Ukraine marks seventh anniversary of independence (08/30/98)

Ukraine marks seventh anniversary of independence

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Ukraine celebrated its seventh anniversary of independence on August 22-24 with statements by leaders and images better suited to an earlier time marked by red banners and hammers and sickles.

At the official celebration of independence, held on Sunday, August 23, at the Ukraina Palace of Culture, the country's leaders gathered with thousands of invited guests for a special commemorative session of the government, followed by a gala concert.

Ukraine's recently elected chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Oleksander Tkachenko, gave the single address at the commemorative session after being introduced by the presidential representative to the city of Kyiv, Oleksaner Omelchenko. Mr. Tkachenko was invited to give the Independence Day speech by President Leonid Kuchma.

Although the rambling one-hour speech did mention the successes and failures that Ukraine has experienced since it declared independence in 1991, after a failed putsch in Moscow brought down the already crumbling Soviet Union, Mr. Tkachenko's emphasis seemed to be on what he described as the seamless continuum of Ukrainian history since the Communist Revolution in 1917.

"I ask you not to be ashamed of the 70-plus Soviet years," said Mr. Tkachenko, who was the minister of agriculture of the Ukrainian SSR at the end of that era. "This is our history, our life. Without those years there would have been no sovereign Ukraine."

The 59-year-old leader of the Agrarian Party of Ukraine called for a return to closer ties with Russia and for further integration into the Commonwealth of Independent States via its Inter-Parliamentary Assembly.

Mr. Tkachenko said that Ukrainians must not forget that Kyivan Rus' was actually a Slavic empire of Ukrainians, Russians and Belarusians, and criticized the democratic forces that, in his words, forgot about the economy and the people in their pursuit of an idea.

"You remember under what slogans this crime against what is above all the Slavic family took place: 'Away from Moscow!' 'We will maintain only ties convenient for us.' 'The West will help us!' For whom was this convenient?" asked the Verkhovna Rada chairman.

He also called on the Ukrainian government not to depend on foreign borrowing to help ease Ukraine out of its economic morass. "Of course we need investments and credits, but not the kind that will leave as naked and barefoot," he added.

He said that in 1919, faced with an economic crisis, Lenin answered with the New Economic Program (NEP), which saved the fledgling Soviet Union and did not rely on foreign borrowing.

Mr. Tkachenko, who included "comrades" among the people he greeted at the start of his speech, put Volodymyr Scherbytsky, first secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine in the 1970s and 1980s, on the list of those who contributed to the development of Ukrainian statehood. Mr. Scherbytsky was known for his fierce loyalty to Moscow during the Soviet era and for the intensive Russification programs he instituted in Ukraine.

By all appearances, Mr. Tkachenko's speech did not go over very well with the government leaders gathered on the dais of the Ukraina Palace stage.

No one offered a handshake of congratulations after Mr. Tkachenko finished; applause from the audience was brief and polite. During the speech, Viktor Yuschenko, chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine and a person who has done much to establish a Western monetary policy for Ukraine, very consciously and obviously turned his chair and his body away from the direction of the podium from which Mr. Tkachenko was speaking. Foreign Affairs Minister Borys Tarasiuk was seen to shake his head a few times.

Even President Kuchma seemed to have had enough by the end of the 60-minute presentation, as he sat with his head in his hands. He also did not offer the Parliament leader a handshake as he returned to his seat.

The Rukh Party, which in its original form as a pro-democracy movement led Ukraine's move towards independence in the late 1980s and early 1990s, responded critically to Mr. Tkachenko's speech. In a statement released by RukhPress, party leader Vyacheslav Chornovil called Mr. Tkachenko's words "an act against the state."

He said the presence of high government officials during the presentation could be construed as tacit approval of Mr. Tkachenko's words, and called on President Kuchma to make known his attitude towards the speech.

Also present at the commemorative session were members of the Ukrainian diaspora. Their reactions were predictable.

"This is simply a terrible and negative speech, a return to old Soviet traditions," said Dr. Paul Dzul, who was in Ukraine for the convention of the World Federation of Ukrainian Medical Associations.

Dr. Alexander Serafyn, an auditor of the Ukrainian National Association, said the speech showed that Mr. Tkachenko still holds Communist ideology close to his heart. "A speech on such an occasion should have a unifying goal, not a divisive message, especially when it talks of communism and extremism," said Dr. Serafyn.

Soviet-style military parade

The next day, Monday, August 24, the celebrations of the seventh anniversary of Ukraine's independence continued with a parade down the newly reconstructed Khreschatyk, the capital city's main thoroughfare. For the first time since independence the parade included a display of military hardware, a long-standing Soviet tradition brought back from the grave this year by Ukraine's leaders.

As hundreds of thousands of adults and kids watched from the edge of the street, Minister of Defense Ivan Bizhan began the proceedings by reviewing troops while standing in the back-seat area of an old Soviet Zil convertible limousine.

After the review, he made a short presentation in which he said, "The seven years that have passed since [independence] are a whole epoch during which we have created all the elements of statehood."

The parade then began with some 5,000 soldiers goose-stepping down the Khreschatyk, bedecked in blue and yellow. They marched from City Hall, past a reviewing stand set up near the street on Independence Square, where President Kuchma, Prime Minister Valerii Pustovoitenko, Verkhovna Rada Chairman Tkachenko and a host of government leaders and dignitaries stood, and down to European Square.

After that came the military hardware: 130 armored vehicles, howitzers, missile launchers and rockets on transport machines, their diesels sputtering while emitting dense, dark smoke.

The drab green and black machines gave way to Olympic athletes, past and present in colorful costumes, followed by kids of all ages in various athletic pursuits, as a tribute to Ukraine's youth and its future.

The Khreschatyk had been completely excavated and renovated just prior to Independence Day at a cost of some $25 million after it was discovered the underground electrical cables were badly deteriorated.

The two-month-long renovation blitz, with thousands working around the clock and on weekends, produced what presidential administration representative in Kyiv Mr. Omelchenko called "a street as beautiful as any in Europe" during ribbon-cutting celebrations a week before Independence Day.

| Home Page |