1995: THE YEAR IN REVIEW: U.S. and Ukraine: a new partnership (12/31/95)

1995: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

U.S. and Ukraine: a new partnership

United States policy toward assisting Ukraine took on a one-step forward, two-steps back approach in 1995.

On January 31, the 1996 Diversity Immigrant Visa Lottery began accepting applications for an available 55,000 permanent U.S. resident visas from persons in countries that have low rates of immigration to the United States, including Ukraine. Those selected became eligible for permanent resident visas on October 1.

The Clinton administration continued to press Ukraine to restrict the number of wool coats sold to the United States and threatened to impose an import quota. Political analysts decried the administration's efforts to curtail Ukraine's foray into the world of supply and demand, claiming that it made a mockery of the United States' advocacy of free-market economics.

In April a delegation headed by Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott traveled to Kyiv to lay the groundwork for President Bill Clinton's May 11 visit to Ukraine.

In May Defense Secretary William Perry traveled to Yavoriv to review "Peace-Shield '95," the first U.S.-Ukrainian joint peacekeeping exercise under the Partnership for Peace program. The two-week training exercise involved 700 soldiers from Ukraine's 24th Motorized Rifle Division and the U.S.'s Third Infantry Division. The American and Ukrainian troops swept mine fields together, learned to shoot from each other's weapons and took part in joint operations at checkpoints.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Transatlantic Division in Winchester, Va., launched a joint U.S.-Ukrainian project with the Central Design Institute of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense to build a $17.4 million apartment complex for decommissioned officers of the Ukrainian 43rd Strategic Rocket Forces and their families under a Defense Department initiative to assist newly independent states (NIS) in converting defense industries into civilian ones.

In December the Clinton administration adopted a position that would permit Ukraine 22 launches of U.S. satellites in 1995-2001. The number of launches was crucial to Ukraine's participation in SeaLaunch, an innovative approach to commercial space launches involving an international consortium of Boeing Commercial Space Co. (U.S.), Kvaerner (Norway), NPO Pivdenne (Ukraine) and RSE Energia (Russia). The project will launch commercial satellites from a platform in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of the United States. NPO Pivdenne will provide SeaLaunch with the Zenit booster.

U.S. organizations champion Ukraine

Throughout 1995, the Ukrainian National Association's Washington Office took the U.S. government to task for the disproportionately low amount of U.S. aid given Ukraine. In testimony given by Eugene Iwanciw, director of the UNA Washington Office, before the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations of the House Committee on Appropriations on March 30, Mr. Iwanciw pointed out that of the "$4.7 billion of assistance already expended by the United States for the NIS, only $392.1 million was for Ukraine."

Citing data provided in the January 1995 State Department report "U.S. Assistance and Related Programs for the New Independent States of the Former Soviet Union," Mr. Iwanciw assessed that Ukraine, whose population makes up 18.19 percent of the population of NIS countries, received only 8.3 percent of U.S. assistance during fiscal years 1992-1995. On a per capita basis, Ukraine received $7.55, while the NIS average was $16.47.

According to Mr. Iwanciw, this placed Ukraine 11th out of the 12 NIS states in terms of per capita assistance by the United States, dispelling the claims that Ukraine is the fourth largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance after Israel, Egypt and Russia.

Further, Mr. Iwanciw pointed out that of the $350 million promised Ukraine for dismantling its nuclear weapons under the Nunn-Lugar Act, only $3.9 million had been disbursed.

During the hearing, Mr. Iwanciw requested that U.S. assistance be more equitably distributed among the NIS and urged the subcommittee to earmark $300 million of assistance for Ukraine in fiscal year 1996.

In June, the House of Representatives considered two bills that made significant cuts in U.S. foreign assistance. The first, the American Overseas Interests Act, authorized appropriations to the NIS for $643 million, a 25 percent reduction from 1995 levels; cut authorizations for the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) and Voice of America (VOA); and came close to eliminating funding for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).

The second, the Foreign Assistance Appropriations Bill, which set a budget for fiscal year 1996, refused to earmark funding for Ukraine, despite lobbying efforts by Ukrainian American organizations.

The Senate, however, included a $225 million earmark for Ukraine in its version of the Foreign Assistance Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 1996 in September. Championed by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, the $225 million earmark was adopted by the Senate and House conference committee on October 24 and retained in the final bill despite the reduction in over-all assistance to the NIS.

According to Mr. Iwanciw, who lobbied for the earmark, U.S. government assistance to the NIS declined by almost 25 percent between fiscal year 1995 and 1996, but Ukraine's share increased by 50 percent. In fiscal year 1996, Ukraine will receive 35 percent of the assistance allocated for the NIS.

The 16-member Central and East European Coalition, which includes the UNA and the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, kept busy in 1995 challenging the U.S.'s approach toward the emerging democracies in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. On February 17, Linas Kojelis, representing the CEEC, blasted the United States Agency for International Development at a Helsinki Commission briefing on "U.S. Assistance to Central and Eastern Europe and the NIS: An Assessment" for wasting "hundreds of millions of dollars" on assistance programs that do not fit the specific needs of the NIS and Central and Eastern Europe.

Mr. Kojelis proposed that USAID programs consult and use region-specific organizations, which know these countries' cultures, speak their languages and understand their needs, in assessing and delivering U.S. assistance, instead of employing "government technicians and bean-counters and a host of generic international development, fee-for-service contractors, almost none of whom had the least experience in the fight for freedom in CEE/NIS."

Mr. Kojelis then presented the CEEC's 15-point plan to reform the assistance process.

In August, the CEEC unsuccessfully lobbied Congress to list, by name, those NIS countries eligible to join NATO. The language in the proposed legislation referred specifically to the Visegrad states (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia) and lumped other countries, including Ukraine, into the "European countries emerging from Communist domination" category.

Sens. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) opposed naming these countries in the text of the legislation, and instead Ukraine was listed in the legislation's definition section, which reads, "The term 'European countries emerging from Communist domination' includes, but is not limited to, Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuanian, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine."

The CEEC supported an amendment introduced by Sen. Hank Brown (R-Colo.) to list all the countries eligible for NATO in the body of the legislation as well as in the definition section. In a compromise, those countries were not listed in the body of the legislation, but a presidential evaluation of the wording "Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia as well as all other European countries emerging from Communist domination that have asked for NATO membership" was required within 60 days.

In May, presidents of 46 Central and East European ethnic organizations, including members of the CEEC, co-signed a letter to eight members of Congress regarding compensation policies of 13 CEE states, including Ukraine.

The eight members - Sens. Bob Dole (R-Kansas), Thomas Daschle (D-S.D.), Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.) and Reps. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.), Benjamin Gilman (R-N.Y.) and Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.) - had sent a letter to Secretary of State Warren Christopher stating that CEE governments "have enacted restitution legislation (for property seized by Nazis and Communists)... restricting the rights of Jewish communities..."

The 46 co-signers responded that all CEE peoples were victimized by totalitarians, that most families in these countries have property claims, and that it is "hardly reasonable to expect the new democracies to right the wrongs of the past five decades in a mere three to five years."

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