Canadian Embassy's counsellor honored for role in relations with Kyiv (08/16/98)

Canadian Embassy's counsellor honored for role in relations with Kyiv

by Andrij Kudla Wynnyckyj
Toronto Press Bureau

TORONTO - What better way to end a diplomatic posting than by receiving an award from your peers? That's the story of Toronto-born Roman Waschuk, 36, a counselor at the Canadian Embassy in Kyiv, one of four members of Canada's 4,000-strong diplomatic corps who were this year's recipients of the Foreign Service Award, bestowed annually by the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers (PAFSO).

According to the PAFSO citation, Mr. Waschuk, received the award "for his outstanding performance in helping to bring about the [Distinctive] Partnership between NATO and the [sic] Ukraine and the Canada-Ukraine Special Partnership, and for his personal and distinctive contributions to the advancement and close relations between Ukraine and Canada."

Mr. Waschuk's superior in Kyiv in 1995-1998, Ambassador Christopher Westdal, nominated Mr. Waschuk in heady terms: "I nominate him for four years of extraordinary service he has rendered in Kyiv in promoting Canada's interest in the security and success of Ukrainian freedom; and for the conception, negotiation and early life of Ukraine's Distinctive Partnership with NATO, particularly during Canada's tenure as NATO's Contact Mission in Kyiv."

Ambassador Westdal affirmed that Mr. Waschuk coined the NATO-Ukrainian partnership's name and that the honoree "contributed substantively to the conception and negotiation of the Partnership [initialed in Kyiv in May 1997 and signed by President Leonid Kuchma and NATO leaders in Madrid on July 8, 1997]."

Thus, it appears that Mr. Waschuk was instrumental in securing the "No More Yaltas agreement" hailed by experts and statesmen which formally, as a "political legal document" akin to the Helsinki Accords of 1975, did away with the division of Europe into spheres of influence.

Ambassador Westdal wrote in his nominating statement that "the Partnership makes the Ukrainian people safer in their tough neighborhood than they've ever been before."

Seconding Mr. Waschuk's nomination was Dr. Bohdan Krawchenko, an expatriate Canadian currently serving as vice-rector of the Academy of Public Administration in the Office of the President of Ukraine.

Dr. Krawchenko described the laureate as "probably the best informed political officer posted in Ukraine... [with] a very wide circle of contacts in Ukrainian officialdom." He praised Mr. Waschuk's "sense of balance and correctness," and his "disarming sense of humor and agreeable manner."

Dr. Krawchenko also noted that many officials stationed in Ukraine have turned assets such as a Ukrainian background and knowledge of the country into disadvantages by becoming too emotionally involved, but that Mr. Waschuk avoided such pitfalls.

Two Ottawa-based senior officers of Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), to whom Mr. Waschuk reported, also supported his nomination.

They (the officials' names were not provided in the media release) offered the following joint testimonial: "We can report that the relationship with Ukraine is stronger now than it was four years ago [Mr. Waschuk was assigned to Kyiv in 1994] and it holds promise for the future. Across the economic, security and political spectrum we easily detect the keen analysis of Roman's reporting; the deft handling of the many visits received by Kyiv and the prodigious output of the political/economic section of the Embassy, i.e. Roman himself."

They praised Mr. Waschuk for "an exceptionally high level of professionalism and enthusiasm to the most difficult of tasks," a readiness to accept challenges and an ability to overcome obstacles. The DFAIT officials noted that "Ukraine is a difficult place to do business; a difficult place to live; and a very difficult place to derive a sense of accomplishment."

Mr. Waschuk was honored along with three colleagues during a ceremony in the Panorama Room of the National Arts Center in Ottawa on June 11. Former Prime Minister Joe Clark, who also served as minister of external affairs in 1984-1991, presented the Ukrainian Canadian honoree with a framed certificate.

Mr. Waschuk's posting in the Ukrainian capital ended in July. Reached at his parent's home in Toronto on August 12, he told The Weekly that has been appointed deputy director of DFAIT's European Union Division (political section), effective August 25.

Mr. Waschuk, who earned a B.A. and an M.A. in history from the University of Toronto (1983, 1985 respectively), joined the Canadian foreign service in 1987 and was first posted in Moscow as the second secretary for political affairs, at the Canadian Embassy from 1988 to 1991. He returned to Ottawa to serve as the DFAIT's Soviet/Russia desk officer until 1994 when he was appointed to the Embassy in Kyiv, under Ambassador François Mathys, initially working with the NATO Information Center's chief, the late Roman Lishchynski.

PAFSO issues awards annually to working level members of the Canadian diplomatic corps. Members of this year's jury (not necessarily diplomats), included CBC journalist Mary-Lou Finlay and former ambassador to the former Yugoslavia Joe Bissett.

This year's other honorees include Deborah Chatsis, cited for outstanding performance in the course of negotiations leading to the establishment the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the issuance of the United Nations' Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and negotiations concerning the Anti-Personnel Land Mines Convention; Patricia Fortier, recognized for marshaling inter-agency support for Canada's peacekeeping efforts in Bosnia, Guatemala Haiti and Zaire (Congo) over a two-year period; and Don McGillivray, given the award for "his superbly executed movement of a group of political prisoners from Cuba to Canada in early 1998."

Mr. Waschuk told The Weekly that he was gratified to be honored by PAFSO because "this is an award given to people who slog it out in the trenches."

To Ambassador Westdal's praise, the diplomat responded modestly: "In the often unspectacular work of organizing visits, negotiating bilateral and multilateral documents and such, extraordinary matters can appear to be quite mundane at the time."

"In the case of Ukraine, trying to convey to headquarters an often ambivalent, slowly evolving situation, it's a matter of applying the same critical faculties one applies to everyday North American situations and having the background knowledge to put it all in context," continued Mr. Waschuk, "Most Ukrainian political players are not very sentimental people, and that's the way you have to approach them."

Mr. Waschuk agreed with Dr. Krawchenko's assessment of the snares that await North American officials of Ukrainian background. The 1998 Foreign Service Award winner added that "from the perspective of a Western Ukrainian, diasporic background, it's true that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, but thanks to the efforts of the Ukrainian Canadian community and North American academia, professionals working in Ukraine have benefitted from a comprehensive and critical view of Ukrainian history as seen across the entire political spectrum."

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