Ten years of work on behalf of Ukraine: notable highlights
by Bohdan Hawrylyshyn
PART I
During the 10 years that have just ended I devoted most of my time and energy to Ukraine. It has been a gratifying way to pay back the moral debt to the country that gave me birth, early upbringing and education, and formed my personality.
Luck has followed me through my efforts in Ukraine because I was either a participant or an observer from close quarters of many important developments and events.
The experiences have been intense - at times elating. I thought it might be useful to share some of them. I mention some people, but not many others who also played important roles in the rebirth of Ukraine and its subsequent evolution. What follows are spontaneous recollections and reflections rather than a historical account.
First steps
Having predicted the disintegration of the Soviet Union in my book "Road Maps to the Future" published in 1980 and having taken early retirement in 1986, I was waiting impatiently see the prediction become a reality. Therefore, in June 1988 I accepted an invitation from the Ukraina Society, despite its somewhat dubious reputation at that time, to go to Ukraine for a two-week visit with my wife.
We were lucky. The first time I turned on the television in our room in the Dnipro Hotel in Kyiv, Borys Oliinyk's speech from the Communist Party Congress in Moscow was being shown, and he was saying: "Our mothers and our sisters did not give their lives for Stalin. They did it for our fatherland, and our fatherland is Ukraine." Things were obviously beginning to move.
Immediately afterwards I visited the Ukrainian Writers' Union. A meeting of the minds with Dmytro Pavlychko was instant. We had no doubt about the forthcoming independence of Ukraine and we discussed the nature of its future societal order. We became so excited that I climbed on the billiard-like table to sketch out how the future political institutions and the economic system should match what we thought were the remains of the traditional value system in Ukraine.
A visit to Lviv further enhanced the excitement. People were gathering in groups on the boulevard before the opera house, debating, singing. There were placards posted with patriotic poems and slogans. At a press conference a few young journalists bombarded me with questions. Subsequently an article appeared in Leninska Molod that just two years earlier would have been branded as being counter-revolutionary.
The first stay in my native village of Koropets, Ternopil Oblast, showed that the fever had spread to the countryside. Relatives - who had spent a dozen years in Siberia and were frightened out of their wits during my visit in 1971 - were now talking openly, with passion.
After a return visit to Ukraine two months later, my objectives were clarified: I should help in whatever way I could to usher in the independence of Ukraine, contribute to the shaping of the government system and create an institution for education of managers for what was bound to be a different economic system.
The first purpose could be best served at the time by giving as many lectures as possible, in different places, settings and institutions, and interviews, particularly to papers like Literaturna Ukraina. Helping shape the governance system would have to wait a bit, but doing something about management education seemed possible because of the loosening grip of Moscow over Ukraine.
Launching the IMI
With the help of the Hugh Faulkner, former federal Cabinet minister of Canada, then working at the International Management Institute in Geneva as executive-in-residence, I prepared a short proposal for the creation of an international management institute in Kyiv. On the advice of Prof. Oleh Bilorus, who for years worked in Geneva at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, I presented the proposal to the presidium of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine headed by Borys Paton. The tactic was to create the institute as a joint venture between IMI-Geneva and the Institute of Economics at the Academy of Sciences. The presidium could then approve the decision, without having to go to the Council of Ministers.
It was a very productive meeting. In an hour and a half we decided everything: to create the institute, to create a board of directors consisting of one-half Ukrainian-Soviet citizens and the other half foreigners; and to nominate Prof. Bilorus as director. This was decided in December 1988.
Implementation of the decisions was slower: statutes had to be prepared, submitted, re-written, approved and, most importantly, the Kyiv branch of the Ministry of Finance of the Soviet Union had to agree to register the new venture. This took until August 7, 1989. Then, however, events moved quickly. Within four months the walls in one wing of the building of the Institute of National Economy were torn down, new ones built, furniture, computers and a library installed, faculty hired, the first group of MBA participants selected, and by January 2, 1990, the first MBA program had started.
