Anti-Kuchma protests continue in Ukrainian capital (02/18/01)

Anti-Kuchma protests continue in Ukrainian capital

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - For the second time in less than a week thousands of Ukrainians descended on the central square of Kyiv to protest the alleged involvement of President Leonid Kuchma and several top law enforcement officials in the disappearance of a missing Ukrainian journalist.

Shouting "Kuchma Out" and carrying the now famous placard bearing a caricature of Mr. Kuchma inscribed "Kuchma Kaput," more than 5,000 demonstrators gathered in the city center on February 11. They lined downtown streets, forming a human chain that stretched nearly a mile along the city's main thoroughfare, the Khreschatyk, and passed the site of a tent city alongside Independence Square before finishing at the Presidential Administration Building.

The protesters, who first paraded down the Khreschatyk, carried a huge, 60-foot blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag and dozens of flags and placards identifying the more than 20 political parties and organizations that have joined the anti-Kuchma action dubbed Kuchma Without Ukraine.

Socialist Party leader Oleksander Moroz - the symbolic head of the anti-Kuchma movement who in November initiated the scandal when he announced the discovery of audiotapes that allegedly contain the voices of the president and his top subordinates variously planning criminal actions and conspiracies - called for the downfall of the "criminal gang" that controls the country.

Cherkasy Mayor Volodymyr Oliynyk told the mass rally that Ukraine is ashamed of its president. "Kuchma has no moral right to be the head of state," said Mr. Oliinyk.

The protesters lit candles as dusk descended upon the city and called for the resignation of President Kuchma for his alleged role in the disappearance of Heorhii Gongadze, an outspoken journalist who disappeared without a trace in September 2000. While a body that was discovered in a shallow grave in a wooded area outside Kyiv in November is believed to belong to Mr. Gongadze, who in his Internet newspaper had unabashedly accused the Kuchma administration and the president's cronies for massive corruption, Procurator General Mykhailo Potebenko has refused to certify the corpse's identity. Mr. Potebenko has said that the 99.6 percent probability that the corpse is the missing journalist's still leaves room for doubt.

The candlelight vigil, which occurred without violent incidents, followed another anti-Kuchma rally in the city center five days earlier, during which 10,000 demonstrators heard various lawmakers call for Mr. Kuchma to step down and throw himself at the mercy of the Ukrainian people. Scuffles between various groups including the protesters, Communist agitators and local militia marked that demonstration, but ended in no arrests by law enforcement officials.

There was also an attempt by a heretofore-unknown group called the Anarchist Syndicate, which ran through the area and attempted to level the tent city, known as the "Kuchma-free zone," before being repelled by paramilitary groups that guarded the protesters. After the attack some members of the tent city said they had identified many of the "anarchists" as students of the local militia academy. On February 13 several anarchist organizations released a statement in which they asserted that they had never heard of the Anarchist Syndicate and that none of those who were photographed as they took part in the attack on the tent city were recognized anarchists.

The day after the candlelight vigil a local city court issued an order banning the tent city, saying it violates an archaic law that does not allow the construction of unapproved structures in designated historic zones, which includes the Khreschatyk. It also said the camp violated another city ordinance because it blocked pedestrians' free access to a subway entrance located several meters away.

The local Kyiv court on February 12 ordered that Valentyna Semeniuk, the leader of the Kyiv city Socialist Party, and the tent camp's commander, Yevhen Filindash, also of the Socialist Party, take responsibility for having the tents removed before noon the following day.

Although the two leaders complied with the order in regard to their own property, all the tents were standing when Kyiv officials arrived after lunchtime to monitor the response to the order.

Ms. Semeniuk explained that the tents belonged to national deputies who have immunity from criminal punishment. She said she had no right to handle their property. The frustrated officials, who had arrived with four dump trucks, then walked through the encampment, filling out a report and identifying which national deputy carried responsibility for which tents.

National Deputy Taras Chornovil, who has taken responsibility for at least one of the tents, said he would not allow it to be torn down.

"There are such things as illegal court decisions, such as this one," said Mr. Chornovil. "This decision was politically manipulated and I assure you it will be changed."

The tent city has become the center of the Ukraine Without Kuchma movement with hundreds of Ukrainians gathering in and around the tents daily to debate or simply gawk. The number of tents in a 200-meter swath of pavement along the Khreschatyk has grown to nearly 40 since the camp was re-established on February 6 after city officials had received cooperation from protest organizers at the end of December in temporarily halting the action until after the holidays.

