NEWSBRIEFS (07/09/00)

NEWSBRIEFS

Switzerland convicts Lazarenko

GENEVA - The Geneva Police Court on June 29 sentenced Pavlo Lazarenko to an 18-month suspended prison term for money-laundering and confiscated $6.6 million from his Swiss bank accounts, Reuters reported. Prosecutors earlier told the court that Mr. Lazarenko, a former prime minister of Ukraine, is believed to have embezzled a total of $880 million in Ukraine, with more than $170 million passing through Switzerland. However, they said they were unable to bring charges relating to other offenses for lack of resources and because the case is close to the statute of limitations. Mr. Lazarenko is currently in jail in San Francisco, facing U.S. charges of laundering $114 million that he allegedly demanded for doing business in Ukraine when he was prime minister in 1996-1997. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kuchma seeks former PM's extradition

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma on June 30 called on Washington to extradite Pavlo Lazarenko to face corruption charges in Ukraine, the Associated Press reported. Mr. Kuchma said that because there is no extradition treaty between the two countries, he is prepared to sign whatever documents are necessary. If the United States does not act, he said, "what kind of trust would our society have for the American legal system?... If Lazarenko has no money, he would have been thrown out of America." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Presidential draft on amendments OKd

KYIV - The Constitutional Court on June 29 ruled that President Leonid Kuchma's draft bill on introducing constitutional amendments in line with the April 16 referendum is legal and should be implemented, Interfax reported. The court added that its verdict is final and not subject to appeal. Mr. Kuchma proposed to amend the Constitution of Ukraine in accordance with three questions approved in the referendum: giving the president the right to dissolve the Parliament, abolishing lawmakers' immunity from criminal persecution; and reducing the Parliament from 450 to 300 deputies. Mr. Kuchma sidestepped the approved question about the introduction of a bicameral Parliament, pledging to set up a team of experts to tackle the issue later. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Leftists criticize Constitutional Court

KYIV - Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko said on June 29 that the Constitutional Court "was exploited with the only purpose of giving a blessing to [President Leonid] Kuchma's draft and excluding the alternative bill," Interfax reported. Socialist Party leader Oleksander Moroz said he is "surprised" that the Constitutional Court ruled only on the presidential draft, while keeping silent about the lawmakers' proposal on how to amend the Constitution of Ukraine in line with the April 16 referendum. "[The court] wants to push the presidential bill through the Verkhovna Rada before the parliamentary summer recess," Mr. Moroz added. Constitutional Court Judge Mykola Koziubra said the court will rule on the lawmakers' draft by July 15. "It is impossible to reconcile these two draft bills, ... there is a number of differences in them," Mr. Koziubra added. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kuchma urges reform of banking

KYIV - Arguing that Ukraine's banks have failed to win the trust of the population, President Leonid Kuchma called for new legislation and regulation to improve the situation, ITAR-TASS reported on July 1. Mr. Kuchma also expressed concern about capital flight from Ukraine. He noted that in early June some $1.6 billion was transferred from Ukraine to Latvia, even though trade between the two countries amounts to only $45 million. "I am surprised that the national bank does not see this," the president said. But officials at the central bank said that things are better than Mr. Kuchma suggested; they noted that they are meeting debt payment schedules, supporting the national currency and building hard currency reserves. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kyiv rejects charges of aiding Chechnya

KYIV - Leonid Derhach, chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine, told ITAR-TASS on June 30 that Russian Col. Gen. Valerii Manilov's suggestion that Ukrainian citizens and organizations are aiding Chechen fighters is completely untrue. Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that ethnic Chechens in Odesa staged a demonstration to protest what they said was police persecution of refugees from the war. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kyiv to purchase grain from farmers

KYIV - In order to ensure that Ukrainian farmers sell their grain, the Ukrainian government is to purchase their produce at the average market price, but the farmers retain the option to repurchase it and sell it on the market if prices rise. That measure is provided for in a decree signed on June 30 by President Leonid Kuchma, Reuters reported. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Gazprom: Ukraine sells stolen gas

MOSCOW - A Gazprom board member on June 30 said that Kyiv is illegally exporting stolen Russian gas at dumping prices, ITAR-TASS reported. The official said Ukraine is stealing 10 billion cubic meters of gas and selling a quarter to a third of it to Hungary, Poland and Romania. To counter this, Gazprom plans to put pressure on Ukraine and also diversify its export routes around that republic. (RFE/RL Newsline)

IMF mission ends "productive" visit

KYIV - An IMF mission led by Julian Berengaut is wrapping up its one-week visit to Kyiv, where it discussed the possible resumption of the fund's $2.6 billion loan package. The International Monetary Fund suspended that loan in September 1999. Mr. Berengaut noted after his June 27 meeting with Prime Minister Viktor Yuschenko that the mission has had "productive" meetings and talks with Ukrainian officials. According to the Eastern Economist Daily, the main obstacle for the resumption of the IMF loan is the wide gap between Ukraine's budget expenditures and revenues. Mr. Yuschenko said he hopes the IMF may restore its loan program to Ukraine by this fall. Mr. Berengaut did not comment on that issue. (RFE/RL Newsline)