That it could all be done was a sensation. Even in Izvestia in 1990 they published an article that wrote: "If you want to learn something about business management, you have to go to Kyiv."
The institute has since run under three successive directors, Prof. Bilorus, later Ukraine's ambassador to the U.S., Andrew Masiuk from the U.S. and Bohdan Budzan, the tremendously energetic current director general. IMI-Kyiv now was five MBA-type programs:
Short seminars and some in-company programs also are run regularly.
Many IMI-Kyiv graduates are in prominent political positions, in business or banking; many have created their own businesses; and others work for foreign companies. The institute still does not have its own premises, however, and needs some help to buy or build them.
Power beginning to crumble
On January 19, 1990, I went to see Vice Prime Minister Urchukin and questioned him harshly on why he was holding up some 125 business proposals from abroad. The situation was bizarre: Mr. Urchukin was in his huge office, with several assistants in the anteroom, with all the symbols of power around him, but he was on the defensive. I, a "foreigner" with no power, no mandate, representing nobody, was attacking. Mr. Urchukin was possibly already looking for an opportunity to seek other pursuits, hence he was selecting from the submitted investment proposals the ones from which he could benefit in the future. He was squirming.
From the Council of Ministers building I went immediately to the one-room office of Rukh, 200 meters away on Zamkovyi Provulok, on the second floor of a run-down building. I walked in to a roomful of people. Mykhailo Horyn was sitting behind a small desk, Ivan Drach and Mr. Pavlychko sat facing him on rickety chairs, with the third one offered to me. The rest of the people were standing against the walls. They were preparing the "human chain" that two days later would link Lviv to Kyiv on the anniversary of the proclamation of the Fourth Universal (January 22, 1918) that proclaimed the independent Ukrainian National Republic. The date of the event was advanced by one day to January 21, since it fell on a Sunday.
There was just one telephone on the desk. People were standing with their pencils and pieces of paper. Questions were asked, such as who would look after the security of the buses, who would deal with the police, who would read out the text of the Fourth Universal when the human chain reaches Kyiv. Assignments and responsibilities were quickly distributed by Mr. Horyn.
I was astounded. A group of some 17 people, with no technical means, were organizing an event that would mobilize over half a million people two days later. They had no symbols of power, but already held the real power. The center of gravity of power had shifted a mere 200 meters geographically - but politically 180 degrees. This is how some of the great revolutions have started. It was truly extraordinary to feel this shift of real power, which, regretfully, was not used a year later to take over the government from the communists.
International Renaissance Foundation
In November 1989 the Club of Rome invited George Soros to lecture at our annual meeting on new financial instruments and world financial markets. I found myself side by side with Mr. Soros at a dinner hosted by the minister president of the State of Lower Saxony for the executive committee of the Club of Rome. We started a stimulating discussion. He asked me about my origins and then raised a question about the mistreatment of Jews in Ukraine in different periods of history. We had an open discussion with some clashing of views and this led to mutual respect, which became the basis for our subsequent relationship. Mr. Soros explained his Cultural Initiative foundation in Moscow and said that maybe we should create a branch of it in Ukraine. I countered that it was too late to do that and that if he was willing to do something, it should be the creation of an independent foundation in Ukraine, which was bound to become independent very soon.
The idea became even more acceptable to Mr. Soros during his subsequent encounter with Ivan Dzyuba, this self-effacing, outstanding scholar, a person of great integrity.
The decision to create the International Renaissance Foundation in Ukraine was confirmed at a meeting in Kyiv in 1990 with representatives of various Ukrainian organizations: Yuri Shcherbak from Zeleny Svit (Green World), Pavlo Movchan from Prosvita, Mr. Oliinyk from the Cultural Foundation, all of which became co-founders of the IRF, with Mr. Dzyuba, Mr. Pavlychko, Volodymyr Vasylenko, Valerii Mescheriakov, Volodymyr Saveliev, Serhii Konev, Ihor Yukhnovskyi and Valentyn Symonenko also joining the board.