As the confrontation between city officials and tent city organizers was reaching its climax, leaders of three center-right political parties, Hennadii Udovenko of the National Rukh Party, Viktor Pynzenyk of the Reforms and Order Party and Yevhen Lupakov of the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists gathered for a demonstration of their own across the street before the wooden barriers that have sealed off Independence Square ostensibly as municipal workers begin a reconstruction project on the square in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of independence. They plastered the green fence with posters that proclaimed "Prison for Bandits!" and demanded the resignation of the country's leading security officials, Minister of Internal Affairs Yurii Kravchenko, Procurator General Mykhailo Potebenko and Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Yevhen Marchuk.

Mr. Pynzenyk said that, instead of the campaign for "Ukraine Without Kuchma," which the tent city inhabitants were expounding, his supporters would lead a movement of "Ukraine for the Truth." Mr. Udovenko said the three parties and their supporters could not join the tent city demonstrators (although other right and center-right political organizations have) because the political left was leading that movement.

"Until the left political forces are separate, we will only be holding parallel actions," said Mr. Udovenko.

There were new developments surrounding the recordings of President Kuchma's office conversations that are at the center of the movements to remove the Ukrainian president. The tapes, secretly recorded by Maj. Mykhailo Melnychenko while he was one of of the president's personal bodyguards, are now in Vienna at the offices of the International Press Institute.

The IPI, in conjunction with Washington-based Freedom House, has agreed to conduct voice analyses of nine excerpts totaling approximately 25 minutes of audio recordings, allegedly of Mr. Kuchma, Chief of Staff Volodymyr Lytvyn and Minister of Internal Affairs Kravchenko, during which they appear to plan the disappearance of Mr. Gongadze.

National Deputy Serhii Holovatii, who is spearheading the effort to conduct the audiotape analysis, as well as a DNA analysis on a specimen from the corpse found outside Kyiv, revealed more tape recordings from the president's offices on February 14 - these allegedly between Mr. Kuchma and Leonid Derkach, the recently fired head of the Security Service of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, President Kuchma basically admitted in an interview published in the British newspaper Financial Times on February 10 that it is his voice that is on the tape recordings when he explained why he uses profane language in his conversations with subordinates.

In another interview, which appeared in the February 13 issue of the Kyiv newspaper Den, Mr. Kuchma said Ukraine has reached a critical moment in its existence. "This is the moment of truth for Ukraine," said Mr. Kuchma, who explained that the country could lose its independence as opposing political powers tear it apart over "Tapegate."

Yet, a survey released on February 12 suggests that the Ukrainian people are far from ready for a mass uprising against the current administration. A SOCIS poll conducted between December 27 and January 9 of 1,200 respondents found that merely 1 percent of the population said it was prepared to actively take part in civil protests, while 25 percent simply are waiting for better times. (The poll had a 3 percent margin of error.) Oleksander Stehnyi, head of political-social research at SOCIS, said that in the outlying regions there is almost no sense of the fervor felt in Kyiv.

"If you ignore the participants, the national deputies who are carrying this matter forward and those with an interest in the upcoming parliamentary elections, it is difficult to call what is happening a nationwide phenomenon," explained Mr. Stehnyi.

Perhaps sensing what Mr. Stehnyi made apparent or maybe bolstered by recent appearances by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Dnipropetrovsk and leading members of the European Union in Kyiv, during which President Kuchma received no endorsements but also no criticism, on February 13 the president issued a written message to the nation warning of a major threat to Ukraine's national security. The statement was co-signed by Prime Minister Viktor Yuschenko and Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Ivan Pliusch. The message states that an "unprecedented political campaign bearing all the features of psychological war," has been foisted upon the nation. It notes that agitators are using provocative methods to push civil disturbance aimed at causing a violent response from the state.

The statement specifically named the recently organized Forum for National Salvation, a loosely structured amalgamation of political organizations formed on February 9 and led by lawmakers opposed to President Kuchma, as a group that has decided to cause civil disturbances to save their professional careers from "political bankruptcy and oblivion."

The forum responded on February 14 by addressing a letter to Prime Minister Yuschenko, who has remained above the political mire of Tapegate, criticizing his decision to sign the message to the nation. In the letter, the forum members question Mr. Yuschenko's silence in the Tapegate matter and the Gongadze affair.

"We understand that this address was signed by Kuchma, and we can guess why Pliusch also has signed it. But the logic of your actions is unclear to us," the politicians of the forum stated in their letter to Mr. Yuschenko.

At another point the letter declares: "If you care for Ukraine, you cannot keep silent. If you are not driven by personal ambitions, as you have said in public in the past, then all the more you have no reason to sell your soul, to sin by maintaining a lie."

Mr. Yuschenko responded to the statement by the anti-Kuchma forum by explaining that he believes the rule of law and civil procedures are the only way out of the current crisis.

"These are the basic principles from which I am proceeding in this situation, from a moral and prime ministerial point of view," said Mr. Yuschenko, who added that an open dialogue among the various political opponents must take place in a calm and civilized manner.

"Without this dialogue we are doomed to the worst option," he said.

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