtaget i 1.
behandling) samt sænkningen af loftet for størrelsen af bankoperationer,
som ikke er underlagt kontrol.
Ifølge økonomiministeriet oplyste næstformanden
for Nationalbankens bestyrelse, Oleksandr Shlapak, at banken er i gang med
at udarbejde et forslag om at mindske dette loft (100.000 UAH for kontante
operationer og 300.000 UAH for ikke-kontante operationer) til en tredjedel
af det nuværende.
"Opfyldelsen af disse betingelser vil gøre det
muligt for Ukraine at standse FATFs sanktioner i løbet af meget kort
tid. Det er endnu ikke en garanti mod, at Ukraine bliver lukket ude af FATFs
"sorte liste", men ophævelsen af sanktionerne vil være en stor
succes", - citerer økonomiministeriet det amerikanske justitsministeriums
særlige rådgiver, Theodor Greenberg.
De ukrainske bankfolk har tidligere udtrykt bekymring
for, at der i Finanstilsynet er blevet ansat to souschefer (herunder en
1. souschef), der er ledere af skattepolitiet (den tidligere skattechef
Azarov er i dag Ukraines finansminister, red.). Idet de henviser til uofficielle
informationer oplyser repræsentanterne for de ukrainske banker, at
FATF er utilfreds med, at man har fjernet Oleksij Berezhnyj fra posten som
leder af Finanstilsynet. Berezhnyj var tidligere diplomat uden nogen forbindelse
til rets-og ordensmyndighederne.
Den internationale gruppe til modvirken af hvidvask
af kriminelle indtægter (FATF) har anbefalet sine medlemmer at træffe
modforholdsregler overfor Ukraine fra den 20.12.2002 for at sikre beskyttelsen
af denne organisations medlemsstaters finanssystemer mod risikoen for hvidvask
af "sorte" penge.
Den 12. februar vil FATF beslutte sig for, hvorvidt
Ukraine har fjernet manglerne i sin lovgivning omkring bekæmpelsen
af hvidvask af "sorte" penge i den grad, at de sanktioner, som blev anbefalet
sidst på året, kan ophæves. Interfaks-Ukrajina. UP.
31.01.03. Polakkerne kan godt lide
Ukraine, men ikke ukrainerne
80% af Polens indbyggere støtter det politiske og økonomiske
samarbejde mellem Warszawa og Kyiv. 57% af polakkerne ville støtte
Ukraines indtræden i NATO, og 53% ville støtte Ukraines indtræden
i Den europæiske Union. 40% af polakkerne er kategorisk imod en sammenslutning
af Ukraine, Rusland og Hviderusland.
Det er resultatet af en meningsmåling omkring
polakkernes holdning til ukrainerne, som er blevet offentliggjort i Polen.
Undersøgelsen blev lavet i starten af december af Warszawas center
for undersøgelse af den offentlige mening og var bestilt af Batory-fonden,
som er en polsk afdeling af Soros-fonden.
Stemningen i Polen er imidlertid helt anderledes, når
man spørger til holdningen overfor nabostatens konkrete borgere.
Halvdelen af de adspurgte sagde, at indførelsen af visumpligt for
ukrainske borgere ville være nyttigt for Polen og polakkerne. Desuden
er hele 40% tilhængere af visa bliver dyre og vanskeligt tilgængelige
for ukrainerne.
Flertallet af de polske aviskommentatorer betegnede
resultatet af denne undersøgelse som i det mindste mangetydigt. Således
kommenterede den mangeårige Ukraine-kommentator i avisen "Rzeczpospolita",
Piotr Koscinski, undersøgelsesresultatet overfor Radio Liberty:
"Konklusionerne er ret lige til. For det første
kender polakkerne næsten ikke noget til ukrainerne. For hvis de kender
konkrete mennesker, så har de en god opfattelse af dem. De, som derimod
ikke kender dem, baserer deres opfattelser på nogle historiske stereotyper,
der er langt overvejende negative. Derfor kan man generelt sige, at vi i
Polen ikke kan lide ukrainerne", sagde Koscinski.
Journalisten føjede desuden til, at polakkerne
støtter "Ukraine som stat". "Vi støtter den først og
fremmest med udgangspunkt i Polens interesser. Vi vil altså gerne
se Ukraine i NATO og EU, men vi ønsker ikke, at Ukraine slutter sig
til Rusland og Hviderusland. Derfor er polakkernes syn på Ukraine
og ukrainerne forskelligt. Vi ser følelsesladet på ukrainerne,
men ser rationelt på Ukraine med udgangspunkt i polske interesser",
påpeger han.
Et positivt moment i undersøgelsesresultatet
er forøgelsen af antallet af de polakker, som mener, at den polsk-ukrainske
forening er mulig. Hvor under halvdelen af polakkerne havde den opfattelse
i 1998, og næsten 60% i 2001, så er tallet nu steget til 70%
af de adspurgte, hvilket viser en positiv tendens. UP.