The activities of the foundation were modest at the beginning, but under two successive directors, Valerii Hruzyn and Mr. Budzan, they developed quickly and made a difference for thousands of individuals, hundreds of groups and dozens of institutions. Programs such as "Transformation of Humanities," under which over 100 new textbooks were written and published, or "Retraining of the Military" under which some 30,000 officers and non-commissioned were retrained for civilian occupations, are the very visible results of the foundation's work.
In October 1996 while in Kyiv, Mr. Soros said that the IRF was one of the very best foundations in the network of over 30 foundations he was then financing. The annual budget had reached $10.5 million and an additional $7 million was spent in direct support of special programs and institutions in Ukraine.
In late 1997 some difficulties started developing. For Mr. Soros, I was "a Ukrainian patriot," with the implication, perhaps, that I was not sufficiently objective, while some members of the executive committee, who were more critical of the situation in Ukraine and in the foundation, became more credible in his eyes. There was tension between members of executive committee and the executive director, Viacheslav Pokotylo, followed by a sudden attempt to dismiss the latter.
Mr. Soros became rather pessimistic about the likely financial collapse of Ukraine because of the world financial crisis, while I held more a optimistic view, because I wanted to hold on to the belief in Ukraine's better future. In view of the above, I resigned as chairman of the supervisory board of the International Renaissance Foundation in June 1998 with the hope that the foundation would continue its good work. With six branches, and a number of competent and experienced people, the organization seemed in the position to continue and even expand.
Recently, however, Mr. Soros decided to cut the budget of the foundation by half to $5 million for 1999, with further reductions planned for subsequent years. The IRF's mission was noble; it accomplished a lot. I and a multitude of others in Ukraine are grateful for the IRF's financing in the past and for whatever support it will get in the future.
Helping the new Parliament learn
The March 1990 parliamentary elections were a sensation. While no opposition parties were allowed to register officially, the democratic forces - at the time essentially Rukh - won a third of the seats in the Verkhovna Rada. It occurred to me that it would be useful for new parliamentarians to learn something about the experiences of different countries with parliamentary systems.
The opening session of the new Parliament was scheduled for May 15, and I organized a special seminar on May 20-21 in the Parliament chamber on the topic "Experiences of Different Parliamentary Systems." It was probably the first such event in the world.
I invited Baroness Shirley Williams, former member of the Labor government, to present the British experience; Mr. Faulkner, former member of federal Liberal government of Canada to talk about Canada's experience; Kurt Furgler, thrice president of the Swiss Confederation, and Prof. Kurt Biedenkopf, then minister president of Saxony, to compare their respective countries' experiences. Baroness Williams, who also knew the French system very well, and Prof. Richard Neustadt, a great expert on the U.S. presidency, talked about these two countries with presidential regimes.
I had asked Prof. Vasylenko and V. Kysil to prepare a short booklet describing the basic facts of the respective countries' parliaments and asked the speakers to talk not only about positives, but also the accumulated negative features of their countries' parliaments. Not only the participants, but also the lecturers, found the experience very refreshing, because they rarely thought about the negative sides of their countries' democratic experiences, particularly during the Cold War period, when democracies were thought to be flawless in comparison with totalitarian regimes. It was elating for me to be sitting in place of the chairman of the Parliament, seeing the new deputies taking notes and raising some very pertinent questions.
During the next six months or so, many references were made in parliamentary debates to this seminar.
Declaration on State Sovereignty
July 16, 1990, was a real milestone in the march towards the independence of Ukraine. The Declaration on State Sovereignty adopted that day by nearly all the deputies came as a surprise to many - both inside and outside Ukraine. The ground for this declaration, however, was fertile. The first few months of the first more-or-less democratically elected Parliament of Ukraine were paradoxical: the democrats were a numerical minority, only one-third of the seats, but they were constantly on the attack, while the Communist majority was retreating in disoriented defense.