"Club of democratic countries" proposed

WARSAW - The Warsaw conference "Toward a Community of Democracies" concluded on June 27 with the signing of the Warsaw Declaration, which expresses the signatories' commitment to the aims and principles determined in the U.N. Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the PAP news agency reported. The declaration also endorses the creation of a "club of democratic countries" within the United Nations, which was proposed the previous day by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright. "Perhaps in the near future the United Nations will become an organization that combines democratic states, but for the time being it is only a dream," Polish Television quoted U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan as saying. (RFE/RL Newsline)

France refuses to sign declaration

WARSAW - France did not sign the Warsaw Declaration, saying that the document amounts "to a diplomatic pledge for the democratic states to act as a group," the Associated Press reported. In particular, France objected to the clause proposing a club of democratic states within the United Nations. French Ambassador to Poland Benoit d'Aboville noted that such a club will mean a new bloc replicating Cold War divisions since it will exclude countries that have not yet achieved democracy. Commentators say France's refusal to sign the declaration reflects its objections to U.S. foreign-policy measures to promote democracy, particularly U.S.-led military actions in Iraq and Yugoslavia. "When democratic institutions are threatened, international organizations have not only the right to react, but there is also an obligation for them to react in the appropriate way," Polish Television quoted U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright as saying on June 27. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Warsaw forum condemns Chechnya war

WARSAW - The Warsaw non-governmental forum on democracy - an event parallel to the conference on democracy - has condemned Russia for the war in Chechnya and called for an immediate cease-fire and peace negotiations. The statement was signed by 165 out of the 264 participants in the forum. A Russian delegate, Sergei Markov of the Institute of Political Studies in Moscow, called the statement a "big political mistake," objecting especially to a clause saying that Russia "should have no place in the community of democracies" if the war continues. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Chinese Parliament speaker in Ukraine

KYIV - The speaker of China's Parliament, Li Peng, met with Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada Chairman Ivan Pliusch, Prime Minister Viktor Yuschenko and President Leonid Kuchma in Kyiv on June 26. He had arrived in Ukraine on June 24 and spent two days touring the Crimean region and meeting with officials there. Mr. Pliusch urged China to agree to joint aviation projects with Ukraine, in particular involving the Ukrainian AN-70 aircraft. "This is a question of business," Li Peng said, according to the Associated Press, adding that much of the Asian market is already occupied by U.S. and European companies. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Communists want to oust "regime"

KYIV - Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko told the party's congress in Kyiv on June 24 that Ukraine can be rescued from the "real threat of catastrophe" only if the current reform course is halted and the "anti-popular regime" removed, Interfax reported. According to Mr. Symonenko, the regime can be ousted only by means of a class struggle that should be led by Ukraine's Communist Party, an organization of "genuine proletarian revolutionists." The next day, the congress appointed a 147-strong Central Committee, which immediately re-elected Mr. Symonenko as the party's first secretary. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Russian lease of Ignalina rejected

VILNIUS - Officials from Lithuania and the European Union have turned down the Russian proposal to lease the Ignalina nuclear power plant, the BNS press service reported. On the first day of a donors conference in Vilnius on funding the partial shutdown of the controversial power plant, Russian Deputy Energy Secretary Bulat Nigmatulin had said that Russia could lease the facility and modernize it in the process. "Russia's proposal would not help to solve this problem," Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen said at the Vilnius conference. The EU insists on the closure of the facility. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Rada OKs troops for Lebanon, Congo

KYIV - Ukraine's Parliament on June 22 voted 268-2 to endorse President Leonid Kuchma's proposal to send 950 Ukrainian troops and civilian personnel to Lebanon and the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of a United Nations peacekeeping operation in those countries. Defense Ministry spokesman Serhiy Nahorianskyi said 650 peacekeepers will join U.N. forces to be deployed in the areas of Lebanon that Israeli troops left last month after 22 years of occupation. Another 250 Ukrainian peacekeepers will be part of a U.N. operation in the Congo, to which Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola sent troops in 1998 to defend President Laurent Kabila against rebels backed by Rwanda and Uganda. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Ukrainian peacekeepers go to Lebanon

KYIV - Fifty Ukrainian peacekeepers departed for Lebanon on June 27 to defuse mines left in the area vacated by Israeli occupation troops last month, the Associated Press reported. Following last month's United Nations appeal to Ukraine to send a sappers' battalion to Lebanon, the Ukrainian Parliament swiftly approved the deployment of such a battalion. The Ukrainian troops will join U.N. peacekeeping troops in southern Lebanon and operate from their own base. (RFE/RL Newsline)

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