TEN YEARS AGO: INDEPENDENCE (12/02/01)

TEN YEARS AGO

INDEPENDENCE

Over 90% vote yes in referendum;
Kravchuk elected president of Ukraine

Following are excerpts from a news report filed from Kiev (as it was then spelled) and published on December 8, 1991, in The Ukrainian Weekly.

by Chrystyna Lapychak
Kiev Press Bureau

KIEV - "On the map of the world a new European state has emerged - its name - Ukraine."

A special session of the Supreme Council of Ukraine opened with these words by First Deputy Chairman Ivan Pliushch, as Leonid Kravchuk was sworn in as the first popularly elected president of a united new independent Ukrainian state, inaugurating a new era in the often tragic 1,000-year-old history of the Ukrainian nation.

Four days after an overwhelming majority of Ukrainian citizens - 90.32 percent - voted "yes" in a December 1 referendum on independence and elected him chief executive, President Kravchuk took his oath of office to the people of Ukraine with his hand placed on two documents: Ukraine's current Constitution and the Act of Declaration of the Independence of Ukraine:

"I solemnly swear to the people of Ukraine to realize my authority as president, to strictly adhere to the Constitution and laws of Ukraine, to respect and protect the rights and liberties of people and citizens, to defend the sovereignty of Ukraine and to conscientiously fulfill my obligations," pledged the new president.

On a table next to him lay the over 500-year-old Peresopnytsky Gospel, the first Bible in Old Ukrainian, "as a symbol of the continuity of Ukrainian history," according to Deputy Ivan Zayets.

In the space above the chairman's podium, where a giant statute of Lenin once stood, was a blue-and-yellow Ukrainian national flag.

During the solemn ceremonies, which featured a choir singing "Bozhe Velykyi Yedynyi" and "Sche Ne Vmerla Ukraina" and an address by the new president, the Ukrainian Parliament formally renounced Ukraine's participation in the 1924 act creating the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The legislature issued a statement to the parliaments and peoples of the world announcing its intentions and directions in foreign and domestic policy, particularly in questions of international cooperation, human rights, nuclear disarmament, respect for borders and economic reform. ...

The results of the December 1 plebiscite also rendered invalid the results of the March 17 all-union referendum on a renewed union, said Deputy Vitaliy Boyko, chairman of the Central Electoral Commission, during the special session. ...

International reaction to the results of the referendum and presidential race dominated the days following December 1.

Poland and Canada were the first states to recognize Ukraine, on December 2. The next day, Hungary and Ukraine signed the first protocol establishing full diplomatic relations and transforming the Hungarian Consulate in Kiev to the first foreign embassy here.

In a significant move, Russian President Boris Yeltsin issued a statement on December 3 recognizing Ukraine's independence and expressing the need for forging new interstate relations between the Russian federation and Ukraine. ...

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