The Declaration on State Sovereignty was precipitated by the unexpected departure of the chairman of the Parliament, Volodymyr Ivashko, who, responding to a summons by Mikhail Gorbachev, suddenly left for Moscow to become the second secretary of the all-union Communist Party. The majority of parliamentarians felt belittled and insulted.
The declaration did not, appear spontaneously, however. It was carefully prepared. It was interesting to see its draft (shown to me by Prof. Vasylenko). The authors of the declaration, which is a very fine, wise document, were Rukh members, but the confused Communists in the excitement of the moment accepted it as their own. The text of the declaration outlined key external and internal policy directions and remains valid today - even though it has not always been adhered to.
The declaration was, up to that point, the peak of independence euphoria, which already had started bubbling in 1988. The few months that followed, however, were a letdown, since the government of the republic of Ukraine did nothing to enforce the declaration. The summer of 1990 can be called "a politically dead summer."
Student strike and the Belgian prince
Reaction to the passivity of the Ukrainian government came from an unexpected quarter: the students. They organized and held a hunger strike in the central square of Kyiv in October 1990 in an exemplary fashion. They articulated five demands to the Parliament, which looked impossible to accept, among them the firing of Prime Minister Vitalii Masol, a prohibition against Ukrainian soldiers serving outside Ukraine's borders and dissolution of the Communist Party. At first the strike was met by derision in the Parliament, then with concern as support from the student body and the general population grew. Finally the Parliament capitulated, accepting all demands.
Prior to the capitulation, it was remarkable to watch five student leaders speak on the television, each about one of the five demands in a calm, serene, well-articulated fashion, without anybody directing them. I listened stunned from the balcony as Oles Donii, one of the student leaders, addressed the Parliament, reiterating the demands and saying at the end that he understood that the national deputies could not make such difficult decisions immediately, and that, therefore, he would return in 20 minutes. One would have thought that the students had surrounded the Parliament with artillery and machine guns while Mr. Donii was giving an ultimatum. It was remarkable to experience during this period how power can grow and shift, but also evaporate.
There is a very interesting sidebar to the students' strike. Prince Philippe of Belgium, the assumed successor to the Belgian throne, at the time 30 years old, was being groomed for his coming role as king under the guidance of Gaston Doerinck, one of Belgium's wise men. Mr. Doerinck phoned me just as the hunger strike was about to begin, asking me if I could take care of the prince, who could make an incognito trip for a few days to Ukraine, under an assumed name, to see a very different part of the world and a different human experience.
I agreed, reserved a room for the prince at Natsionalnyi Hotel, which at the time still belonged to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, and met him upon his arrival. I then took him to the family of Yuri and Yulia Poluneev (he is now on the executive board of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development), since they were of similar age as the prince and spoke very good English.
They did not know who their guest was. I introduced him simply as the son of my Belgian friend's friend. Good contact was established immediately, and the Poluneevs asked if Philippe would care to stay with them. The prince jumped at the opportunity, even though he had to sleep in a small room, which served as a living room, dining room and library, in certainly less than princely comfort.
The prince then traveled daily by subway to what later became Independence Square and spent his days with the student strikers, questioning them, getting a quick lesson on the history of Ukraine, its current state and aspirations. Every evening the prince came to my hotel room for an hour or so to discuss, with excitement, what was happening in a little city of tents, sharing fully the purposes and the commitment of the students.
The prince was very gracious. Six months later he wrote to the Poluneevs to thank them for their hospitality. He explained who he was, and also gave me permission to reveal his identity to whomever I judged appropriate. It was a curious experience listening to a foreign prince describing the unfolding of a political drama in my country - an event which, in view of the fact that there was no violent reaction towards the students by the government, clearly marked a dramatic shift towards a democratic state.
PART I
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, February 21, 1999, No. 8, Vol. LXVII
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